Inspiration...

Spin class today was just kicking my ass, about 20 minutes in I realized I was in trouble, crap.

Mostly (completely) it was my own fault, I stayed up watching Madmen until 1 AM the night before. Ugh… At least I knew what the problem was. I lowered down and looked over and saw this older guy just dying on the hill workout, but holding his own. He looked over at me and said, “stay in there”. Here I was ready to call it a day and this guy, who looked like I felt, tries to throw a line out to me.

From there I focused on pace and got back into the rhythm of the class and had a good, not great, but good workout. I’d never met the guy before, but thanked him after the class. I felt at that point I was falling and no one would notice if I just slowed, got off and left. Bagging a much needed and important part of the days workout.

The plan was:

Spin class -1 hour – treat like a Time Trial
Hill Work – 30 minutes
Run – 30 minutes

Just that half second of “stay in there” was enough to finish the rest of a pretty good workout. From there I went on and did the hill workout that I had planned. I do it on a stairmastertypetorturemachine, it mimics the movement of hill climbing on the bike pretty well. After 30 strong minutes on that thing I put in a solid 30 minute run.

Note to self: if you want to push 90%-95% at the end of a long workout to replicate a strong kick at the end of a race put in a little Rage against the machine on the shuffle.

As this season starts up and training really moves into the next phase I have to start and look into motivation and am currently looking for another Tri Team to join. After last weeks long bike and run, and I know it just goes with the territory, but I was so bored. Not so much from the ride, just from the fact that last week I was solo, the one before that, this weekend solo, next week will probably be solo as well. So I’m looking around for a new team. Also, teams are great for pulling that extra bit of training or extra bit of inspiration during a race.

And you never know where or when you’ll need “some” words or a look to give you that push that gets you through the weak miles or minutes of a workout.

Pretty crazy, but back to normal...

OK, the last few weeks have been pretty crazy. I know some friends have a busy life and still manage to get there training, but sometimes you have to put things in perspective and do what you can. The last two weeks I’ve had finals in both my classes, one being editing 5 interviews for a final presentation, and the other a final analytical thesis. Ugh! Plus this past week on top of finals I had my parents in town, which I wanted to spend as much time as I could with. CRAZY!

Oh and 40 hours of work!

Needless to say I had to drop a few workouts, well not a few, but most. I had over the last 2 weeks only 4 workouts in a space of when I should have had 10-12. I could feel my base slowly getting away from me. The months of training slipping away…
Not ready – I knew this was a bad 2 weeks for training and tried to get in what I could. It also meant that I had to watch what I ate somewhat closely for the last two weeks. Can’t eat like I’m training 6x a week when I’m clearly not. Also, I knew it was temporary, but two weeks down is still two weeks down. So that week will be a build up, soft week. Then starting Friday I’ll be back in the full routine again. Playing weekend warrior can only last so long, because it’s not sustainable and ONLY leads to injury.

The things I do.

So have you ever just really let yourself down? Did crappy in a race because you knew you didn’t train right for it. Or jump into something at a level you should have known was going to need your “A” game and you suffered. I’ve been doing some great bike training the last few months and I’ve been focusing on flats, because that was my weakness from last year. I threw a rough hill climb in this week knowing I was going to get my ass handed to me because I haven’t been doing a lot of hill work this year. Not compared to other years. And as planned it was painful.

A friend and I started with a loop around Mercer Island then headed over and up to Cougar Mountain. As soon as you make the turn on to Lakemont Blvd. it’s no screwing around, right away you realize ‘ Pace, you will walk if you don’t!’ There are I think 5 steps to the climb, can’t rush because you can’t see the top. Slow, steady. Well not that slow, I wasn’t eating my lunch, but I was careful not to red line. My friend Chris stayed about 40 yards in the lead for the whole climb and that’s what I was wanting and waiting to feel. That feeling of “you’re dying and he’s not”, “you should be loving this, but you’re not”. That voice in your head, my head, saying “this is what you need, get your ass in gear” That same voice saying, “you have nothing, your legs are gone, stop, what are you doing, you can’t handle this, what were you thinking, you’re not ready”

That voice competing with the other voice saying, “Pace, find your rhythm, stay within yourself, don’t panic” Again, “Pace, find your rhythm, stay within yourself, don’t panic”. “Pace, find your rhythm, stay within yourself, don’t panic”. You hit a point where you’re going to listen to one or the other. You’re going to stop and walk or you’re going to fall back on what you know and weather a bad situation on a climb (ride).

I put myself on a hard climb when I wasn’t 100% ready for it for a few reasons.

1. After 2 weeks of missed workouts I needed to get my head back in the game
2. Nothing motivates me like not being in the condition I should be in

It was a good hard ride and it ends March with room to still get a 60+ ride in, which was the over all goal for March. Well, training should get back to normal this week and track workout will start up this week or next week. Those are always fun, ugh….

By the numbers.......

Some cool numbers to throw out -

Year to date -
Me
Swim - 46.04 miles / 31.24 Hours
Bike - 1324.47 miles / 89.97 Hours
Run - 415.39 Miles / 56.89 Hours
Other - 32.63 Hours

Total Hours 210.74

AK Run Totals -

619 Miles / 98 Hours

Could AK be on her way to breaking 1000 miles for the year?

That would be about one of the coolest milestones ever for either of us since we started running seven or so years ago.

Some of the biggest changes to note in my training this year have been the 23 open water swims. Compared to only seven for last year, races included, has lead to a more relaxed comfort in the water. Instead of thinking about the differences between the open water and the pool I can focus on form, sighting, breathing and pace.

This last weekend capped off a big build week to get back in the thick of training again, after what felt like about two weeks of easy recovery.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday were doubles with Saturday being a half mile swim followed with a 52 mile bike ride. I went from Green Lake around the north end of Lake Washington over to the Kirkland Tri course. Did a loop of that and headed back vie Perkin’s Way, another day of hill climbing.

However, due to the heat of the day, I stopped twice for about ten minutes each to eat and cool off. I only mention because I usually can’t stop longer than 2-3 minutes during a bike because my legs turn to concrete and sometimes I lose interest in finishing, but I thought stopping would prevent cooking myself out on the road in the heat.

After Saturdays three hour ride I still had Sunday’s long run of 13 miles to get through. AK was slated for 16, but due to an eye injury she held out for 10. She was on the phone with the doc hotline saying, “Well, do you think I can go in after my long run?”

AK is “Hardcore!”

Heavy days of training

The last few days have been real work out on the road. Saturday I got in a, roughly, one mile swim at Seward. I felt slow and a bit tired at the first two laps, them really finished strong on the last two.

I think this may be do to the fact that I don't warm up before a swim. I'll have to start working on that.

After the swim I did about a 16 mile flat out TT (Time Trial) style ride, Lake Washington Blvd. was closed to traffic so the roads were empty of cars. SWEET! I pushed hard in the 90-95% range, even up the little cork screw to the Arboretum.

I felt OK when I got back to the car and grabbed my shoes and headed off for a quick 5-10 minute run. Not a full run, but something to give the legs a reminder of what's to come. Instead I went ahead and ran around Seward Park and tried to keep a good effort up, still in the 90% range.

Not sure if that was a good idea, but then again if my body had really thought it was a bad idea I would of cracked on the run and walked back to the car.

One injury of note: ?!?!

When I was taking my wet suit out of the bag, my recovery drink fell out and onto the top part of my foot, only about a 1.5 foot drop. It hurt a bit at the time, but I didn't think too much of it and did the swim and the bike. When I got off the bike and tried to put my running shoes on*&$*#@* OMG I had to let out a few choice words. At that point I figured the shoe went on so I might as well run, but even today it still hurts to put a shoe on.

Yesterday I got a hard six miles in in the morning with a core workout in the afternoon.

Today I went out this morning looking for some easy bike miles to fill about 90 minutes and ended up finding a really cool new hill to climb. Again over in the Blue Ridge area, this one has great views and climbs just over 200 ft in 1.17 miles. One stretch of about 100 yards pulled up to 13% grade on my Forerunner.

I guess if I can start doing laps on the Esplanade Hill doing Beaver Lake Triathlon wouldn't be totally out of the question

OK, have to run out for a swim workout now at Madison Park.

Limits !?!?!

I feel really good about training and being ready for my first Olympic distance race. The last 10 days have had some really great rides, runs and swims. Last Friday I went from the house to St. Edward's State Park and back through Perkins Way for about a 35 mile trip. The sun was up and it was actually hot on the day, weight loss on the day was 2.8 pounds. Remember to keep the fluids going on these hotter days!

Saturday was a AM swim for about .5 mile and then a 16 mile hilly bike ride up around Blue Ridge, legs felt pretty good even with the hard ride from the day before. On Sunday a had 12 miles to do and wanted to take it very slow. I ran steady at 1:30 less per mile slower than usual, it was actually a great feeling of just taking a run in the park.
I ave. about 8:15 per mile which is slower at that length than I’m use to, but with two really rough days before and not resting before like I would of last year, I felt really good about it.

On Tuesday I met with the group at Green Lake and had the best open water swim yet. I went out with a group of three and we did about .75 miles on a big loop course. I had a good 15 minutes of really good form and pace and feeling like I was doing little work to get a really good pay off.

Wednesday was track workout- hot and dusty, but great results. Averaged 6:05 for 4 out of 5 miles and my fourth mile was 5:57! Sweet!!! I was doing 1 miles at 5K training pace with .25 mile rest pace. This was only my 2nd track workout ever, I think I’m sold on it : )

Thursday I’d like to refer to as the day I got my ass handed to me. I went out with two other guys from the group and did a 30 mile loop course. I’m use to doing about 18-20 mph alone and about 20-22 mph with Eileen on some good stretches, but Thursday we started right out the gate at 24 mph and only stopped when we hit the hills over at West Seattle by Lincoln Park. We hit the first hill and off they went up,up,up. I was holding my own doing about 12 mph up the hills, but nothing like what I was watching in front of me, at least for as long as I could see them.

At the end of the day I didn’t feel too bad and I wasn’t shelled or dying on the bike at anytime, I was just playing way over my head, which I could handle for a 30 mile hit. The other two guys race every weekend and do stage races of 4-5 days. Peter was saying he just got back from Oregon from doing 6 days of 100-125 miles a day and some days had 4-5 thousand foot elevation gain.

What it did was show that I need to stop putting limits on what I think I can do.

Tuesdays swim was much farther than I thought I could do in open water, but I finish strong and had plenty of energy out of the water.

Wednesday showed that my running is better than I thought and getting stronger even in the last miles. I still think I run in the 7:10’s, but as per my Garmin it’s 6:15’s.
Thursdays lesson was I can push on the bike and still be alright. I need to stop putting limits on what I think I can do or handle. Can’t be happy with being complacent, complacency breeds boredom what’s the point of that?

Needless to say I scratched Fridays planned swim : ) and I had Saturday off to rest up for the Seafair half marathon that AK and I are running.

More about that later.........

Is it time to Tri already????

This hasn't been the best two weeks leading up to the first race of the year, but hey, you learn from it and roll with it. This weeks training has been done all at 70% or less, which was what was scheduled, but not to still be recovering from the Black Plague. OK, dark grey plague, only hacking and a minor flu like symptom. Still, bad enough...

So I'm not hitting Issaquah at 100% like intended, but that's OK. AK was saying "IT'S ONLY THE FIRST" this season. Which is true, if this was the weeks before Federal Way then I'd be crying like a baby, but it's not so it's cool.

And, even being sick, I can still probably knock some time off of my last Issaquah tri time.......

I krycky - I forgot this can hurt you!!!

Alright it’s been a few, training last week was really good. I came in just five minutes short of 10 hours even. This week I have another 10 on order then back off to 6 next week.

Highlights from last week: I had a great swim on two days, only 2 swim days, but I knocked out over a mile on each day. SWEET! 1.09 and 1.16.

However, Sunday I felt something that I hadn’t felt in almost 2 years. PAIN! Real stop mid-stride and hop on one leg pain. I finished up just over 6 miles at the Disco and felt a little pinch on my right achilles. That led to some tightness and in about 50 yards the whole calf, ankle, heel area screamed for mercy.

I ran all last year injury free and most of the year before, so this is ??new?? I’m bummed, but at this point I have 5 months of training in and can’t be stupid by ignoring it and letting it effect any upcoming races. I can slide on my running this week and put in more bike and swim. Also, I can throw in a extra core workout. I had Monday off, after a hard weekend, so the rest of the week should be pretty good. And who doesn’t like biking in the rain!!! I wonder if I only breathed every four pedal strokes, could it double as swim training?

Anyways, I’ll have week totals again soon, AK said ‘as the hours of training rise the blog entries drop’. True that!

Not the best week....

Last week I just had to work for every mile, set and lap. I think I was fighting some bug that was going around work. My second swim of the week I felt totally exhausted just 3 laps in, talk about along ways from shore. Well, you know in a pool : )


Week totals…

3 runs 9.19 miles 1.53 hours
2 swims 1.4 miles 1 hour
1 bike 22 miles 1.55 hours
1 other 35 core and upper
8 overall workouts, 4.76 hours

AK

5 runs 18.5 miles WOW!
7 cores 2.33 hours

I have run with my brother Lynn a few times now in some training runs for the Valentines Day run around Green Lake. It's great to see someone start to pick up a interest in running and pretty cool that I get to run with my brother.