Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Week 9 Stats

First, the training:
Swim - 5000 meters (good)
Bike - 62.73 miles (okay, but I can do much much better)
Run - 4.9 miles (downright pathetic)
Strength - 1.17 hours (good)
TOTAL = 8.42 hours (short by about an hour...decent)

Second, the measurements:
Weight: 169lb / +0.5lb / -3lb total
Stomach: no change / -2" total
Hips: no change / -1.5" total
Thigh: +0.25" / -0.5" total
Bicep: no change / -0.5" total

And finally, the weekly photo:And, just because I'm feeling a little bummed about lack of weight loss, here is a photo from a few years ago. Tipping the scales at somewhere north of 210 pounds... (This is a post-kayaking photo for those wondering what the heck I'm wearing.)

Week 10 Plan

It's the last week of the base phase. That scares me a lot.

Mon: rest
Tue: swim 60min, run 60min
Wed: bike 45min, quick transition, run 30min
Thu: swim 60min, bike 1hr15min
Fri: run 60min
Sat: bike 3hr
Sun: run 1hr30min
Total = 11 hours

Monday, June 29, 2009

Week 9 In Review

It was a mostly mellow week. I trained, ate, went to work, trained, ate, slept, and repeated a whole bunch. However, this weekend we were in Eugene for a wedding, so the training got derailed a little and I went on a meat-eating binge. The last post caught us up through Wed; here is the rest of the week:

Thursday--
Swim: 12:00pm, 00:43:19, 1500 meters
300m WU
4 x 50m DR (100 wall pushups after each 25m = 80 pushups)
8 x 25m @ 10sec rest
1 x 400m @ 60sec rest
8 x 25m @ 10sec rest
2 X 50m DR
100m CD

Bike1: 5:45pm, 00:45:58, 10.20 miles
To and from the time trial.

Bike2: 6:30pm, 00:29:40, 10 miles
Really gusty and mean. 20.22mph average.

Friday--
Swim: 5:20am, 00:31:13, 1500 meters
Straight through. 02:05/100m pace. Suckage.

Run: didn't happen

Saturday--
Bike: 7:15am, 01:50:05, 31.23 miles
Julie woke up butt-crack early (for a Saturday) to ride with me. Vancouver lake was gusty and mean again. There was lots of whining, and thankfully, lots of laughing. Eventually she got me through the ride. Why so much suckage this week?

Sunday--
Run: 7:30am, 00:43:25, 3.6 miles
This was supposed to me a 01:15 run. Here is my post from my other training log. I didn't get the full time in for obvious reasons:
We were in Eugene for the weekend for Ken's niece's wedding. We stayed at a little B&B outside of town and I asked our hostess where I should go for a run in the morning b/c the roads had lots of blind corners with no shoulder. She clued me in to a 1.5mi private paved road just down the street, but warned me that it was a little hilly. As I set out this morning I thought, "wow that's a pretty steep hill". I got to what I thought was the top, but it was just a corner and the hill kept going. I started doing run/walk intervals. The hill kept going...and going...and going... I finally got towards the end of the road (the actual top of the hill), but there were two big dogs there so I turned around a tad early.
The way down was really fast, but I had this nagging sense that something was watching me. Then I thought I heard a rustling in the woods, so I stopped. The noise stopped. So I started running again and I heard it again. Then I felt like I was being stalked and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Something was definitely not okay. I booked it back to the main road and decided to just finish up with hill repeats at the B&B driveway.
At breakfast, the hostess asked how my run was and I told her that 1) she is in incredible shape if she thinks that road is just sorta hilly, 2) the big dogs scared me away from making it to the top, and 3) those woods are freaky. Turns out there are an unusually large number of cougars in that area, as well as several bears with new cubs. Shite!

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Mid-Week Musings

This week is already off to a better start than the last couple. I'm getting my workouts in, I have more energy, and I'm looking forward to the build phase coming up. Well, I was, until I was soaking my sore muscles in the tub while reading ahead in my training plan. Yikes! A minute later I flipped ahead in the book and found this sage piece of advice -- "follow your plan one day at a time." I'll try and remember that.

A preview of what is just around the corner: a third swim each week (all of which bump up to 3000m/swim), a second brick workout (on Saturdays after the long ride), another bike (on Sundays before the long run), all of the volumes increase, and I start adding in Z4 threshold work. This, of course, all ramps up at a reasonable pace and follows the rules of adaptation and periodization. Although no-less intimidating.

But back to the present. My week so far:

Monday--
Strength: 4:50pm, 01:00:00
Monday was a rest day, but I was feeling sluggish and lazy after a couple of low-volume weeks, so I decided to do an easy lifting session. I was 15 minutes into what I was planning on being a 20 minute workout, when Casey (an instructor at the gym and also doing our wedding cake) stopped by to say hello. She then talked me into taking her "Blast" class -- basically a 45 minute full-body strength session. It was great, but I am quite sore.

Tuesday--
Swim: 6:00am, 00:53:00, 2000 meters
300m WU
4 x 50 DR (modified from 8 x 50m DR)
1 x 300m @ 40sec rest
3 x 200m @ 30sec rest
1 x 300m @ 40sec rest
2 x 50m DR (modified from 8 x 50m DR)
200m CD

Jon came and swam with me. Even though we swim different paces, it was nice to have someone to chat with during the rests. And he helped me through the last couple of sets. Go Team Cacti!

Run: 5:00pm, 00:58:26, 4.80 miles
Meh. It was hot and I did a semi-hilly route. 12:10 pace. I can do better than that.

Wednesday--
Bike: 6:00pm, 00:45:00, 11.30 miles
Trainer ride so that I could finish watching "Slumdog Millionaire".

Transition: 5 minutes

Run: 6:50pm, 00:15:20, 1.30 miles

Quick transition run. Ken came with, which was fun.

Monday, June 22, 2009

The Embarassing Public Photo and Measurements

Okay, another week down. I know I keep saying it, but I REALLY need to get going on the weight loss. Why is it so hard this time? I refuse to gain weight back in the next off-season because it is sooooo difficult to work back off. Anyway, here's what I got this week...

Weight: 168.5 lb / -0.5 lb / -3.5 lb total
Stomach: -0.75" / -2" total (okay, this is awesome even if the photos and scale mock me)
Hips: no change / -1.5" total
Thigh: -0.25" / -0.75" total
Bicep: no change / -0.5" total

The photo:

Sunday, June 21, 2009

End of Week 8

The last 2 weeks have been pretty low volume. Time to turn this ship around! Although, I am trying to train "smart" this year and listen to my body instead of having too many illnesses and injuries to count on both hands. 2009 = Happy and Healthy!

Week 8 recap:
Mon - rest
Tue - swam 1500m, ran 2.4mi, yardwork (it counts!)
Wed - unscheduled rest day
Thu - lifted (ouch!), unscheduled rest day otherwise
Fri - ran 3.55mi
Sat - rode 16.2mi
Sun - ran 4.76mi
TOTAL TIME = 5.08 hours

Week 9 plan:
Mon - rest
Tue - swim 60min, run 60min
Wed - bike 45min, run 15min
Thu - swim 60min, bike 1hr
Fri - run 1hr
Sat - bike 2hr45min
Sun - run 1hr15min

Two more weeks until I head into the Build Phase. Eek!!!! My base fitness isn't ideal, but I knew that it wouldn't be this year. That's what happens when you get the Ironman bug right away. I'm in year 3 of triathlon...and only about a year since being in the "obese" category. Hopefully I'll be doing triathlons, specifically ironmans, years and years from now and will only get better with age. :-)

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Week 8 Plan

Monday - Rest Day
Tuesday - Swim 2500m, Run 1:00 Z2
Wednesday - Bike 0:45 Z2, quick transition, Run, 0:15 Z2
Thursday - Swim 2500m, Bike 1:00 Z1 100+ rpm
Friday - Run 1:00 Z2
Saturday - Bike 2:00 Z2
Sunday - Run 1:00 Z1-Z2

Monday I rested. Tuesday I swam 1500m and did a 30+ minute run/walk with Ken. Today my body hates me and I'll probably take another rest day. I got my monthly blood work back (I'm on accutane and have to get regular liver function tests) and my enzymes are sky high. I'm also anemic again. And I have now developed a dual eye infection. Caused from the murky manky water of Blue Lake no doubt. I feel like crapzilla and think more will be accomplished by drinking hot tea and knitting than would be by pounding myself down further.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

End of Week 7 Stats

Decent week, but I was shooting for about 1.5 hours more than what I got. Even with a taper for Sunday, here is what I logged:

Swim - 1.47 hours
Bike - 2.81 hours
Run - 2.96 hours
Other - 0.12 hours
TOTAL = 7.36 hours

The update photo:Weight: -1 lb / -3 lb total
Stomach: -0.5" / -1.25" total
Hips: no change / 1.5" total
Thigh: -0.25" / -0.5" total
Bicep: no change / -0.5" total

Race Report: Blue Lake Olympic Triathlon

This race wasn't on my official IMAZ training plan, but the Blue Lake Triathlons in June (sprint on Saturday, olympic on Sunday) sort of kick off the main triathlon season for the region. I had also made a bet with our friend Dave: the winner gets to design a t-shirt that the loser must wear to the annual kayaking film festival in the fall, as well as 3 other kayaking events. He was pretty sure he was going to smoke me; I was pretty sure I was going to cream him. It was on!
My [accurate] pre-race prediction:

RACE DATE: 6/14/2009
DISTANCES: 1500 meter swim, 24.85 mile bike, 6.2 mile run

WARM-UP: None. We got there so dang early and then suddenly I was out of time. So I just did some shit-talking with Dave and filed into the water.

SWIM: time = 00:33:04, pace = 2:12/100m
Wow, this sucked for me. I haven't been spending much time in the pool lately and it showed. To make matters worse, I ended up in a "dead-zone" all by myself with no-one to draft off of and I couldn't swim in a straight line to save my life. To add insult to injury, there was a breast-stroker next to me the entire time that insisted on kicking me in the ribs every 100m or so. Point taken...I need to get my ass in the water on a more frequent basis.

Me coming out of the water thinking "more pool time needed, more pool time needed, ..."

T1: time = 03:00
It felt faster than 3 minutes. My wetsuit got hung up on my feet, but other than that it was smooth. I think my weakest point in transitions is simply the slow running through them. Our cheering crew for the day clocked the time difference between Dave and I coming out of the water -- he was ahead of me by over 6 minutes! Yikes!

BIKE: time = 01:13:42, pace = 20.23 mph
My "plan" was to hammer on the bike and try to make up as much lost ground as possible. I figure that on a good day I could get close to 19mph and Dave could maybe do 18.5. That would put me only a couple of minutes behind heading into T2 and then I could try and catch him on the run. Imagine my suprise when I was passing people at mile 8 and looked to my right and there he was! Yeah! I stuck out my tongue, slapped my ass, and left him in my dust. :-)

Me getting close to being done with my favorite part of the day:

I knew I wouldn't be seeing him again, so now my new goal was to try and finish under 03:05:00. I settled into a comfortable, maintainable pace and cruised on in to T2. The bike leg felt REALLY good. I attribute that to all of the long Saturday rides with Jenn and the Thursday time trials at Vancouver Lake. And that I'm totally in love with my bike.

T2: time = 02:14
Meh, not bad.

This is Dave and I at approximately the same time in the race.

RUN: time = 01:10:09, pace = 11:18 min/mile
If you follow my blog at all, then you know that the run is my hardest of the three legs. Hee hee, hardest of the three legs. Get it? But I digress. I've been making a considerable effort to bring up the weekly miles, while trying to build my aerobic base. I'm making progress, but not fast enough to have a "wow" time at this race. I'm happy with it.

As I got closer to the finish line I knew that I would beat 03:05:00 no problem, so I started shooting for under 3 hours. I probably could have done it if I had turned up the speed a tad earlier. But now I have something to shoot for next time.

Me crossing the finish line and all goofy-looking because I was happy to see Ken standing there.

Cool down:
Hugged Ken, did a happy dance, and then pretty much took a nap waiting for Dave to come through. :-)

Congratulating Dave as he finished it up.

Seriously though, he did awesome considering his stellar training plan of drinking beer with the boys most nights of the week. I want a rematch after he trains a bit, but I don't think he wants any of that. Now I get to design an awesome piece of fashion for him to sport in the company of hundreds of his closest friends.

Terri, Nadine, and I after the race.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Into the Weekend

I decided to do a mini-taper this week. Here is a recap of my week as I head into the weekend (racing in my first OWS tri of the season: Blue Lake Olympic). After today, I'll be at around 4.7 hours for the week. If I have around a 3-hr race tomorrow I'll be close to my week goal of 9 hours. Woohoo.
Monday--
Rest Day

Tuesday--
Swim: 12:15pm, 00:25:17, 1200 meters
Straight through swim.

Run: 5:20pm, 00:43:23, 3.63 miles
Bleh. I'm slow again.

Wednesday--
Bike: 6:15pm, 00:45:00, 11.20 miles
On the drainer...

Run: 7:00pm, 00:16:09, 1.36 miles
Quick (as in short) brick run.

Thursday--
Swim: 11:50am, 00:28:57, 1250 meters
4 x 300m @ 60sec rest
1st 300m = 06:04 (2:01 pace)
2nd 300m = 06:02 (2:01 pace)
3rd 300m = 06:06 (2:02 pace)
4th 300m = 05:55 (1:58 pace)
50m CD

Bike: 6:00pm, 00:40:00, 9.72 miles
At 15min, inserted 5 x 1min sprints @ 1min easy spin.

Friday--
Run: 6:30pm, 00:37:43, 3.25 miles
At 15min, inserted 4 x 1min sprints @ 1min easy recovery jog.

Today--
The plan is a 30min bike check ride, 15min run. But I'm currently drinking a beer, so it will have to wait until later today...

Tomorrow--
RACE DAY!

Blue Lake Weekend

Triathlon Season. It's here! Week 7 of base training wraps up with the local fun at Blue Lake in Fairview, OR. Today was the sprint distance. I think I found a new favorite sport -- spectating. It's hard work though! A handful of kayakers, including my fiance, lined up at the start today. All of them finished smiling [mostly], so it was a successful day. Here are some snapshots:
Ken getting bodymarked:

Ken coming out of the water (gold cap, goggles on forehead, right of center):

Neal coming off the bike into T2:Sarah (Neal's girlyfriend), Neal, and Ken after the finish line:

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Week 7

I have a slight scheduling conundrum this week. I'm heading into week 7 of base training, but I have an olympic-distance race on Sunday that isn't built into the plan. So -- to taper or not to taper? This is definitely a "C" race for me...BUT...I'm racing against someone for bragging rights. My friend, Dave aka Dingo aka SA Dave aka Disco Dave aka JackHole (he's a man of many names), and I have a little competition going on. The winner gets to design a t-shirt that the loser must wear to several social events. He'll put me in something horrendous I'm sure. That, and I'll never hear the end of it if he beats me since I'm in IM training and he's basically coming off the couch to do this.

So...train through the race or do a mini-taper of sorts?

The plan:
Monday -- rest day
Tuesday -- swim 2500m, run 1:00 Z2
Wednesday -- bike 0:45, quick transition to run 0:15 Z2
Thursday -- swim 2500m, bike 1:00 100+ rpm
Friday -- run 1:15 Z2
Saturday -- Bike 2:30 Z2
Sunday - run 1:15 Z2

Potential modification:
Monday thru Wednesday -- same as planned
Thursday -- swim 1:00, bike 0:30
Friday -- run 0:30
Saturday -- bike 1:00 easy w/ some short sprint intervals
Sunday -- race

Open to suggestions!

End of Week 6 Stats

Mid-week I was down a couple of pounds due to the flu, but with a little help from some chocolate chip cookies and IPA, it all came back. :-( I ended up at the same weight as last week, but I lost some inches. In about 2 months I go back for body fat testing to see how I'm doing keeping/gaining muscle versus losing fat. I'm probably doing okay ratio-wise, but I really need to get going on the weight loss. Yeah, it would be nice to be a little thinner for the wedding dress...but it would be GREAT to have a smaller ass to haul around for 140.6 miles in November!

Here's the update photo:
Weight: no change / -2 lb total
Stomach: -0.25" / -1.25" total
Hips: -0.5" / -1.5" total
Thigh: no change / -0.25" total
Bicep: -0.25" / -0.5" total

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Another Week Bites the Dust

Only 24 weeks left until the Big Day. *GULP* Yes, that may seem far off in the distance, but it's going to come up fast. However, I'm finally feeling like "yeah, I can do this thing".

I had a breakthrough in my running today! It's very easily my least favorite of the three disciplines. I'm not good at running, my body isn't built very well for it, and I have a difficult time making any speed gains. But today was great! Most of my runs since training started have been in the 12-13 min/mile pace. Partly because I'm trying to keep my HR in zone 2, but also partly because I just couldn't go much faster. Today I left the HRM at home and went on perceived exertion. And I finished a 6-mile run at around a 10:30 pace! Woohoo!

Swim: 10:00am, 00:17:00, 800 meters
OWS at Klineline. Time and distance are estimates. There was also a fair time (not logged) spent playing around in the water. I love being in the water with no training purpose. I could do handstands, flips, teaparties, etc. all day long.

Run: 11:00am, 01:03:49, 6.00 miles
Yeah!

A "Shorter" Saturday Ride

After a week of some stomach yuckiness, I decided to ride a bit easier on Saturday. So we opted for a flatter route (from Camas to Vancouver Lake to about 5 miles past Frenchman's Bar and then back to Camas) and I decided to keep it at 50 miles or less. I love it that 50 miles is now considered a "shorter ride". Yay for Ironman training. :-) As usual, Jenn was fabulous company and made the time fly by. She continued on to get her 5.5 hours in for the day -- in 2 weeks she'll be doing the Livestrong Century Ride in Seattle, WA. If you are interested, here is her donation page: http://seattle09.livestrong.org/jenn

Bike: 7:45am, 02:58:54, 46.19 miles

Friday, June 5, 2009

Rounding the Corner on Week 6

Whew, what a week! It started out pretty great with a rest day, and then a mellow swim/run on Tuesday. By Tuesday night I wasn't feeling so hot, on Wednesday I puked during and after my brick workout. Thursday my only workout was keeping water down and fighting the icky stomach bugs out of my system. Today I'm on the mend and managed a swim and run.

The plan for the week is for 9 hours. I lost about 30min of running and 60min of biking due to the flu (and about 30min of swimming just because I'm a lazyass). Heading into the weekend I'm at 5.4 hours. If all goes well, I'll be pretty close to my 9-hour goal. I'm just hoping that my energy holds out through the weekend...I'm planning a 40-60 mile ride on Saturday. On tap for Sunday is OWS in Klineline and 6 mile run.

The week in review so far:

Tuesday--
Swim: 12:30pm, 00:38:14, 1600m
400m WU
2 x 25m DR
6 x 100m @ 20sec rest
4 x 25m DR
200m CD

Run: 6:45pm, 00:46:34, 3.63 miles
Slow, but steady. Kept my HR down. I had 2 strange people encounters on this run. The first was finding a 3 year old playing near a busy street with absolutely no adult around. I found the girl's house, knocked on the door, and gave an earful to a non-English speaking lady. Then carried on with my run. About a mile later a portly old fellow was crossing the street and yelling at me. I took my earphones out and this is what I heard, "Master! Master, go faster! MASTER!! Pony up!" WTF???!!!??? Faster I did go. Finished the workout without incident. But I came back a different route...

Wednesday--
I met my friend Bill for a brick workout in Beaverton. Despite not feeling well the night before and not really able to keep much down all day, I stupidly decided to still train. Ugh. It was close to 90°, high humidity, and hilly. (Ahem, Bill, that is NOT a flat ride!) But I haven't seen him in awhile and was looking forward to new scenery and a new training buddy.

Bike: 5:30pm, 00:59:30, 15.38 miles
Got to about the 7.5 mile mark, felt like I was going to puke, spent the next few minutes off the bike burping and urping and coughing up half-digested shot bloks. Mmmm... We turned around instead of finishing the planned loop of 30 miles.

Run: 6:35pm, 00:23:13, 1.47 miles
This is the run that Bill and I agreed to never speak of again.

Thursday--
16 hours of couch sitting and napping.

Friday--
Swim: 12:10pm, 00:39:14, 1700m

300m WU
4 x 50m DR
3 x 125m @ 20sec rest
2 x 175m @ 30sec rest
3 x 125m @ 20sec rest
100m CD

Run: 6:20pm, 00:46:06, 3.63 miles
My legs felt great and I made it all the way to mile 3 before I got that "oh dang, I might crap my cute little running capris" feeling. Coming off the flu, this was awesome. I'm still slow.

On the upside, it was the perfect evening for a run (or a slog, whatever). A light rain was coming down. But it was a warm, summery rain. The kind where you can smell the electricity in the air, the wet ferns, fresh herbs like rosemary and lavender, and the blooming roses. I worked on enjoying myself and keeping my HR in zone 2 without walking. I accomplished that. :-)

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Sayonara Week 5

I wrapped up Week 5 with a total of 11.60 hours versus a plan of 8 hours. I was a tad short on my swims and runs, but made up for it with some bigger volume biking. I love the bike, but obviously need to work on the other two. I think that I can get the swim back with minimal effort. My running skillz, however, are plain ol' fugly ugly.

Here's me heading into Week 6. I see very little improvement in these photos, but it's a long journey so I will just work harder and try to be patient. Oh, and don't ask why I'm standing on a 15° tilt in this photo. I've got some major hay fever and had just thrown a mini temper tantrum about not wanting to go on a run (I ended up getting the run done).

Weight: -1.5 lb / -2 lb total
Stomach: -0.5" / -1" total
Hips: -0.5" / -1" total
Thigh: +0.25" / -0.25" total
Bicep: no change / -0.25" total