Crossing The Line

I'm not sure why I haven't posted recently because I've had tons of free time. I've been pretty lazy, other than training that is.

Well, since the last post the training regime has consisted of tempo rides, intervals, lots of swimming, tempo runs, new racing flats, 2 races, 100 degree weather and lots of gatorade and cliff bars. Instead of boring you with the details of 2 weeks worth of workouts, which I probably won't remember very well anyway, I'll just go over the races.

Power Sprint - 300 m swim, 12 mile bike, 3 mile run (it was .1 short of a 5k)

This was a great race. The weather really pulled through since the forecast was calling for thunderstorms and we ended up with sunny and 80. The race organizers under estimated the number of racks they thought they'd need so the racks were quite congested, but other than that everything went as usual before all the action started.

As usual, my swim was decent, but certainly not amazing. I swam a 5:16 which I'm not complaining about, but it's certainly way off my personal best. I hate pool swims just because there's so much going on in such a small area and you have to duck under lane lines and blah blah blah. They suck and that's all there is to it. The only good thing about pool swims is that they're short.

I came out of the water quick and got over to the bike in a hurry, threw everything on and started out for the real portion of the race. I was very pleased with my bike time. I finished the 12 miles in 29:56 which gave an average speed of 24.9. Way faster than last year. I was holding back a bit because I was still a bit shaken from the past races and cramping, but quickly found that it wasn't my effort that I was cramping from, it was the Gatorade Endurance.

After the bike I started the run conservatively, which was ok, but I think had I started at a faster pace I could've knocked some time off my run time. I say that now after another race where the latter strategy worked out. At the Power Sprint my main goal was not to cramp. I managed a 20:22 3 mile run which was good for me. Much better than Angels and certainly closer to what I think I'm capable of.

At the end of the day I was 19th overall and 1st in the 20-24 age group. I was happy and considered the day a success. Chris was 20th overall and 2nd in the 20-24 age group. 1st and 2nd and 19th and 20th, the way it should be. I think we're both getting off to an awesome start this season.

Yorktown Sprint

Basically the same thing except the swim was 650 and the run was really 3.1 and had a few hills.

The swim was so-so. I finished in just over 10 minutes which was in the top 6th of the 600 people that raced. I guess in retrospect that's good, but I need to get more comfortable in the open water. Once that happens I think I'll be able to do be out of the water closer to the front of the race.

After getting out of the water I couldn't wait to get to my bike. I had told myself to put the hammer down this week and I planned on it. Once on the bike I just started pushing and averaged 26.1 mph. I felt like I was going fast, but not that fast. I passed my rival from VT just about 3 miles in and passed a ton of people on the way out. A few of which appeared to be joy riding. I was a bit perplexed, but focused on the task at hand.

I got back to transition area and was shocked to see only 4 or 5 bikes there. I was so pumped because I knew I had a good bike split at that point. I started the run hard figuring my legs would straighten out at some point. I was behind the 1st elite female for the first half of the run and ended up passing her at mile 2. The hills on the run course really take a toll on your legs and of course on your pace. Final time for the 5k was 21:41 which for that course was good. The only bad part was that 3 people in our age group ran faster 5k's than me, so I lost the age group lead unfortunately.

Final result was 29th out of 600 and 4th in the 20-24 age group. I was happy, but a bit irritated that the run is where things went south. At least I know what to work on.

I'm tired of typing. In the next few weeks I'll be doing some interval work on the run and some longer rides. We move to Charlottesville in 2 weeks and then the climbing training begins. I'm pumped.

Hopefully I'll find the motivation to post more in the coming weeks.

Time to eat!

Once the day started to unfold and I realized how beautiful it was outside I figured I had to get out and do something, and since I went on a ride yesterday I decided to go on a run. Since I was still a bit sore from yesterday I thought an hour long easy run would be nice. Unfortunately "easy" usually means "not so easy". Considering I wanted to get a tan today I decided to run without a shirt, which, believe it or not, is a big decision. I figured what the heck I'll go for it.

The first 30 minutes were a nice strong pace, probably a 6:30-6:40 mile since I covered just over 4.5 miles. I stopped and got some water, and poured some over my head in attempts to cool down. I could really tell a difference from my treadmill and interval workouts. I was able to keep a solid pace and push hard through hills or when my legs started to get tired I had no problem pushing the pace to stay at an even tempo.

The second 30 minutes were a bit slower, but still a nice pace. I covered just over 4 miles and finished strong. As I was hitting the home stretch which is about a mile long I noticed there was some kid riding his bike on the street. Not to mention he was kind of chubby. I made it my mission to keep up with him. I did until he pulled into his neighborhood. I think he was surprised because he kept looking at me.

I finished the run completely wiped out and burning up. Did some pushups and ab work and wrapped everything up with a PB&J, a fiber bar and a protein shake. I was feeling a bit week an hour or two afterward, but was glad I was able to make it out. I think the heat played a major role in my fatigue afterward. It's hard to get it through your mind that you have to hydrate differently when it's 80 and above.

Tomorrow I plan on swimming and maybe doing a 30 min interval workout on the treadmill. Weigh in tomorrow in the AM as well. Adios!

I could barely move when I woke up. My entire body is sore. I think the core workout is what did it yesterday. Hopefully by mid afternoon I'll be able to do something. If not, whatever, a day off might be good. Getting pumped about the race next Sunday. HHHunt power sprint. More on that later.

Well I'm damn tired. Two days of great workouts and I'm finally starting to get a tan.

Saturday I was thinking about going for a ride, but ended up playing a round of golf with one of my pals. Of course I snuck in a core workout before. Pushups, bicycle crunches, leg lifts, and the normal ab/core stuff. After playing golf (which is a decent workout considering you're hauling around a bag of clubs for a few hours) I came home and figured I'd at least get a treadmill workout in and considering I hadn't swam in a few days I decided to make it a brick.

30 min swim workout (~1600 m total)
- 10 min constant swim warm up.
- 5x100 + 5x50 arm/leg drill.
- 5 min cool down at tempo.

25 min treadmill workout
- 5 min warmup at ~7:30
- 5 min tempo at 6:40
- 10 min tempo at 6:19
- 2.5 min tempo at 6:00
- 2.5 min cool down at 6:40

I was planning on doing some more pushups/pull ups etc. but was wiped out after this. It was only an hour of working out but the intensity was high the whole hour so it was a great workout.

Since I've been running so much lately I wanted to get a ride in at some point. So today I got out for a 30 miler and decided to throw the Hed3's on to see how they were doing. I've been convinced that something was wrong with the rear wheel, and while it's still rough, and I don't think it's perfect, I do think it's fine for racing (as soon as I get new tires). I manage to average 22.5 for 30 miles so it was a fast ride. I wanted to get in a tempo ride instead of doing intervals and not only did I get a tempo ride, I also got a slight bit of sun burn which I plan on evening out tomorrow at the pool.

I took a break and went to a family birthday party for a few hours and started talking to someone about kettlebell workouts and core exercises and got pumped to come home and do a circuit workout. It was crazy. I'm tired and sore as hell now. Here's the workout...

2x:
5 min kettlebell throws @35 lbs.
1 min pushups.
1 min bicycle crunches.
1 min leg lifts.
1 min front plank.
45 sec side plank right.
45 sec side plank left.
50 side leg lifts right.
50 side leg lifts left.
50 matrix crunches.
50 side leans.

The second time around was not fun, but it was hard, and so that made it worthwhile.

Now that the graduation craziness is slowing down I can finally get my diet back on track. I need to eat more, but more of the good stuff. I'm going to make an honest effort to start adding calories through vegetables. I think I'm OK on carbs and protein. We'll see how that goes.

Tomorrow I have no idea what's on the agenda except for going to the pool and laying in the sun for awhile.

Great core workout this morning.

10 pushups regular.
10 pushups right arm out.
10 pushups left arm out.
10 ken-po pushups.
100 bicycle crunches.
100 leg lifts/throws.

3 sets of above.
Front and side planks.
20 x 2 Side leg lifts.
20 x 2 Matrix crunches.
20 x 2 DaVinci lifts.

A lot of stabilization stuff at the end. I could def feel a lot of muscles working that usually aren't. I've been trying to do some reading and find new exercises to work in so I'm not doing the same ol same ol. Of course it's hard to change the push up too much, but there are different variations and they're all worth a try.

Golf in a bit.

Run tomorrow morning, maybe a swim.

I know it's only been a week, or maybe just a little over a week, but a lot has gone on since then, and hopefully I can go through it piece by piece and not miss anything.

The last post was about the treadmill workout on Mother's Day which was a Sunday. I made it back to the gym on Tuesday for another treadmill workout but decided to try something different. I wanted to do 4.5 miles in 30 minutes which turned out to be a nice pace (6:40 to be exact). It might sound easy. You might say, hey that's a 40:30 10k, or a 20:15 5k, which isn't amazing. But consider that I was on a treadmill and starting from scratch. So the first 5 minutes were working my way up to the 6:40 pace. That meant I had to compensate somewhere later in the 30 minutes and keep a pace faster than 6:40. It turned out to be 5 minutes getting started, 10 minutes at 6:00-6:19 and then 15 minutes of 6:40. I was on track to make the 4.5 miles but my heart rate got a bit high in the last few minutes so I had to back down. I was able to get in 4.47 miles in 30 minutes. So only 0.03 miles away from the goal, but still short. It was a great workout. I plan on doing something similar again soon.

Wednesday night was interval night. The nice thing about school being over is that I can actually make it to interval practice. Here's the workout we did...

30 minute warm up
Ladder interval. 1 minute up to 4 minutes then 4 minutes back down to 1 minute, with equal rest time in between each interval.
30 minute cool down.

4 mile run at an easy pace.

The bike intervals were intense! It's a mixture of short, super crazy intervals, and some longer ones too. By the time you get to the 4 minute intervals, your legs are already tired, and then when you get to the last 1 minute interval it's just one big blur as everything feels like it's on fire and a minute feels like an hour. I love interval practice. It always kicks my ass.

I took Thursday off because of the insane workout the night before and went to Texas de Brazil to celebrate my pending graduation. I ate way too much, but it was amazing.

Friday was another off day, only because I had to clean the house for the party on Sunday.

Saturday was the big day. Graduation. I can't describe how amazing it felt to know that it was really over. All the hard work had concluded and all that was left was to move on to the next stage. Of course everybody says you're done when you take your last exam and everything else is just a formality, but it really does feel great to have that piece of paper (or two) in your hands. A few pictures.



Sunday was the big celebratory BBQ, so of course all bets were off on the diet. It was great to have so many friends and family in my house.

Monday was mustache Monday, which consisted of ribs, beer, humus, movies, and mustaches. Please observe exhibit 1. This is day 5 of no training. Got to get back on the ball at some point.



Ahhh, so this is when the fun stops, or the real world comes rushing back in. I decided to start back the right way on Tuesday by doing a run/core workout. It was awesome, and very tiring.

Run 1: 20 minutes, average pace of 6:30, roughly 3.1 miles.

Core workout: Pushups/pull ups, kettle bell/dips, abs (with focus on core).
Each exercise was performed by alternating listed exercise with little or no rest in between.

Run 3: 20 minutes, average 6:35, just over 3 miles. Much more painful than the first run.

All in all it was around 1300 calories, and took a little over an hour. It was crazy. The first run wasn't too bad, but doing the core workout after running was tough, and then trying to run a decent 20 minutes when your core is destroyed isn't easy. Like I said, the second 20 minute run was exponentially more painful than the first. A fellow TNP teammate had talked about how good these workouts are because it puts your body into a race like situation where it's fatigued and you have to fight through it to finish the workout. Definitely on the list of workouts to do again.

Wednesday rolled back around so that means it was time for interval practice again. This time it was just a bit more intense. We did the same interval workout on the bike, which was just as hard the second time around. All intervals were in the 25-30 mph range. Most were in the upper portion of the 25-30 mph range. It was a fast workout. After the bike workout we did a similar run workout. And by similar, I don't mean similar to last week, I mean similar to the intervals we did on the bike. We did the same ladder but only went up to 3 minutes. Here's the average pace for our intervals.

1 minute - 6:00
2 minute - 5:44
3 minute - 5:54
3 minute - 6:16
2 minute - 6:03
1 minute - 5:39

If you can't tell by the numbers, it was a brutal workout. I was just barely keeping up. I think a few more weeks of this and my pace will drop quite a bit. With these types of workouts and the treadmill workouts I hope things will start to come together for the next few races.

Last but not least, there was today. I was unbelievably sore this morning, as one might imagine. As usual it wasn't until lunch time that I was back to normal. While it stinks that I was sore when I woke up, I seem to recover fairly quickly. Usually it's only a few hours the morning after a tough workout that I'm incapacitated, but by lunch time everything is good. Unfortunately when school is going on, I don't exactly have the liberty of working out in the middle of the day.

Anyway, point is I didn't make it to the pool until 2ish. I tried a new type of swim workout that I've heard a lot of swimmers doing. A 30 minute constant swim. I'm used to doing intervals, but a lot of swimmers I've talked to say they do at least one workout a week with just a constant swim for 30 minutes. I figured, what the heck, I'll give it a try. So here's what I ended up doing...

500 meter warm up.
10 minutes swimming with focus on technique, not speed or distance (I have no idea how far I swam in these 10 minutes, I'd wager around 5-600 meters).
5x100 with 10 seconds of rest in between each with focus on speed and form.

It was roughly 1500 meters, but a good workout because there was no more than 10 seconds of rest between any of the sets. It was also nice to just swim with out worrying about distance or pace, and getting a chance to work on some technique. I got the hang of getting long, but will still need some practice on twisting my hips. Of course that wasn't it. I got in a brutal tradmill workout right afterward. I know I know, these treadmill workouts are taking over. But they're so good for working on pace. You know exactly how fast you're going and you can really push your limits. Here's what I ended up doing...

5 minutes at 7:30
5 minutes at 6:40
5 minutes at 6:19
2.5 minutes at 6:00
2.5 minutes at 6:19

I was drenched in sweat when I was done. It was tough to keep up because I was already tired from the swim workout. But my goal was to keep under a 7 minute pace for as much of it as possible. The first 5 minutes were just the "warm up". The rest was history. I had planned on doing another core workout after the run but ended up having to pick up my sister so couldn't get it in. Great workout even without the core stuff.

So that's what the heck I've been doing for the past week. I'm tired of typing, and just plain tired now. Tomorrow will be the core workout I missed today and then hopefully some hills on the bike on Saturday.

HHHunt Power sprint is only 2 weeks away. It's going to be an awesome race for everyone on the team. I can just feel it.

I had originally wanted to get out for an easy ride or a easier longer run (6-8 miles) today to shake off the concrete that had formed in my legs after yesterday's workout. The weather looked iffy all day and I was a bit sore in the morning so I figured I'd head out in the afternoon. The weather stayed iffy so the idea of going to the gym and running on the treadmill started to seem more appealing. It's been a long time since I've done a treadmill workout but I figured whatever, it's looking crappy outside and I want to get something in before the day is over.

There's a 30 minute limit on the treadmills at the gym which usually limits my workouts to interval or tempo workouts. Here's the workout from today:

5 minutes at 7:30 min/mile
5 minutes at 7:04 min/mile
5 minutes at 6:40 min/mile
5 minutes at 6:19 min/mile
2.5 minutes at 6:00 min/mile
2.5 minutes at 6:40 min/mile
5 minutes at 7:04 min/mile
5 min cool down at ~7:30

Total distance worked out to be 4.5 miles and just around 600 calories. My average heart rate was 170 but stayed in the 180's for most of the sub 7 tempos.

If you're looking for a website that has treadmill speed to pace conversions you can go here, it even has incline conversions.

Its always fun doing a treadmill workout because all the "athletic" people at the gym are running on the treadmills around you or the sweet ellipticals trying to look intense and then they casually glance over at your screen to see that you're running at 10 mph and not holding on to the bar. They'll usually look 3 or 4 times before they just accept that you're crushing it on the treadmill and enjoying every minute of it. It's kinda funny, only because I used to be one of those "athletic" people.

Oh, yeah, the workout... The workout was awesome! I know it probably won't happen but I'd like to get one treadmill workout in a week. I like the fact that you can't slow down, you can't cheat and you know exactly how fast you're going. It's a good time to work on your form also because you're in a controlled situation and there aren't any hills, trees, children, animals, boulders to worry about.

Some people think treadmill workouts are for wimps. I think they aren't doing the right workouts.

If it's not raining in the morning I'd like to get out on the bike. If it is, and there's no lightning I'll head to the pool. If it's raining, and there's lightning, well then I don't know what I'm going to do. Another treadmill workout? I kinda hope not.

Time to eat.