Well I pulled the trigger and signed up for New Orleans 70.3 (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and 13.1 mile run) on April 17th, 2011. Now it's time to choose or create a training plan. It's also time to create my training schedule. Training plans are pretty similar in some ways since the goal is to swim, bike, and run, duh! A bigger decision is how many days of each workout to do and how many two a days to do. Some plans are balanced 2x per week, others balanced 3x per week, then others add an extra day of running or cycling.
I saw some decent improvements when I upped my running to 5x per week, so ideally I would like to keep that frequency going. Most plans don't have that high of run frequency nor the kind of volume half marathon plans have. I'm guessing it it because running is harder on your body and takes more recovery than biking or swimming. It's likely I will skip at least one of these runs per week. We'll see how it goes.
Many people say it's all about the bike because it dictates how fresh you will be for the run. The bike leg of a triathlon takes about half of the total race time, so it does make sense to make the training time about half. That makes for some long rides on the trainer this winter and poses a real dilemma as to when to fit them in. The long 3+ hours rides can be done on the weekend but there are plenty of 2+ hour rides to get done during the week. So if I want to run outside at night, I would have to be on the trainer at 4 in the morning. That seems insane to me. I can't even imagine training for a full distance tri. My plan is to ride 3x per week, with an occasional 4th easy one.
I'm not a very fast swimmer and with my shoulders still not 100%, that's not going to change much for this race. In the pool I can swim 2000 yards in just over 40 minutes which is about 2 minutes per hundred. slow, but I'll take it. I checked my swim time in the 5 triathlons I did this year and was disappointed that my swim time was more like 2:30 for all five of them. They were in open water. Oh well. I am looking for a swim coach and not having much luck. I contacted my local Y and they don't know any. I think it is a form issue and the aquatics director offered to watch me swim and give pointers. I guess that is better than nothing. I haven't been swimming since I hurt my shoulders swimming in July. I've been doing physical therapy ,but I can tell they still aren't 100%. My plan is to swim 2x per week with an optional third.
So here is what I'm thinking.
Monday - off
Tuesday - AM medium run
Tuesday - PM bike
Wednesday - AM short run
Wednesday - PM swim
Thursday - AM medium run
Thursday - PM bike
Friday - AM short run (optional)
Friday - PM swim
Saturday - long ride
Sunday - long run
Of course life will get in the way, but you have to live or this becomes too much of a chore. I have sound practice for church tomorrow night so biking is unlikely. I also have plenty of other activities that will cut in to training. I'm not going to worry about it too much, I'll just try to minimize missing the long work outs.
Here are a couple of the plans I'm looking at.
http://triathlon.competitor.com/2010/09/training/super-simple-ironman-70-3-triathlon-training-plan_12364
http://www.trifuel.com/triathlon-training/Half-Ironman-Training.php
Assuming I do a 20 week plan, I have about 4 weeks to choose/modify/create my plan and build up to the starting volume.
Wish me luck!
Monday, October 11, 2010
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Lewis and Clark Half Marathon
Today was my third half marathon. This was the 9th
I ended up driving my friend Tom (who needs a blog) and his friend Kate . This was her first half marathon and she did it in under two hours. Way to go Kate! Small world, Kate is the sister-in-law of a woman I work with that is also getting in to running.
Tom is on the left. He took off at the start and I never saw him again. He beat me by six minutes! Way to go Tom!
I trained pretty well for this run and was hoping to beat my last HM race (1:58:21). It seems like I should be able to run faster than that, but that's a different story. This course is pretty flat and the weather was cool. Actually a little on the cold side for me. It was lower forties with a pretty stiff 10+ mph breeze. I almost wore running pants but posted a question on BT and was set straight. Dress 20 degrees warmer than the outside temp. So, I wore shorts, a long sleeve compression shirt, a short sleeve tech shirt, a throw away sweatshirt and throw away gloves along with my Pearl Izumi ear guards thingies. It was great hanging out with people I knew before the race. Tom and Kate met up with some friends they met through the daily mile website for tracking your training. I log on BT but I've heard good things about daily mile. I may check it out.
Back to the race. I had no idea how I was going to pace myself for this race. I just started running and logging my miles using my stop watch (I don't have a Garmin). I heard a couple people with Garmin's calling out paces and I was going a little fast, but that was expected at a race. After three or four miles I found a small group running consistent 8:45 miles. Perfect to hit my goal time of 1:55. So the run was uneventful for the most part. I didn't run with music and I ran alone. The crowd support and volunteers were great. Lots of signs, plenty of water stops, nice course. I high fived some little kids along the way. I felt like a rock star :-).
I ditched the ear warmers about mile two, gloves at mile two and a half, and the sweatshirt at mile three. Running into the wind was a bit cold, but I guess better cold than hot. About mile five I had some left foot pain, but it went away. Every twinge you feel running is a bit concerning since you never know if it will get worse or subside. About mile seven I felt my glutes getting tired, I really need to strengthen them. I was still holding 8:45 - 8:50 miles and feeling pretty good. At mile ten I tell myself, just a five k from here. Everything is holding together, heart rate is going up a bit, but that is to be expected. This is the first race I watched it and it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be :-). With two miles to go I started feeling serious fatigue in my glutes, but with two miles to go, I just tried to keep my pace up. A mile to go and my pace group started pulling away. I couldn't keep up. They were holding a casual conversation the whole way, so they ran it much easier than I did (and beat me handily). One mile to go, everything held together. Tired legs, but my strongest finish yet!
So here are my splits and heart rate
8:07 - 164
8:59 - 173
8:52 - 173
8:48 - 173
8:43 - 173
8:46 - 174
8:51 - 174
8:48 - 175
8:48 - 176
8:55 - 177
8:53 - 178
8:48 - 182
8:57 - 182
Total time: 1:55:11
I ended up driving my friend Tom (who needs a blog) and his friend Kate . This was her first half marathon and she did it in under two hours. Way to go Kate! Small world, Kate is the sister-in-law of a woman I work with that is also getting in to running.
Tom is on the left. He took off at the start and I never saw him again. He beat me by six minutes! Way to go Tom!
I trained pretty well for this run and was hoping to beat my last HM race (1:58:21). It seems like I should be able to run faster than that, but that's a different story. This course is pretty flat and the weather was cool. Actually a little on the cold side for me. It was lower forties with a pretty stiff 10+ mph breeze. I almost wore running pants but posted a question on BT and was set straight. Dress 20 degrees warmer than the outside temp. So, I wore shorts, a long sleeve compression shirt, a short sleeve tech shirt, a throw away sweatshirt and throw away gloves along with my Pearl Izumi ear guards thingies. It was great hanging out with people I knew before the race. Tom and Kate met up with some friends they met through the daily mile website for tracking your training. I log on BT but I've heard good things about daily mile. I may check it out.
Back to the race. I had no idea how I was going to pace myself for this race. I just started running and logging my miles using my stop watch (I don't have a Garmin). I heard a couple people with Garmin's calling out paces and I was going a little fast, but that was expected at a race. After three or four miles I found a small group running consistent 8:45 miles. Perfect to hit my goal time of 1:55. So the run was uneventful for the most part. I didn't run with music and I ran alone. The crowd support and volunteers were great. Lots of signs, plenty of water stops, nice course. I high fived some little kids along the way. I felt like a rock star :-).
I ditched the ear warmers about mile two, gloves at mile two and a half, and the sweatshirt at mile three. Running into the wind was a bit cold, but I guess better cold than hot. About mile five I had some left foot pain, but it went away. Every twinge you feel running is a bit concerning since you never know if it will get worse or subside. About mile seven I felt my glutes getting tired, I really need to strengthen them. I was still holding 8:45 - 8:50 miles and feeling pretty good. At mile ten I tell myself, just a five k from here. Everything is holding together, heart rate is going up a bit, but that is to be expected. This is the first race I watched it and it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be :-). With two miles to go I started feeling serious fatigue in my glutes, but with two miles to go, I just tried to keep my pace up. A mile to go and my pace group started pulling away. I couldn't keep up. They were holding a casual conversation the whole way, so they ran it much easier than I did (and beat me handily). One mile to go, everything held together. Tired legs, but my strongest finish yet!
So here are my splits and heart rate
8:07 - 164
8:59 - 173
8:52 - 173
8:48 - 173
8:43 - 173
8:46 - 174
8:51 - 174
8:48 - 175
8:48 - 176
8:55 - 177
8:53 - 178
8:48 - 182
8:57 - 182
Total time: 1:55:11
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Volunteering at IM Branson 70.3
My father-in-law and step mother-in-law live in Nixa Missouri near Branson so Cheryl and I planned to visit them during the Branson 70.3 tri so I could volunteer. I also planned to get a long run in Saturday morning while they went shopping. Well, Cheryl ended up with a bad cold and didn't make the trip but I was already signed up to work the bike checkin Saturday from 2pm to 6pm and T1 Sunday morning from 4:30am until 9:30 am so I went. I arrived Friday night and within 5 minutes I had both their laptops in front of me so I could do tech support. It was kinda cute trying to help a 76 and 81 year old non-tech savvy user use a laptop. I think it's great they are embracing technology.
Anyway, I skipped my long run Saturday morning because I lost my wingman due to a cold and would have felt guilty leaving for two hours. As a bonus, I received a delicious belt buster breakfast of sausage, eggs, and toast. About noon I made my way to T1 and got my assignment. Body marking! It was really hot, like 95 degrees plus, so we had to wipe the sweat off the athletes to put their race number and age on. I was beat after being in the heat for 4 hours and I kept thinking I wouldn't want to be running a half marathon let alone a HIM in this. It was cool talking to the athletes and just people watching. One guy I marked didn't have shaved legs and said "I bet I'm one of the few without shaved legs". His wife then said she wouldn't let him because it wasn't manly. I told him I wasn't really keeping track but it was probably closer to 50/50. I think the serious bikers shave their legs along with some guys that just like the looks. Sorry dude, I didn't help your cause.
Here are a couple pics of the lake and the bike store, I mean T1 on Saturday.
Saturday night I stayed in my father-in-laws camper about 10 minutes from T1. They made me a very nice dinner and I was starving. I "slept" on a pull out camper bed. It wasn't very comfortable at all and I kept waking up. Finally at 3:20am I said screw it, I might as well find some coffee and get moving. I got to the race site and was setting up to do more body marking when they realized the buses dropping off families and athletes didn't know where to turn around so I ended up directing bus traffic until the start of the race. Both Saturday and Sunday is was interesting to watch the athletes. There was a wide range of emotions from calm, to in the zone, to scared, to nervous, to joking with friends like they were going out to a baseball game. So far I've been in the quiet/nervous camp when I've raced. It was also interesting to see the different body types.
Once the buses stopped running, I was able to take a couple pics of the swim (from a distance).
Then I was the last volunteer out of T1 doing crowd control. I was a couple hundred yards away making sure the athletes went the right way and trying to keep stupid people from getting their children run over. Let me just say Darwinism is strong.
From my vantage point I got to see every single bike leave from within 10 feet of me. I clapped and yelled encouraging words pretty much the entire time. I went through a wide range of emotions watching the different levels of athletes go by. A friend on BT asked me how it went and I summed up the bike exit emotions as follows.
Pros = sheer awe (super fast,in great shape and in a totally different world)
FOP AGers = seriously thought about quitting doing tris since I will never be there.
MOP AGers = changed back to, these people look like my level of fitness and if they can do it, I can too.
BOP AGers = very inspiring
DNF the swim = sad (3 bikes left in T1 when we cleaned up)
Here is a pic of a couple pro women leaving T1. I had hoped to take more pics but I had to save the children :-).
Once all the bikes that were going to leave were gone, I helped clean up T1. There were three bikes left and I had to move one over to the fence so we could take down the racks. Kind of sad.
Overall volunteering was a great experience. Branson is a beautiful and very challenging course. If you raced it and finished, congrats! The hills were some of the toughest on an IM course and the heat was brutal. The run turned in to a death march for many. If I can get in good enough shape next year, I will race it instead of volunteer.
Anyway, my half marathon is a week from this Sunday and I'm feeling good. I missed my long run on the weekend but had a good 10k Monday night and plan 8.5 miles or so Wednesday night. My intervals last night were tough, but I feel like I'm on the verge of a step change in running speed. The trick will be keeping the volume up once the half marathon is done. I've never been able to keep it up over the winter before. My friend Ryan and I are still deciding what HIM to sign up for this spring. Hopefully signing up for one will give me the motivation to keep my running volume up as well as spend LOTS of time on the trainer.
Anyway, I skipped my long run Saturday morning because I lost my wingman due to a cold and would have felt guilty leaving for two hours. As a bonus, I received a delicious belt buster breakfast of sausage, eggs, and toast. About noon I made my way to T1 and got my assignment. Body marking! It was really hot, like 95 degrees plus, so we had to wipe the sweat off the athletes to put their race number and age on. I was beat after being in the heat for 4 hours and I kept thinking I wouldn't want to be running a half marathon let alone a HIM in this. It was cool talking to the athletes and just people watching. One guy I marked didn't have shaved legs and said "I bet I'm one of the few without shaved legs". His wife then said she wouldn't let him because it wasn't manly. I told him I wasn't really keeping track but it was probably closer to 50/50. I think the serious bikers shave their legs along with some guys that just like the looks. Sorry dude, I didn't help your cause.
Here are a couple pics of the lake and the bike store, I mean T1 on Saturday.
Saturday night I stayed in my father-in-laws camper about 10 minutes from T1. They made me a very nice dinner and I was starving. I "slept" on a pull out camper bed. It wasn't very comfortable at all and I kept waking up. Finally at 3:20am I said screw it, I might as well find some coffee and get moving. I got to the race site and was setting up to do more body marking when they realized the buses dropping off families and athletes didn't know where to turn around so I ended up directing bus traffic until the start of the race. Both Saturday and Sunday is was interesting to watch the athletes. There was a wide range of emotions from calm, to in the zone, to scared, to nervous, to joking with friends like they were going out to a baseball game. So far I've been in the quiet/nervous camp when I've raced. It was also interesting to see the different body types.
Once the buses stopped running, I was able to take a couple pics of the swim (from a distance).
Then I was the last volunteer out of T1 doing crowd control. I was a couple hundred yards away making sure the athletes went the right way and trying to keep stupid people from getting their children run over. Let me just say Darwinism is strong.
From my vantage point I got to see every single bike leave from within 10 feet of me. I clapped and yelled encouraging words pretty much the entire time. I went through a wide range of emotions watching the different levels of athletes go by. A friend on BT asked me how it went and I summed up the bike exit emotions as follows.
Pros = sheer awe (super fast,in great shape and in a totally different world)
FOP AGers = seriously thought about quitting doing tris since I will never be there.
MOP AGers = changed back to, these people look like my level of fitness and if they can do it, I can too.
BOP AGers = very inspiring
DNF the swim = sad (3 bikes left in T1 when we cleaned up)
Here is a pic of a couple pro women leaving T1. I had hoped to take more pics but I had to save the children :-).
Once all the bikes that were going to leave were gone, I helped clean up T1. There were three bikes left and I had to move one over to the fence so we could take down the racks. Kind of sad.
Overall volunteering was a great experience. Branson is a beautiful and very challenging course. If you raced it and finished, congrats! The hills were some of the toughest on an IM course and the heat was brutal. The run turned in to a death march for many. If I can get in good enough shape next year, I will race it instead of volunteer.
Anyway, my half marathon is a week from this Sunday and I'm feeling good. I missed my long run on the weekend but had a good 10k Monday night and plan 8.5 miles or so Wednesday night. My intervals last night were tough, but I feel like I'm on the verge of a step change in running speed. The trick will be keeping the volume up once the half marathon is done. I've never been able to keep it up over the winter before. My friend Ryan and I are still deciding what HIM to sign up for this spring. Hopefully signing up for one will give me the motivation to keep my running volume up as well as spend LOTS of time on the trainer.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
3 weeks until the half marathon
Some day I'm going to blog that I'm running 8:30 miles instead of 9:30 miles. Today is not that day :-).
This week was fairly uneventful. Run volume was down a little due to things being busy at work and home. Still pretty good compared to my last half, though I am biking and swimming much less for this one. I decided to compare this vs. last to see how true that is.
Last 13 weeks this half run/bike/swim vs. last half marathon (in April)
13/82/5000......6/13/3500
13/82/5200......3/0/3300
13/57/4500......14/0/1200
13/100/2700.....15/0/3500
13/82/3000......16/12/3200
15/57/2200......13/20/1600
23/20/0.........19/24/4800
23/0/1000.......20/12/3800
17/105/0........22/27/1600
25/15/0.........24/38/3000
30/0/0..........25/26/1600
30/11/0.........18/31/0
24/0/0..........15/0/0
The results were more interesting than I thought they would be :-). Training for this half mary I started in June thus the larger bike miles since it is summer. I'm going to have to make friends with my trainer and have some mental toughness this winter/spring. I also hurt my shoulders in July training for an Olympic tri, thus the drop in swim volume. Overall 20 percent more running, 3x the biking, and 25 less swimming.
I did get a new Ipod this week! My long runs were getting mentally challenging with no tunes. Apple went back to the square style shuffles (good move!).
The newer style shuffles had the controls on the ear bud cable and broke after a couple uses if you sweat on them while exercising. The new ones are slightly smaller, hold 2 GB of music and are $46 (at least at the Walmart by me).
Oh, check back in a couple weeks. My friend Ryan and I are thinking about signing up for IM 70.3 New Orleans in April. I got the ok from Cheryl, now it's up to me. I haven't hit the pool in 2 months and I'm still in PT for my shoulders. They seem to be getting better so as long as I take it wasy on them the swim shouldn't be too bad. We'll see.
This week was fairly uneventful. Run volume was down a little due to things being busy at work and home. Still pretty good compared to my last half, though I am biking and swimming much less for this one. I decided to compare this vs. last to see how true that is.
Last 13 weeks this half run/bike/swim vs. last half marathon (in April)
13/82/5000......6/13/3500
13/82/5200......3/0/3300
13/57/4500......14/0/1200
13/100/2700.....15/0/3500
13/82/3000......16/12/3200
15/57/2200......13/20/1600
23/20/0.........19/24/4800
23/0/1000.......20/12/3800
17/105/0........22/27/1600
25/15/0.........24/38/3000
30/0/0..........25/26/1600
30/11/0.........18/31/0
24/0/0..........15/0/0
The results were more interesting than I thought they would be :-). Training for this half mary I started in June thus the larger bike miles since it is summer. I'm going to have to make friends with my trainer and have some mental toughness this winter/spring. I also hurt my shoulders in July training for an Olympic tri, thus the drop in swim volume. Overall 20 percent more running, 3x the biking, and 25 less swimming.
I did get a new Ipod this week! My long runs were getting mentally challenging with no tunes. Apple went back to the square style shuffles (good move!).
The newer style shuffles had the controls on the ear bud cable and broke after a couple uses if you sweat on them while exercising. The new ones are slightly smaller, hold 2 GB of music and are $46 (at least at the Walmart by me). Oh, check back in a couple weeks. My friend Ryan and I are thinking about signing up for IM 70.3 New Orleans in April. I got the ok from Cheryl, now it's up to me. I haven't hit the pool in 2 months and I'm still in PT for my shoulders. They seem to be getting better so as long as I take it wasy on them the swim shouldn't be too bad. We'll see.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
4 weeks until the half marathon
I managed to get 30 miles in again this week and my legs are tired! My schedule wasn't ideal, it never really is. Life, weather, motivation, and fatigue cause me to switch all the time. So my ideal week (in miles is) 3-6-3-6-3-9-0. I've never run 6 days in a row and running Monday morning is really tough for me, so I miss at least one of those runs. This week, I got up at 5 something Wednesday and it started storming, then I felt like crap for some reason all day. Woke up at 5 something Thursday, checked the radar on my phone and yep, another storm so I went back to bed. Managed to run after work but cut it short because the humidity broke Friday and I took the afternoon off to do my long run so I could smoke a couple briskets Saturday. So this week was 0-6-0-3.5-11-3.5-6. Not too shabby (for me).
My legs are getting sore. I think I had some sort of bug Wednesday which made things a little worse. On my long run Friday, my legs actually started getting much more sore during the last 5 miles of my run. Usually they get sore after a run, not during. About a half hour out, I decided I would do my first ever ice bath when I got back. Yep, it was that bad. I got home, wobbled to the kitchen to drink a glass of water and a glass of milk with protein powder then started going upstairs with the ice box from our fridge. Cheryl was trying to show me the new faucet we are getting in 2 weeks and she was very excited, I was a hurting puppy and she could tell. I made my way upstairs, ran cold water in the tub up to about my hips, and dumped the ice in. I could have used more ice but it was cold enough. Stepping in was brutal, sitting down even more so, but after about a minute, my legs were numb and it wasn't so bad. I have Reynaud's and knew that my fingers would probably turn white with the rapid drop in body temp so I wore a shirt to try to stay a little warm. Well, the back if the shirt dropped in the water so while my legs were numb and fine, my back was freezing as the ice water wicked up the back of my shirt. I sat it the bath for a while and I think it helped. It took a good half hour to get warmed up. Lesson learned. For my next ice bath, I will take an old sweatshirt and cut it off, wear a hat, and maybe mittens.
The ice bath worked well enough to run a slow 5k Saturday. Sunday I was still sore but seemed to loosen up as I walked around. I read on BT that another way to recover is to do an easy recovery bike ride. The idea is to spin at a good cadence with very little strain. So I decided I would run my 10k training run then take a little spin.
It worked out great because I have neglected my mountain bike for two years since I started endurance sports. I've walked by my old bike covered with dust and cobb webs for too long so after my run, I cleaned her up, lubed the chain, and took of on a very slow recovery ride. I also used the opportunity to take pictures of my 11 mile run route. You didn't know you were so lucky :-).
I have miles and miles of paved trails with one of them right across the street from my house. I have a 2, 8, 11, 15, and 26 mile loop I can start from my house plus plenty of out and backs (of course). The trails are old rail lines and one still has an old water tower for
the steam engines. They are fairly straight, fairly flat, and the trail people even tunneled under many of the main road crossings so the stopping is minimized.
Sorry about the formatting. It's not worth the extra time to make it look nicer.
My legs are getting sore. I think I had some sort of bug Wednesday which made things a little worse. On my long run Friday, my legs actually started getting much more sore during the last 5 miles of my run. Usually they get sore after a run, not during. About a half hour out, I decided I would do my first ever ice bath when I got back. Yep, it was that bad. I got home, wobbled to the kitchen to drink a glass of water and a glass of milk with protein powder then started going upstairs with the ice box from our fridge. Cheryl was trying to show me the new faucet we are getting in 2 weeks and she was very excited, I was a hurting puppy and she could tell. I made my way upstairs, ran cold water in the tub up to about my hips, and dumped the ice in. I could have used more ice but it was cold enough. Stepping in was brutal, sitting down even more so, but after about a minute, my legs were numb and it wasn't so bad. I have Reynaud's and knew that my fingers would probably turn white with the rapid drop in body temp so I wore a shirt to try to stay a little warm. Well, the back if the shirt dropped in the water so while my legs were numb and fine, my back was freezing as the ice water wicked up the back of my shirt. I sat it the bath for a while and I think it helped. It took a good half hour to get warmed up. Lesson learned. For my next ice bath, I will take an old sweatshirt and cut it off, wear a hat, and maybe mittens.
The ice bath worked well enough to run a slow 5k Saturday. Sunday I was still sore but seemed to loosen up as I walked around. I read on BT that another way to recover is to do an easy recovery bike ride. The idea is to spin at a good cadence with very little strain. So I decided I would run my 10k training run then take a little spin.
It worked out great because I have neglected my mountain bike for two years since I started endurance sports. I've walked by my old bike covered with dust and cobb webs for too long so after my run, I cleaned her up, lubed the chain, and took of on a very slow recovery ride. I also used the opportunity to take pictures of my 11 mile run route. You didn't know you were so lucky :-).
I have miles and miles of paved trails with one of them right across the street from my house. I have a 2, 8, 11, 15, and 26 mile loop I can start from my house plus plenty of out and backs (of course). The trails are old rail lines and one still has an old water tower for
the steam engines. They are fairly straight, fairly flat, and the trail people even tunneled under many of the main road crossings so the stopping is minimized.
Sorry about the formatting. It's not worth the extra time to make it look nicer.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
5 weeks until my half marathon
With 5 weeks to go, my running is coming along nicely. I decided to back off on the biking and up the running. I've read that 30 miles per week is the minimum to start to really improve running, so that is my goal. I managed to hit it (well, almost I think it was 29.75) this week and while nothing magic happened, my 11 mile run Saturday felt better than any 10+ mile run ever. I'll also hit over 100 miles for the month of August, also a record for me. So with 5 weeks left and a decent base, I think I'll try to get a little faster. This will be my 3rd half marathon and I'm hoping to beat my April time of 1:58 and change. I don't have a goal time in mind yet.
Since I started triathlon training, I haven't ridden my mountain bike. Hopefully this weekend I'll clean it up and ride my 11 mile run route to take some pictures for the blog. It is a beautiful wooded route.
Still no Ipod. My hour and fifty minute run was without tunes. That is a long time to run without music. Plenty of time to think, maybe too much time, maybe not. I didn't really miss it and it was nice in a couple ways. One, I didn't jump when any bikers flew by me without announcing "passing on the left". Secondly I plan to race (well, if running in the 1:55 range counts as racing) without tunes.
Since I started triathlon training, I haven't ridden my mountain bike. Hopefully this weekend I'll clean it up and ride my 11 mile run route to take some pictures for the blog. It is a beautiful wooded route.
Still no Ipod. My hour and fifty minute run was without tunes. That is a long time to run without music. Plenty of time to think, maybe too much time, maybe not. I didn't really miss it and it was nice in a couple ways. One, I didn't jump when any bikers flew by me without announcing "passing on the left". Secondly I plan to race (well, if running in the 1:55 range counts as racing) without tunes.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
No Oly - started PT
Well I decided against doing the Oly in two weeks and feel pretty good about the decision. I also went to the doc about my sore shoulders and went to a physical therapist (PT) for the first time. I'm glad I did that too. My left shoulder hurts more than I was admitting.
Funny story at the PT. She did a bunch of range of motion tests and strength tests. During one of the strength tests, both shoulders popped VERY loudly. It didn't hurt but freaked her out. She was like "Whoa" and immediately let up pressure. I said you mean they aren't supposed to do that? She said not so spectacularly. You could hear that down the hall. I thought it was funny describing shoulder popping as spectacular. Anyway, after the range and strength tests she gave me some stretches to do. I didn't realize how sore they were until I saw the PT. I go back Monday and hopefully start working on strength.
It's been 5 weeks since I've been to the pool. Not really a big deal since my tri season is pretty much over. There is one more cool looking tri at Rend Lake October 3rd, but that is the date of a 1/2 marathon in St. Charles MO that I signed up for. I'm going to try to PR the 1/2 (it's my 3rd half). To do so, I'm going to build up to 30+ miles per week (mpw). A lot of people say that to get any real gains in running you need to run at least that much. I hit 25.3 miles this week. That is just over my peak week from the 1/2 I did in April.
The weather should be cooler and the course is flat for the 1/2, so if I can stick with my training and not get hurt, a PR should be within reach. I need to find someone to pace off of. Last 1/2, my friend had a garmin and ran about the pace I wanted to run. We'll see. Yesterday I ran for an hour and 20 minutes and lost 5 pounds even taking in 16 ounces of water. With this heat and humidity, the fluid loss calculator says I need to take in about a quart of water every thirty minutes to stay even. That is way to much to drink while running and you really don't need to stay even for a 1/2 marathon. I've read losing up to 2% of your body weight is fine.
The key for me will be to keep going to bed early so I can get the majority of my runs in before work.
Funny story at the PT. She did a bunch of range of motion tests and strength tests. During one of the strength tests, both shoulders popped VERY loudly. It didn't hurt but freaked her out. She was like "Whoa" and immediately let up pressure. I said you mean they aren't supposed to do that? She said not so spectacularly. You could hear that down the hall. I thought it was funny describing shoulder popping as spectacular. Anyway, after the range and strength tests she gave me some stretches to do. I didn't realize how sore they were until I saw the PT. I go back Monday and hopefully start working on strength.
It's been 5 weeks since I've been to the pool. Not really a big deal since my tri season is pretty much over. There is one more cool looking tri at Rend Lake October 3rd, but that is the date of a 1/2 marathon in St. Charles MO that I signed up for. I'm going to try to PR the 1/2 (it's my 3rd half). To do so, I'm going to build up to 30+ miles per week (mpw). A lot of people say that to get any real gains in running you need to run at least that much. I hit 25.3 miles this week. That is just over my peak week from the 1/2 I did in April.
The weather should be cooler and the course is flat for the 1/2, so if I can stick with my training and not get hurt, a PR should be within reach. I need to find someone to pace off of. Last 1/2, my friend had a garmin and ran about the pace I wanted to run. We'll see. Yesterday I ran for an hour and 20 minutes and lost 5 pounds even taking in 16 ounces of water. With this heat and humidity, the fluid loss calculator says I need to take in about a quart of water every thirty minutes to stay even. That is way to much to drink while running and you really don't need to stay even for a 1/2 marathon. I've read losing up to 2% of your body weight is fine.
The key for me will be to keep going to bed early so I can get the majority of my runs in before work.
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