Week 12 Update

I've had some highs and lows this week. The highlight is in purple. :-)

Thursday--
Bike: 01:10:00, 17.36 miles
Trainer ride in front of a spinning video. The hot room combined with the Tuscson scenery, I really felt like I was in Arizona. Okay, maybe not, but it was better than riding in the upper 90 degree sun and rush hour traffic. Yeah, I'm a wimp.

Swim: skipped it. The bike felt really good...and then I was toasted.

Friday--
Swim: 00:31:11, 1400 meters
I felt like I was drowning. And the water walkers and pre-teens were putting me in a bad mood. I had to change lanes twice because, despite the open lanes, people insisted on getting into mine. WTF? I was getting ready to flip turn off a 12 year old's abdomen and instead decided to go for my run.

Run: 01:01:09, 4.79 miles
I both felt and looked like I was drowning. Yes, while running. On dry land. It was that bad.

Saturday--
Bike: 03:53:00, 59.41 miles
My friend Bill took me out on a ride in his neck of the woods on the west side. We started in Beaverton at the Scholls Ferry/Murray intersection, rode out to Hagg Lake, went around the lake, and then back to Beaverton. Lots of hills. Bill likes hills. I do not. Bill is good at hills. I am not. BUT...this was a really fun ride. He actually rode with me, instead of saying he'll ride with me yet riding ahead the whole time. I have like only 3 friends that I can count on for that. I don't think anyone pushes the pace intentionally, but it's nice when someone makes a conscious effort to keep things mellow. Hills + my pace = enjoyable time. That doesn't happen very often. We ended up with 4500+ feet of climbing and a successful tackle of my steepest hill ever (18+% grade). Yeah! My only regret is not bringing a camera.

Run: 00:05:31, 0.46 miles
I did a "quick" transition of 3 minutes, which consisted of throwing the bike in the car, throwing on running shoes, running into the Starbucks bathroom, and ignoring funny looks from people in the parking lot. I only had 15 minutes of running on the schedule, but with the dead quads and the sun coming out in full force, I couldn't do it. In hindsight I know that I quit too easily. Ironman training is SUPPOSED to be hard. Time to get it together.

Week 12 Stats

UPDATE: I stepped on the scale this afternoon...still at 170. I think I had some expectation that as soon as I started Ironman training that I would magically become a thin, fast athlete. Reality check time.

Okay, so I have a little edge this week due to the intestinal purge fest. But you don't lose inches off your thighs from that, so I'm still claiming victory over the tape measure. I have no idea what I weigh b/c I haven't been to the gym since Friday. I'll update that later. The measurements are compared to 2 weeks ago since I didn't measure last week.

Stomach: -0.5" / -2.5" total
Hips: -0.5" / -2" total
Thigh: -0.25" / -0.75" total
Bicep: no change / -0.5" total

Week 12 Plan

This week is just going to be sucky for volume. Monday was a scheduled rest day. I really needed it (more mentally than physically), so I took it. Tuesday and Wednesday were a no-go due to the following.

Shortly after graduating college, my Grandmother was diagnosed with colo-rectal cancer. She was in her early 70s, so it wasn't crazily unusual. She had a surgical resection, underwent chemo, and made a full recovery. Shortly after that, my Mother was also diagnosed with colo-rectal cancer. She was only in her early 40s. She received chemo treatment, underwent radiation, and then a surgical resection. She also had to have a temporary iliostomy bag and then surgery to have that reversed. Colo-rectal cancer can be hereditary and more prevalent in women. Was I scared? Um, yeah. On the advice of her doctors and my OBGYN, I am beginning screening at the young age of 30 years old. They screen you by performing a colonoscopy. Basically, sticking a long probe with a camera on the end up your heiny. While you're knocked out, thankfully. The sucky part is the prep -- 2 days of not eating combined with a 3-laxative cocktail. As I'm finding out, the day after the procedure is no fun either, as my stomach and innards are decidedly not happy with me or what I've put them through. This is a long story to get to the point -- Tue and Wed were shot as far as training goes. Today is going to be wimpy too.

The good news is that I'm clear and don't have to go through that suckage for another 5 years. Here's my little plug for cancer screening though... If you have a history of colon cancer, go get tested. Go to your dermatologist for regular skin cancer screening. If you're a woman, make sure you get your regular paps. If you're over the recommended age or have a family history, make sure you are getting your mammograms. If you're a dude, make sure you're getting your prostate checked when you should. Everyone, do your self-exams. Seriously. Some (okay, most) of these tests are uncomfortable, embarassing, and sometimes demoralizing. So what. Get it done.

Oh right, this post was supposed to be about my Week 12 Plan. Okay, here it is:
Mon - rest
Tue - sit on toilet
Wed - tube up heiny
Thu - ride 1:00, swim 1:00
Fri - swim 1:00, run 1:00
Sat - ride 2:30, quick transition, run 0:15
Sun - ride 0:20, run 1:00
TOTAL - whatever I can get in...

Week 11 Totals

I'm late on the updates again. Week 11 was a so-so week. I did pretty good considering I had my Mom in town, my wedding shower, and then more family in town. Here are the totals:

Swim = 5650 meters
Bike = 74.94 miles
Run = 9.01 miles
Strength = 0 (bad, bad Sarah)
Transitions = 0.13 hours
Walking = 1.08 hours
TOTAL = 9.96 hours

Week 11 Photo

Better late than never. No measurements this week though...I've been too busy training. And eating cookies. I'm back up to 170 pounds. Sigh...

Plan Specifics

UPDATE: The creep is behind bars. Yay for the justice system doing what it's supposed to do.

Ken asked that I take the specifics of my workout times/locations off the blog temporarily. Many of you know why, and I probably shouldn't go into details on here, but he's worried about my safety until some things are settled through the court system. If you want to train with me, just give me a holler and I'll let you know when and where I'll be. Thanks again to you awesome people helping me one day at a time to get to IMAZ!

The "Base Phase" is over. I don't necessarily feel like I've laid much of a base, but it is what it is. Can't turn back the clock. I've always wanted a time machine, but that's not really relevant here. Tomorrow starts the 10-week "Build Phase". As previously discussed, I'm only looking ahead one week. Here is the plan for Week 11. I am now including approximate time of day for each workout for anyone who is wanting to join me for something. You are all angels, by the way.

Monday: rest

Tuesday:
Run, morning - 1:00 Z2 (at 0:10, insert 5 x 1min PU @ 1min jog)
Swim, evening - masters swim (plan calls for 3000 meters)

Wednesday:
Bike, morning - 0:45 Z2
Run, morning - quick transition from the bike, 0:30 Z2

Thursday:
Swim, before work - 3000 meters
Bike - VBC Time Trial at Port of Vancouver (sign-in at 6pm, riders off at 6:30pm)

Friday: I have no idea how to get this in...my Mom is in town and we have a couple of appointments after I get off work...
Swim - 3000 meters
Run - 1:00 Z2 (at 0:45, insert 5 x 1min PU @ 1min jog)

Saturday:
Bike, early morning - 2:30 Z2 (probably to Troutdale and back)
Run, early morning - quick transition from bike, 0:15 Z2

Sunday:
Bike, early morning - 0:30 Z1 (100+ rpm)
Run, early morning - 1:15 Z1-Z2

Total = 12:00 hours (3hr swim, 5hr bike, 4hr run)

Week 10 Review

The weeks are starting to scream by. I'm already feeling like I'm gripping the sides of my chair and just holding on for dear life as the wind peels my eyelids wide open and my hair is whipping straight behind me. And I'm not even nailing my plan as it is. Moving along...

Monday: rested

Tuesday:
*Swam 1500 meters -- did flip turns during the main set. That was pure comedy.
*Ran 5.23 miles -- it was really hot and I got the Fred Meyer Garden Center dude to hose me down. He looked really scared of me and he got my ass instead of my back. It was a cooler run back home though.

Wednesday:
*Biked 12.72 miles -- on the trainer in spin class. This was supposed to be a brick, but I had to get to work. And had I not been a dumbass and screwed up the alarm clock, I would have met Jenn at the predetermined time for a ride around Lacamas Lake followed by a run. She forgave me. :-)

Thursday:
*Ran 2.38 miles -- hilly and hot. This was the rest of my brick from Wednesday...let's just call it a 24hr transition time. Didn't get my bike in b/c I waited too long and then it got hot and then I fell asleep. I did, however, do about 4 hours of yardwork. When I have done a lot of weeding or lifting, I log half of it as "sports" activity. So I'm counting 2 hours.

Friday:
*Ran 2.42 miles -- nothing exciting here.
*Biked 18.70 miles -- FUN WORKOUT! I have decided that at least 1x/month I am going to do a fun workout with no goals, time requirements, pace expectations, etc. So Jenn and I met up for a ride to River Maden coffee shop in Vancouver. We sipped iced coffees and suntanned for an hour or so and then rode back to Camas. No HR monitors, watches, or bike computers. Well, we didn't look at them. It was fabulous.

Saturday:
*Biked 40.03 miles -- another fun workout (got to ride with Jon and Nadine!), but I did have a time requirement of 3 hours. Didn't quite make it, but it was a hilly route and it was, after all, the 4th of July. I didn't sweat the 20 minutes that didn't happen and went on to celebrate with the rest of the country.

Sunday: No run. :-( But I did get another 5 hours of yucky, laborious yardwork in. Logging 2.5 hours.

Total = 7.49 hours
Total w/ other (weeding, transitions, etc.) = 11.99 hours

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

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!

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.

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:

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. :-)

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.

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.

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:

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!