Week 6 of Oly training

So my plan said this was a down week in the run and bike, but up for the swim. Well, I did the number of hours the plan calls for, but not the right breakdown. My shoulder has been getting more and more sore from swimming. I've decided I should take a little time off from swimming and get some lessons. I managed one swim this week and as of yesterday, the Y pool is closed for 7 weeks while they do pool maintainence and gut the locker rooms. I can swim at the local University in the mean time, but it is a bit inconvienent. I'm looking forward to the new locker rooms, the old ones were.... old. I'll probably take this week off swimming. Next week we'll be on vacation and I'll try to find a pool to do some laps or maybe do some OWS in Florida. Not quite per plan.

I missed my Tuesday night ride because of sound practice at church. I love mixing sound since I love live music and our band and vocalists are awesome. Anyway, I managed to get one ride in during the week and a long ride in today (42 miles, long for me). Had my first dog chase tonight. He was about 20 feet off the path and just watching me (medium sized dog, kind of boxer like but a little more stout). I figured he was gonna chase me, but I tried to make nice anyway. I said "hey puppy", he said "woof woof", and it was on. I was out of the saddle in a split second and he barked again and was off. He gave up after about 30 seconds or so. He chased just long enough to spike my heart rate, probably a good little addition to the work out.

After about an hour, I dipped in to the food I had in my jersey and pulled out some Cliff Shot Bloks. I've never tried them and was looking forward to a change from my Gu Chomps. When I went to open them I see this ->>. "Cut here" then proceed to gnaw at the package trying to open them (you can see the bite marks). No worries, I had a Hammer gel and a Cliff bar with me so no big deal. I don't ride with an Ipod due to safety reasons, I'm definitely not riding with scissors :-).

My plan had my running only being a little over an hour this week. I need to start ramping for a half marathon on October 3rd, so I ran 6 miles a couple days before work (I'm not a morning person so this was a big accomplishment for me!). I planned to run 8 miles on Saturday, but by the time I was ready to go at 10 a.m., the heat index was over 100 degrees. When I left the house, I thought I would scale the run back to six miles or so, but 5 minutes in to the run, I knew that was too long so I cut it to three miles and threw in some walking. Some days it is better to call it early and live to fight another day.

So this week was an hour of swimming, 3.25 hours of biking, and 2.5 hours of running. Following a plan is tough to do if you have a job, a family, and a life. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the amount of time I have been able to exercise while balancing life.

Week 5 of Oly training

So week 5 started off pretty slow and I was in exercise hour deficit pretty much all week (at least according to plan). No big deal, instead of exercising, I visited a friend Monday night and took some business people out Tuesday night. I figured I need to live to, so I didn't stress about it. My plan also had a crazy jump up in run hours this week. Less than 3 hours to 4.7 hours is too big of jump for running. Most runners will tell you to add 10% volume per week when you are increasing distance.

I also had my 5th tri yesterday. It was a Sprint with an Olympic distance bike leg (actually slightly longer, 26.1 miles). Race report is here I had no idea it was a USAT regional event. There were people in USA tri suits with their names on the back. There were also lots of college athletes in their college tri suit. I passed a couple people in their college tri suits (not to be mean, but if I passed you, you won't be going to the Olympics). There were guys in "mankinis" as my friend Ryan put it. He said that if he looked that good in a speedo, he would wear a mankini, tan, and cover himself in kelp oil :-).

It was my first tri with USAT officials on motorcycles looking for drafters. They drive those motorcycles through the cyclists like the guys you see on Tdf (well, not quite as close). I took 4th (out of 10) in my age group and qualified for AG Nationals! I'm pretty slow, so I probably won't go (as a field filler), but it's still cool. I got a free T-shirt and a mini cow bell for coming in 4th. Maybe I'll go next year since I'll be faster (if I stick with it).

So week 5 totals are, 4.6 hours cycling, 2.2 hours running, 1.2 swimming. Half of those cycling hours came today after racing yesterday.

Week 4 of Oly Training

This week was a little out of sync due to the holiday. I did manage to get my hours in, but not exactly per plan. I had Monday off and decided to go for a long ride. Monday is normally a swim day but the Y was closed. I ended up riding 51 miles which is my longest ride yet. I felt pretty good and managed a run Tuesday morning and another 15 mile ride Tuesday night. Between the two rides, I had some chaffing issues and took care of those. Wednesday was supposed to be another swim day but I skipped and went out to dinner with my daughter and her friend. We checked out a new Korean place in town and it was fantastic! I need to do that more often. I also did my 4th tri this week (this morning). It was a little longer than a sprint (1100 yards/20 miles/ 4 miles). The lake was warm and this was my longest OWS to date by about 2X (I swam the course yesterday to get comfortable). The bike course was flat as a pancake and my goal was a 20 mph average, which I did!. The run was flat as a pancake, but I was dreading it because my run is just slow. It was rough but I won the mental battle and did not walk (even though many people were).

The swim was a TT start, with one swimmer every 5 seconds. I really liked that format vs. a wave start because there was way less bumping. In this pic I was waving at my daughter (kind of goofy:-)).








It was tough getting out of the water, but they had awesome volunteers grabbing everyone and yanking us out.

The bike was fast and flat. Tail wind at the beginning and head wind on the way back. I passed a bunch of people on the bike. It feels good to pass people 10 and 20 years younger than you. I also got passed by guys 10 and 15 years older than me, and they were hauling. They gave me inspiration that I can do this for many more years if I continue to train.

The run was rough. It was hot and humid, but the course was flat and I should be able to run faster. Right now I'm barely running faster than my April half marathon pace. I have another half marathon in October and will start ramping up my run volume soon, which will really help. Of course with X training hours in a week, something else has to give. Anyway, here I am crossing the finish line. It was so cool to have my daughter there cheering for me.

Totals for the week, 6 hours biking, 2 hours running, 1 hour swimming. On to week 5!

Week 3 of Oly training

Before I blog about week three, I'll add some pics from my third tri. It was very warm and humid at the tri last weekend and the pics show it, specially the run. The swim was very warm (mid 80's), so I was hot coming out of the water. First OWS with no wet suit and I felt like my legs were sinking. I'm working hard coming out of the water, but not moving fast. They had time to get 7 pics of me coming out of the water and only 2 on the run and 2 on the bike.






The bike portion was so fun (hilly and technical),
I signed up for two more tris. I'll be doing the tri in St. Charles MO next Sunday. It is about 2/3 of an Olympic distance (900 yards/20 mile/ 4 mile). The following Saturday, I'll be in Bloomington IL. The run and swim are sprint distances and the bike is Oly distance.



The run was hilly, hot, humid and tough. The race organizers had cold water and sponges at every mile. I learned the hard way that cold water = side stitch. My run time was not pretty. My pics in general aren't pretty. I lost a bunch of weight and still have a few lbs more to go. The end of the run was funny. I heard someone huffing and puffing coming up behind me. I had no idea if is was a man or a woman, but I worked hard to hold them off. It worked and I managed to avoid a finish line pic of me being chicked :-). It was painful as you can tell from the look on my face.

So week three, was a tough week. I was tired early in the week due to the increased training volume. Tuesday night I helped at a fund raiser my daughter put on to help the animals in the gulf (she raised almost $2k!). She is 18 years old and decided to do this on her own. I'm really proud of her. Wednesday night was a happy hour. I managed to make up a missed swim Friday night. Didn't get to make up a missed bike ride. Oh well, weekly hours weren't too far off. I ended up at 1.9 hours of swimming, 3.4 hours of biking, and 2.1 hours of running including an all out run TT. It was painful, but now I know I can run 4 miles with my HR over 180, in the heat, and not have a heart attack. Now if I could just get the Dalai Lama to grant me total consciousness on my death bed, I'll be in good shape :-)