Training update 04/25/12

It's been a rough couple of weeks from a training perspective. Two weeks ago I went with Rachael down to Indy while she went through training for her new job. The following week was my last week of classes, and I had a crap load of work to do. Now I'm good to go for training right up to the triathlon. Since my last post, me and the Peace9r went to the ski hill for our first trip of the season. That night was so great, I had to do 2 laps. The course felt so fast that night. I think this course is where I fell in love with the Peace9r. Indianapolis was not a good place to run. The area where I was was mostly industrial. I did run past the headquarters of a few race car teams: Andretti, Chip Gnassi and Tony Stewart. Indy does have a decent rail trail that goes from the northern suburbs to downtown. Here's the run and ride I did while I was there. Last Saturday was a truly great ride. It was the first ride of the season with Ridefast. The other great part of the ride was it was the "MTB Trifecta", Cannonsburg State Game Area, Cannonsburg Ski Hill and Luton Park in one sitting. I did this ride last year as a part of my training plan, but fell short of completing it. The amount of hills on this ride is nothing to mess with. Ridefast is much better at road riding than myself, and tore me up on the hills. The state game area felt Custerlike with some rooty sections and some nice downhills. Overall, the Cannonsburg trails were good to me and felt pretty quick. After the hills on Myers Lake Rd, Luton was a challenge. I didn't want to do the full trifecta again, so I did what I'm now titling "A Tale of Two Cannonsburgs". Overall the ride was good. I did fail to climb the one hill that is my #1 goal whenever I ride the ski hill. I missed the correct line and got into some softer stuff. I weighed in at the pool today after my swim, and I managed to gain a pound over the last couple of weeks. I guess that's what I get for not keeping up with my training over the next couple of weeks. Tonight, I decided to check out Luton park while we were in the dry slot of some rain. The place was deserted.

Ft. Custer and Homemade Chia Energy Gel

It was a bit of a cold week, which cut one of my rides short.I probably should have cut Wednesday's ride short too, I couldn't feel a majority of both feet by the end of the ride. I was so sick of the wind by the end of that ride. I checked the weather forecast, and it said wind out of the west. I chose a more north and south route so I wasn't battling the wind as much. Well that effing weather forecast was wrong, 20 something MPH winds out of the northwest. I was getting hammered by the wind most of the ride. Here's those two rides.





Ft. Custer

I was supposed to do a ride/run brick at Ft. Custer on Friday, but the weather didn't cooperate. I decided to ride and run Custer on Sunday instead. Overall Sunday was a good day of training. I did have a bit of an issue about mid way through the red loop at Custer. I just finished climbing a pretty decent hill and turned a corner onto a flat and wide portion of the trail. Huffing and puffing, I spot a gray haired woman walking in the middle of the trail. I smile at her as I approach, when b!tch says "Please do not ride mechanized vehicles in the woods.". I'm disappointed in my response, as I only could come up with a "whatever" as a retort. I biked for about 2 minutes and came to a stop thinking about turning around and laying into this woman walking on a "Mountain Bike Trail"!!! I decided that it wasn't worth it, and kept riding. Rachael said it was probably best, because the woman was probably irrational and it would've done me no good to go back. Here's how the ride looked.



I learned something while running on Sunday. I remember having the urge to walk part of the run course during the triathlon last year. I allowed myself to walk, and was upset with myself for doing so. I had that same feeling on Sunday, and walked for just a couple of seconds because I was lost transitioning from the beach. Other than that I didn't walk the rest of the run. I've been thinking that it has something to do with my legs and body transitioning from biking to running. Here's a look at the run. My run Sunday was faster than my run in the triathlon.



Chia Energy Gel

I decided to try out making my own energy gel. It seems to work and doesn't taste too bad. At the bottom is the link to the recipe. I made some changes to my version. I used honey(I have a lot) instead of brown rice syrup, and used kosher salt instead of salt substitute for my electrolyte mix.

http://www.nomeatathlete.com/homemade-energy-gel-chia/

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.