Week 7

This was a tough week for me, I went into the week with some tired muscles because I had been doing some form of training for about 14 days straight. After having a hard time getting motivated for last Sunday's training session, I decided that I needed to start making Sundays my rest day. I changed things up a bit this week to make it happen, and Sunday was an awesome day of no training. The week was good though, I am definitely seeing improvement in my fitness. See the making progress post. Had a challenging ride on Wednesday in the wind, it was an out and back ride. The ride out had the wind at my back which was cake, but the ride back was mostly downhill with the wind in my face. The wind was crushing me. Here's a map of that ride.



Recovery week coming up, my body is going to be happy about that.

Making progress

Ran this course once last week, and again this week. Had some nice improvement between the two runs. I needed to see it given how my legs have been feeling the last few days. My average heart rate was a bit higher on this run, but I don't think that made the difference in the pace.

Here's last week's run.



Here's tonight's run.

Training update

I'm still training, I just hadn't found the time to get on here to update things.

First thing, after some further research I've adjusted my heart rate zones to get some better workouts. The site that has been the most beneficial is http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/cms/article-detail.asp?articleid=53

My running pace on the track has been around 10min/mile. My swim pace is in a much better place than a year ago, depending on the day, I'm 5-10 seconds per lap faster. My troublesome area of late has been the bike. Sundays have some pretty large mileages on them, some involving 2 hours on the spin bike. I'm having a hard time with being motivated enough to sit there for that long. I think I'm getting to the edge of overtraining, and can't wait for a recovery week next week to let my body recoup. The highlight of the last two weeks was definitely the 4 mile run in 6 inches of snow last Saturday on the backcountry roads near the Boardman River.

Yup, I'm carrying a bit too much fat.

Here's an interesting link I thought I would share. It's not completely accurate, but according to the site it is within 1-3% of the water displacement tests.

http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/body-fat-percentage-calculator

I will have to remember to do this in another month to see if anything has changed, but right now I'm sitting at a comfortable point at about 21-22%. Ideal is 15% according to the experts, guess I have a bit of work to do. In order to get to the ideal weight, I need to lose another 7-8 pounds.

Week 4 Summary - Recovery Week

I'm still seeing improvements as I'm moving along in my training. This week was a bit easier than last. My physical therapist made it even easier, because he made me skip one of swims. That was a bit of bummer, but it's still early and I will make it up one day next week. I also had to skip one of my weight training sessions. I don't feel as good about that, because I think that's part of the reason for some of my performance gains.

This week's totals:
Swim: 2,000 yds.
Bike: 45 miles
Run: 7 Miles
Walk: 1 Mile

I tried taking the dog for a slow run outside with me, I ended up putting her in the truck and running by myself. She was thankful though for the walk's surrounding the run.

The other worthwhile thing to point out. After 4 weeks of training, I've dropped 6 pounds. I don't really want to drop a lot of weight, but the less fat I'm carrying the better.

I had a phone interview this week with Spectrum Health, I didn't feel too good about it when I got done. The other lead I had on a job has fizzled out a bit. So for now, no haircut and the beard stays.

Week 3 Summary

I started the week feeling a bit down about my training, and how slow I felt. Monday was a ride/swim brick. I got done on the bike, and looked at the pool. It was busy, and I just wasn't in the mood, so I skipped my swim. From that point on, the week turned around. I realized that in two weeks, I'm already starting to see gains from my training. My running pace has gotten faster and my swims felt better. Right now, all of my bike mileage has been on a spin bike at the gym using a spinning program I downloaded for the Droid. The notable part of that is, I notched up the resistances on the spin bike by two notches this week with no problem. I had two pretty good weight training sessions this week. Overall, the week was awesome and really lifted my spirits.

Totals for the week:
Swimming: 3,250 yards
Run: 7 Miles
Bike: 65 Miles

It really was an awesome week. In addition to the gains in training, I also have two pretty solid leads on a new job that weren't there a week ago. The only problem, I might have to lose the beard for a little while and get a haircut.

Week 2 Summary

I ran outside once this week, and it was pitiful. In order to run in my aerobic zone, I had to run a 13 minute mile. Like I said last week, I think I could walk faster than I'm running right now. Supposedly, training slower will make me faster in the race. As with anything though, I've been able to find information that contradicts the whole heart rate training thing. Friday is my day off from training, except based on some advice I have decided to add a bit of weight training into my regime. Friday I went and did some lifting, and now I've been sore for the past two days. It will get better as I do it more.

Here's this week's mileage/yardage:
Swimming: 3,000
Bike: 49 miles, had to cut today's ride short by 6 miles.
Running: 7 miles

Ridefast, are you accessing my page through a proxy? I've been getting all kinds of hits from somebody in Russia.