Week 9 of Oly training - the dilemma

Before I get to the dilemma, I have a funny story. Now I know I can only do three things at once one the bike, not four. So I took Monday off and went for a 50 mile ride. About 15 miles in, a big bug flies down my shirt and starts biting me. I freak out and lock up the back wheel with my right hand, frantically try to get the bug out of my shirt with my left hand, unclick my left foot, and didn’t get the right one out before I stopped. I fell over, and was wriggling around on the ground trying to get the bug out. Finally got it out and unclicked my right foot. I must have looked really funny. Ended up with nothing more than a skinned knee and 7-8 bug bites. I haven’t had an unclicking issue for several years.

Now to the dilemma. I'm in my usual pre-race funk. I really enjoy training but not really the pre-stress of racing. I have a blast racing and once I'm done, I'm ready to sign up for another one though. This time, it might be a little different. Here are my excuses to not do an Oly September 4th.

1. I haven't swam in 4 weeks due to a sore shoulder.
2. We started a new budget and if I spend 94 bucks on the race, it's 94 bucks I can't spend on other tri stuff (and there is always a long list).
3. The tri is 2+ hours away, so throw another hundred in for a hotel room.
4. As long as I'm on the money theme, I broke my Blackberry and Ipod shuffle this month.
5. I would kind of like to PR my half marathon October 3rd and doing the tri will reduce my run volume that week. Some of my bike rides have affected my runs.
6. My fantasy football draft is the night before, so I won't get to the hotel until midnight or so.

Lessons learned this week. Don't do your longest ride ever and not expect consequences on the morning run. Also, don't schedule long races too close together.

So for week 9 still no swimming because of a sore shoulder, but I do think it is getting better. Going to the doc Wednesday. I did get 6.5 hours of biking and 3 hours of running in. Time to step the running up another notch or two.

Week 8 of Oly training

Week 8 was spent at the beach in Navarre, FL. Beautiful beach and no oil in sight. It was very hot. So hot (100+ heat index, sometimes 110+), I had to cut most of my runs short. I brought a frozen bottle of water on every run and it was thawed and gone by 40 minutes in to each run and I came back before hurting myself. My workout Wednesday was 5 x 5' at RPE 8+ (HR over 180 for me). My route on Wednesday was on a cool road with the gulf on one side and the sound on the other. After 4 intervals I called it. The SAG wagon (wife in the minivan) driving by was too tempting. I also figure a mid fourties guy doing intervals in the heat needs to be careful, so I cut it short. I did manage six miles on Friday. A storm came through in the mroning and cooled things off.

I took the boys to the Naval Air Museum in Pensacola Friday. It was pretty cool.

I planned to go to the Y and swim a couple times, but decided to stay with the family and do a little swimming in the gulf. Nothing serious, mostly under water swimming looking for shells and catching hermit crabs. Very relaxing.

Total for the week: 0 biking, a little swimming, 4 hours of running. My shoulder still hurts. I think I'll call the doc tomorrow.



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Week 7 of Oly Training

Well I knew week 7 and 8 would take a hit due to our summer vacation, but it's all good. This week took an even bigger hit because a sore shoulder sidelined me from swimming for a couple weeks. The vacation schedule is a great lesson that if I plan to do a HIM or IM, I shouldn't plan one in September unless I can work around vacation. When I called the local Y here and inquired about a swim coach, I was reminded that this is vacation. My explanation that I liked swimming and I should be able to swim on vacation didn't get real far. Maybe I'll swim in front of the condo. Here are a couple pics off the balcony of our condo. The beach in Navarre Florida is beautiful. Having three pairs of swimming goggles worked out well. My son, his friend and I wore them and went diving for hermit crabs. We had a lot of fun. The water here is very clear and very warm. The temperature is also very warm. I ran at 9 am this morning and the heat index was over 100. This afternoon, the heat index was 115. Life is really rough :-) Back to week 7. I took the week off swimming so zero hours there. We left Friday for Navarre so I skipped my ride Thursday night to get ready and my long ride this weekend (since I didn't bring my bike) so I only got one ride in, 1.1 hours there. The bright spot was my running. I'm ramping up for a half marathon the first weekend in October. I managed to run for 4 hours this week including 2 6 mile runs before work and a 6 mile run on a treadmill yesterday morning. My plan leading up to the half marathon is 4 runs per week of 6, 3, 6, then a long run building about a mile a week up to 12 miles. The 6 milers are feeling good, so barring injury, I should be in good shape. Of course, I have an Olympic distance tri in four weeks. Another good lesson learned this month. Watch the overlapping race training schedule.

I've been reading a lot of 70.3 race reports and thinking about doing one next year. If my cousin Len is right, I'll be doing a full IM in 2012. We'll see.

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 :-)