Massage (9 weeks to go)

My left calf has been getting a harder and harder knot in it.  After my brick on Saturday, it was so tight I thought I wouldn't be able to do my three and a half hour ride Sunday.  So I went to a spa and got a leg massage.  I'm not a massage person and I was a little embarrassed to go, but I didn't have much of a choice.  It's tough to find an open slot on a Saturday so I started calling down the list in the Poynt application on my Blackberry.  On the 5th try, I got into Spa of Tranquility, drove over, left my man card in the car and went in.  It was a very foo foo place, as you could imagine, and very nice.  I got a message therapist named Melonie (sp?) and explained my dilemma.  She went to work on my quadriceps first, applying a lot of pressure.  It was kind of painful pushing on the muscles to the point I could feel them flipping from one side to the other of my femur.  I had to ask her to take it a little easier a couple times.  We made some small talk as she kept torturing messaging my legs.  She mentioned that she used to be a massage therapist in Utah and treated many more athletes out there than she does in the mid-west.  When she got to the knot on my calf, she worked on it pretty hard.  Overall the experience was painful, but got the job done.  I managed a 2 hour brick (1 hour ride, 1 hour run) Saturday and a three and a half hour trainer ride Sunday.

I also bought "The Stick" to massage my calf at home.  It is painful too, so it must be working.

The Stick

 
I'm still having trouble getting my morning runs in. I plan to rectify that this week by getting up early Tuesday and Thursday and if I don't, brick my run Tuesday and Thursday night. Bricking is not ideal, but I need to get my run volume up. Running once a week is not going to cut it.  At least the weather is a bit warmer so I should be able to run outside.


Another big training week this week, capped off with a 4 hour ride.  I hope I can do this one outside.

meh. (10 weeks to go to my first 70.3)

Meh, blah, yuck.  I'm glad this week is behind me.  I just wasn't into it at the beginning of the week.  Nothing seriously wrong, no health issues, nothing more sore than usual, I was just not into training.  It could have been a combination of winter, lack of sun, and generally being very busy, but I just didn't have any drive to train at the beginning of the week.  Monday night is usually a swim, I skipped.  Tuesday morning is usually a run, I skipped.  Tuesday we had a snow day and I did my scheduled trainer ride.  Wednesday evening I did do my swim.  Thursday morning is usually a run, I skipped.  I did get my trainer ride in Thursday night.  Friday is my day off and I took it (even though I didn't need it).  After Friday, I was out of my funk.  Thank goodness.

Friday night we got 4 inches of snow, surprise!  I had a 1:45 run on the schedule and the temperature was warm enough I could do it outside.  I ran some of it on the local trails.  They were treacherous with snow covering rutted ice.  I had to go slow and was worried about twisting my ankle.  I had to run slow but I was running outside (instead of the dreadmill), it was pretty outside, and I was out of my funk!  After some trail running, I ran through several neighborhoods.  It was tricky, slippery, but nice to be outside.  Then things got interesting.  I stepped in a couple ice cold puddles back to back.  Brrr!  That isn't good.  I turned to run home knowing my toes would be frozen by the time I made it back but a funny thing happened.  My Smartwool socks warmed my toes back up within a coupe minutes.  They were like magic!  I kept running.  I did stop about 45 minutes in to the run and bought a bottle of water and ate a Gu.  My run time was 1:50 and I felt decent.

The trail that runs past my house

A little further down the trail.

An old water tower in the older section of town.

A new tunnel they are building under a busy street.  We are lucky to have such a nice trail system.

My plan called for a 3 hour ride Sunday.  Not only is this the longest ride I've done to date, I did it on the trainer.  My plan was to watch a movie for the first 2 hours then TV after that.  I also planned to stand on the peddles and stretch my back and calves every 30 minutes, eat every 30 minutes (offset from my stretching by 15 minutes) and take a drink every 15 minutes.  I watched Arn, The Knight Templar.  It was pretty good.  I was worried at first because it wasn't in English at first and I didn't want to have to pay close attention to the movie.  It switched to English soon enough, so all was good.  Once the movie ended I switched over to Superbowl pre-game.  The last 30 minutes were a bit rough so I stretched a few extra times.Overall it was a really good ride.  I can't imagine doing it for six or seven hours like people training for Ironman do, but then again, last year I couldn't imagine doing three hour training rides.

I'm a big Steelers fan, so I was a bit disappointed about the game.  Congrats to all you Packer fans!

 

11 weeks to go (eek!)

This week was a recovery week.  I knew that going in, but didn't look at it too close.  It ended up having only two runs and bike rides (instead of three each) which meant a bonus day off.  It was a very nice surprise.  It was kind of weird in that my legs seemed to get more tired and sore on the extra day off and the following day than they had been in the last month.  Maybe that's the way recovery weeks are supposed to work if your legs haven't fully recovered for a while.  If so, it was my first real recovery week.

11 weeks to go and training is going pretty well.  My back is still a little sore, but I started doing planks (they are hard!) to help with my core.  My shoulder is hanging in there, it gets sore after about 500 yards of swimming, but I'll be able to complete the 1.2 miles.  I still have some things to buy and better get to it soon.  I still ride my road bike with spd pedals and mountain bike shoes.  I plan to switch to proper road or triathlon shoes before the race (I better get shopping!).  I plan to buy an aero helmet and low rolling resistance tires.  I did a blog on bike speed a while back and need to follow through on my plan.  I also need to figure out what kind of shorts to wear.  I have three pair now and while they are all ok, they aren't what I'm looking for to race in.

I have the cheapest Pearl Izumi tri short. They have a very small pad and are good for Sprint triathlons (in my opinion). Maybe a more expensive pair or their tri shorts would be better.

I read good things about De Soto 400 mile shorts and picked up a pair of them.  They are really nice shorts but the pad is a little big for the run (I think).  They are in their bike short section.  I like the way the leg grips work on them.  I need to try them during a brick before I totally rule them out.  Some people use them for half and full distances.  I may try the De Soto Forza shorts.  We'll see.

I also picked up a pair of Sugoi Evolution tri shorts.  The pad seems to be just the right size (between the Peral Izumi and the 400 mile shorts) but I don't really like the elastic leg grippers.
I really need to start dialing in my nutrition too.  I'm thinking about trying Infinit for the bike and living off the course for the run.  I need to give Infinit a call and come up with my formula, soon.  I did do a sweat test on the bike trainer this weekend.  It was a moderate ride and my rate was 24 oz. per hour.  I may not get many outdoor rides in before the race.  I'm a wimp when it comes to riding in the cold.  I need to suck it up and get out there.

A lot to figure out in the next 2 months......

Week 9 (or 15 according to my new plan)

Week 9 was a good week.  It was one of my higher volume weeks and felt good.  I really think keeping my protein intake up helps with my mood and my tiredness.  I did skip dinner one night and woke up in a bad mood.  More anecdotal evidence of the link between low protein and a bad mood for me.

So the week was good for several reasons. 

The swim:  I got two decent swim workouts in.  That is the first time in a long time I got two decent swim workouts in.  I decided to do a long continuous swim for one of them just to see how the shoulder would do.  I swam 2500 yards straight and while the shoulder ached, it reached a certain point and didn't keep getting worse.  I really focused on trying to take it easy on the shoulder to see if I had a chance at swimming 2112 yards in New Orleans.  The answer is yes!

The bike:  Nothing too exciting but I did get 3 solid work outs in again.  Cut my long ride 30 minutes short Sunday to get the house ready for visitors for the football game.

The run:  I managed to get up early one day, had a nice run in the snow on another and a long run Saturday.

Thursday we got about 11 inches of snow.  I had a doctor appointment in the morning then planned to run on the treadmill then go in to work in the afternoon.  Well, with the snow, I planned on a treadmill run then working from home in the afternoon.  Before heading to the Y, I was reading some forum posts and ran across one about running in the snow and decided to give it a try.  It was beautiful but brutal.

Where are my feet?


 Like I said, the run was brutal.  It was like doing intervals with leg weights on.  I would run until my heart rate hit mid zone 3 then walk until I hit zone 1.  I almost quit after 2 minutes, but the thought of changing again, going to the Y and changing again, running, changing again, motivated me to keep going.

For the first part of my run, there was one set of tracks, then none.

Fresh Powder



My tracks looking back up the trail.

I was bored during the recovery period, thus the cool pics.  And a bonus video :-).

After running, I decided I didn't feel like working, even from home, so I relaxed and got my trainer ride in early enough to have a cookout.  Grilled chicken breasts, grilled asparagus, and grilled mushrooms.  Yum!  First I had to clear off the grill!

 s/b/r hours this week were 1.75/5/3.1

Oh, and to cap the week off, Go Steelers!

Change in Plans (Week 8)

First, a back update.  This back pain episode was 1-2 weeks shorter than all my previous ones.  I didn't miss any rides in my plan and I only missed one week of running.  Usually it's 2-3 weeks so this is a huge improvement.

I've been following a custom plan I created on beginner triathlete and have decided the run volume is too high for me.  The plan had me running almost two hours for my long run this week.  I'm 12 weeks out from my half ironman and this seems high.  In fact, I didn't run for 2 hours ever for my last half marathon.  I checked out a couple other plans and they seem to agree with my assessment.  So I decided to jump into week 15 of Gale Bernhardt's 27 week half ironman plan. The long run for this week was 1:30.

On a non-tri related note, I was tagged by my friend Kate.  So here is what you are supposed to do it you are tagged.

1. Thank and link back to the person who awarded this to you.  Thanks Kate, I guess.  I'm kind of a introverted blogger so I don't know if I'll be able to tag 15 blogs.

2. Share 7 things about yourself.  If you know me well, you probably know all this.

• I'm a big Pittsburgh Steeler fan (hopefully they beat Baltimore today).
• I married my high school sweet heart.
• After 22 years I'm still in love with my high school sweet heart.
• I love live music (though I don't make an effort to go listen to it in St. Louis)
• I mix live Christian music at my church once or twice a month.  It's a blast.
• I love to cook on the grill and do so every weekend when I'm in town, no matter what the weather is.
• I'm a twitter nerd

3.  Pay it forward to 15 great blogs - consider yourselves tagged!

• Bryan at Bullshit Advice
• Sonja at Go Sonja
• Michelle at Go Fast Michelle
• Wes at CampMcGee
• Jeff at Dangle the Carrot
• Megan at In Training
• James at Ironman 101
• Jeff at Jeff Vanis' Blog
• Luke at Luke's Tri Training
• Kovas at Midwest Multisport Life
• Jon at Milk The Cow Triathlon
• Jennifer at My First Half Ironman
• Matty O at Staying Strong and Positive
• Dave at The Journey
• Patrick at The Road
• Johan at TRI-STEMMET

4. Contact those bloggers and let them know about their award. If you follow me, consider yourself notified.  If not, I'm not contacting you.  It's not my style.

Back Pain (Week 7)

I end up with severe lower back pain occasionally.  When it happens, I hobble around for a few days barely able to stand up straight and I'm very uncomfortable.  I'm pretty sure it is a core strength issue.  After it happens, I resume my back exercises for a while then I slowly stop doing them.  This time I thought I could make the outcome different. 

Last weekend during my long ride and run, I started to get a twinge in my glutes and sides of my thighs.  I figured my back was about to go ,so I started doing my back exercises on Monday and added some planks to my routine.  I did some more exercises Tuesday, so far so good.  Wednesday morning, not so good.  I was running at 5:30 am, about 2 miles from home and my lower back got really tight and hurt.  So tight that I had to start walking.  Hmmm, 5:30 am, no phone, it's 25 degrees out, this is going to be a long, cold walk home.  I decided to lay on the sidewalk (in front of the St. Louis Bread Co,) and stretch my back.  There is hardly any traffic at that time so no one probably noticed, but it was kind of funny.  Anyway, I stretched it out enough and managed to run home.  I kept doing my exercises thinking I could still beat this episode.  Wednesday night I skipped my swim and Thursday morning I skipped my run but my back wasn't that bad.  Thursday night I biked and it still wasn't feeling too bad.  Friday, still not too bad.  I was pretty sure I beat this back episode.  Then Saturday it started getting worse, much worse.  I managed a 2+ hour trainer ride but got off the bike every 45 minutes to stretch my back.  Sunday was supposed to be a long run, but I could hardly walk :-(.  I ended up laying on the floor watching football.

Lesson learned, again..... don't neglect your core.  Hopefully I can get back at it mid-week.

Planned s/b/r hours
1.5/5.25/4.75

Actual s/b/r hours
0/5.25/1.75

Week 6

Got 8 of 9 workouts in which will probably be my max per week because my shoulder hurts when I swim.  I was really tired Tuesday and Wednesday and I have another cold.  Tiredness and frequent colds are both symptoms of not getting enough protein.  Depending on who you believe, I need somewhere between 90 and 180 grams of protein per day.  That's between three quarters and a pound and a half of beef or chicken per day.  Of course there is also protein in eggs, nuts, yogurt, milk and plenty of other things, but getting 100+ grams of protein isn't easy.  I made some hard boiled eggs to add that for an afternoon snack every day.  I'm also not getting enough sleep.  I plan to correct that starting this week.

I managed to gain 3 pounds over the holidays.  Not bad.  I can only imagine how many I would have gained had I not exercised almost 10 hours last week.  Time to lay off the cheese spread!

I did have a couple mental victories this week.  Saturday I managed an 8.6 mile run outside even though it was cold and windy.  I had no excuse.  I have the cold weather gear I need, I just needed the motivation.  I procrastinated as long as I could, but did manage to get it done.  I was still a little cold.  Running with a cold bottle of water wasn't a good idea.

Sunday I managed a 2.5 hour trainer ride.  That is my longest to date.  All my rides the last month and a half have been on the trainer.  I might need a mini DVD player during New Orleans to mimic my training :-).

I plan to start upping my biking a bit.  I don;t really want to add another workout, so I think I'll just take some time on to my short rides.  Since the race time is roughly 3:2 biking to running, I think the training  hours should be too.

s/b/r hours
Planned 1.33/4.33/4.15
Actual 0.66/5.0/4.1

On to week 7!