Week 9

The week started off slow, Rachael made me stay home on Monday and not run due to my cold. Tuesday I got up to meet a buddy at Luton Park for a little MTB action. I had bought a new chain for my bike late last week, but neglected to install it. Not far into the ride it blew up, ending the ride. I did take the opportunity though to practice working with momentum. When I got back home, I promptly installed the new chain, and a little bit later was on my way to salvage the day's ride.

The biggest news of the week, was the fairly big weight drop since my last weigh in two weeks prior. I dropped 4 pounds in those two weeks, bringing the total loss to 12 pounds. I don't notice the difference, but Rachael says she does. The only thing I know is that my body is chewing up calories like nothing. It seems like I'm hungry more than I'm not.

I feel like my training is going along well. Although, I did find out that I made a miscalculation in the number of weeks I had for training and have to cut out a week. I've been debating on whether to cut a base building week or a speed week. I think it's going to be a speed week, and just continue to build my base.

Totals for the week:
Swim: 4,750 yards
Run: 6 Miles
Bike: 50 Miles and 1.5 hours on the spin bike.

For those of you who like to look at a graphical representation of the week refer to the following:

Week 8

Due to adjusting my training schedule, week 8 was a mixture of a normal week and a recovery week. One of my great discoveries of the week was how to create a course on Garmin Connect and upload it to my watch. I started out the week with a walk with my dog and 5 mile run on my favorite asphalt trail, the cannon trail. Tuesday was 40 miles on the bike using a route I created on Garmin connect. Overall the week was going along good until late Friday when I realized that my wife had given me her cold. I'm going to try to power through it though. I thought exercise was supposed to boost your immune system?!?

Here's Monday's Run


Tuesday's ride found 2 pieces of undergarments in the first 10 miles. Oh, and I rode past a place that had an RC track. I always wanted one of those as a kid, along with a decent RC to run on it. This ride also featured a trip through the map dot called Harvard. One bar and nothing else.



Wednesday's ride was supposed to be a slow recovery ride. It was for the most part, but I had to ride the brand new tiny MTB trail just down the road. It's incredibly rough.



Friday was my first real off road ride of the year. HELLO LUTON PARK!!! The conditions were absolutely perfect on Friday.



I ran with Grimace on Saturday for a 2.5 miler a bit faster than I should have, but I still felt good and didn't feel too labored in my breathing. I was supposed to go swim, but the cold started to get the better of me and Rachael made me stay home.

Totals for the week:
Swim: 1,750 yards
Run: 9.5 Miles
Bike: 50 Miles

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.