Allons-y!

my training blog my training calendar my training reports Planned training log

inspire me (2)

Monday - April 16

2PM; two reports left to write, one I still gotta pull and photograph comps for. Very glad today is a "rest" day! Had a Buff Smoothie for breakfast and all my lower extremities are feeling excellent. --------------------- Yessssssss--Brynn drove me to Beatrice and I was able to nearly write the whole report on the way there and back. Plus I got a chocolate shake from McDonald's! One report to go and then I am donesies for the night. I'm feeling super good today, so good that I don't want to rest--I want to work out! Going to stick with the plan anyway and rest--sometimes what the heart wants isn't good for the body. This week is about getting stronger through rest & recovery.

inspire me (1)

Sunday - April 15

Run

30m 02s
2.87 miles
10m 28s /Mi

Felt REALLY good on this run--finished the last 0.6 miles or so at a sub-9:22 pace! Excited for the recovery week this week to let the knees heal up (they felt pretty good today) and hit the last 7 weeks of training like a beast.

The first part was super windy (well the whole thing was super windy) and the flapping of my shirt was messing up my HR reading, so it was spiking up into the 170s. I did a couple new things today. First, I changed my HR alert to 165, because when it was at 160 my "average" was always under 160. I also set a timer that went off at 4:30 intervals, that way I walked the first :30 and then it would go off 4:00 later. I'm having a new found appreciation for the Forerunner 305. I know the 310 and 910xt are out there, but don't underestimate this very affordable training tool. Especially when you can get them used pretty much all day on BT for $100.

Spent some time working tonight on stuff that I would have to be working on tomorrow. Since I have to go to Omaha I lose about 2 hours to driving, PLUS I have a report due for a property in Beatrice so I lose another 90 minutes or so. Thankfully I'm taking tomorrow off from working out, and the kids are at a visit until late. Maybe I can talk Brynn into driving me down to B-Town and back? :) I'm hoping that on Tuesday I'll be able to do a LT test on the bike and see what my new zones are. Wednesday will be the group ride, Thursday I'll mark as a rest day, and Friday I'll do a running LT test and get some actual zones for that as well, as I have never done that before. Thankfully we have a treadmill here at the house that I can use and be able to repeat the test in the exact same conditions whenever I feel like it!

inspire me (1)

Saturday - April 14

Bike

1h 58m 22s
31.20 miles
15.82 Mi/hr

Turned around after Unadilla at about 19.75 miles. Average speed was 15.2mph on the way out and I was on track to finish 40 miles at over 16 mph average. The kicker is my very low HR for this ride which was the goal. I believe the first time I was training for Kansas I was doing all my Z2 rides at 142bpm or less, so to be at 137 for this ride is just swell. I'm thinking I'll try and average 16 mph on race day, which will be about 1 mph faster than I did in 2008. That's a 14 minute savings on the bike leg--suhweet! I might actually go even faster on race day, we'll have to see how the next month or so of training goes.

"Rule #9 // If you are out riding in bad weather, it means you are a badass. Period. Fair-weather riding is a luxury reserved for Sunday afternoons and wide boulevards. Those who ride in foul weather – be it cold, wet, or inordinately hot – are members of a special club of riders who, on the morning of a big ride, pull back the curtain to check the weather and, upon seeing rain falling from the skies, allow a wry smile to spread across their face. This is a rider who loves the work." Yeah buddy :)

inspire me (2)

Friday - April 13

Swim

29m 44s
1550.00 yards
01m 55s /100 yards

30 minutes continuous swim. Did 1,000 at a very comfortable pace, then did 500 without touching the walls (that stunk) and stopped just a hair shy of 30 minutes.

1:45
1:54
1:55
1:53
1:51
1:55
1:53
1:53
1:53
1:55
2:01 (no wall)
2:00 (no wall)
2:00 (no wall)
2:01 (no wall)
2:01 (no wall)
0:56

Can't wait until the lake is warm enough to swim in. I'm going to take my Garmin out there and map out how far it is from the first to the last buoy and do all my swims out there (weather permitting)!

Been a busy morning--after I took the kid to school I stopped by Menards and bought some license plate mounts, took the bumper off the Acura, and installed them. After that Brynn and I moved the Saturn out from behind the Acura (it won't start for some reason. Cranks but won't turn over.) Then I went back to Menards and bought a tire repair kit because the Acura had a flat tire. Got that fixed up and I'm ready to start work! ---- Oh yeah, MOTY (Mother Of The Year) canceled another visit. Well, technically she didn't cancel--she just didn't answer the door or her phone when the transportation worker got to her house this morning. She has visits every Friday at the exact same time, so it's not like she wasn't aware there was a visit or something. I'll be interested to see if she cancels tomorrow too.

inspire me (2)

Thursday - April 12

Run

1h 02m
5.62 miles
11m 02s /Mi

Long run for the week. This originally started out as a 30-minute run/walk with Brynn and quickly became a 40-minute run, then turned into my long run :) I figured I was feeling pretty good, so no reason not to "run with it", so to speak. Top 3 farthest run of the year and of all the long runs I've done this year at <160 BPM it is the fastest pace by almost a minute. All the long runs I've done at a faster pace had 8+ bpm higher average HR. I take that as a good sign! Did 4:30 run/ :30 walk (at least I tried going at those intervals, didn't always catch it in time though) and I am confident that I'll be using that methodology to get me through the run in Kansas.

inspire me (3)

Wednesday - April 11

Bike

30m
7.50 miles
15.00 Mi/hr

No clue on the distance, did 30 minutes on the trainer. Was just going to go easy and spin the legs out but it got boring after about 3 minutes so I decided to do 30 second single leg drills every 5 minutes. That way the monotony got broken up but I didn't end up alternating legs the whole workout and kill myself.

One thing I'm learning about my tri bike is how much I actually used the drop bars on my roadie, especially when coming out of aero. Weird. Another thing I noticed about my new bike tonight while I was riding in the living room with the big picture window next to me--my position on the bike is pretty good! My back is nice and flat and fast (okay it's slightly humped, but there's not much this Quasimodo can do about that). Maybe that's why I'm able to ride faster on this thing? :) ---------------------- A little frustrated the past few days. Before we went out of town this past weekend I was dipping into the 206 range, and I got back up to 212 by Sunday. I figured I'd lose it all back after a few days back in "normal" life but so far I'm 210-211 still :( Just goes to show you it's WAY easier to put it on than to take it off. Lesson learned.

inspire me (3)

Tuesday - April 10

Run

29m 32s
2.82 miles
10m 28s /Mi

I did 4 minutes run, 30 seconds walk for (almost) 30 minutes. I like it! It allowed me to keep up a higher cadence which I think is key to me being able to maintain form a little better and run a little more efficiently. Finished this workout feeling like I wanted to keep going! That doesn't happen a lot to this guy when it comes to run workouts.

Bike

1h 20m 32s
24.27 miles
18.08 Mi/hr

Wow, set a 2 minute PR on The Loop. Haven't done that since 2 weeks after IMKS in 2008. So I guess that makes me 11 weeks ahead of schedule in my training ;) Plus today's PR came AFTER a 30 minute run!! I just felt really good today. It probably didn't hurt that the wind seemed to be coming out of the Northwest so I hit my turn-around feeling way better than I expected. I was going to go down HWY 2 to Bennet and turn around at Roca Rd for a 19-ish mile ride but ended up turning right and doing The Loop which is a route I haven't taken in a while. It's got some boogers for hills and really whomps on your legs during the middle 1/3 of the route. Finished this bike feeling elated but pretty pooped. Sat in a cold water bath for about 15 minutes. It was shocking at first, but only took a couple minutes before I didn't even notice it anymore. Not like last time I did a cold bath where it took several minutes to acclimate and I never did feel comfortable.

Pretty pleased with today's workouts, all things considered. Oh and my IT band thing worked itself out throughout the day so that was good.

Great, I woke up with Jeremy's Syndrome today. In case you didn't see me talk about it several weeks ago, it's this random IT band-like pain that you wake up with. Last time it happened it went away soon after, though I can't remember if it was the same day or the next. Ah yes, here it was. =) ======================== I just witnessed a HUGE collision at the main intersection where we drive every day to go wherever it is that we go (and, consequently, the ONLY intersection that is paved that I ride my bike on every time I ride my bike from my house). This lady was going south in a Trailblazer or some such SUV and totally broad-sided this little 4-door something or another that was traveling east on the highway. If the driver of the car that was struck didn't take evasive action as soon as she did she would have been hit right on the driver's door instead of ahead of the front wheel. Her car spun around and the SUV rolled about 1.5 times. I stuck around and gave my info to the police, but not before my neighbors came up and told me I should move my car (which was on the shoulder and farther from traffic than the police cruiser next to me). I swear, those people can't go ten minutes without telling me what I should do with my car. I figured it out--they're the redneck equivalent of Dwight Schrute.