Almost Half Way

One more day until the half way point! It's been an interesting week. I don't know if it's the IM training or something else that has turned me into thisand. I took an unplanned rest day and cut a few workouts short to fend off an impending throat infection. I am very convinced that I turned my recovery time into 1-2 days instead of the usual 1-2 weeks. So while the overall volume isn't super fabulous this week, I did get in some quality workouts and managed most of my interval workouts.

It turns out all I really needed to turn my attitude around was another awesome Saturday morning ride with Jenn. Here is me after my 3hr bike/30min run brick this morning.

I'm at 7.54 hours for the week with 1 short bike and 1 long run left to go. And then I get a massage! Yes!

I've Posted 14 of These?

This week you get the update photo with me in a swimsuit. It was too dang hot to change into a sports bra and trishorts, and I was on my way to Masters swimming anyway. Which sucked. I'm looking for a new Masters group, but that's not really relevant to this post. I lost inches in some places and gained in others. I also gained 0.5 lb. I would like to blame it on the heat, but I'm not convinced.

Weight: 170.5 lb
Stomach: -0.25" / -3" total
Hips: +0.25" / -2" total
Thigh: no change / -0.75" total
Bicep: no change / -0.5" total

Front and Side (if you look closely, you can see the lovely thigh bruise from side-flopping off the bridge in Whtie Salmon):

Week 14 Plan

Wow, we're 1 week away from the half-way point. Does anyone ever feel ready for their first Ironman? When is that supposed to happen?

My plan for the week:

Monday -- rest day

Tuesday --
Run: 5:45am, track, 1:00 Z2 (at 10min, insert 2 x 4min Z4 @ 1.5min jog)
Swim: 7pm, pool, Masters

Wednesday --
Bike: 5:30am, around the lake, 0:45 Z2
Run (brick): right after the bike, 0:30 Z2

Thursday --
Bike: 5:20am, either on the trainer or ???, 1:00 Z2 (at 15min, insert 3 x 5min Z4 @ 3min spin)
Swim: 7pm, pool, Masters

Friday --
Run: 5:30am, from the gym, 1:00 Z2 (at 0:45, insert 7.5min Z4)
Swim: lunch???, pool, 3000m or whatever the heck I can fit in

Saturday --
Bike: 6am, Crown Point, 3:30 Z2 (at 3:20, insert 5min Z4)
Run (brick): right after the bike, 0:30 Z2

Sunday --
Bike: 7am, trainer or from the house, 0:30 Z1 (100+ rpm)
Run: 8am, wherever, 1:15 Z1-Z2

TOTAL = 13:00

Week 13 Wrap-Up

It's my rest day and I refuse to get up off the couch to take an update photo or measurements, so that will have to wait until tomorrow. I had a great training week and pretty much nailed everything that I set out to do, even if it meant sprint intervals in mid-90° afternoon temps, pushing through near-bonk on another hilly ride, and swimming until I couldn't pull myself out of the pool anymore. All of this Z4 work is kicking my butt. In a good way I hope.

Swim = 8000 meters
Bike = 91.48 miles
Run = 14.91 miles
Plus some other crap like transitions.
TOTAL = 12.25 hours

One More Day

...until a rest day. It can't come soon enough. I am tired. A few weeks ago I thought I was tired, but that doesn't even compare. I imagine that in a few weeks I'll be saying the same thing about how I feel right now. Fatigue is just a component of IM training, but I know that I have made some mistakes this week and can manage a few things better.

1) Nutrition. This is huge and I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. Too many carbs or not enough? Not enough protein or just taking it at the wrong time? How many calories? And for which days? How is my electrolyte balance? Am I taking in the proper recovery food? I plan on taking some time in the next week to do more research and maybe bounce some ideas off my more nutritionally-intelligent friends. I don't have much time left to get it right.

2) Hydration. Clearly I did not drink enough fluids this week.

3) Sleep. With long work hours, long training hours, and a busy social schedule, there just isn't enough time in the day to do it all. Those of you with families...bravo. I'm amazed. For me, more prioritizing and better scheduling is in order. I'm also thinking about working with the next level down for my training plan. I would gain back about 2hr/week. I'll try other things first though. Like maybe less Facebooking. :-)

Anyway, one more day of training left in this week. I'm at almost 11.5 hours of training so far, including 8000m of swimming and 90+ miles of riding. Here's me after my 60+ miler with Bill this morning, drinking a hard-earned iced nonfat latte (after frantically downing a choc milk as my sugar levels were plummeting...more on that in another post).

Week 13 Plan

Three weeks into the build phase. This week I'M GOING TO NAIL MY WORKOUTS. End of story.

Mon: Rest Day

Tues:
Run, 5:45am @ track - 0:45 Z2 (at 0:10, insert 3 x 3min Z4 @ 1min jog)
Swim, 7pm - Masters (60min)

Wed:
Bike, early morning near the gym - 0:45 Z2
Run, brick after the bike - 0:15 Z2

Thu:
Bike, early morning on the trainer - 1:00 Z2 (at 0:15, insert 2 x 5min Z4 @ 3min spin)
Swim, 7pm - Masters (60min)

Fri:
Run, 5:30am near the gym - 1:00 Z2 (at 0:45, insert 5min Z4)
Swim1, 6:45am - 0:30
Swim2, lunchtime - 0:30

Sat:
Bike, early morning @ Crown Point or west side w/ Bill - 3:00 Z2 (at 2:50, insert 5min Z4)
Run, brick after the bike - 0:30 Z2

Sun:
Bike, early morning to Van Lake and back - 0:30 Z1 (100+ rpm)
Run, midday @ Trout Lake - 1:15 Z1-Z2

TOTAL = 12:00

What has happened so far...
Monday - I swam 1400m in the morning instead of resting. Active recovery day.

Tuesday -
Run: I slept in and had to do the run right after work. I called Ken hoping that he would say something like "it's okay honey, why don't we sit in front of the A/C and order Chinese", but instead I got "HTFU and go get your ass out running"...I think he's been listening to me ramble about Beginner Triathlete postings too much. Zone 4 intervals combined with 93° made for a really difficult afternoon. I got the buzzy head, about-to-pass-out feeling, but I was able to walk for a bit and get through it. Slow 12 min/mile pace, but I got it done.
Swim: After the run we hopped in the car and drove to the gym for a refreshing dip with the masters group. Refreshing is of course relative. It was a hard workout, but I would have done it 4 more times to avoid intervals in the heat again.
WU - 200m swim, 50m kick, 200m pull
Main set x3 - 50m DR/50m swim/50m kick/50m swim, 30 sec rest; 50m easy/100m hard/50 m easy, 30sec rest; 200m build, 30sec rest
CD - 150m
TOTAL - 2400 meters

Week 12 Wrap-Up

I finished up the week with my Sunday workouts -- 6.3 mile run with Jenn (awesome, and even an 11:40 pace with plenty of walking so that I could gab) and a 30min Z2 trainer ride. Even with 3 rest days in a row, I logged almost 9 hours of training.

The workouts:
Swim = 1400 meters (super weak sauce)
Bike = 83.89 miles (not bad, but most of that was one ride)
Run = 11.51 miles (okay since I missed some workouts)
Strenth = big fat zero...again
Transitions = 5min
TOTAL = 8.45 hours

The stats:
Weight = 170 lb
Stomach: -0.25" / -2.75" total
Hips: -0.25" / -2.25" total
Thigh: no change / -0.75" total
Bicep: no change / -0.5" total

I do not understand why the scale isn't changing. I'm losing inches. And I do not belive that it's possible for a person to gain that much muscle mass in this short period of time. I'm measuring accurately, people are telling me how different I look, but the damn scale won't budge. I'm thinking of not weighing myself for a couple of weeks and see what happens. Here's the photo:

Here are the sideview shots comparing Week1 to today. At least I'm more tan?

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: