Big Steve's Group (Year Two) - CLOSED (Page 24)

Here is last week's summary.  Great job folks!  Keep it up!!

Short but intense brick this morning left me pretty beat up afterwards. Showed up to work (in my home office today) and slept for 45 minutes before getting started lol.  That was a first!

	1h 00m 25.40 miles 25.40 Mi/hr
Avg Pwr: 150 Max Pwr: 266  Cad: 88

20m 2.31 miles 08m 40s/Mi

Today was my kind of swim workout. No kick drills and I can do those 100's at 1:50 intervals all day long bringing them in at 1:38-40 consistently and getting 10-12 seconds to go again is perfect. Doing 13-18 with paddles made it even easier because I fly when I have those on. I'm sure Thursday's workout will suck to atone for this gem.

100 free
300 free every 4th breast
200 25X8 @30 1-4 5-8 desc
2400 24X100 @1:50 sets 13-18 with paddles
3000

Good swim workout this morning....

Warmup:
o    400 swim/300pull/200 swim/100 kick
o    2 X 50 all out  ( :45 seconds each )

Main Set:
o    800 Time Trial   (took me 15:38)
o    100 easy pull : 2-3 min rest
o    400 Time Trial   (7:53)
o    100 easy pull : 2-3 min rest
o    400 Time Trail   (8:35)
o    100 easy pull : 2-3 min rest

3000 Total in 1:15

Bricks are our friends!  good stuff.

Another good CT ride this AM.  Usually ride #2 of the week is slower than #1 but not today.

	1h 15m 33.12 miles 26.50 Mi/hr
Avg Pwr: 150 Max Pwr: 394  Cad: 88

Tomorrow is a day off before the race on Sunday. Temp is supposed to be 51 at the start and 60 at the end with 10 MPH winds. I'm dressing light and will likely be quite cold going along the water the first half of the race but hopefully that leaves me stronger at the temp rises. I didn't taper for the race but just did a normal recovery week. Hoping to run under 1:45 but if I don't feel it I'm going to back it off so I can continue with a normal week of training after.

WOO HOO! Ok...good morning for me. So one of my goals for this year was to become more competitive and my goals to make that happen was to train harder, smarter and to drop excess weight. My goal for my weight was to get to 190lbs. I set milestones at 210, 200 and 190 and have given myself realistic time frames to reach these. So I started the day after Christmas on our 2012 miles in 2012 weighing in at 226 lbs...and it wasn't a fat 226. I had a physical done in Nov and my BF% was under 15% so I was solid...just heavy. So I stopped lifting heavy. Lift 2 times a week. I've been tracking my food with Loseit and that has made a huge difference. Cut out a lot of crap food and empty calories and found out that I can eat a TON of veggies which I'm all about.

So far I'm roughly 600 miles into the 2012 and am in the best shape i've been since I started doing tri's. I've been making steady progress in the weight loss department. So this morning...jump on the scale...209! I'm stoked. Just wanted to share with you guys. Have a great day!

Congrats Todd that's awesome and inspiring! I guess there is hope for me to get to 185.  I started using Calorie Counter by FatSecret.com last week and its amazing what logging food does to you mentally....2nd serving??? hmmm.... I can have that but then I need to log it and the #'s go up...BAD....no 2nd serving!

Scott, good luck on the race Sunday!

Did hill repeats this morning on the treadmill. Warmed up for 20, then did 4x of 1 min @ 10% incline @ a 9:30 pace.  When I saw 4 in my training plan for the day my initial reaction was "only 4 ???" - When I was done I was really thankful that it was ONLY 4.  Total run was 5 miles in 55:25.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Good Luck on the race Scott.

Great job on the weight loss. I am down 15 lbs from December and hopefully will keep dropping.

Here are my weekly totals

All this weigh loss going on, love it!

Had a decent training week but feel I'm still not getting enough running miles in. By this time last year I logged 168 miles, this year I'm only @ 90.  Need to crank that up a bit!

My summary:

Completed the Shamrock half this morning and more importantly my hubby finished his 1st HM!  Overall it was a great day for both of us!

Congratulations to the weight loss!!  I wish I had will power to cut out the foods that I need to.  Any hints?  I use the My Fitness Pal app, however I am terrible using it regularly.

Weekly totals

S:  2500 yards/ 1 hour

B:  52 miles/3:33

R:  21.85 miles/3:21

Strength 30 minutes

Got up Sunday morning at 5:15. I had a 24oz water along with two pieces of oatmeal bread and a yogurt while I stretched out and did the roller. I had packed everything I would need the night before so I was good. Met a friend and we were off to the race. It was only about 38 when we walked over from the Y to the high school to get our race numbers and both of us were shivering a bit as it wasn't supposed to be that cold.

Went back to the Y and stretched then did 500 yards in the pool at light intensity. Showered then had an apple and hopped on the elliptical also at very low intensity. Stretched again and it was 15 minutes until race time. It was supposed to be warm so I dressed accordingly and was happy I did. The temp had gone all the way up to 55 degrees in a very short period of time. They did the national anthem and I had a gel. I also during this time frame had a small cup of coffee and a 24 oz water with 1.5 Nuun tablets for hydration.

The goal was to run the first half with an 8:30 first mile and all the other miles 8-8:15. Through 7 miles I was ahead of pace having run 8:06, 8:11, 8:07, 8:14, 8:20 and 8:08. The effort was consistent as was the heart rate. The only difference was hills.

Mile 7 I started to pick it up. I wanted to run in the 7:45-8 range until mile ten and then pick it up again. At mile 7.7 my lower right calf cramped really bad out of nowhere. I had no choice but to stop. I really thought I was going to tear something if I didn't. I reached down and grabbed my toes and stretched it out. To my surprised it loosed up and I started back up again. Even with a 30 second pit stop mile seven was 8:11.

Over the next two miles I caught my running partner. We started a big hill and at the top the calf cramped again. I had to stop for another 30 seconds and stretch it out but once again at least I could continue. After that I could run at a fast pace on flats and downhills but going uphill the calf would start to act up if I tried to get beyond about a 9-minute mile pace.

In the end I ran 1:46:53 which is an 8:09 pace. My average heart rate was 170 and my max 183. If not for the calf issues I would have beaten my 1:45 goal. My legs and cardio were strong enough that I finished feeling strong and knew I had more in me. The two stretches were a minute alone and I think I could have pushed out at least another 1-3 minutes on top of that.

The temp at the end of the race was 67. It was really hotter than that with the sun beating down. I did 2 gels in race and downed a 24 oz water with 1.5 Nuun tablets. I needed it to stay hydrated.

So I'm really kind of split on my feelings.

On the one hand if not for the knot in my calf I beat my goal. Plus I never get calf cramps. If I cramp is usually my quads or my side. I kind of feel like I wasted a day where my legs felt the best they have in about 6 weeks. My quads just felt so strong.

On the other hand I really thought I was going to have to walk 6 miles which really would have sucked. Even worse I could have torn up my calf then I'd really be upset. My 8:09 pace for the half marathon was faster than the pace I ran a 10K in last April which was at 8:20. With a bad calf I beat my time of last year by 13 minutes and 3 seconds.

Overall I'm more glass half full.

After the race I did 20 minutes in the hot tub and 15 in the steam at the Y.

Went home and went for an hour walk with the kids then took them to the playground for an hour to enjoy the weather. Stretched out and did the foam roller last night.

Got up with morning and stretched and did the foam roller. Hopped on the trainer and did 35 minutes at a really low intensity. 109 average heart rate is pretty low. I usually like to do recovery ride with my cadence above 100 but whenever I tried to get that high the calf would flare up. As long as I stayed around 95-97 it was fine.

Overall I would say I'm sorer than I thought I would be but at the same time my legs feel less fatigued than I thought. I think this is a result of the calf. I had to run differently not being able to push off my right foot properly which added compensation thus the soreness. However I couldn't go as hard as I wanted thus the lesser fatigue.

Last week's totals:

Here is our summary for last week....

Congrats on the family finish!  Sounds like you had a blast.

I used to be really bad about using the app regularly.  I'm a little better now but still not 100% but now even if I don't use it every time I get something to eat I have this mental thought of entering in the meal and being accountable for the extra (unnecessary)  calories. Its been working great for the last week.  Stopped me from eating a bunch of junk over the weekend and I had a turkey sandwich without the cheese (first time ever) for lunch today.  I hope this lasts!!

Wow, what a detailed race report!  That's quite a lot of warmup for a HM.  Will need to try that to see if it helps my first HM next month.  Sorry to hear that you didn't make your goal time but that sure was close.  Good stuff!

Sorry for being late but my totals for last week:

no worries...summary above updated.

My swim workout this evening... the pool was empty for a change, it was great

WU: Pull 1000,
MS: 9 X 100                  (avg: 1:54)
       4 X 200 w/Paddles, (avg: 3:53)
CD: 300

Total: 3,000  1:15

That long of a warm up probably isn't for everybody but I just take a long time to get warmed up. If I went out with no warm up it's harder for me to get moving. Also my longer training runs were 15 miles where the first two would be at 9:45 and 9:30, approximately, and then I'd start at my training pace. Again the warm ups were done at a really slow pace.

Had an hr to kill while picking up my daughter last night so spent 45 minutes at the gym doing upper body stuff.  Made the swim this morning a little tough....

• Warm-up: 200 easy-free, 200 easy-pull, 100 easy-free, 100 kick.
• Main Set:
o 5 X 200 easy on 20 seconds rest (average 4:13)
o 4 X 200 a bit quicker on 20 seconds rest (average 4:01)
o 3 X 200 even stronger on 20 seconds rest (average 3:46)

3000 total 1:30