So I went into this second triathlon season having a very high but attainable goal and knowing that I'd be dealing with a newborn and everything that goes with that. Paul is two months old, born Oct 26, 2008. Training is going well, but it's getting the sleep I need that is tough. It's like I lost three hours each day. Paul is an awesome little man, but he doesn't like too sleep much when he's supposed to sleep (I guess he gets that from me!), and he seems to have a stomach that takes a while to digest and doesn't always feel great. I think I get more frustrated with why he cries more than I care about losing sleep. That frustration adds stress that I don't really want. Anyway....
Saturday was a beautiful day around here. The sun was shining in full force with no clouds or wind. That in itself is a great day after many days of snowy weather with lots of wind. It's the wind that really gets to me, which is funny cuz I grew up in North Dakota, where the wind is always blowing at least 30mph. And, I went to college at Univ of Oklahoma, you know...where the wind comes rushing down the plains....but after several years in Japan and then in SoCal, I got used to not alot of wind (except a month of Santa Annas, of course). So, a day without wind AND sun is special. We went for a snowshoe for one hour up a creek trail in the local mountains, and it was awesome. That was my workout for the day; nice recovery activity.
Sunday's weather was just the same. I found myself taking care of Paul and sitting inside. As he got sleepy in the afternoon, I saw my opportunity for a bike workout. I got in a good 80 minute muscular endurance workout. I actually skipped ahead four weeks in my muscular endurance bike plan, which is not good, but I guess that's where I'm going to be now. It's not that bad, actually, because I need to be at this point in the plan anyway because now I'm on track to be at two 30minute sessions at spring break at the end of March, when I want to be all outside for my bikes. I rode four sets of 17 minutes at avg cadence of 83. I wasn't very motivated other than to simply get in a workout, so I think I could have gone harder, but it's nice to get that workout in.
Monday I got back into the gym now that it's open. I did a 1x500 swim in 7:45 for a warmup to my weights workout and to keep a feel for the water. I was up to 2x500 on 7:45 before the gym closed for semester break, and I figured I wanted to ease back into the swim. My weight workout went well, and I started 10% lighter weights than before the break. Tomorrow I'll go back up to the weights I was at before the break, and then next week, I'll add some weight. I can feel myself getting stronger in the swim and bike, definitely.
Today was a great Spinerval 28 workout plus 20 minutes of steady state ride (SSR). I don't follow Coach Troy's advice for aerobic HRs; instead, I try to make it a hard, lactate threshold level for each set. For the 8x1min sets, I used my highest gear and keep a cadence of 85. Second set of 16x45sec, I used my second highest gear with cadence of 85. Then the third set of 20x30sec, I use the 15 gear and cadence of 90-95. The first two sets are good, but the third set with the easiest gear is hard to keep up. After a four minute break, I did a 20 min SSR that really felt good with the second gear up and cadence of 85-92. I don't know where that energy came from, but I found an awesome groove with some AC/DC, Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest on the MP3! My heart rate monitor said I burned 1202 calories, which I find hard to believe. I do know it was a great workout though.
I'm using some Hammer gel during these workouts to keep up the energy level. I do half my workouts with no water or energy gel, and the other half with. I like knowing I can push my body with no water or energy to find it's absolute limits in the faster manner, which might not be the smartest thing to do, but as a Marine, I like to prepare my body for the worst conditions. When I train with water and energy gels, I certainly push the performance level up a notch, which is part of the Endurance Nation mentality of going fast during the winter and then adding the "far" after you've built the fast.
So that's the update for now. The rest of this week has swim/weights on Wednesday and Friday, and the muscular endurance bike on Thursday night. I probably won't get any runs in this week, which is ok because I'm not concentrating on that right now. I would normally run on Thursday at lunch, but I have a work meeting. Then Saturday I'm going to the yurt for all day backcountry skiing on Saturday and Sunday, which burns more calories than I'll be able to take in no matter what I try to eat; and, the endurance levels are definitely pushed during yurt weekends!
This week looks like it will be a high-intensity week but short on volume, mostly because of the gym hours. I would rather swim/lift in the mornings like I was doing before the semester break. That allows me to run at lunch, when the weather cooperates. I'm a bit of a fair weather runner, for sure.
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