Recovery week almost over

Amazingly, my recovery week coincided with my spring break from school and I took full advantage of resting up enjoying the family.  I did almost the same number of workouts as I usually do, except for a swim (because the pool didn't have the normal schedule), but my distances were decreased.  I feel pretty good right now and am afraid to look too far forward into my schedule because I know the last few weeks of June are killers.  Next week I'm entering into the "speed phase" of training but I have been doing speedwork once a week for each discipline since January, so I'm not too worried about increasing the intensity of my workouts.

Speedwork might seem like a foolish endeavor in Ironman training but, as I believe I've written before, challenging the body at lactate threshold levels is a great way to increase your fitness- it's also a good way to bring on an injury, so it must be done carefully.  I try not to do too much reading about training because there are so many contradictory opinions that my heads can spin quickly, but I recently read, from a trusted source, that only about 20 minutes per week in each event should be spent near or above the lactate threshold level; this helped me to realize that I don't have to "sprint" for 12 miles but instead to a nice long warm up, do the speedwork, then do a nice long cool down.  The speedwork should be distinct, intense, and short-lasting.  Another way to increase fitness is simply by doing long, slow distances but the time it takes to increase fitness this way takes forever- carefully done speedwork is the way to go.  Hopefully all of the speed work will allow me to average around 20mph on the bike and a 9 minute pace on the run during the Ironman.

In fundraising notes, I wrote a little about this last week but will elaborate: News 10 NBC came out to school last week and filmed me teaching, followed a few of my students around the lunchroom as they sold bracelets and then interview them, interviewed me and then Aunt Ginny, and finally followed me outside to film me cycling and running.  It was a fun experience and I look forward to seeing what makes it on the news compared to how much they filmed.  They will also re-air the story (with updates) during the Jerry Lewis Telethon on Labor Day.  Hopefully it will get the word out to help with donations (which are coming along nicely- thank you, all!).

People always ask me how I have time to do all of the training and I answer that I get up early on many mornings to get the workouts in but this is obviously not the whole story.  Jen really is shouldering a lot of the family load (as she always does) to allow me the luxury of going on three-hour bike rides followed by 4-mile runs (next week- eventually I'll do a few 6-hour rides followed by 45-minute runs). Thanks to my lovely wife!

Next Friday is the ALS Gala at the Fingerlakes Racetrack (for horses).  I'm looking forward to getting all dressed up and hanging out at a posh event.