Feeling Monday's run!

The affects of Monday's great run are hitting me. I woke up ok this morning, but soreness doesn't usually hit me til 24 hours later. This evening, the soreness came on strong; I'm more sore now than I have been in a long time, as in several years.

I hoped to run it out with an easy jog this afternoon with Paul in the cruiser. I was very conscious to take it easy. I ran 2.7 miles in 35 minutes with an avg heart rate of 120. That is a very easy run. In fact, it was also quite enjoyable to just mosey along! The only thing that wasn't perfect was the weather: cloudy and 38. I really didn't want to run, but I thought an easy run would be ok, and I wanted to meet my goal of getting all my scheduled workouts this week (I didn't lift this morning as scheduled, though!).Incidentally, those clouds have brought the first lightning and thunder of the year tonight (I love thunder and lightning! as long as no tornadoes come out of it).

Then I did my Spineraval 28 workout tonight. It sucked. I had no power and no endurance. My legs were completely wasted from the beginning. I pushed through the first three sets but didn't do the fourth. I rarely do the fourth set because I don't like the easy gear/very high cadence (120-ish).

And I got to check out my new bike setup. It felt alright but not as powerful as the previous setup. That's because I realized a very important aspect of the advice I got. They were talking about the horizontal stem, not the vertical stem. So, now I'm back to square one. I'll put the vertical back to where it was, and then I have to get a different horizontal stem. That's going to run me about $80 I figure for a standard stem. No fun. But I know what the solution is now. I think I'm going to go straight to a 70mm stem because I need my arms to come back at least two inches. I want my elbows in close to me. When I try different positions for my elbows, I like to have them quite close.

R/R week must have worked

First day back after R/R week, not counting a difficult ski on Saturday that went down as unscheduled cross-training. I felt great during today's workouts.

Swam intervals at lunch and hit some good times. 200 warmup. 2x100 @1:20 and 1:23 on 2:00, then 4x50 @ 40-42 on 1:00, then 8x25 @ 20 on :30. This gets my heart rate going pretty high for a swim, averaging around 140-144. I then swam another 2x100 at a tired race pace and came in on 1:30 and 1:32, which is probably what I would have swam for the last half of a 1500yd race, so that works for me at this stage of the game. 15x1:30=22:30 if my math is right. If I was to throw in some adrenaline and a wetsuit, I might come in at 21:30, which is 1:30 off my goal. I'm usually too optimistic on my times, though.

Then I ran the 10k TT after work. This is the workout that I blew off on Friday because of weather. Today turned out to be pretty nice; cool but nice. Sunny and 40 w/ just a bit of wind. As I stepped off, I was expecting to do my 5.3 mile course hard, but then I remembered I blew off the 10kTT on Friday and decided to go for it today since it was so nice. I came it at 50:29 for 6.6 miles, which is 7:39/mile. I'll take that at this stage of the game, especially when I could still feel the affects of the backcountry ski from Saturday (it turned out to be a 2000ft climb in exactly 60 minutes! and it was about 20mins of downhill prior to the up). I'm very happy with this effort because this course has some big and long hills in it, with one that starts at the 4 mile mark just when I'm beginning to get tired and feel sorry for myself during races; for me, this adds a positive mental aspect to race day because I normally won't have the big hill start at the 4 mile mark...running is 90% pain management once you get decent form. I also kept a run cadence of 80-84 for the entire run, including uphill and downhill, which is a bit of improvement from last summer when I was averaging 78-82. In a perfect world, I'd get it up to about 84-86, and I have six weeks to get there before my first race.

I mention the race cadence because I'm really beginning to buy into the fast cadence over long strides theory. I finished this "race" and didn't feel incredibly tired, although I put forth a 100% effort. Yes, I was tired at the end, but I didn't want to immediately drop dead. After a minute of recovery, my heart rate was back down to about 124 (averaged 162 w/ peak of 177).

Now I get to see how I bike tomorrow and if I can string together a full week of workouts. That's the real challenge. My consistency is lacking. I hit only about 80% of my planned hours. I normally plan about 13-14 hours and hit 10-12. In self-defense, the weather has a lot to do with it, and if I forget about a meeting during the week , then that's one more workout that doesn't happen.

Figured out my tri bag setup for the year

I guess I'll add this post while I sit and watch the snow.

I've been thinking about my bag setup for triathlons. I almost bought a new one a couple weeks ago that had a separate compartment for shoes and such; turns out that it wasn't a 100% separated compartment, and the stink and wetness might have got into contact with the rest of my gear. Still, the Atmos Kestrel is a pretty sweet bag if you're looking for something light and "just big enough" for 2-3 nighter out fishing.

Anyway, I looked through my old bags today. I needed something that can work for my short bike commute to work. That means I need to be able separate my "kind of dress-up" clothes for work and my PT gear, including shoes and sweaty shirt/shorts (assuming it ever warms up!). It also needs to work for my race bag, meaning it has to hold a wetsuit on the outside, a helmet, and all the other goodies that go on race day; and it has to be a backpack form so I can ride my bike to the race when needed.

I found an old "Bug Out Bag" that I bought in the Marine Corps many years ago. It is definitely big enough. There are compression straps on both sides on the outside, so that's where the wetsuit and maybe a three-post-fold-up-chair can go on race day. I added two straps I had laying around to add a place to put shoes on the outside. There are three "inside" compartments, which I can use for 1) workout clothes, 2) work folder(s), and 3) my work clothes and shoes for getting to/from work. Another inside compartment works for race info and admin stuff like pens/paper and probably my "energies," a general term I use for nutrition and supplements.

Weather is not cooperating

Well, I thought yesterday would be my last ski of the year, but I don't think that's going to be how it goes. It's been snowing all day, after raining all night (from what I remember hearing). That means lots of snow in the mountains, and I'm not even going to think about biking on roads with any chance of ice on them. And the forecast for the rest of the week is rain/snow mix. So, I guess I'll be on the bike trainer all week. There is a bright spot in the week's forecast: partly sunny on Sunday, and I think that will be a ski day.

I mentioned before that I hoped we wouldn't have a wet and cool spring. At this rate, we won't have a spring season at all. It will go from snow to summer in about three days. That's just not going to work for me!

I might not even get to go out running with Paul in his cruiser on Tuesday and Thursday. That will be a major bummer.

I still haven't got on my bike to see how the lowered stem works for me. I'm anxiously awaiting how that goes. I almost did a bike during the OU basketball game today. I might as well have, considering that the game didn't go very well.

I've been looking at the trail for the Poky 50 race. I think I'm going to really like it. But I need to get some more running in, or it's gonna hurt(!).

More skiing

Well, I didn't do my 10k run time trial to see where I'm at with that and to set a baseline for improvements. That was supposed to happen yesterday but the weather didn't cooperate. But today I did a three hour backcountry ski that was pretty good. It is probably the last one of the year, at least I'll tell myself that so that I don't feel like I have do go again. The lift is closed after this weekend, so it's a one hour hike up to the ridgeline.

In any case, we did one run today, which was about 2000 ft if I plotted our ending point correctly, which I'm not sure I did. But it did take us an hour to get back to the top, and my legs were fried when we got there. I thought I would do better than that after a week off, but we had to break trail the whole way, which makes things significantly harder. In any case, it is still winter on the mountain! It was a good day on skis in the woods!

I'm pretty excited about moving into phase 3 of my training plan. If my bike setup change works well, I'll be even more excited. I just hope my body can adapt appropriately and quickly. The weather is not shaping up to be nice next week, so I'll probably be back on the trainer, which is even harder in the spring after having been out on the roads on a nice day.

I'll be taking it one week at a time. I realized I don't have any mid-term goals in place, which makes it tough to keep plugging along. I'll be working on those this week. I'm starting with: get all my workouts in this week.

Bike setup change

So, I've been riding on the trainer all winter and wondering how my bike fit is. I've had this constant gut-feeling that my aero position is too stretched out, like I'm reaching too far. So I finally posted a pic on trifuel.com to see what others say about it. Everyone said my stem was too high. My first thought: "Now I have to buy a new stem?" Turns out that I had several spacers that put my stem up that high. I took those out, lowering the stem, and now don't feel as stretched out and can put much more weight on my elbows. I lowered it about an inch, which will turn out to be a major change and will take some getting used to, I'm sure. I hope my back doesn't hurt too much.

I should've posted that photo a long time ago. Then I wouldn't have wasted a whole winter riding in a wrong position. Oh well, better than never. Of course, that assumes I changed the right thing! Being a bike newbie, I could very well have totally misunderstood what they meant.

I'm biking again tomorrow, so I'll find out what the change does. If all goes well, I'll be able to put alot more weight on my elbows (and off my butt?) and still feel power from my legs.

Pool closed

Pool is closed for spring break....bummer. Winter weather today; strong cold winds with snow....bummer. Sooooo, I took full advantage of my R/R weekend and did chores at home and no workouts.

Phase 2 done

Phase 2 of my annual training plan is done. The first phase was the transition, prep, and base portions that went from Oct 08 to right after the new year. Phase 2 has been build weeks throughout January, February, and the first half of March. I've completed all the builds up to Build 2 Week 3. Technically, I shouldn't have been doing any cross training in the Build weeks, but that's just a personal preference. This Phase 2 ended with the transition to spring, made more formal by the first day of spring and the ISU spring break.

So, here are the changes that take me into Phase 3:
- weight lifting is on Tuesday and Thursday now, with a "power" workout of 3 sets of six reps at a higher weight instead of 3 sets of 10 reps. So I don't do a swim/lift comob workout anymore.

- swim workout gets an actual warmup, main sets, and a cool down. This extra time replaces the lift workout that has followed the swim workout until now. In May, I'll start at least one open water swim if all goes well.

- bike is expected to be outdoors. Key word is "expected" because the weather is really spotty. In fact, all next week is supposed to be snowy! Good timing for a R/R week. I plan to do three bikes per week: Tuesday is the hill workout, Thursday is my 40k TT to Inkom and back, and Saturday is a brick.

- runs will be a bit longer now. I'm adding volume, which isn't really in line with the Training Bible phases and such, but such is life in Idaho. I want to get up to at least one 7-8 mile run per week at an "all-day pace." One workout of 5-6 miles hard. And also a speed workout on the track. Then add in a 3-4 miler brick run. The long run will be while pushing Paul.

- I also need to work on the transition that now includes the clipless pedals. I haven't done that yet, and I think it will be a challenge to hop on the bike and put my shoes on while moving.


Did some cross-country skiing this weekend. Snow was sketchy in several areas on the road up to a Boy Scout camp. I guess that's the end of cross-training unless I find some time to get another day of backcountry skiing in.

First long outdoor bike today!

Another nice day here in Poky. So I did my Inkom TT ride, which is about 38km. Felt strong for first quarter, and just "ok" the rest of the way. Strong winds both ways. Overall, this ride compared almost exactly equal to the last Inkom TT ride I did right before my last triathlon of last year. Combined with the fact that I did a 5.8mile run pushing Paul this morning, I guess I'm in a bit better shape than end of last year, but I really don't know how much that run affected me (and I didn't eat lunch!). I'm a bit concerned that I averaged only 19.10 mph for the ride. I thought I would come in better than that. But that last TT of last year, I used three shots of gel and only one this time, but it was 55 degrees instead of 88 (what my notes say). I guess there's no use in over-analyzing it.

The run with Paul this morning was nice. Somehow, I am still pushing 9 minute miles with him. The chariot rides REALLY smooth!

Nice easy workouts today

Took Paul for another cruiser in his chariot; I'm going to start calling it the cruiser. I think he likes it. He doesn't scream w/ excitement or fear. Just kind of sits there with a bit of a smile on his face. Was planning two laps of 2.9 miles each but only made it about 1/4 of the way into the second lap when he started getting fussy (chow time!), so I went back home early. Still, a good workout, and I can feel the push effort in my upper hamstrings, which should work out nicely for the bike/run endurance combo.

Did an easy version of the Spinnerval 28 tonight. Workout stats showed it; cadence and heartrates are not exactly relative to last week's difficult workout, today was fairly easy but both are only about 5% less (87cad v 84 cad and 154hr v 148). But it felt much easier. Go figure.

Good Start to week

Got a good start to the week. I quit trying to get up on Monday morning when it's cold and dark, and it's working. I read somewhere to never schedule Monday morning workouts because "you'll figure out why" as the book said. I realized why. It's because it's not fun and kills motivation for the rest of the week. So I don't even try any more.

For lunch I did my drills in the pool. 8x25 (20sec swim, 10sec rest), 4x50 (45sec swim, 15sec rest), and then 2x100 (1:30swim, 30 sec rest). Start w/ 100yd warmup and finish with 100yd cooldown, which really isn't enough but it lets me get in and out in time to do the lift during my one hour lunch.

Then I lifted my basic routine but switched up a bit for time constraints. I did two sets of six and increased the weight a bit.

After work and in the extend daylight (thanks daylight savings!), I did a hard 5.3 mile run in 42:09. Good run. That's just a bit under eight minute miles and is actually kind of slow because I need to run 6:50 miles or so to hit a 40 minute 10k after the bike. But that's where I'm at.

And I figured out a good "intensity factor" as an objective measure of my workout. It involves an excel spreadsheet that has all my data points and a formula that uses average heartrate, distance, and time. I don't know how scientific it is but it looks like the numbers show good relativity when I test it with example numbers of what I know are hard runs and easy runs. I like the fact that it incorporates distance as a feature of intensity. "The Triathlete's Training Bible" defines intensity as a funtion of effort and time, which I think has to include pace and distance to fully define time. Now I can make some cool charts with trending lines! I'm a bit of data geek. Honestly, sometimes the only reason I do a workout is so I can keep a good data set, and I'm not even a statistician.

Tomorrow I hope to do two laps on a course with Paul. Of course, the weather plays a factor. In any case, I expect to do a good bike workout, too, inside or out.

First Ride Outside and a Family Fun Run

This morning was really nice weather, and instead of doing a Sufferfest TT on the trainer, I took advantage of the weather and went for the first outside bike of the year. Awesome! Heavy headwinds going out, and a bit of a headwind coming back (strange how that works). I wasn't really mentally motivated to crank out a fast ride, and it showed a bit on the way out. Combined with the strong headwinds (30mph?), that lack of motivation led to an average of 16-17mph, and I was getting really down on myself because I started thinking "Why am I so slow? Did I just waste three months of training?" Then I turned around and averaged 28mph! That was pretty exciting, mostly because of a bit of a tailwind and I was warmed up. Overall, I'm happy with the ride considering my feet got cold and I wasn't mentally cranking it out.

Then I did a hottub for 45 minutes, stretching out.

Then I went on a family fun run with Tera, Paul, and Sooner. All four us did a three mile loop around the university. We walked a bit because Tera is still recovering a bit from giving birth. But it was some nice family time in fair weather (clouds rolled in in the afternoon). This was Paul's second ride in his chariot. I fixed the flat tire caused by me catching the stem on the metal and cutting it, and I realigned the front wheel. Now it runs straight and smooth. Wow! I love this thing and I can see myself putting in some decent miles with Paul.

Race Schedule thoughts

I'm sitting here thinking about my race schedule. My first tri race of the season is an A race! I'm not sure I have the properly categorized, but I do want to do quite well in that race. I have an elevation advantage going from Pocatello to Bismarck (4600ft v. 1650). But being the first race and an 800 mile trip, I'll have to plan it right to make sure there aren't any kinks in execution.

I can see that I really have two seasons lined up: one in June and one in August, with a outlier in September, which I can make major adjustments for but have to watch out for a mental letdown going into September when I want to be fishing.

So, I guess May and July are the big training months. That makes sense to me. I can make some changes in training after the June races and have all of July (minus a couple fishing trips!) to effect the changes in my body. I hope the summer weather hits a bit earlier than it did last year, when it was a cool and wet spring from April to early June as I remember it. One day in early June, the sun came out and all of sudden summer was here and stayed (kinda like the rain in Forrest Gump!).

Two more weeks of "winter season" training to go. After the ISU spring break, I'm hoping to be all outdoors, minus a few days on the bike when the late snow starts flying, which it always does in Idaho. I definitely need to start putting in more running miles! My swim foundation is set, and now I need to add some intensity; I'll switch to twice a week lifting after the Spring Break, too. And after Spring Break, I plan to do one brick per week, focusing on the bike mileage and running only about 4 miles afterward.

Pocatello 50 Trail Race

Me and a buddy have been trying to get a third person to run the Pocatello 50 Trail Run with us for a three-man team. The search is over! So, as soon as we get a cool name for our team, we'll be signed up. Race site is at http://pocatello50.com/

The race is here in Pocatello, and I think the course is awesome. I wish I could run the whole thing, but I really don't want to kill myself with that long of a run so early in the season. The course is through the local mountains south of Pocatello and has 13,500 feet of elevation gain. That will be a butt-kicker for anyone doing it solo, but so far there are 51 solo runners signed up!

The relay legs are about 17 miles long, and I honestly don't know which one I want to do. We're going to draw straws for the legs. Each of the legs is partly on trails I've been wondering about but never got to on my MTB last year. I've been on about 50% of the course, so there are parts of each leg that I would love to see.

We're entering the race simply to do it. It's the first one, and the race directors are so far doing a great job, I think. They have great sponsors lined up and a great website that actually tells you what to expect. Most websites are pretty dismal in the mapping category, but they've done a great job; maybe it's just because I know the area a bit.

In any case, I'm going to rely on my tri training to get me through the mileage. I don't want to short-change my tri season for one race that I'm doing just to do it. How hard can 17 miles be? Probably harder than I think!

Check it out at http://pocatello50.com/

More cross training

One more ski trip to the yurt is in the books. Great weather and snow on Saturday, but today's ski home was cloudy, super windy, and wind-blown snow. Yesterday we got in four or five runs in the day (4 hours of PT) and two short runs at night (1 hour). The snow was awesome! We kept our packs on for the first two runs because we were heading over to the yurt and not going back up to where we started the run, so that's two times uphill with a 30 pound pack. The second time up with my pack I hit a wall. Then over to the yurt. We had some AWESOME CUISINE for dinner; a buddy brought up elk and deer steaks and cooked them perfection. Wow! Then we hit a couple shorter runs at night under a 85% illum and cloudy, but I didn't need my headlight. I love night-ops!

The wind howled all night, and we saw the results in the snow this morning. A few areas had good snow, but the run we chose to ski had really rough snow. I thought I saw a lynx (yes, unbelievable, but I really think it was a lynx!). Cloudy skies and lots of wind. Oh well, I guess that means I have to go again at some point. It snowed about three inches here at the house this afternoon, so the mountain probably got about six new inches. Total of about two hours of PT today.

I can feel my lower abs got a good workout that they aren't used to. And I ran out of gas on the uphills, so I think my overall endurance has gone down a bit since mid-January. Or maybe it's because I was wearing my pack the entire time. I really don't know.

This past week, I got in 12.8 hours of PT, with 11.5 scheduled. I didn't hit all my workouts, but I got both bike workouts in and some long endurance workouts while skiing.

This week is all standard workouts, and I'm going to throw in some easy 30minute biking on Tuesday and Thursday morning.

I'm adding a few pictures tonight. This is Paul at his first swim practice in early February when he was 3 months old. He didn't cry during any of the three or four "dives" that he did! He didn't show much emotion at all, so I'm not sure he liked it or disliked it.

Here's a picture of Paul in his new ride. It weighs 27 pounds, and he weighs about 15, so that's 42 pounds I'm pushing up or down or across the street. It's moves pretty smooth and is great. Now I can run on Tuesday and Thursday, and I can say that I didn't run in bad weather so that Paul wouldn't get sick (never mind the cover that keeps out the wind).

Finally, another good day

Got my lazy bones out of bed this morning and swam and lifted. The swim was only 1x500 and 1x250, and I'm pretty sure I was a lap short on the 500. But it all felt good. Most importantly, I felt strong again. The lift was the pretty much the same as always; I suppose that means I'm plateauing, which is ok for right now because I will be switching to a "power" phase in April...that's two workouts each week only with higher weights and lower reps. Then I can concentrate on the swim some more. But I'm glad I started the lifting routine because I can really see some difference in my legs.

I ran today, too. With the same effort level and heart rates, I finished the standard lunch course a minute faster than normal. Yeehaw. The time off has helped for sure. Now I have to figure out how to recover properly because I'm sure that was my problem before.

Tomorrow will be a run with Paul and then a muscular endurance workout on the bike. I'm going for 1x35 minutes and 1x30 minutes on the bike.

I found a cool calculator at http://www.analyticcycling.com/. It says I'm doing 28mph on my standard gearing and cadence while on the trainer. That assumes I have all my parameters like cog teeth and diameter correct, which being the newbie biker I am I'm not sure about. To me, that sounds right because if I'm going 28mph on a trainer, that would equate to 22-23 on the open road with wind and road friction and all the other good stuff that slows us down.

Finally a full day of PT

I got in both workouts I wanted to do today. Yeehaw! It feels great!

At 1:30pm, I went for my first run with Paul in his chariot. It works great, but the front tire needs a bit of realignment. Not sure of how far the run was, and I kept it easy as the first go with Paul. I ran for 21:30 with an average heart rate of 154. A nice run, and the weather stayed nice til about an hour after I got back.

I was hoping to bike outside today, since I missed it yesterday on such a beautiful day because I was lazy. The weather turned in late afternoon, so I did a bike on the trainer. I did the usual spinerval 28, and it felt great. I haven't lost any power, and maybe just a bit of endurance, after two weeks of no biking whatsoever. I'm certainly surprised.

Now let's see if I can keep it up all week. Tomorrow is a swim/lift in the morning and run at lunch.

Thursday "should" be another run in the chariot (if the weather cooperates, which is a BIG IF), and the muscular endurance bike workout that is now two sets: 1x35mins and 1x30mins with a two minute break. I'm interested in what gear I end up in.

Lazy..lazy..lazy

Word for the day is "lazy." I was up at 0530 to feed Paul, but then I went back to bed at 0600! Aargh. I figured by then it was too late to get a lane at the pool, so why bother. Of course, I could have just lifted in the morning then swam at lunch, but I wasn't thinking clearly. That's another problem. I can't get to bed until 1100pm or so. And then at lunch...yeah, I went home to have lunch with Tera and Paul.

I was about to blow off evening PT, too, but when I got home, Tera and Paul weren't home yet, so I thought I might as well go to the gym. I got in my basic lifting routine, but was done at 5:35, with 25 minutes left til lap swim. I didn't feel like waiting around, and I went home.

Tomorrow should be a better day. I'm hoping to do my first run with Paul in his new ride (jogging cart). I'm excited about it. I also want to get in a bike of some sort. If it's nice enough, which isn't looking probable by the forecast, I want to do the Terry Hill a few times.

I found a good course that is a good representation of the hill at the Portland Tri. It has the same stats of about 500ft vertical in 3 miles, so I want to hit that hill at least once a week after spring break.

The Pocatello Triathlon Club has put together a really early race on April 10 with Reed Gym of ISU the transition area. Swim 700 yards in the pool Friday night, then show up Saturday morning for the bike and run. I bike and run these courses all the time, and it's the pool I swim in. But I'm not sure I'll do it. I guess it would be a good start to the year. Maybe I'll just help. It's only $10 for tri club members. Also, the Pocatello Tri Club website is back up and running, so now I can put in my membership form.

This week is not off to a good start. I need to get off my lazy butt!