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.