Another weekend flies by

I got a long ride in yesterday and a longish run in this morning.  Yesterday's ride went pretty well- I warmed up for an easy hour and then did a 15 minute period at a higher intensity (about 145 beats per minute on my heart rate monitor) followed by 5 minutes of rest.  I did four of these 15 minute pickups total and then about another hour of moderate riding to finish out the session for a little over 3 hours of riding.  I texted this yesterday in the form I keep my workouts in.  I watched a movie and then the 2005 Ironman Hawaii recap and this kept me busy and awake.

Today's run wasn't as good as yesterday's ride.  First off, it was really cold- only 9 degrees- and there was a pretty stiff wind which chilled my face pretty well.  Then I had calf pain seemingly out of nowhere in the lower part on the right side.  I was hoping my calf problems were going to be in the past because I started doing some yoga during the past week to stretch them out but maybe I need to be a little more patient and give them a few more weeks. I had calf cramping problems in the past and yoga stopped it, the problem is that I used to do yoga in the morning before school but now I exercise then.  I am trying to stick a quick stretch in during the day so hopefully this will rectify the problem.

Yesterday I went to a triathlon shop and bought a massage stick (ironically called "The Stick") to help my legs out and also picked up some salt tablets to help keep electrolytes up during long, intense exercise.  I tried the Stick out after my run but haven't pioneer the salt tablets yet.  I also looked at a full wetsuit but have to get the right deal to make the purchase (and sell my old wetsuit as well).  Here is a picture of the Stick in case you are interested:

Tomorrow is an hour and forty minute ride before school so I am going to try to hit the sack early tonight.

3 hr. ride done. 4x15'(5') @ 145bpm. 133ahr. 154 max. now for swim lessons.

Interesting reading for those trying to go faster

This link is for an article by Endurance Nation guys, the "fast then far" people if you will.  Good read.

More snow

The roads have been pretty much snow free for the last few weeks but we got some snow last night and more during the day today.  We did some errands last night so I didn't have time to eat before swimming and ended up not having a lot of energy-was from not eating or was it due to swimming two days in a row with a hard bike ride  in between? Who knows.  Anyway, when I came home for swimming at 9 pm I ate 3/4 of a sub (from Wegman's) and was in bed by 10:15.

When I ran this morning, I felt great and, again, don't know if it was from nutrition (in a good way this time) or if it was the nice fresh snow that made the sidewalks feel like grass.  I really felt good and had an average heart rate of 140 and peaked at over 160 for each of the hill repeats, which I was happy with since I felt strong for the entire 53 minutes I ran.

So many ideas out there

Every time I post here I think to myself "next time I will post something quicker" but it has been almost a week since my last addition. Oh well.  Today was the last day of classes for the first semester and so we are officially halfway through the school year.  Today is also six months until the big Ironman Lake Placid (some call it "Ironman USA") race.  This is both exciting and scary; it seems very close and far at the same time- lots of training to do (which seems endless) and yet I keep feeling like there isn't enough time to get it all done.  Here is a graph of the last month of training that I have done.

I have been following the same routine: Monday- easy bike, Tuesday- easy run and a swim, Wednesday- bike intervals and a swim, Thursday- run intervals, Friday- rest day, Saturday- long bike, and Sunday- long run...repeat with a little more mileage.

Lately I have been getting sucked into reading and listening to different philosophies on how to train for an Ironman.  Many people follow the "far then fast" rule in which you build endurance until a couple of months before the race and then start speed work to gain speed.  Many people follow this and it works well.

However, there is another camp of thought from Endurance Nation that follows a  "fast then far" idea; they have their athletes do speed work in the winter which keeps their workouts short but with high intensity.  When spring rolls around they hit the roads to build their mileage up to the necessary length for the iron distance.  They make a pretty convincing argument with seemingly sound logic.

Where does this leave me? I am trying a little of both- I am staying at a respectable distance for this time of year but I am also keeping some speed work in my routine so that I can train at a decent speed and hopefully carry this momentum into the race.  Then again, so much depends on race execution but that is another story. Off to put the kids to bed...

I had a great long weekend

The snow is melting from all of the warm temperatures we have had lately, so the kids got out on Sunday to use a snow-dino kit they got for Christmas.  Here is their sense of humor (I had nothing to do with this one):

Anyway, training has been going pretty well.  I did my long ride on Friday so that I could let Jen sleep in on her birthday on Saturday but I didn't hear anyone get up and I ended up sleeping until 8 and was the last one up- thanks Jen!  We went to Uncle Jim's in Buffalo for Jen's party and had a great time.  We arrived back home late so I didn't get to bed until midnight so I slept until 6 on Sunday morning before heading out for a run test.

The run test was to time a moderate effort at a half marathon (13.1 miles).  I found a loop that was close to half of this distance (6.62 miles- not too bad!) and ran it twice.  This allowed me to take a sip of Gatorade and a Gu gel at the halfway point which worked out pretty well.  I felt pretty good overall but my calves were a little "twitchy" so I didn't push super hard.  The double loop run ended up taking me just under 1:50 to complete which is around an 8:17 pace.  At first I was mad that I was so slow but I'm trying to convince myself that it is still early in the season and that speed will come later, plus it was the first day of really good footing that I have had in a while.

I rode my bike for 1.5 hours on Monday because I had the time due to being off for MLK Day.   I watched a movie that Aunt Ginny lent me called "So Much, So Fast" which is about a guy who gets ALS and what he and his family have to go through.  It was pretty tough to watch so I can't imagine having to go through it first or second hand.  Seemingly ironically, I saw Avatar in the afternoon (not a big spoiler alert) in which the main character is paralyzed from the waist down but can use a machine to be the brains behind a fully functioning creature; I couldn't help making the link between what ALS patients slowly lose ability to do over the course of months and years and the abilities gained through fictional technology in Avatar. 

Anyway, I ran this morning- a quick 6-mile jaunt- and will swim tonight.  About 187 days to go.

Running form (if you care about it)

I had the same conversation twice this weekend about running form, including foot strike and cadence.  In case you are interested, here are a couple of links to read.

From Joe Friel's blog, click here.

From a Friel coach (essentially the same thing), click here.