All Streaks Must Come To An End

My hundred miles per month streak came to an end after six months. A combination of being busy at work, crappy weather, water in our basement and recovering from an ultra meant less running than usual. Like those excuses? That's exactly what they are. The truth is, I haven't been working that much extra, I have a treadmill I could use in bad weather, we hired out most of the basement work, and I only needed about a week off after my ultra. Laying out excuses makes me think of one of Jim's recent posts.

I never posted a report card for 2013 so here it is. I only had three goals

• Do a plank a day for a year
• Maintain my weight
• Run 1000 miles

 

My plank streak lasted until my fishing trip and I quit and never really got going again. I should really start back up. Having a strong core helps my running and helps keep lower back pain away.

I was able to maintain my weight even traveling and eating out 100+ days and nights. Portion control helped out here a lot. Restaurants serve way to much food so I typically only eat about two thirds of it. I also eat salad for lunch quite a bit.

I did hit 1100 miles for the year and I'm pretty happy about that, specially with all the traveling.

 

Time to start a new 100 mile/month streak :-).

There is almost always a pair of my shoes and gloves drying in front of the fire. There are two more pair on the mantle ready to go.

Had to delete some photos to take that last one :-)

 

Number of races scheduled = 0

Number of goals = 0

 

That's all for now...

 

Posted with Blogsy

2011 Report Card

I had a draft blog post about goals for 2011 and never finished it.  I didn't have many and I didn't review them at all.


Goals:
Swim - be able to swim without too much shoulder pain  ------------> not doing too good or bad here - B
Bike - Average 23 mph for a sprint and 22 mph for an oly bike leg --> D. no sprint, 20.4 mph at an Oly
Run - average 8 minute miles at a sprint, 8:30 at an Oly --------------> C. no sprint, 9:01 at an Oly

NOLA 70.3 Goal
swim - 2:30/100 = 53 minutes  ----> cancelled N/A
bike -16 mph (oly pace - 20%) ---> 19.4 mph  - A++++
run - 2:15 (hm pr + 20%) ---------> 2:15:06 at NOLA - A

NOLA Stretch Goal
swim - 2:20/100 --> cancelled N/A - I did 2:15 for, my private HIM but it was a pool swim
bike - 18 mph ----> 19.4 mph
run 2 hours -------> might have been possible if I biked slower and took in more nutrition


So my A race goals were met, while my general "get faster" goals were not.  This reminds me of the quote "A goal without a plan is just a dream".  I went looking for the author of that quote and didn't find it.  It may be a variation of this quote.

A goal without a plan is just a wish. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery 

I had a solid plan for NOLA and exceeded my goal despite my nutrition failure.  I'll follow the same plan for my HIM this summer.  I'm thinking about changing from Racine, WI 70.3 to the Door County, WI HIM one week later.  I think the course will be much prettier.

On an unrelated note, we had our first snow today.  Now Spring can arrive :-).

Off Season

Before I get to my off season plans, here are a couple pics from my really nice mountain bike ride today.

I didn't see any other riders.

Someone had been through earlier though, I didn't run into any spider webs.

I'm making plans for the off season.  I was considering P90X, a weight program, Jorge's winter cycling plan, or nothing until my friend Doug pointed out I should really set my goals for next year and let them point me in the right direction for the off season.  I was hoping my goal for next year would be a full Ironman triathlon but after my two half triathlons, it's obvious I need to work on my nutrition before I attempt a full IM.  With that decided, I had no idea what my goals would be just a week ago until I read this thread.  I would love to run faster.  I get passed by people seemingly putting out much less effort than I am all the time.  So how am I going to run faster?  I'm going to build my running volume up to 30 miles per week and hold it there for a few months.  30 mpw means 5-6 runs per week, Ouch!.  My goal is to run a 5k in under 23 minutes.  I'm probably at about 26 minutes right now, so sub 23 will be a tough goal for me.  If When I reach that goal, I should be able to beat my half marathon PR by at least 5 minutes as well.  We'll see.

I have decided to do triathlons again next year.  This was not a given since racing is definitely outside my comfort zone, but it does make me feel alive (so maybe it was a given).  My cycling goal for next year is to hold 20+ mph in an Olympic distance race and 18.7 in a half Ironman (sub 3 hours). That means cycling 3x per week in the offseason.  My swimming goal is not to drown.  I'll need to hit the pool once a week to accomplish that :-).

So that is 9-10 workouts per week and if you follow me on BT you know I have trouble getting in more than 6.  I'm also not a morning person, so I'm trying to figure out how to get all these workouts in after work.  The only way I've come up with is to brick all my workouts, which wouldn't be ideal.  So if I do all my workouts in the evening my schedule would look like this.

Mon PM - short run (add a swim once MNF is over)
Tue PM - trainer ride followed by a medium run (medium = an hour)
Wed PM - swim followed by a short run (short = 1/2 hour)
Thur PM - trainer ride followed by a medium run
Friday PM - short run
Sat - long run
Sun - long trainer ride
  
An hour ride followed by an hour run after work would be tough. Alternatively, I could try to become a morning person.  The problem (besides not being a morning person) is that I need to be in the shower by 6:30 in order to drive my son to school then head to work.  That means I would need to get up at 5 am on medium run days and 5:30 on short run days.  Oh yeah, it will be dark and cold too.  Yuck!  If I try to become a morning person, my schedule could look like this.

Mon AM - short run
Mon PM - swim (once MNF is over for the year)
Tue AM - medium run
Tue PM - trainer ride
Wed AM - short run
Wed PM - swim
Thur AM - medium run
Thur PM - trainer ride
Friday AM - short run
Friday PM off
Sat - long run
Sun long trainer ride

Hmm, I'm getting tired just thinking about it :-). I'll massage this a bit more and get at it in November.  I'm enjoying a down month in October but keeping a run base to start from.