Crossing The Line

Busy schedule - juggling workouts and other plans

2012-01-22T12:51:00.000-05:00

Every once and a while you have one of those weeks where it seems the list of things to do is a mile long. This past week was certainly that for me. Between various appointments and things to get done in the lab I was forced to be as flexible as possible when it came finding time to run.

Over the past few weeks I had been experiencing muscle tightness in my hips. It wasn't pain but was uncomfortable to say the least. Eventually, the tightness got so bad that even a good nights rest didn't help as it had in the past. This was a sign to me that something wasn't right. Taking a look at the wear pattern on my shoes pretty quickly uncovered the source. When I first started running I used the Asics DS Trainer, a lightweight trainer with moderate posting and a reasonable amount of torsional stability. This helped tremendously with arch and foot problems I had been having while running on more minimal shoes. This was back when I had been running 20-25 miles a week. At that time, the wear pattern after 300-400 miles was fairly even. There was some extra wear on the outside of my right shoe but that was expected as my left foot was the one with the flat arch, and the reason for needing the posting. You can see pretty easily from the picture below that after only 175 miles on my most current pair, the wear on my right shoe is very exaggerated and though it's hard to tell from the picture, my left shoe is also wearing on the outside. Basically, I don't need the posting anymore....

I wasn't quite sure why this would be the case as I'm not particularly new to running and other than trying to stay light on my feet, I really hadn't done much to change my form. A quick trip to the running shop confirmed my thoughts that I no longer needed a shoe with posting. After talking with coach Mark, it turns out that when people up their mileage they sometimes get more efficient and their form changes. For me, that meant I was no longer pronating as much as I had been previously. Since the DS Trainer had worked so well for me for so long (I've had 6+ pairs since my first pair 5 years ago, 4 pairs this year alone), they suggested the DS Sky Speed. The DS Sky Speed is basically the neutral version of the DS Trainer. It has the exact same last, just without the posting.

After a few runs there isn't much to say other than I no longer have any hip pain. The shoes feel almost exactly the same as the DS Trainer except that my feet are flat on the ground each foot strike as opposed to leaning outward as they had been previously. This makes it significantly easier to focus on staying light and efficient. Unfortunately, Asics recently discontinued the Sky Speed and the verdict is still out on the replacement model. Fortunately, the new model comes in white... as opposed to bright blue.

Another outcome of my visit to coach Mark was that while my weekly mileage of 50-60 miles is great, I shouldn't be doing any runs more than 13-15 miles since my goals for the season are primarily the 10k and half marathon distance. I can't complain about that suggestion one bit.

We've had some less than perfect weather the past few days so I've had some quality time on the treadmill. It's probably a good thing as I have a nagging soreness in my achilles from a 200 pound nitrogen tank that decided to run into my foot a week or two ago (note I'm blaming this on the tank and not myself). I don't think that pacing on a treadmill is equivalent to outdoor pacing. For this reason and because I run on the treadmill so sparingly, I do all of these workouts by heart rate. I try to keep it at a mid zone 3 which works out to a 8:30-8:45 pace (notably slower than when outside).

A little bit of a hodgepodge post today but the overall message is that things are moving along. Hopefully this upcoming week will be a little less packed and there will be plenty of time for rest and recovery.

Thanks for reading. I'm hoping for shorter more regular posts in the future.

Big update- no bonk

2012-01-11T21:39:00.000-05:00

I promise I didn't give up after my last post about bonking on a long run. Things have been so busy that doing much of anything other than running, working and sleeping was nearly impossible. Fortunately I've got a few minutes for quick update and it's all positive!

Last week ended up being my highest volume week ever at almost 52 miles. I had originally planned on ramping up mileage a bit slower but keeping up with stretching, foam rolling, and plenty of rest has kept my legs fresher than I had originally expected. I plan on sticking around the 50 mile mark for a few weeks before bumping up any more.

The past two Mondays I've done my normal hill workout and then an AHR/recovery run Monday evening. I was expecting the second run to be miserable but in both cases it ended up being easier, both in perceived effort and by the numbers (similar steady pace, lower heart rate). Of course once I get home stretch and finally settle down the fatigue sets in and not long after dinner I'm passed out. I sleep really well on Monday nights. After a few weeks of this I might do a few miles on Wednesday nights after my morning track workout although the last thing on my mind tonight was fitting in a few more miles.

We're in week 6 and there's no sign of slowing down. Sticking at 50 miles/week for a few weeks will hopefully let my legs catch up and then we'll think about going up to the 60's.

Sorry for the delay, thanks for reading!

Recovering from long run bonk!

2012-01-01T12:41:00.000-05:00

It had to happen at some point. Fortunately, it wasn't a lack of fitness that lead to my first bonk of the year, but poor planning on calorie intake before my weekly long run. Yesterday's 13 mile run started out normal. I had a course mapped out with a fluids stop about halfway through and a few sections of rolling hills but nothing too crazy. The first 6 miles felt great. I stuck to my pace plan and kept everything smooth and controlled, something I haven't really been focusing on in past weeks. After mile 6 things slowly started to deteriorate.

Rewind 24 hours and we can start to see where things went wrong. Friday's lunch consisted of a salad with avocado and roasted chicken. Very tasty, but not a particularly calorie filled lunch. Fill in a few fruits and veggies as snacks throughout the afternoon and for dinner we decided to experiment with portobello mushroom burgers. As good as our experiment turned out, I could kind of feel that I hadn't quite filled up my fuel stores. I tried to remedy this by having a bowl of cereal before bed, but by this point I was too far behind.

I survived the whole 13 miles even though the last 6-7 were pretty tough. The last 2 were harder than any other miles I've ran in recent memory. It ended up being more of a mental workout than anything. When I got back I immediately started recovery by having two eggs and a gluten free waffle with my normal smoothie (OJ, spinach, frozen berries and peaches, bananas, cranberries) and... of course... a cup of coffee. This was immediately followed by foam roller exercises and stretching and a hot epsom salt bath. Between the hot bath, the foam roller and compression socks my only worry for the rest of the day was taking in good calories to fill the void. I'm happy to report that muscle soreness is at a minimum on this new years day.

Moral of the story? Plan ahead and when things go wrong be sure to take time to recover. Let the problems end with the workout. The worst thing you can do is go home and plop down on the couch without eating anything, without stretching, and without evaluating what you could have done differently.

Even the worst workouts on the toughest days still beats doing nothing at all.

Happy new year everyone!

Lots of miles!

2011-12-27T13:48:00.000-05:00

We're slowly creeping up into uncharted territory. Last week was just over 43 miles and this week is shaping up to be on the other side of 45 miles. In addition to the higher mileage, I haven't had a day off in almost two weeks. I've got a rest day planned for Friday which I will definitely take with plenty of stretching. During the training for the Richmond half marathon, my peak week was just over 40 miles so as happy as I am to be getting in more miles I need to be careful about listening to my body and getting enough rest.

Next week I start mixing in one day with two workouts. I've been reading a lot from various sources about how to ease into the two-a-day routine. There's several recurring themes in the discussion about two-a-day workouts:

The second run should be easier than the first (i.e. tempo, hill fartlek or track workout in the morning and recovery pace run in the evening.
Total daily mileage shouldn't change too drastically when starting out
Wait at least 5-6 hours before doing the second workout
Stretch as much as possible

Looking at my plan, the best option is to do lower mileage for my focus run on Monday and get in a second recovery pace run on Monday evening. I'll probably lower my morning run to around 5 miles and do an easy 3 in the evening. Wednesdays are another option but shortening my track workout would mean having to cut out intervals or shortening the warm-up or cool-down time which is something I'd rather not do. On Mondays I can still do a tough hill workout without having to shorten or cut out any of the efforts. Running Times has an excellent article in the current issue about the art of two-a-day running. I'll post a link once it's available online. More on this later.

Foam roller workouts

2011-12-24T11:21:00.000-05:00

A great foam roller workout. It's like a deep tissue massage in the comfort of your own home!

Week 3 update

2011-12-24T11:17:00.000-05:00

Week 3 was tough! A hard workout last Saturday led to sore legs for Monday's hill workout and a busy schedule meant little to no stretching and sore legs almost all week. It's weeks like this that remind me how important all of the extra stuff is. Going back to my Running Goals for 2012 post, I need to keep up with stretching and other recovery aids(foam roller, compression socks) to give myself the best chance at a healthy and injury free season. There is no excuse to skip a 20 minute foundation workout or quality time with the foam roller. That 20 minute investment can save a lot of unnecessary soreness and help avoid sluggish workouts. Sometimes all it takes is a week where you miss out on all of the important infrastructure to realize how important it is.

Total mileage for the week is shaping up to be around 43 miles with a great track workout on Wednesday (5x400m @ M-5K pace) and 10 miles @ AHR this morning for the long run.

Next week: Focus on recovering between workouts and a strong long run next Saturday with planned nutrition.

Primal eating and running marathons

2011-12-18T12:01:00.000-05:00

Two great articles about eating a primal diet and training for a marathon. While I don't follow a primal diet, I do subscribe to a high fruit/veggies, low/no processed foods, low/no sweets, minimal meat diet so I can appreciate the challenges and benefits of such an approach. Both articles are written by Mark Sisson, a strong proponent of the primal diet and the author of multiple books on the topic. On the surface it sounds like a fad diet or a gimmick, but the overall message is good... Focus on eating quality foods with as many natural and unprocessed ingredients as possible.

Anyway, for those who might be interested:

Recovox News - How to fuel for a marathon on a primal diet

Recovox News - ow to train for a marathon on a primal diet

Week 2 long run

2011-12-17T14:46:00.002-05:00

Today was my long run for the week. I opted for a hillier course that wouldn't require me driving anywhere. I had 8 miles planned but ended up doing just under 9. I'm not sure why, but I definitely "felt" all 9 miles more than I usually do. I put felt in quotes because it wasn't a cardiovascular or muscular type of stress but rather just more wear and tear than usual. It could be because I'm creeping in mileage and running 6 days instead of 5, but in the past similar cases have come about from running too many miles on hillier courses (either on a single run or over several shorter runs during the week). I'll have to keep this in mind in the future. Tomorrow will flat and easy for sure.

Meb Keflezighi Video

2011-12-16T07:07:00.002-05:00

Meb Keflezighi 12 mile tempo run with a bike pacer. I can't get over how smooth his stride is... something we should all strive for. Forefoot strike, midfoot strike, or whatever, the point is you should have a smooth, efficient, and consistent stride, something Meb demonstrates well. The epic music makes the video even better.

Track workout and week 2 update

2011-12-15T21:48:00.002-05:00

Mother nature allowed for an outdoor track workout this week so I decided to make it a good one. Here's the workout:

3 mile warmup
5x400 @ 7:00/mile
400m recovery after each interval
2.5 mile cool down

Tough but not too tough. Perfect for December. Total distance was 7.25 miles.

It's been a tough week. Lots going on in lab and one late night means having to push myself to keep up. I'm finally weighing in below 175 and have been pretty good with my diet. I'd say by March things will be quite different than the same time last year. If I am able to keep up with the plan then I should be ready for an awesome showing at the Monument Ave 10k and then ready to transition into a late spring half. I'm hesitating to make any goals for March 31st only because I know my abilities will be quite different at that point. More on this later.

The question in my mind has been what to do after that? It will depend on how the higher mileage training I have planned for January and February go. If things are going well (I'm injury free and still enjoying running 50+ miles/week and even ready to increase) then I'll seriously consider going for a full marathon in the fall. I'm not too concerned one way or the other because I'd rather stick with the half and keep improving for a while until I'm ready for the full. Lots to think about!

Tired tired tired. Going to bed.

Off tomorrow except for some stretching and foundation work. 8-10 miles planned for Saturday and then an optional 5 for Sunday.

On to week 2

2011-12-13T08:39:00.003-05:00

I finished off week 1 of my new training cycle with just under 31 miles over the course of 6 days. It was my first time running 6 days in a week and it really didn't feel much different than running 5. I've been good about keeping up with stretching and back/core exercises which may have eased the added stress.

Week 2 has a similar structure to week 1 but with a few more miles mixed in. If everything goes according to plan, mileage totals should end up in the 35-40 range. It's going to be tough to keep up with strength training this week because of work responsibilities and social events which is OK. I won't be missing these workouts completely, just having to shorten them, shuffle them around, or combine a core workout with strength training.

Here's the mileage breakdown (Monday and Tuesday include mileage I've already done):

Monday - 6.75 with hill surges and core workout

Tuesday - 5.3 easy

Wednesday - 7 with track workout (short MP surges) and core workout

Thursday - 4 easy with strength/core workout

Friday - Off

Saturday - 8 at AHR

Sunday - 4-5 easy

OK, time to start the day!

RIP Garmin Forerunner 305

2011-12-13T08:29:00.004-05:00

Sunday was a sad day. I managed to run over my Garmin with my car, thus ending a nearly 6 month, 1000 mile, 100,000 calorie journey. Thankfully the watch was not on my wrist when it was ran over. Fear not because a new Forerunner 305 should be arriving today. There were serious deliberations on whether to go for the 405 or stick with the 305. Both were the same price and only had slightly different features. In the interest of a seamless transition and because I have had zero complaints with the 305, I went ahead and ordered another one.

So, to you, Garmin, I can report that your products do not withstand the impact of a car tire... not that anyone would expect it to.

Backyard running playground

2011-12-10T12:31:00.003-05:00

Having a view like this to wake up to and 7+ miles of trails, paths and pavement to run on without having to drive anywhere makes me feel very lucky.

Running in the cold builds character

2011-12-09T06:24:00.003-05:00

I certainly hope it does. While we have been enjoying temperatures in the 50's and 60's all week, it's finally snapped into weather that feels like December.

Weekly update - I've logged just under 20 miles so far with another 10 planned for this weekend. It's been a nice change getting back to training with some structure. I was a bit sore on earlier this week after the hill surge workout on Monday but I expected that being it was the first time since November 12th that I had done any intensity. I need to stay focused on not over doing the intensity and easing into more mileage. As much as I want to hammer away as many miles as possible, I can't forget that it's still December. Patience...

A quick link to check out:

Something about a big bowl of soup(especially the curried coconut squash) sounds really good right now...

RunnersWorld.com - Soup recipes for runners (or anyone who likes soup)

Bad weather, bad luck and a treadmill.

2011-12-07T08:07:00.002-05:00

I had originally planned on trying out the 'non-stop stride workout' featured on competitor.com this week (Running.Competitor.com - Non-Stop Stride Workout) because it looked like it could be tweaked to fit into an off season base building schedule. Unfortunately mother nature had other plans. When I got out of bed this morning it wasn't just misting or drizzling, it was full on raining. I don't mind running in wet conditions, but running in heavy rain in December (regardless of temperature) just doesn't seem smart. My first thought was a bike workout on the rollers. It's early enough that substituting a non-running workout in every once and awhile isn't going to sink the ship. However, when one of your shifters fails and your left with either riding in the small chain ring in the back (i.e. the hardest gear) whether you like it or not, or going to plan C...you start to figure out what the heck plan C actually is.

I wouldn't say I hate running on the treadmill, but it certainly is my plan C in all cases. It's boring. Making it interesting means mixing in some harder efforts making the workout all the more miserable. It's inside. It's hot. It's in a gym that likely smells like a gym (surprise!) and you come home drenched. Adding everything up, it makes me really thankful that 99% of the time running outdoors isn't an issue.

Here's a rough layout of the workout I ended up doing (modified from another Competitor.com workout):

Warmup: 15 minutes - HR zone 2.5-3

90 seconds @ 1% grade, 8:30 pace - HR zone 3.5-4

Rest - 90 seconds @ 0% grade. 8:30 pace

90 seconds @ 2% grade, 8:30 pace - HR zone 3.7-4.2

Rest - same as above

90 seconds @ 3% grade, 8:30 pace - HR zone - 4.0-4.5

Rest- same as above

90 seconds @ 4% grade, 8:30 pace - Hr zone 4.0-4.5

Rest - 3 minutes @ 0% grade, 8:30 pace

1 minute on @ 1% grade, 8:30 pace followed by 1 minute off until 10 minutes remaining in workout

Cool down: 10 minutes slowly decreasing from 8:30 pace to 9:30 pace

Total time: 45 minutes, 5 miles

It was a good workout and only ended up being 1 mile shorter than what I had scheduled for outdoors. It was probably a bit too intense for this part of the year, but given it was plan C, I'm glad I was able to get in any workout at all. Unfortunately, I might be back there tomorrow as the rain is supposed to continue for at least the next 24 hours with slight chance of snow tonight. Tomorrow would be 30 minutes easy... unless I can run outside, then 3 miles easy.

Time to start the day!

And we're off...

2011-12-05T08:11:00.002-05:00

And so it begins. Here's to a good season!

The prescribed workout for this morning was 5 miles with hill surges throughout. The total distance ended up being 5.3 miles with 9 hill surges of varying length. I forgot how tough hills can be. An easy 3 for tomorrow.

The end of unstructured training

2011-12-04T12:05:00.002-05:00

It's been a nice three weeks but it's time to get back to business. The only focus I've had since the Richmond half marathon was getting out and running. Mileage didn't matter and pace mattered even less. As nice as it was, I'm ready to start things back up on Monday.

The first few weeks will be base building so the transition from unstructured to structured training won't be too drastic. The only difference will be the incorporation of focus and track workouts.

I've got 25 miles planned for the week with an option for an extra 4 for next Sunday if things are feeling good. Here's the break down:

Monday - 5 miles with 6x20 seconds hill surges and foundation exercises

Tuesday - 3 miles and strength/core workout

Wednesday - 6 miles with 6x200m at HMP and foundation exercises

Thursday - 3 miles and strength/core workout

Saturday - 8 miles at AHR

Sunday - 4 miles easy and strength/core workout (optional)

I'll do a post later about what strength/core and foundation exercises are but they're very moderate maintenance type exercises designed to prevent injury and improve core strength. They're meant to be a supplement, not a major focus so while it might look like a packed week, it's actually quite manageable.

More soon!

Quote for the day

2011-12-03T12:43:00.001-05:00

"All men are created equal—some just work harder in the preseason"

- Emmit Smith

Running goals for 2012

2011-11-27T11:47:00.004-05:00

General

- Increase mileage to 50 miles/week during first half of year

- Continue a diet focused on plant based foods with fish, limited poultry and little if any red meat

- Stick with a pre-planned training schedule

- Keep better notes about training

- Focus on form

Specific

- Significantly improve upon 10k PR

- Improve upon half marathon time

Changes

- Plan ahead for or avoid activities that will prevent keeping up with training schedule

- Stretch more

- Ice more

- Utilize recovery aids

Update and Race Report

2011-11-27T08:31:00.010-05:00

It's been over 4 months since my last post and the only excuse for my absence is that so many things have changed that I have been at a loss for words. I took my own advice about time management and making the most of my free time and have made some drastic changes to my training. In fact, the URL of this blog(CTL-Triathlon) is no longer valid! Let me explain...

The last post back in July was around the time that I had started running with the Charlottesville Track Club, a group of folks in our area who range from recreational runners to sub 3 hr marathoners and beyond. It's a great group of people and it sucked me into the world of running. I signed up for their half marathon training program which came with a coach, a customized training plan and bi-weekly group workouts. I figured if I was going to do this, I needed to go all in. This meant cycling and swimming would need to take the backseat to training on two feet... at least for a while.

As the prescribed mileage started to climb, the track workouts became more intense and the days before the race quickly counted down. I found myself in the pool even less than before and using time on the bike for recovery. Running offers a flexibility that cycling and swimming will never have. You don't need much more than a pair of running shoes to get in a workout making the training easier to commit to if you've got a busy schedule.

The program coach, Mark Lorenzoni, is a local legend. He's coached thousands upon thousands of runners and even heads a successful Olympic development team in the area. He's the real deal and he's a nice guy, so I had every reason to stick with the customized training plan. Doing so paid off. Not only am I running and feeling better than I ever have, I learned a lot about putting together a regimented and conservative training plan (more on this later).

The training plan started at around 25 miles per week with a long run of 10 miles. Peak mileage a month before the race was 45 miles per week with a long run of 16 miles. The higher mileage was key to giving me the confidence I needed to know that I could be successful at the half marathon distance. While this was a significant increase from the mileage I had ever done, everything was gradual and smart conservative pacing was stressed at every step. Injury prevention also took center stage so the increased mileage came with little adverse effects. The take home message was to train and race smart.

As much as I enjoyed the training, all of the hard work came with a certain amount of nervousness on race day. I didn't know what to expect and had worked so hard for so long leading up to it. The last thing I needed was to bonk at mile 7 and lose all of the confidence I had built up. I knew in my head I could do it, but I just wasn't sure how well I could do it.

With all of the focus on having a plan Mark and I had talked about having 3 overall time goals (good, better, and best) and a mile by mile race plan that was within my abilities and allowed for a chance to pick it up towards the end of the race. The plan went something like this:

Good goal: 1:40

Better goal: 1:35

Best goal: 1:30

Hammer Espresso Gel (50 mg caffeine) 10 min before race

Miles 1-2 at 7:30-7:45 pace

Miles 2-4 at 7:15 pace

Hammer Espresso Gel (50 mg caffeine) at mile 4-5

Miles 4-9 at 6:50-7:00 pace

Hammer Espresso Gel (50 mg caffeine) at mile 8-9

Miles 9-13.1 at 6:50 or better pace

Before the race even started I knew the hardest part was going to be keeping my cool in the first 4 miles. I had to keep my ego in check and keep it slow. The course was such that if you could make it to the last 5 miles with some gas left in the tank, you'd be glad you did.

Here's what really happened:

Miles 1-2 at 7:35

Miles 2-4 at 7:19

Miles 4-8 at 7:08

Miles 8-13.1 at 6:57

Total time of 1:34:28

I couldn't be happier with the way things played out. I kept a steady effort the whole way through and even managed negative splits. It was the first time I went into a race with a plan and stuck to it. I also think having reasonable goals allowed me to let the race unfold on it's own and took away the stress of having a single goal and a pass/fail mentality.

While I think everything went according to plan there's a few things I would've done differently in hindsight...

1. Longer warm-up - I warmed up for less than a mile mostly because of a recovering nagging foot pain. I had run as little as possible in the week leading up in hopes of letting it heal and didn't want to do any more than I had to before the race. As a result, my heart rate in the first 2 miles was all over the map. I've got the distance under my belt so even a 2 mile easy warm-up would go a long way in helping keep the first part of the race smooth and consistent.

2. Recovery jog - I didn't do one and I paid for it. I hurt like never have before on Sunday. 1 mile might be all I need. Something, anything, is better than nothing.

3. Err on the side of being too cold - I wore a lightweight long sleeve shirt because it was in the high 30's to low 40's at the beginning of the race. I just couldn't imagine being hot at that point. While I didn't overheat, I certainly would've been more comfortable in a short sleeve shirt or even a singlet with arm warmers.

So what's next? Training starts back up December 5 for the Monument Avenue 10k and a late spring half marathon. Big plans coming up in future posts. This is my favorite time of year because you can think about the big picture, plot your attack and set the plans to make it happen.... after a short break, of course.

Thanks for reading folks.

'I Love The Tavern' Triathlon Race Report

2011-07-16T10:09:00.007-04:00

Sorry to anyone who has this in their RSS feeder and saw the unedited version of this post which was actually an e-mail I had planned on editing to fit the blog format. Sometimes hitting 'enter' has unexpected consequences. Anyways...

I'll start by saying that there were a lot of good things that came from the Tavern tri and a lot of things that I need to be smarter about in the future.

The swim was OK. It was by far not my best swim but I did well enough that I came out of the water in a position that I could get up to the front on the bike. I've said it before, but unless I start swimming 4 or 5 times a week I'm not going to make too much progress and that time can be better spent on the bike or in my running shoes so I can't complain much about my performance here.

I hustled through T1 (the transition from swim to bike) and had a successful start. No shoe mishaps, flats or anything like that. I did my best to hammer it and get some momentum going but it just wasn't there in my legs. I passed a fair number of folks and was in the top 10 for my wave (men 34 and under, 35 and up starts 5 minutes back) at the turn around point. The only part that I really struggled was on some of the hills. A lot of the guys at the front end of the race are super lean so no matter how powerful my legs were, they had the advantage. I could really feel the burn in my legs from the halfway point on. This is when I knew I hadn't rested enough the week before. I dialed my training down a bit but not enough, and maybe not early enough. I was consistent and held a good pace (24-25ish) the whole way through but could have really done some damage to the competition if my legs were fresh.

I came into T2 (the transition from bike to run) first in my age group and probably in the top 20 overall. I was definitely in the top 10 for my wave and despite my legs burning, I was feeling pretty pumped. I started the run at about a 6 minute pace which lasted for about a half a mile. I then slowly started to drop back to a 6:50 pace and stayed there the rest of the run. I suffered the whole 3.1 miles. It was tough. Looking back at my file, my pace was surprisingly constant and 6:50 was a good 10-20 seconds per mile faster than I had ever done on that course. Here's the worst part of the whole day. The second place guy in my age group passed me in the last quarter of a mile of the run! I could've kept up with him but it would've ended with me throwing up or straining a muscle and at that point it wasn't worth it.

At the end of the race I was 24th overall and 2nd in my age group (missing first by 9 seconds!!!!!). I put it all out there and worked with what I had so I'm content with these results. There wasn't a thing I could do about not resting enough once the race started so no need to let it stop me from giving it my all. I'll use it for motivation to train smarter for the next race.

So what did I learn?

The good:

1. I suffered and pushed through a hard race. I'm always worried about my mental toughness and I think this sheds positive light on the fact that I can push through tough efforts.

2. My times were faster than ever despite not being fresh. I think this bodes well for my overall fitness and if I had rested enough I'm confident I would have been in the top 20 (or even 15) and would have won my age group. The guy who won was a slower swimmer, slower cyclist, but a good runner (his 5k time was just over 20 minutes on a technical off road course).

The bad (or rather things I should learn):

1. I didn't rest enough the week before. I did a hard hard hard running workout on Wednesday morning and tried to rest up before Sunday but it just wasn't enough. In reality I should've skipped the hard workout in favor of an easy run or toned the workout down or even shortened it.

2. I need to get lean. I'm not going to adjust calorie amounts my diet because I don't think it's healthy for me at this point but I will focus more on fruits and veggies and try to avoid empty calories. I'm also going to try to slowly dial up my volume. With a more consistent running schedule I think I can shed 5-10 pounds without sacrificing any power or making any major changes to what I'm already doing.

3. Every second counts. Losing by 9 seconds hammers the point that all the small things during the race may not take you from 15th to 1st, but they can definitely be the difference between 1st and 2nd.

For the rest of the season I'm going to race a few longer races in preparation for the Richmond Half Marathon in November. I'm really happy to be racing seriously again. All it took was being flexible with my schedule but I've been feeling great, my confidence is coming back and I've had some good results so far. Lets hope the trend continues.

As always, thanks for reading...

Another update - Race report coming soon!

2011-07-09T09:53:00.002-04:00

If I thought things were hectic at the beginning of June then I had no idea how much things would pick up as the month rolled on. Fortunately, training and lab responsibilities haven't suffered but updating here has fallen to the side. I'm not giving up yet! As I indicated in an earlier post, one of the most important parts of triathlon is taking the time to reflect on your training and races and that's what this does for me. This post will be a quick training update and then sometime today or tomorrow I'll have a race report to post from the 'I Love the Tavern' triathlon. I'll spoil the ending by saying it was a great day but I definitely learned a lot.

The one or two of you who read this may have noticed that I added the Richmond Half Marathon to my upcoming races list (oddly enough it's sponsored by McDonald's). I'm also currently shopping around for a few Olympic distance tris to finish off the season with. In the past some of my favorite races have been the Olympic distance. It's long enough that you have to have a plan but short enough that you can really push the pace. I'm hoping to have that figured out in the near future.

My birthday was back in June and my family was nice enough to give me a Garmin Forerunner 305 gps watch. I can't put into words how helpful it's been in my training. Being able to know your pace and heart rate along with other various stats has really made a difference. I'm able to train smarter and it's really helped me slowly increase my volume by dialing down the intensity. On top of that, the analysis program that comes with it also allows me to see a profile of the workout and compare similar workouts from different dates. I could go on and on but I won't. I'll just say I have no idea what I was doing before.

Not much to report on in terms of training. I took a much needed week off after the Tavern tri and have been working on increasing my volume. I've been doing more longer distance runs with a more moderate pace and have been trying to work in longer efforts (5-10 min) on the bike during longer rides (2+ hrs... ok it's not that long but longer for me). With all the added volume I've had to get smarter about my nutrition before and after training/racing. That'll be the theme for the next couple of months. I'd like to have good results at the Olympic distance before the end of the season and make a serious attempt and a half sometime next season so I need to start thinking in that vein.

OK, next up will be a race report. Hopefully I'll be able to update a bit more frequently.

Thanks for reading!

Short update

2011-06-12T13:36:00.004-04:00

This will be a short post or more of an update. The past few weeks have been hectic. Between preparing for a week long conference in Denver and trying to keep up with a full training schedule, there hasn't been time for much else. Training has focused on running and getting in the gym when possible. Getting out for a ride is tough when the schedule gets tight.

The workouts prescribed by the coach of the running group I recently joined have been great. They add a level of depth that I haven't had prior to a month ago and they aren't any longer than what I'm used to. The only difference is that they include more focus on specific types of efforts such as 6x15 seconds hill repeats at the end of a workout, or 3x5 min at 5 k pace during a longer run. At the very least, it keeps things interesting.

Prior to going to Denver I had been getting up early to run which was nice. It's out of the way and at the 5-6 a.m. part of the day, the humidity and heat hasn't quite hit yet. As soon as I recover from a week of little sleep, an excess of food and drink and a decrease in training, I plan on getting the morning routine back in order.

My next race is coming up in 2 weeks and I'm hoping to match last year's time. I had a good showing but suffered on the run. Let's hope I'm able to seal the deal this year and come through strong on all 3 disciplines. The swim is a fast down river 800 M, a rolling 18 miles on the bike, and a twisting 3.1 mile run, about 70% of which is through the woods. A fast and fun race.

After 2 hot and humid hours on the bike this morning, I'll be enjoying the rest of the day around the apartment.

Safe training everyone.

Race Report - Richmond Multisports PowerSprint

2011-05-28T14:03:00.011-04:00

My fortune has reversed itself dramatically since my last post and I'm happy to say that not only am I recovered from my foot injury, I'm working with a PT to strengthen muscles in my foot, arches and ankles to avoid future problems. The main issue revolved around weak muscles in my foot and ankle that caused my left arch to collapse when running. This was having a negative effect on my running efficiency and was setting me up for injuries in my feet, ankles, knees and hips. The solution is strengthening exercises for those muscles and shoe inserts to help keep my arches stabilized. You'll hear more about this in the future, but before diving into the race report I wanted to give a quick injury update... which really isn't an injury anymore, thank goodness.

OK, now on to my report from the first tri of the season for me: The Ground Force IT Power Sprint, put on by Richmond Multisports. I've learned my lesson in years past and have decided that racing in March and April just isn't much fun. You only have to race in sleet or freezing rain once to consider starting your season a month or two later. The course for the Power Sprint is the same course used for the 3sports sprint in July which was the first triathlon I did back in 2006. I've done both races almost every year since then and enjoy comparing times. Last weekend was definitely my best showing on this course. Here are the stats:

Overall: 15th out of 579

Age Group (Male 25-29): 1st

Swim Time (300 meters): 4:48 (33rd)

T1: 1:23 (49th)

Bike(20k): 29:49 (9th)

T2: 0:34 (21st)

Run (5k): 21:00 (28th)

Overall Time: 57:31 (15th)

There were some possible discrepancies with the bike and T2 splits. The bike time is longer than what I had on my watch and T2 was shorter. This is neither here nor there as the ranking is really what matters.

57:31 is my fastest time on this course by about 20 seconds and looking at my previous PR (in '08 during the peak of my undergrad tri career) it's hard to really point at any one thing that made a difference. This year, my swim split was faster by about 30 seconds and my bike split was faster by about 1:00. In 2008 I did the run in just a hair over 20 min, but if I remember correctly, the course was short by a tenth of a mile that year, so it's hard to compare. I guess this is a good sign, right? Everything is faster by a little bit, nothing seems to be drastically holding me back and while I was going at full throttle the whole race, I wasn't throwing up at the end. All in all, Sunday was a good solid effort.

Now let's get a bit more critical. I need to get my running times down. 21:00 isn't going to cut it. I'm capable of running a sub 20 5k in a standalone running race. If I can get it down below 19, or even closer to 18, I'm sure I can get my run splits in tri's down below 20. I just recently joined a running group here in Charlottesville that meets once a week for speed workouts (Wednesday mornings at 5:30... ouch) and the coach sends out workouts for the week. It'll be nice to have people to run with and have some fast guys (a few were running 2:00 800's) to push me along. Plus, having someone to give tips and guidance will also be a huge help. Up to this point, running has been the one discipline that I've never had any formal training in. Between this and PT for my foot, I'm excited about the future.

9th overall on the bike is good. 8th would've been better, and so would 5th, 3rd or even 1st. However, when you consider the often ignored fact that your effort on the bike can have a drastic effect on your run splits, I'd rather be 9th place on the bike instead of 5th if it meant being stronger on the run. But isn't that what's so much fun about the sport? Finding your limits, knowing your strengths and weaknesses, and knowing how to put it all together for a strong finish.

There's almost no point in talking about the swim here. It was in a pool. I had to pass someone who refused to get out of my way even though I tapped her on the foot 5 times (the universal symbol for I'm behind you and need to pass). As I've said before, I'm not going to make any major improvements on my swim times unless I start spending significantly more time in the pool, and at this point that time is better served getting my run times down.

Now on to the most important part of the post. Training is fun. It gives me an outlet from the stresses of life. Racing is even more fun. It's always great to get out and see friends and teammates who love the sport as much as you do, and even more fun is to see your hard work pay off. But all of it wouldn't be possible without the support of family and friends. I am so grateful to have the support of my fiancee who has to deal with me on a daily basis which isn't always pleasant, my family who serves as incredible emotional support and has always helped me achieve my goals, and my friends who.... well.... are great and make life much more enjoyable. So thanks to everyone for your support. Most of all, thanks to my Mom, my fiancée Amanda, and my sister Laura for waking up extra early on a Sunday morning to come cheer me on.

Next race? 'I Love the Tavern' Sprint on June 26th. A fast sprint race with an open water swim, a longer bike and a 5k through the woods. My favorite race of the season. Another race I've done several times, so let's hope I come back with another course PR.

When I did the 3sports sprint almost 5 years ago, I wasn't necessarily overweight, but I was quite soft around the edges. I had no idea what I was getting into and no idea that that day was when I would fall in love with the sport. My time that day was 1:09. A whole 12 minutes slower than my time last Sunday.

Thanks for reading, everyone.

Dealing with injuries, stress, and life

2011-05-14T10:36:00.002-04:00

One common theme for amateur triathletes is to forget that we're amateurs. I've done it just like everyone else. You train your ass off, you do well in a few races and you start to think maybe you're more than just an amateur and all of a sudden training and racing starts to get in the way of real life. I knew going into round 2 that if I was going to successfully make triathlon a part of my life again it was going to have to take the backseat from time to time. You can be a master planner and work your schedule as much as you want, but sometimes things get in the way.

The past 2 weeks have been tough. Lab stuff has gotten increasingly stressful and I've encountered my first injury in quite some time. Triathlon has been an excellent outlet for the stresses of grad school so throw an injury in there and it's that much harder to deal with. After a 6 mile tempo run about a week and a half ago, my left foot slowly started to hurt. It wasn't a sharp or unbearable pain and it started small. It was more of a lingering soreness that gradually got worse as the night went on. Initially I thought it was my arch, but the pain shifted and it felt more like it was in the joint area of the ball of my foot. A few days of no running (I've swam 3 times in the past week!) and it started to feel better. I thought I'd give it a go and see if things were back to normal. Unfortunately that was far from the case. I couldn't even make it a half a mile before having to retire and make an appointment at the doctor for the next day. The initial diagnosis is it's arch related. It's not a stress fracture (had X-rays done), which is a plus. I have an appointment with the 'UVA Run Clinic' on Monday. It's a clinic run by an M.D. who specializes in athletes and, more specifically, runners.

As frustrated as I am, I want triathlon to be a major part of my life... for the rest of my life. I love running, I love swimming, and most of all I love cycling. Throw in the fact that it's more of a lifestyle than a sport and you've captured what it is that draws me in. With all of that being said, I'm going to take the solution that provides the highest probability that I can continue on with the sport. If that means taking some time off to recover, so be it. I'm an amateur. Triathlon doesn't put food on the table, so no need to get ahead of myself.

Workout update:

Lots of good things have been happening in terms of workouts. I swam my first sub 4 min 300 m and have been getting closer and closer to the 1 min 100 m benchmark. I'm consistently hitting 1:10 during interval workouts without too much strain. I think the time in the gym has made a huge difference in my power output in the pool.

I was finally able to get my TT bike fixed (thanks Mom and Dad) and man oh man does it feel good to be back in the aero bars. I was concerned that I'd have to spend some time getting my position readjusted since I've been riding my road bike exclusively since before the new year, but it was like putting on an old favorite pair of jeans.

I'm really looking forward to my appointment at the run clinic. Everyone I've talked to says they're great and really understand the physical demands of being a runner and dealing with an injury. I'm hoping to get some good advice on shoe choice (assuming my issue is arch related) and maybe even some suggestions on running form. We'll see what they say.

Thanks for reading. I'll try to post a bit more often than once every two weeks. No promises though.

Heading for the hills

2011-04-23T17:21:00.005-04:00

When dealing with a tough schedule, each workout has to count. This is especially true when it comes to cycling and, fortunately, it's a bit easier to get a lot done in less time on the bike. This isn't necessarily true for Ironman athletes who have to train for endurance, but for sprint and Olympic distance athletes it's possible to get a lot done in a little bit of time. Time on the bike during the race can range from 30 minutes to just over an hour, so a 90 minute workout is plenty. I'm a huge fan of relatively short (90 minutes or less) convenient workouts that are massively brutal and pack a big bang for your buck. This post highlights a specific type of workout that's new to my schedule but has already afforded noticeable results.

Hill Repeats

We live in an area that's all hills. Initially I saw this as a negative for my bike workouts since triathlon cycling is very similar to time trialing which rarely means a hilly course. A typical cycling workout for a triathlete might include 5, 10, or even 20 minute intervals on flat land. Considering this is what you'd encounter in a race, it's the logical thing to do.

To me hill repeats seem to be a skill specific workout. You want to be a climber? Do hill repeats. You want to be a triathlete? Well... doing hill repeats might not be the first answer you'd get. While it might be hard to find a 5+ minute hill to climb to simulate a typical triathlon specific bike workout, doing 2-4 minute repeats can do a lot for your power output, especially if you focus on the effort and your power output, as opposed to just getting up the hill as fast as possible. I do this by doing all repeats in the big ring and powering up the hill with a steady cadence and effort.

So long as you're not neglecting your flat land workouts or your longer tempo rides, hill repeats can be a great way to sneak in a tough interval workout. Even if you have a beautifully maintained, lit, relatively flat, low traffic, 6 mile loop office park to do intervals at, as was the case when I lived in Richmond, it wouldn't hurt to throw in a hill repeat workout from time to time, or hit the hills with a purpose when doing a tempo ride. Think of it like you're cranking up the resistance on your trainer.

Here's what my workout on Wednesday looked like:

15 min warmup

8 x 2 min hills in big ring with focus on level effort throughout climb

1 x 6 min hill in big ring with increased intensity on last 2 minutes

15 min cool down

Roughly equal cool down time in between each hill.

Followed by 5k run.

Total time: 90 minutes

Give it a try, you'll be surprised with how good of a workout it is and how noticeable the results will be, even after only 2-3 weeks of doing this somewhere in your schedule.

Things are warming up

2011-04-17T18:09:00.003-04:00

As the weather warms up so has my training. As I wrote in my last post, I planned on implementing some changes to my running including more easy runs to get more mileage. I'm able to fit in a few extra 4-6 mile runs throughout the week with little or no impact on the rest of my training. Previously, I had trouble upping my mileage because I was adding in tempo runs and ignoring the importance of low stress runs. The easier runs have made fitting in a swim workout before or after the run or later in the day a real possibility. It's becoming evident that the key is finding the balance between mileage and intensity to maximize volume and minimize stress, as opposed to aiming for bang for your buck type workouts.

Since the Jefferson Cup road race was postponed until May 8th (it snowed the original date) I've been riding the course with two training friends here in Charlottesville who are on their way to great finishes on the 8th. While they usually do 5+ laps of the 10 mile course I usually stick around for 3. It's about all I can take as it's a very high intensity ride (see here for a short description of the course). The rolling section is hands down the toughest part for me. There's no break and they seem to ride over each hill as if it's not there. I'm able to hang on, but it isn't easy. I snuck in a short (2.5 mile) run after todays ride, which went surprisingly well.

Looking at my time on the bike I'm happy with the workouts I'm doing but I don't think it's enough and they're too spread out. Getting two high quality rides on the weekend is great, but I need to figure out how to sneak in a short workout in mid week. It will likely be hill repeats as it's a convenient option for me. I'm not exactly sure how to make hill repeats work for a triathlete since triathlon cycling is more akin to time trialing than road cycling and courses rarely include hilly sections. However, from a purely physical standpoint, the efforts done in hill repeats and flat ground intervals of similar length and intensity are likely very close. The other way I see it is hill repeats are better than not ride at all. Maybe more on this later. This might also lend itself to a possible brick workout if I can start my hill workout early enough.

Nothing really concrete in this post, just some notes about my training and things going through my head. I'm feeling very optimistic about this season. If things continue as they have been, I'm confident I'll have some good results. This time around, my training has been a lot more thoughtful and deliberate which might be the difference.... so long as I don't over think things.

10k PR

2011-04-05T19:42:00.002-04:00

The first race of the season is in the books and by all accounts it was a success. I crossed the line at the Monument Avenue 10k in 41:41, roughly 20 seconds faster than my previous fastest time. The weather forecast was iffy; they were calling for mid 40's and rain. We got the mid 40's but missed out on the rain. Looking back at the race a lot of things went right and the things that didn't were minor and point to areas of my training that need more attention.

I've never been a fan of cookie cutter training plans because of the reasons mentioned in previous posts, but I think one can learn a lot by looking at the overall structure of a generic training plan (of which there are tons on the internet). In hopes of gaining some insight into what others were doing to break the illusive 40 minute wall down I did a little research into training plans geared towards that very goal.

One thing stood out. Almost all of the plans focused on increased mileage by including more easy moderate distance runs, a long (60-90 min) easy run, and a focused speed workout (track and on road). That's it. In all honesty, everything I saw looked easier from an intensity standpoint, but had significantly higher mileage than what I had been doing. Though not at first, after some thought it made sense. You can run a decent time by training to run 6.2 miles but to run a better time... to break the 40 minute barrier, you need to train to run more than 6.2 miles. To do that, you just have to get more miles under your feet. My initial approach had been to train for the 6.2 and work on my speed. I was almost shocked to see only one (!) speed workout per week and so many easy (!) runs

So what will I be changing? I'll be mixing in more easy runs throughout the week, even if it's just 3 miles before going to lab, and one longer run on the weekend. I need to get the idea out of my head that every workout has to be at full throttle. I'd like to get my mileage back up to 25-30 miles/week and even more eventually and give the 10k distance another shot in 6-8 weeks. It'd be nice to mix in a 5k somewhere in the middle too as I'd imagine an increase in mileage would benefit my time at that distance as well and would be an indicator of how things are going.

Big thanks to my buddy Chris for letting me wear his Garmin during the race. It was so nice being able to see my pace and lap times. I had shown up that morning with mile splits written on my arm. I can confidently say that having accurate pacing data from the Garmin was a significantly better option.

Have a good night everyone!

Race week preparations

2011-03-29T21:03:00.004-04:00

The week before a race is always very important. The goal is to show up to the start line feeling fresh and rested... but not too rested. In the past I've had the tendency to overestimate the amount of time left before a race then being surprised when I realize the race is a week away. I suppose it's a byproduct of having a less structured training program and training by what feels good. With that being said and all of the focus on time management and planning, I'm going to try to avoid losing track of my schedule this time around.

The goal for Saturday is to finish in under 40 minutes. This has been a goal of mine for quite a while and I really haven't given the 40 minute mark a run for it's money. Then again, my run training had never been all that focused until the past year, so this will be my first time going into the race with a decent number of miles under my belt. My realistic goal is to beat my PR from 3 years ago of 41:59. Last year's time was 42:30 which I'm confident I can match.

There's a few things I need to do to make either of these happen.

- I need to stay focused and not get excited. It's so easy to get excited out of the gate and burn out on the first few miles. My first mile is regularly under 6 minutes... not good at all if I want to stay in the game for the whole 6.2. If I want to come close to either time, I'll need to be conservative on my first mile and be sure it's around 6:30. Once I get to the 4 mile mark, then I'll think about upping the pace a bit, but not too dramatically. Better to finish with a little left in the tank rather than burning out a mile before the finish.

- I need to use my gel BEFORE the half way point. In the past I've waited until the 3.1 mile marker and by the time it hits me the race is nearly over. I'm thinking around the 2-2.5 mile mark would be good. At this point I'll be settling in and still have some energy, and by the time I start to fade, the calories and sugar from the gel will kick in.

- Push push push from mile 4-5. This is always the hardest point of the race. I don't know why but I always feel terrible at this point. Knowing and expecting this is key to not letting it stop me.

I think if I can do these things I'll walk away happy with whatever time I manage.

More posts coming in the future. I'm still figuring out the framework for this whole thing.

Being a master planner - Understanding your schedule, and how to maximize your time

2011-03-26T13:35:00.008-04:00

It's been just about a week since my last post and just as much as this blog is a workout log for me it's also meant to be interesting for others to read. On that note, I sat down to write several times this week and realized I didn't have anything interesting to write. It wasn't because I stopped training, but rather because I spent the whole week catching up on sleep and training volume and intensity suffered. This lead me to do some thinking about micro and macro planning and being the master of your schedule.

There are two main times in anyone's schedule. Claimed and unclaimed time as I like to call them. Claimed time includes work, family commitments, sleep/rest time and just about anything else that you have to do. Unclaimed time is time you have to do what you want with. For me, time on weekends and before and after work is largely unclaimed. Within that there are varying levels of flexibility, but those are the times I have to train and enjoy life. What you do with that unclaimed time on a daily basis is the small picture and the sum of all of that time is the big picture. The stats for the workout, that's the small picture. Where you are three weeks down the road, or where you want to be, that's the big picture. Since we're talking about planning, we're more interested in the big picture. We want to use that time in such a way that the end result is some level of fitness that allows us to win races (ideally).

There are three key elements to the bigger picture for any triathlete:

1. Finding time for each discipline.

2. Doing the appropriate workouts (i.e. Speed work, endurance, strength etc.).

3. Taking time to analyze your progress.

These might seem like small picture items, but if you're consistently neglecting any of these, your long term goals are going to suffer.

When the season is getting started or you're getting back into the swing of things, one or more of these elements might fall behind. You might do all the right workouts consistently but you don't take the time to think about what you've been doing and what you should change. You might think a lot about your training and get in the workouts, but neglect important types of workouts. Needless to say, it takes time to find a balance, and when things change that balance needs to be adjusted.

So how do we tie these things together? There are certain workouts that absolutely positively cannot be missed. For me, my running endurance is great, but my speed is lacking. Because of this my speed/interval/tempo workouts (2-3/week) are top priority so I schedule them in unclaimed time that I know is not going to be disrupted. Cycling? Weekends. It's unclaimed time that's flexible and allows for longer workouts. If I've got some extra time during the week, maybe I'll get in a quick interval or hill session. Swimming? It's at the bottom of my priority list because with out a significant increase in volume I'm not going to be making any drastic improvements, so it gets peppered in throughout the week. If I can't make it to the pool? No big deal, I'll try to sneak it in another day.

Setting your priorities and being aware of the time you have (and realistic about it) will allow you to maximize your free time and get the most from it. Being consistent and willing to adjust when the balance gets disturbed are equally as important. Additionally, setting your goals and painting your picture with the races you have coming up in mind is key to getting the most bang for your buck.

There's an even bigger picture that includes A races, fitness cycles, and rest time. I have never been able to step back that far and see my season as a whole. Things change so quickly for me that I'm constantly having to adjust so being able to say right now what my A race for the season will be, when I want to be fit, and when I'm going to take time off would be making a plan for the sake of breaking it. I think a large of number of triathletes fall into this category. Whether it's grad school like it is for me, or a full time job and a family like it is for others, many athletes don't have the luxury of planning an entire season out in advance. The best we can do is train our faces off and go with the flow, making the month to month plan all the more important.

For anyone who is involved in the sport of triathlon on a limited schedule, planning is the single most important thing you can do to be successful. It's all to easy to shrug off a workout at the end of the day if you're already somewhat tired and don't have a specific workout in mind. If, on the other hand, you have a tempo run planned because you're trying to get your 10k time down, it's a lot easier because the end result... the master plan that is... is the motivator.

Like I said, I hope this is enjoyable for others to read. At the very least, it's a chance for me to spill my ideas in one place and fulfill the 1/3 of being a triathlete that is thinking about and analyzing your training.

Good night folks.

Exercises In Time Management

2011-03-18T16:44:00.004-04:00

The past few days have been the first official test of my time management skills. I was fortunate enough to be a part of the graduate student recruitment events for our department which meant attending an informal meet and greet/dinner/social, q&a session for incoming students, poster session, and eventually a more formal dinner, all spanning over several days. The sum of all this was a nice amount of free food, meeting new people, and a crazy and slightly choppy schedule. So what did this mean for my workout schedule? The bottom line was I needed to get up early enough to workout if I planned on doing so at all. It's easy to say "I'll wake up early tomorrow", doing it is a whole other ball game. So how did it go?

Tuesday A.M.

Strength training - circuit workout

I'll post more on my circuit workouts later but just to give you an idea, they're about an hour long, are a total body workout and incorporate compound exercises. I like having workouts framed this way because the intensity and exercises can be changed easily without altering the quality of the workout. Additionally, doing some compound exercises makes it interesting. Again, more on this later.

Wednesday A.M.

4.2 mile rolling hill run - 29:00

I found a great out and back "course" that I can use to gauge my fitness. It's pretty hilly but also includes some flat sections. It's all pavement (so, okay for rainy days), and doesn't have anything that would derail my workout (i.e. no major intersections or railroad crossings), so it's great for taking times. I ran it on Wednesday at a medium tempo. Not too hard, but certainly not easy. I like this workout, because even at a moderate pace (~7:15/mile here), I can get in a quality workout in about 30 minutes. Great for busy days or even a great way to tag on an extra 30 minutes to a bike workout.

Thursday A.M.

Strength training - circuit workout

Similar to Tuesday, but with more of a focus on core exercises this time around.

Thursday P.M.

4.2 mile rolling hill run - 27:00

Same route as on Wednesday morning. This time, however, I pushed it a bit and was able to get my pace down to ~6:45/mile (I really need to get a GPS watch so I know these numbers). Early in the season this is a good pace for my harder efforts. Eventually, I'd like to be able to do it in 24:00 or less, so closer to a 6:00/mile pace. I don't know if that will happen this year, but I'm really happy to be putting out good efforts that result in reasonable times. I'm also glad to have found a course to do timed runs. With it being hilly I would hope that a 6:45 pace would equate to a 6:30 pace (or less maybe???) on a flat course. I suppose we'll test that out on April 2.

Friday

Rest... kind of.

It's been a busy busy week, but the motivation to wake up early to get out the door for a run or into the gym is finally creeping back. With the weather getting warmer I'd like to think it will continue to get easier.

For the weekend: A longer run and maybe a swim workout. Hopefully a ride on Sunday. A lot going on this weekend as well so the time management continues!

Off Track Intervals

2011-03-14T20:32:00.005-04:00

This week is going to be busy busy busy which means things will get shifted around. Knowing this, I wanted to knock out a key workout that I can't afford to miss: running intervals. I'm used to doing speed and interval workouts on the track, but opted for a slightly more scenic option tonight which made the 50 minutes pass by much faster, and added some varied terrain. The focus, which was determined half way through the first interval, was to keep each effort smooth and steady.

Time: ~50 minutes

Distance: 6 miles

Intervals: 10 minute warm up, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes hard with equal recovery in between, 10 minutes cool down and 10 minutes of stretching.

I need to find a way of grading my workouts, maybe I'll do a number out of 100? This one would be an 85. The efforts were great but not spectacular and my legs were really suffering during the cool down.

Tomorrow will be an easier day. Strength in the evening for sure and maybe some yoga and general stretching in the morning.

Jefferson Cup Workout

2011-03-13T16:22:00.006-04:00

OK, I'll start with the stats....

Distance: 32 miles of hard tempo and rolling hills

Time: ~1:40

Average speed: ~19.2 mph (I don't have a working bike computer at the moment so this is a rough calculation)

Today was my first hard ride of the season with two riding buddies here in Charlottesville who are preparing for the Jefferson Cup road race. Even though it's an early season race it often sells out within minutes and attracts a very competitive field. The race is held on a 10 miles of beautiful country roads just over the mountain from where we live. We did 3 laps (just as a reference, the mens 50+ race is 5 laps of the course. Ouch!). The course has 4 sections allowing for a variety of training. A road racer might divide it up even further but as a triathlete each of these four sections were distinct and had something specific offer. Here's how I split it up:

1. Flat section that includes the start/finish line (3 miles)

2. Massive hill just under a mile long responsible for splitting the field every year. (1 mile)

3. A winding flat and downhill section. (3 miles)

4. A section composed of mostly rolling hills. (3 miles)

We used the first section as recovery, rode the big hill hard, and the other 2 at a hard tempo. There were a few things that stood out to me as things I need to work on and a few things I did right.

Things to work on:

1. My power isn't smooth or consistent. At this point I'm exploding at the beginning of an effort and dieing down quickly as soon as my legs begin to fatigue. I need to do longer intervals so my power only dips slightly after the initial surge. I say this with the first 5 minutes of the bike leg in a tri in mind when you're pushing the tempo and trying to get a rhythm going, eventually settling in to a steady effort.

2. Bike handling. A lot of the curves and descents were scary. I just need to ride more. Being confident on your bike won't win the race, but it'll stop you from losing precious seconds having to slow down at every turn.

Things I did right:

1. I stretched before and after. Again, it was static stretching and it wasn't more than 5-10 minutes of it, but it made a difference. No odd muscle cramps during the hard efforts or surprise cement legs after the car ride home. I'm almost embarrassed that I wasn't doing this before.

2. Nutrition. I had a protein shake made with water and a rice cake with peanut butter before the ride, two bottles of Gatorade and a rice bar during the ride and a protein shake made with milk and a rice cake with nutella afterward. I had fuel in the tank for the whole ride and I came home not feeling like a dead man walking (every endurance athlete knows what I'm talking about). I need to start using gels again and skip the solid food during rides less than 2 hours. While solid food is more satisfying, you can't beat the convenience of energy gels.

We had a great ride. It felt really really good to be out pushing my limits again and it was good to walk away with positive points and a thing or two to focus on in the future.

The plan for this week is up in the air but at a minimum, I'd like to get in a swim workout, a few morning runs, and stick with my two strength workouts. A lot going on, we'll see how it goes.

Thanks for reading.

Apologies to anyone using an RSS feeder

2011-03-12T11:39:00.003-05:00

I just realized that every time I post something and then go back and edit it, both posts show up in your inbox. I'll do my best to edit before I post and avoid spamming your feeder inbox twice with my hastily posted nonsense, and the refined, carefully posted nonsense. Still working out the kinks here.

Indoor Intervals

2011-03-12T11:26:00.004-05:00

Due to possible schedule conflicts I decided to do my bike workout inside on the rollers today. Mentally, I can usually only take an hour of riding inside so I tend towards higher intensity interval based workouts. Today it was a ladder set. I like ladder intervals because you get the high intensity, short duration efforts and slowly transition into longer, more moderate sustained efforts.

Time: 50 minutes

Intervals: 10 minute warm up, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 2.5 minute intervals with equal rest time after each, 10 minute cool down. 10 minutes of static stretching afterward.

Recovery snack of the week: Optimum Nutrition Whey Protein Shake (chocolate) made with milk and a rice cake and Nutella. About 500 calories, 40 grams of protein, 50 grams of carbs.

Experience is the name we give our mistakes

2011-03-12T09:35:00.003-05:00

The title of this post is a quote from Oscar Wilde. Being able to walk away from your failures (and your successes for that matter) wiser than you were when you started is critical to being successful in in anything. For the sake of starting off on the right foot, this post will briefly dissect some of the major mistakes I've made in the past three years in hopes of unraveling what caused things to fall apart.

1. Failure to adapt means failing to move forward - This was the real killer for me. Certain things are going to be more important than triathlon. Family, friends, work/school. There are only 24 hours in a day and trying to fit everything in means stretching yourself thin. Have a shorter or more convenient back up plan in case your primary workout isn't going to work, and be honest about when it's time to use your backup plan. Most of all, never feel bad about having to shorten or skip a workout because something else came up... which leads us into number 2.

2. Be grateful for the time you do have and not frustrated about the time you don't- As grad school got busier and busier, I became more and more frustrated that my training and racing couldn't be the same as it was in undergrad. Instead of being grateful that I still had time to pursue a sport I loved, I was frustrated that my free time, as I saw it, was slowly being taken away. In reality the problem wasn't being taken away, it was that I wasn't able to be creative and change my schedule up a bit to accommodate my new set of responsibilities. Refer to #1.

3. Rest rest rest - One of the basic facts of triathlon, or any endurance sport is that you have to put in the time to improve. A lesser accepted (by amateur athletes like myself) but well known fact is that you need to be just as vigilant about getting rest as you are about staying in shape. Failing to get adequate rest will adversely affect later workouts. Eventually it begins to snowball and the end result is burnout.

4. Fuel - Eat eat eat. If you're eating the right things (lean meats, vegetables, fruits, etc. etc.), then eating more is not a bad thing. Be conscious of what you eat, when you eat it, and how you feel afterward. What you put in your body makes a huge difference in how you feel before, how you perform during, and how you recover after your workouts. There will be plenty more about nutrition in the future.

5. Stretch - Stretching is so easy to forget. It's boring, and it's not appealing. Going fast and winning races is appealing. Sitting on the floor after a hard workout and stretching your hamstrings is not. However, not stretching can lead to sore muscles which makes workouts miserable and eventually leads to mental burnout. Nobody likes being sore all the time. Even if it's just 10 minutes of static stretching, it's better than nothing. At some point I'll have a post on stretching as it's an often overlooked part of endurance sports.

By no means is this a comprehensive list of improvements that need to made for this to work the second time around. Looking at the list, every single item seems like common sense. Often times, however, it's the common sense things that are the easiest to overlook. Once these are tackled, there will be more mistakes, and more lists. That's how it works, you never stop learning.

Comfort Run

2011-03-11T18:28:00.003-05:00

The goal here was to keep things lively but never brisk. After doing intervals on the treadmill last night, I didn't wan't to over do it. Steady efforts up the hills and smooth strides on the flats and declines. 10 minutes of solid stretching afterward.

Distance: 5.6 miles with hills

Time: 43 minutes

Pace: ~7:45/mile

Part 2 - Starting over again

2011-03-11T13:36:00.003-05:00

It's interesting to read one of the last lines of the last post:

"We move to Charlottesville in 2 weeks and then the climbing training begins. I'm pumped."

While it's a true statement (we did, indeed, move to Charlottesville), there's a lot more to the story than I ever could have seen coming. We moved here so I could embark upon my graduate career as a bioanalytical chemist. I assumed that triathlon was such a big part of my life that I'd have the time to train in between the requirements and responsibilities of pursuing a PhD in the sciences. The unfortunate truth is that I only knew how to be a triathlete on an undergraduate schedule. I was a VERY busy undergraduate, but I had more flexibility in my schedule, and less responsibility. In the past 3 years I've raced several times, with good results. I did my best to continue training and to stay in shape. I got my diet straight and have learned to appreciate the benefit of living a balanced, well rounded life. The one thing I wasn't able to get into my head, was the importance of being flexible, and having a schedule (inside and out of the lab) that had breathing room. Because of this, when the going got tough, instead of adjusting and adapting, I gave up, and decided to back out of triathlon.

I thought that giving up (I didn't think of it as 'giving up' at the time) would free up a huge block in my schedule. If I didn't have to worry about racing, then training would become stress free. I figured this would do wonders for my overall stress level. Unfortunately, all it did was make it worse.

Being successful in science means being comfortable with failing and being persistent. Most of the time, the long hours don't translate into tangible results. When they do, the results are often minor and only a small piece of the larger puzzle. This is nothing new to me and anyone pursuing a career in the sciences better get this into their head early or it's going to be a long and painful road. Triathlon, on the other hand, is quite the opposite. Time spent running, biking or swimming usually translates into increased fitness. Increased fitness means finishing races, meeting a time goal, winning your age group, or even placing in the top 10 overall. The work pays off in a very tangible way, and there is a great deal of instant gratification involved.

I don't think it's healthy to go through life expecting a pat on the back every time you do something good. On the other hand, if your career is such that the million failures are worth it because the minor successes forms a bigger picture, then it's a good idea to have something on the side. More specifically, something that makes you feel good about yourself and your abilities. Something that gives you goals and requires little more than your time and dedication. And, preferably, something that has a slightly higher rate of return.

We're going to try this again. We're going to make it work. I'm going to post here to keep myself accountable and I hope you, my friends and family, will read this blog and encourage me. I'll try to keep the posts short and interesting (unlike this one), and I'll try to post regularly. One thing you can expect is an assortment of posts on topics ranging from training, to racing, to nutrition, to time management and maybe even some science.

I'm back and it feels good to be here.

Massive update

2008-06-10T11:09:00.002-04:00

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!

Just kidding

2008-05-26T17:41:00.003-04:00

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!

Sore

2008-05-26T11:01:00.001-04:00

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.

Fatigue

2008-05-25T19:00:00.002-04:00

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.

Core workout

2008-05-23T09:38:00.002-04:00

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.

Quite possibly the longest post ever

2008-05-22T22:16:00.009-04:00

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.

Mother's Day workout

2008-05-11T18:22:00.004-04:00

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.

Quality vs. Quantity

2008-05-11T11:30:00.002-04:00

We had a team meeting on Thursday and one of the pro guys came and talked about training. There was one thing that he wanted to drive home to us. When you go out for a ride, focus on quality before quantity and know what it is you're training for.

Since we're on a cycling team, and the multi sport group is sort of a small faction of the entire team a lot of the clinics are cycling related. While the lecture was directed towards improving your cycling I think it's totally applicable to triathlon cycling because of how much time you can pick up on the bike. I like to think of it as free speed since cycling is my strong point and the part I enjoy the most.

Craig said if you're training for a race with a 24 mile bike ride, or a 24 mile time trial, or 24 mile crit, then you don't need to ride for anymore than 2-2.5 hours. Apparently there are guys on the team who are going for 4 hour bike rides. I don't know who they are, and I'm certainly not going for 4 hour bike rides however I can sort of see Craig's point on this. Why ride for 4 hours if you're only going to be racing for 1ish. His point was that you should tailor your training to what you're going to be doing. Train your muscles to behave in such a way that when you show up for your race that it's second nature. He suggested doing T-Intervals, which are basically 30 seconds on as hard as you can, and then 3 minutes off for 6-8 intervals. So that's what we did on Saturday, but more on that later.

On Friday I hit the pool in the morning for a good 45 minute workout. It was similar to the workout from Tuesday, just 500 m shorter. I like that workout because it's got distance (the first 750), longer intervals (3x200 +150) and shorter/faster intervals (5x100 and 10x50 on Tuesday). It seems to be a good mix. I might try to pick one workout every other week and stick with it for those two weeks. I don't know, anything to make swimming more fun/easier/beneficial.

Unfortunately, while it was a great workout, it threw my entire diet off for Friday because I didn't eat breakfast until 11. Which meant lunch didn't come until 4:30 and dinner until 9. Damn it sucked. I hate changing things up that much on my diet. I know I have to eat if I want to keep training, so I do, but it's really hard to do when your second meal of the day is at 4:30. I don't like eating late at night (big meals at least), so there wasn't much motivation to eat a grilled chicken sandwich and salad at 9. Whatever, it'll just take some time before the whole eating schedule is back on track with school being over.

Saturday we had the bike ride of a lifetime! We tried the T-Intervals, as mentioned above. We did 4 on the way out, then did some hills which were brutal and then did 4 on the way back. Chris was destroying the hills. We kept 24-25 going up one on the way back and damn it was brutal. I was behind him on that one and I was in pain. The ride was a total of 30 miles (almost exactly), with 8 intervals of 30 seconds at 1000%, 7-8 nice hills, 1300 calories, and 10 miles of some nice tempo riding.

We also found a good spot for hill training. There's a spot about 10 miles into the ride that is basically a huge hole that goes down and then back up. We could just drive the car out there and go up and down for an hour and destroy our legs. It's perfect because both of the climbs are pretty long and decently steep. I don't know about riding out there because getting back after an hour of hill intervals might be tough.

Things are looking good for June. We've got two short races the first week of June, and I think training has really been on the upswing lately. I'm expecting a good finish for both of us. As long as I don't drink Gatorade Endurance and Chris stays away from Infinit.

That's it for today. Time to do whatever people do on Mother's Day.

Intervals... in the water and out

2008-05-07T23:00:00.003-04:00

Last night Chris and I decided to celebrate the end of our college career by heading to the pool for a swim workout. I have to say, I forgot how much more fun swimming is if you're there with somebody. Swimming by yourself is boring as hell. But if you have someone to talk to and keep up with then it makes it a much more pleasant workout. I guess this only holds if it's somebody you know, and that somebody isn't a shark.

The workout was pretty awesome. Less than an hour, but still 2500 meters. Here's how my workout broke down (Chris's was different, more distance sets):

750 warm up
3x200 tempo (~1:35 pace)
150 tempo (~1:35 pace)
5x100 tempo (I wanted this to be a 1:30 pace, but it was closer to a 1:40)
10x50 tempo (Same thing, I struggled to keep a 1:30, it was more on the range of 1:35-1:40)
50 cooldown

I felt good in the water. I was surprised since it's been a good 2-3 weeks since I last got in a swim workout. The end of the semester and exams will do that to you.

After the swim workout we decided to really celebrate by going to our favorite resturaunt. Ahh, the joys of being a triathlete. All it takes is 3 solid beers and you're well on your way to being drunk. Nothing wrong with going out and having a good time. You can't spend all your time suffering and busting your ass, right?

Tonight was intervals with the team. It was awesome! The workout was intense as usual. We did our normal 4 min intervals. I think I missed the first one, so I only got in 5, but trust me, it still destroyed my legs.

The bike workout was followed by the usual run of about 4 miles. The first two were at a moderate pace. The last two were at a blistering pace of just under 6:00. It was really interesting because there were about 5 of us who were really pushing at the end and we all had fairly different running styles. I think we all have decent running form, but still different in the small details.

Oh, you though that was it? I wish! The run was followed by short interval sprints focusing mainly on form and short strides. It was easy for the first 3 or 4 strides but by the time you were up to full speed you were straining to keep your legs moving.

The tri team is really coming together. We're getting in some awesome workouts and everyone is enjoying the company. I think triathletes are so used to working out alone that when we workout in groups we all get super excited. Either way, team spirit is a good thing.

Would you be surprised if I said I ended the night with my pushup and ab workout? I hope not. I came home and did my normal ab workout (bicycle crunches, leg lifts, front planks, side planks) and 100 pushups broken into sets of 20.

Tonight was awesome. I'm not sure if I'll be able to get up and workout in the am, but if not, I won't be disappointed because I think I got in 2 days worth of workouts in the span of 2 hours tonight.

Thanks for reading. Things are getting better. Now that school is over, I'm no longer being dragged through the mud by some of these classes. It really makes a difference. My mood has improved and I'm finding the time to get back to what I love.

Check out this sweet video with highlights from the Wildflower triathlon. The one thing I noticed that I really liked, was that Macca wasn't the first out of the water, and wasn't the first off the bike, but still won. Just showing he's an amazing all around athlete and pulls it together in the end. Unfortunately my skills are more akin to Bjorn Andersson, meaning I'm strong on the bike and struggle to keep a solid pace on the run. We're working on it.

Cheers everyone!

An unwelcome reminder...

2008-05-05T23:09:00.003-04:00

My electromagnetism and complex analysis exams are tomorrow. Studying for those things has been a reminder of how horrible this semester has been. It really has been brutal. I've felt 10x better since I've been working out consistently again. I really look forward to grad school when I'll be focusing on one area of science and it'll actually be something I enjoy and can use every day. None of this bs that we've been working on all semester (yes I know grad school will be harder and more work, but just let me day dream).

Enough complaining.

Like I had planned, I got out for 30 on the bike this morning. It was a nice ride. My legs were a bit tired from the run yesterday but I felt good. As usual the way out was a bit more uphill and on the way back it was more downhill. I finished with an average speed of just under 21 and an average heart rate of just around 150.

The average heart rate thing threw me for a loop. 150? Was I even moving? If somebody just saw my heart rate they might think I was riding a beach cruiser and drinking a pina colada. I guarantee the perceived effort was no less than usual for a 21 mph ride.

I think it's a combination of riding in the morning (today) vs. riding in the afternoon (usually recently) and the workout from the day before. The mornings are always tough because you have to wake up wicked early to eat a decent meal and be able to workout. Plus it's colder in the mornings. Besides my legs being a bit tired I felt great, so had I eaten a decent meal a few hours prior to heading out I think I could've pushed it a bit more.

Moral of the story? I have no idea.

Tomorrow: 2 terrible exams. On one I need a 40% to get a C, and the other I have a C without even taking the exam. A C is usually way below my standards but considering the classes, I'll be happy to get out alive.

Tomorrow night: Swim workout (60-90 minutes). Then Capital Ale House to have a beer, eat some dinner and celebrate a long, stressful, and busy undergraduate career.

Sunday workout

2008-05-04T21:13:00.003-04:00

The other day, my friend who just recently went pro, mentioned that he and his dad would be going for a run on Sunday (today) and asked if I wanted to come. I figured sure why not? It'd be a good workout since this guy is fast as hell. I hadn't heard from him by 9ish this morning so I figured I'd eat breakfast and I'd hear from him later in the day. Of course as soon as I finished my bagel and protein shake I saw that I had a missed call. The fact that I had just eaten and was quite full crossed my mind, but we weren't running to far from my house so I figured worst comes to worst I'll drop back and head home. Luckily I didn't have to.

We ran 6.5 miles in a little under 50 minutes, so 10k in ~46 minutes. When I say we, I mean me, he was a decent bit ahead keeping a much stronger pace. It was hot out and there were a few hills on the course that we ran so I struggled a bit towards the end but managed to pull through. My form felt good and I was able to keep it going for the whole 50 minutes and didn't slack when I got tired. I think it was a more consistent effort than Friday's run which is good. Now that I'm getting my rhythm back I need to pick it up a bit.

The run was followed by abs and push ups as usual. I was able to do 100 pushups in sets of 20 today, which is a bit more than usual. However usually I'll do a few some ken-po push ups which are a lot harder but today it was just the norm.

I'm at 174 after working out this morning. That was also after a lot of water and a bottle of Gatorade so it might be a bit off. I'll get a more accurate number tomorrow morning after my workout. I'd still like to get down to 165 at some point this season. I think it's doable. If I had to guess I'd say I was 172 if I weighed myself with out my shoes, shorts, shirt, 2 liters of water and a bottle of gatorade, so 165 isn't too far off. Maybe a month or 2 away, but not a ridiculous amount.

Tomorrow I'll be heading out for 30 on the bike in the AM. I might try to mix in some tempo sections. I'd like to average 21 overall, and 23-24 on the tempo sections. I need to swim. I'll probably be doing that on Tuesday.

Good times

2008-05-02T21:02:00.005-04:00

So I've followed through for the past day or two with the plan that I laid out in my last post. Wednesday night was intervals practice, so I had my intervals for the week. Thursday I got in an easy 30 miler on the bike averaging 20.9 and feeling good followed by 100 push ups and ab work. Today I did an hour long run at an easy pace (7:30ish), once again followed by some push ups and ab work. So here are my observations...

1. I'm still able to keep up a pretty darn good pace on the bike with minimal effort. When I say my bike ride was easy, I mean I really wasn't pushing, and still averaged almost 21 mph. I think these longer rides are good at getting your heart conditioned for endurance racing. My HR was in the 155-175 range, obviously 175 going up hill and 155 on the flats and downhills.

2. Running for an hour is hard even if you're running slow. So... if it's hard either way why not run faster? I'd like to get in as many of these hour long runs to condition my body to endure the pounding for an hour. Then a 40 minute 10k doesn't feel so bad. Of course at a faster pace 40 minutes might be all that I can take. None the less, the base building involved is great and really won't take much time considering I'm in decent running shape at the moment (wouldn't mind being better though).

3. No swimming yet. That's tomorrow morning. I'd like to get in 45-60 minutes of good swimming. I'm not expecting to make tons of improvement on my swimming, I just want to be as comfortable in the water as possible. The bike and run are the two places where I think I can make some headway.

Chris is racing tomorrow at the Smith Mountain Lake Sprint Tri. Best of luck homie. Crush it on the bike.

I finally got some pictures from the duathlon. Here are a few of the better ones. Apparently I'm not very photogenic when I'm struggling. It's also interesting to see that when I'm tired I revert back to heel striking. Need to work on that. Maybe these longer runs will fix it.

'

Swimming in the AM. Studying for exams, and a wedding. Fun times.

Back to basics

2008-05-01T09:07:00.002-04:00

Back to basics... that's the theme for the next couple of weeks. I think the best way to optimize the month between now and the next race I should spend as much time on the bike and out running. That means less of a focus on interval/tempo stuff and more of a focus on just getting the hell out there, at least for the first two weeks.

Why? Well because of school and other responsibilities in the past few weeks, my training has been crap. I've gotten out a few times for some good workouts, and I was able to maintain some fitness. But I wasn't improving. I was just maintaining, which is disappointing since I came out of the off season in such good shape.

I don't want to put down any of my performances up until this point by any means. I'm very happy with how I've done, and I think the hard off-season served me well. I just think theres a few things that I could improve on and put the puzzle together for a successful race. I'm still aiming for a top 10 finish.

So what will the training look like for the next month? I've broken it down into 2 time frames.

1.) The first two weeks will have a strong focus on longer, more moderate efforts. I fixed my HRM so I'll be aiming for a HR of 150-160. So nothing crazy. Of course there will be some interval and tempo stuff mixed in but I don't plan on killing myself. I want to get my body back into the swing of doing something everyday.

2.) The last two weeks will switch from more of the longer stuff to more tempo/interval stuff. Just to get some speed back on my legs.

I think there is a certain level of fitness that sticks with you. I also think there's a certain amount of intensity and speed that goes away if you don't maintain a good training schedule. I don't think it'll be hard to get it back. I think if I follow the above two guidelines I'll be in good shape to come out strong at the next race.

Speaking of the next race, I'm thinking I'll be doing the HHHunt Powersprint on June 1. It's a blazingly fast course and I usually do fairly well there. Lets hope everything comes together before June 1. Then the next week is the Yorktown Sprint, another fast course. I'm getting pumped already.

Today might be a swim workout and maybe a run. I'll try to post again. In the meantime... check this out. It's long, but it's a great interview with Lance.

Duathlon Nationals

2008-04-27T17:59:00.003-04:00

What a weekend! The duathlon national festival was awesome. It was great to have such a well organized event right here in Richmond. It's good for the city, and good for the sport.

My race didn't go as well as I had hoped but it was still a lot of fun and it left my legs feeling annihilated. Just to set the scene... it was wet and raining, more like sprinkling, but the course didn't dry out much.

The first 10k wasn't too bad. I think we paced a bit too much. We wanted to do 45 and we did about 46. Unfortunately, 46 minutes for a 10k at these things just doesn't hack it. Some of the lead people in our age group were FLYING. I haven't seen the official results yet but it looks like the guy who won ran his 10k in the mid 30's. Chris and I stuck together which was good for pacing. We both have a tendency to go out too hard so since we ran together that didn't happen.

The bike was crazy! Lots of turns, lots of hills and lots of flats apparently. I managed to make it through and passed a lot of people. I'm really curious to see how my time stacks up with everybody else.

The last 5k was brutal! Man I struggled to get through it. This is where I really could've made up some time. I ended up doing a 25 min 5k. Def not so good. But after running 6 miles and hauling ass on the bike for over an hour I figure that's pretty good.

Overall I was happy with my performance. I'm looking forward to taking some time off from racing and refining a few things. A lot of running in the next few weeks and a lot of bricks. I need to be fresh and ready to go for Yorktown. I think the past month I've raced a bit too much, but whatever, it's fun. Now I get to take more than a month off and organize everything and get ready for a good showing in Yorktown.

Here's some pictures from the race, ok only two....

The challenges of being a college triathlete

2008-04-26T10:49:00.002-04:00

Let me tell you, these past few weeks have been the hardest, busiest, depressing, pains staking weeks of my life. School has been relentless. Especially my electromagnetism class. It's not that the subjects are out of reach, it just the way it's taught that's dragging everyone through the mud. I usually do very well in my classes. However this has been the exception. The homework assignments look like jibberish because it's all math and there's maybe 4 actual numbers on 10 pages of work, and the professor doesn't seem to understand that, as undergraduates, we have no idea what the hell is going on. I'm angry, but the last class is on Tuesday. Thank god.

Why am I so angry? It's taken away from doing what I love. I haven't done much of anything in the away of training this week. I've ran twice, but haven't touched the bike in at least a week and haven't been to the pool in two. Maybe that's why it's so depressing, and maybe when time becomes available, my return to serious training will be triumphant. I hope so. I can't keep on being sedentary any more. How the hell does the rest of America do it?

The Duathlon National Championships are tomorrow. I'm hoping that this week of not doing anything will mean that I come out fresh. I plan on pacing myself conservatively. I'm not going to fall victim to going out too hard and cramp on the run. I want to have a good race, but I realize this isn't the ideal time for me. I'm going to shoot for a 2:14, which means 42-44 on the 10k, 22mph average on the bike and a sub 22 5k. Why did I pick that as a goal time? Well that's what Chris is shooting for, and I figure the both of us are aiming for solid races, but not trying to kill ourselves. We're triathletes. If there was a swim before the start of this race, it'd be a different story.

I plan on getting out on the bike for an easy ride today followed by an easy run. Just to wake my body up. I need it. School isn't over yet, but the light is getting closer.

Check out this awesome video I found on the tube. I'm not a big Trek fan... but jeez that bike is sick.

Alright, time to do some school work and get out for a quick workout. Thanks for reading.

Update

2008-04-23T14:47:00.003-04:00

If this semester isn't the end of me, then the massive training block following will be.

Last day of classes - April 29

Graduation - May 17

Move into new apartment and start grad school at UVA - June 21

That leaves more than a month to train my ass off, and I plan to.

Of course there will be some beach trips and other fun stuff in between. But why waste a month of free time?

More soon.

Workouts and pictures

2008-04-18T11:38:00.004-04:00

After extensive, highly academic discussions on the triathlon think tank known as slowtwitch, I have come to the conclusion that my cramping was caused by two things. The first is a lack of hydration before the race. I usually have a water bottle of Heed or Cytomax, I didn't do that this time so I very well could've been dehydrated to start out. The second is that I just started too hard on the run. There's two ways I can fix this.

1. Drink a bottle of sports drink before the race and be sure to stay hydrated the day before. It's impossible for me to drink enough on the bike so it's important to get it in before the race.

2. Do more high intensity bricks. Easy bike/hard run, hard bike/easy run, and hard bike/hard run. I think I came out of T2 too hard and not hydrated enough to sustain the pace I was keeping.

I did a hard/hard brick this morning and felt good. I averaged 22 on the bike over 18 miles and then kept a 6:30 pace for ~2.5 miles.

My goal has shifted from being good at all distances to focusing on the shorter stuff. I think with some focus and dedication I can manage a top 10 by the end of the season.

Tomorrow Chris and I will be running for an hour straight at the VCU Relay For Life to raise money for cancer research. People will (hopefully) make donations per mile or per lap. Then we'll run and depending on how far we get we'll raise a ton of money (hopefully). We're hoping all the ladies will donate to see two guys running in running shorts for an hour. Probably not.

If my pictures from Angel's Race were in an art gallery, the title would be pain. They seemed to catch me at times when I was struggling, or maybe I was just pushing hard the whole time? I don't know. At least one of the bike pictures turned out OK.

Time to take a shower and head to UVA for the ACS Undergraduate Poster Session.

Angel's Race: Half empty or half full?

2008-04-15T07:29:00.002-04:00

The first triathlon of the season was AWESOME. It was a great race. The weather was nice, it wasn't raining, and I was feeling strong from the start.

This was the last race that I competed in before I joined Nature's Path, so I was really hoping to blow my time out of the water this year. I finished last year with a time of 1:20 which was good for roughly 88th place. Not so bad, but certainly not amazing.

The race started with a 300 m pool swim that went by quickly. I didn't get passed by any over ambitious people coming out of the start too fast and only had to pass one person. Well... by pass I mean swim over since he wasn't planning on letting me pass. I got out of the water feeling fresh and ready to hop on the bike.

Since the transition area was a concrete parking lot I figured I'd try just putting my shoes on and skip the whole shoes on the bike thing. It worked out well and I got in and out of T1 quickly. The course on the way out was very hilly and not very fast (for anybody) considering all of the sharp uphills and lack of descents to accompany. Of course, a mostly uphill out means a mostly downhill back. The way back was fast and smooth. I felt great on the bike and finished with the 6th fastest time for the day. Awesome. I was very happy about that. It was only 2 minutes behind the fastest bike time. In our age group, the next closest person was 2 and a half minutes behind, which is an awesome feeling.

Off the bike I felt strong, and started out hard. It was only 3 miles so I knew I could crush it. At this point I didn't realize that I was on track to finish in the top 10. I was just pushing hard to do the best I could. Of course, I was on track to finish in the top 10 until I cramped on the massive 2 block long downhill half a mile into the run. Even though I cramped I still managed to keep a decent pace for the 5k. It's actually quite embarrassing so I won't post the time, but it still was good enough to put me into 26th overall.

26th overall is so far my best performance. I was extremely happy with this. I guess I could be upset that I blew a potential top 10 finish, but I'm just happy to have been able to PR in placing and beat my time from last year by 6 minutes. Plus, this gives me something to work on.

To add even more good news to the day, Chris finished in 32nd overall which is a great place to finish. I think the best part about his race was that all of his times were consistent. He had a decent swim (almost exactly the same as me), and strong bike, and a strong run. Apparently his off-season training has made a huge difference.

It's not clear if I cramped because of the downhill and the awkward motion of running downhill, or if it was because a lack of hydration. I plan on practicing my transitions in some tempo bricks and starting the run hard.

I've decided that this season I'm going to try to master the sprint and Olympic distance races. I still plan on doing the half iron at the end of the season but I think I could do very well if I just focused on the shorter distance races for awhile. I need to put everything together and execute like it's second nature on race day, and it will be.

Pictures should be posted soon, so when they are, I'll post them here.

Saturday morning

2008-04-12T09:18:00.003-04:00

It's Saturday morning and the race is tomorrow. This is the touchiest time because you don't want to sit still and get stale, but you don't want to tire yourself out. For this reason I'm sitting in front of the computer drinking coffee and pondering if I want to go for a short ride. Short and easy. The forecast is looking good. It's supposed to be in the mid to upper 50's tomorrow morning in Lynchburg, and cloudy. No rain (thank god), and it's above 50. It should be a different story than last year.

Whats the plan for tomorrow? Start out hard and finish hard. The race is short, so an aggressive approach might work. The overall idea is to stay hydrated and take in enough calories to avoid cramping. I don't have any drink mix so I'll either be borrowing some from Chris or just going with Gatorade. Either way, it's short enough that gels, shot blocks, and gatorade will do the trick. If it was a longer race, I'd be on my way to the store.

As I mentioned last time, I've been keeping track of my calories, just to see exactly what I'm taking in. There's a few things I noticed. I have very little variety in my diet (could be good or bad, not sure yet) and I slowly build through out the week. On Sunday I started at 2050 calories, and slowly went up 150 calories per day, eventually ending at 2750 on Friday. This was interesting. Maybe I can't survive off of 2050 calories a day and then as the week goes on I subconsciously eat more to compensate. If you average it out, it's about 2500 calories per day, which is reasonable. Maybe I should aim to eat 2500 calories a day? Keeping a constant amount of fuel coming in might be better than shooting low and ending up high because I can't function on that few calories.

That's it. Time to clean up and get stuff together to leave.

If you're looking for a good band, you should check out "Explosions In The Sky". They're instrumental indie rock. Absolutely amazing.

Bye everybody!

Week before Angel's...

2008-04-08T19:18:00.002-04:00

It's the week before Angel's and I feel like I'm walking on egg shells trying my hardest to stay fresh but not fade away. It doesn't help that school has made me officially feel worthless. But I guess that's why we all have our own stress reliever. Plus, there's only one month left, then it's 2 weeks of nothing (hopefully), and then off to the mountains.

I got in some weights on Monday. Usually I do my leg routine Monday mornings, but I decided to just stick to upper body since I was still feeling the 10k and speed skating practice. The last thing I want to do is burn my legs up the week before a race.

This morning I did what will soon be my routine. 200 bicycle crunches, 200 butterfly kicks, 100 push ups and 50 crunches. After that I headed out for a moderate paced 5 miler. My hamstring in my right leg was feeling a bit tight. I was getting flashbacks from Saturday morning. I think I need to spend more time stretching out. It wasn't bad enough to stop running, but it was there. My hip flexors were also a bit sore too, but that's expected. I would've been worried if they weren't sore.

Tonight I got to the pool again! I think thats a month straight of swimming on Tuesday nights. I'm very proud of myself. I'm even starting to enjoy it. I wanted to really get a feel for what 300 meters felt like tonight. I know what 300 meters feels like, but I really wanted to get an idea of what kind of pace was reasonable. It's one thing to know you can swim a distance, but it's something else to be comfortable enough with it to know how hard to push yourself. My old swim coach was there and gave me some pointers that really made a difference. I need to use my hips more. I might be getting some private coaching sessions from him soon. It makes a huge difference to have somebody there who can see you swim and make suggestions. Here's the workout...

300 easy warmup
300 hard for time (4:40)
300 moderate
3 x 100 focus on hips
300 easy focus on hips
300 hard for time (4:42)
3 x 100 moderate cool down/focus on hips and form

Total: 2100 meters/46 min.

My favorite thing about these workouts is that there's little to no rest between sets. Less than a minute for everything. I don't have time to get bored. The 45 minute mark gets there before I even know it. I might try upping the time to 1 hour or adding another day to the swim routine.

I've also been tracking my caloric intake. It's interesting to see what exactly you're eating. I wasn't too surprised by what I saw. I'm usually at around 2000-2100 calories. I might try to up that a bit to closer to 2500. I just need to fine tune some things and make sure that what I'm eating is good fuel.

Tomorrow is another gym workout. I'm going to try some new stuff tomorrow and see how it goes. I don't want to get stale, but at the moment I'm doing the same exercises for the most part. Mixing it up is always good. Tomorrow night I'll probably try to go for a run, or a ride. Not sure yet. I'd really like to get out for a 30-40 miler Thursday morning, weather permitting. Friday it'll be an easy circuit workout and then Saturday an easy jog and/or an easy quick 15 miler. I was planning on taking a day off before the race, but I'd rather just get in a steady easy workout to keep the blood flowing.

Before I leave, I'll post the triathlon picture of the day. I call this one, the Batmobile (but way cooler and faster).

New PR, but no sub 40...

2008-04-05T15:42:00.003-04:00

The race went well. My first 5k was 20:01. My second 5k however was not. My unofficial finishing time was 42:01, which is good, but not what I had wanted.

We came out quick, and kept a 6 min pace for the first mile, then slowed down to a 6:15 after that. I couldn't keep it up for the whole 6.2 miles. At mile 4 I was feeling pretty rough, but managed to keep things going just at a slightly slower pace. Still all in the 6:30 range, so it was good.

Do I think sub 40 is to big of a goal for this season? No. Was today the day? No. Will next time be the magical event for it to happen? Maybe.

I am very happy with what happened today. I just wish I would've been able to meet my goal of 39:59 or better.

357 out of 30,000 total, and 54 out of however many in my age group. Not so bad.

Chris was right behind me. Great race for him too.

Here's us acting like goof balls pinning stuff on each other left and right and then finally a nice picture.

The plan for this week is to get some good workouts in up until Thursday, then take it easy and take Saturday off since Angels Race Sprint Tri is on Sunday.

More to come later.

Time to go!

2008-04-05T06:21:00.003-04:00

It's nice and early, I'm eating my peanut butter toast and a Gatorade G2 (orange) and we're approximately 2 hours away from race time. That's all I got for ya. I'll post my time soon. Ciao.

The Monument Ave. 10k is tomorrow

2008-04-04T07:30:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow is the day of the Monument Avenue 10k. I'm pretty excited because I'm almost sure that I'll be able to run it under 40 minutes. After running a sub 20 5k this past weekend with some ease and then hopping on the bike and cranking for an hour (45 minutes of it in the wrong direction), I'm pretty sure that an extra 5k at a 6:15 pace won't be too bad.

I think the mental approach for this year is much more healthy and bound to produce successful results. Last year I didn't really have any goals. It was just win, win, win. Now I know what I'm capable of for the most part and I set my goals accordingly. If I meet my goals and I happen to do well then that's great. I guess I'm happy with it being that way because the benchmarks I'm setting for myself are respectable even if it means I don't win my age group or end up in the top 10. A sub 40 10k is respectable and if you had asked me 5 years ago if that would be in the cards for me, I would have laughed. Not to sound conceited about all of this, but I could barely run a mile when I graduated high school.

The overall plan for Saturday is to come out with a consistent pace (6:15), and pick it up the pace for the last mile if I'm feeling good. A 6:15 would put us at a 38:45 total time which would be excellent. I'd be happy with a 39:59, but 38:45 would be stellar. We'll see. Hopefully I'll have some pictures.

Before I sign off, here's a sweet Lance video I found the other day. The guys a badass, hands down.

The WORST race I've ever done...

2008-04-03T07:56:00.002-04:00

This past Saturday, Chris and I competed in the Virginia Duathlon, referred to as VA DU by all the cool people. They even had a sweet logo (see below).

The race was a 5k run/40k Bike/5k Run. It had the potential to be an awesome race. We decided to drive to good ol' Surry Virginia the morning of. This meant getting up at 5 and being on the road before 6. Tons of fun. But hey, it was the first race of the season, I think waking up early is just part of the package.

We got to the race site to see a lot of skinny runner looking people warming up, jogging, riding their bikes. I got a little nervous since running has never been my forte, but I kept telling myself that I've gotten a lot faster and this would probably go better than I expect. We did our normal warmup, ~2 mile run, quick ride on the bike. My legs were feeling good, and I was ready to go.

It was a bit chilly. In the low 40's. For some reason, on Sunday, it started to sleet 10 minutes before the race start. How it was sleeting in 40 degree weather, I do not know. You might say, why did you race in such conditions? Well, when you're hauling ass, and your heart rate is 90% of your max, your body temperature has no problem staying up.

The race started. The 5k was fast. It was an out and back and it was just as flat as anybody could hope for. I came into T1 in 33rd with a 19:xx 5k. My fastest yet. My watch said 18:xx, but I checked with my pal who was using his Garmin Forerunner and we decided it was actually in the 19:xx range. The website quoted everybody's times at about 45-60 seconds slower than they actually were. I don't know if this means that they included part of T1 or if the run was just long. At the end of the day, this was the least of our problems.

Here's how T1 looked. I came in first, Pascal was maybe 5 seconds behind me, and Chris was 1-2 seconds behind him. We were all in the top 35 at this point. So far so good. This was turning out to be a good race and we still had our strong point to do. We hopped on the bikes. Pascal passed me within the first mile (as was expected), and Chris was just behind me. It was cold and raining. My glasses were fogging a little but I could still see. My legs were feeling great. I was ready to put out a good 40k time, and was pretty confident it would happen.

I passed a handful of people on the bike, so I can confidently say that I was in the top 25 at this point. The only person who passed me was the first place guy from the second wave which started 5 minutes behind us. And it was a good few miles before he passed me too. Every turn had somebody with a flad, a police officer and flares, so there was no issue with the course.

This is where it gets interesting. Part of the ride was on Rt10. There was about 20 of us, maybe more, who rode down Rt10 for a good 45 minutes. We were all trucking. I'd say by that point we could've confidently say that we were in the top 20. Then after 45 minutes the guy in front of me sat up, slowed down and said to me "Hey, you think we're going the right way?". I said "Why wouldn't we be? We haven't missed any turns." So I kept riding, and so did he. Then I saw Pascal turn around. When somebody who rides sub 55 40k time trial's and has been to triathlon worlds turns around, you know something is wrong. We all decided there was no way that we were going the right way. We were at mile 18 and hadn't made any turn since we'd gotten on Rt10. Something didn't add up.

Mind you, it's 40 degrees and sleeting.

We all turn around. Pascal decided to keep pushing and make it back to the race course. There were 6 of us riding together to get back. Myself, Chris, some guys from the Georgetown Tri team, a 16 year old and an older guy. We stopped at a store to see if we could get some rest and warm up. They wouldn't let us in. Fortuneatly a police officer came, with another racer in his car who had hypothermia, and told us to wait there and a van would come to pick us up. After standing there for a few minutes, we had to keep moving. The store that wouldn't let us in said there was a convenience store a quarter of a mile up the road which had booths and was warm, so we decided to head out.

After a mile and a half, it was clear that there was no convenience store. My hands were very cold. I could barely move them. They were starting to sting. I took a deep breath, and breathed out. I started to do this uncontrollably. I couldn't help it. My breathing was just going nuts. My face hurt because of the cold. We were all soaking wet, and it was 40 degrees out. I coulnd't go any more. I saw a church, and pulled in out of instinct. I don't remember much from this part. I remember putting my bike down, walking through the door, and laying/sitting down on the floor. All 6 of us must have looked pretty miserable. We were all quite skinny, soaking wet and shivering. The parishioners brought us blankets and coffee and gave us a warm room to hang out in. It took a good hour before we were able to really warm up.

Finally a fireman came, and shortly after, the owner of Kale Sports came. The first thing out of his mouth was "How could you have missed that turn?" in a hey you guys are dumb college kids and this isn't my fault tone of voice. Of course a small argument followed. We were all at this point wearing only tri shorts, and still shivering and this guy wearing a jacket, jeans and gloves was going to be rude to us? It just didn't add up. He even called the older guy who was with us aside and talked to him. I don't know what was said, but why couldn't it have been said in front of all of us? We were adults, and in a pretty crappy situation for no fault of our own.

They eventually drove us back to the race site. They even pointed out the small 8x10 piece of computer paper that was mixed in with yard sale signs that was supposed to tell us to turn. Completely ridiculous. After talking to others on our team, everybody's first words were "I was lucky not to miss a turn because I sure as hell had a hard time seeing some of the markings"

When we got back to the race site, the race director or whoever the hell she was wasn't much nicer to us. She said "It was our responsibility to mark the course, but still your responsibility to know where you're going, so we'll let you race for free next year, now go eat." I wasn't there for the food, and was too cold to argue with her. Chris and I packed up and left.

Kale Running Sports will be getting an e-mail from me this week.

The Gravel Hill First Baptist Church will also be getting a letter. However, it will be handwritten, and will be far different from the letter I send to Kale Running Sports.

There was so much more to this, but it's not worth typing. I'm ready to move on and tackle the next race.

Monument Avenue 10k is Saturday. Sub 40 is on the list of things to do. It should go well.

Thanks for reading. I'll post the letter I send to Kale Running Sports.

Have a good week.

Grad school

2008-04-03T07:45:00.002-04:00

Chances are if you're reading this, you're a good friend of mine, so you most likely already know about this, but I figured I'd post on it.

Well, that's it, I'll be going to the University of Virginia. Out of all the schools I got into, it wasn't the highest ranked, and it didn't necessarily have the fanciest name, but after visiting all three prospective schools, it was obvious that UVA was the school for me. Everything just seemed to fit together. The chemistry department was amazing, the campus was beautiful, it's in the mountains (mountain training), there's a huge running community, and it's in Virginia. What does this all add up to? A graduate school where I can continue my triathlon training, get a PhD in chemistry and enjoy the surroundings. I'm very excited.

In the words of my pal Chris... "We're going to be the best climbers on this side of the Alps". I sure hope so. If not, it's still an amazing place to live and train.

OK, enough about that.

FINALLY!!!

2008-03-18T20:39:00.002-04:00

I finally made it back to the pool. Everything else has been pretty normal. Some good riding, some good running, and some quality time in the gym, but recently the swimming has been slacking. So tonight, I had an hour or two, so I went to the pool and got in a good 45 minute workout. I think my main problem was that when I came back to the pool this season I was swimming for 60-90 minutes, which was way too long. By the time I was done I was so tired of swimming that I didn't want to come back for three weeks. My new plan... swim for short amounts of time, more often. I think it's doable.

Here's the workout I got in...

2 x 300 warmup.
1 x 300 fast.
1 x 100 drill.
1 x 300 fast.
1 x 100 drill.
3 x 100 interval on the 1:30 (very hard).
1 x 300 build.
1 x 100 drill.
3 x 100 interval on the 1:40 (reasonable).
1 x 100 cool down.

2500 yards

If you ask me... not too bad. For a 45 minute workout I was pretty tired at the end. I think even a really hard 30 minute workout (lots of intervals) would also be suitable.

So enough about swimming or else it'll be next fall by the time I get in the pool again. We had some good rides last week. A lot of them were in the 30-40 range and were followed by a short (4-5 mile run). My personal favorite, and then one that spoiled my legs for the rest of the week was the "catch up" drill we did on Tuesday. One person would sprint for 30 seconds, then the second person would sprint to catch up. Then the second person did their 30 second break away, and the first person would catch up. Then 3 dogs and a monkey joined in for a 37 hour sprint. We did this for 30 seconds, 45 seconds, and 1 minute. It was intense. The catch up part was the hardest because the other person was still moving and a decent rate of speed. The longer intervals were unbelievably painful and resulted in pleasantly sore legs for the rest of the day.

Everything has been going well in the gym. I'm switching up my weight routine every 2 weeks or so and still working a lot on core strength and supersets. I also bout a scale that gives weight, body fat, water content, muscle mass and bone density. Whether it's accurate or not I don't know, but it should provide a good general trend on what my body is doing. Here's where I'm at...

Weight - 171.5
Body fat - 5.3%
Muscle mass - 46.0%
Water -62.4%
Bone density - 5.2%

Looks good. I'm a bit concerned about the body fat. But as long as it stays over 5 I'll be happy. I would like to get under 170 which I think is doable. I'm not complaining by any means. I feel great, and I look... well... ok, I feel great.

That's all folks...

Grad school update and new running flats coming in the near future.

The plan for this week...

2008-03-03T08:04:00.004-05:00

After a good month and a half of consistent training, I think it's time to take a few days off. It's also probably a good time since I have a whole slew of school work and exams this week so finding time (at least before 11 am on Tuesday) is going to be hard anyway. I'm thinking maybe just taking it easy and sleeping in Monday and Tuesday, taking the time to study and stay ahead with school work. Why not? The last thing I want to do is get injured, get bored, or even worse, burn out. Oh yeah, and that way I'll get good grades too.

While I was feeling good on the run and on the bike, I could feel myself plateauing at the gym. My muscles were getting stale. I might just take the whole week off from the gym and just focus on easier aerobic stuff for a few days. I'd like to make it to intervals practice this Wednesday. Since the weather has been reasonable, that shouldn't be too much of an issue. That way my muscles get a break, but my legs don't forget how to move.

Things to do this week...
1. Sign up for Angel's Race and Yorktown Sprint.
2. Renew USAT liscense.
3. Intervals practice.
4. Swim (later in the week).
5. Swim again.

Big workouts

2008-03-02T11:04:00.005-05:00

With school getting busier and busier, and a gradual buildup of stress, epic workouts are only the next logical step. Not to mention, it's been bearable outside recently. I didn't sat warm, I said bearable (I have no idea if I spelled that right). That means long runs, bike rides and more motivation.

New stuff. I started using a rowing machine to mix it up a bit. It gets your whole body, especially some of the muscles used for swimming (shoulders and back). I forgot how much of a workout it is. 30 minutes on that thing and I was dead, but I followed it with a tough 45 minute ride on the trainer (of course). The night that followed involved staring at a computer screen and pretending I was doing work.

So you might ask, hows the swimming? Well, feel free to ask the awesome people who decided to have a dive-in movie this past Friday night! I finally found the motivation to make it to the pool and these guys want to watch a movie while sitting in chlorinated water. Seriously, we're training for triathlons and they're watching movies, couldn't we have just one lane??? Goodness gracious. I need to swim more, however, I think that was a good excuse.

So the workout of the week happened yesterday. The plan was to do a 6 mile run, 30 mile bike, then 3 mile run. We also had to get in some pictures for an article somebody is writing about me at school (it's going to be a top seller). We figured we'd do the pictures first then workout.

Well in the process of taking the pictures we were almost blown off the bike a few times by massive wind gusts, so the plan quickly changed. We decided to go for a long run. Originally we wanted to do 2 laps of a 6 mile loop. I should've known that wouldn't be the case. At mile 5 where we would've turned right to come home and finish the first loop, we decided to go left, and make it one big 12.5 mile loop. Totally epic. 7:15 pace, but the majority of it was under 7, just the last 2 miles were a bit over 7. My hips hurt, my legs are tired, and I have to go to speed skating practice today, but damn that was a great run yesterday. It was nice because now I know I can run 12.5 miles at a good pace, which means I can run 13.1 miles at a comparable pace. The biggest thing was just getting out there and doing it. Running with somebody always makes it a lot easier. Of course we had to take a picture after we were done. I'm glad my mom was able to figure out the camera.

The first time this season I ended a workout with salt crystals on my face, and I couldn't have been happier. The rest of the day involved liberal amounts of good food, and of course some beer. All for the cause of replenishing my carbohydrate stores. :)

Speed skating practice today. Maybe I won't fall again. Ouch

A little training, a little photography, and a lot of school work.

2008-02-17T16:25:00.009-05:00

The past few weeks have been insane. School picked up very quickly, thus throwing my training schedule into a blender. Fortuneatly the volume has stayed constant, things just haven't been as flexible. And even better... the battery on my heart rate monitor died. Anybody who knows me will agree that if something doesn't revolve around training, school work, or Amanda/friends, it usually doesn't get done very quickly. I'll try to get to Wal-mart to pick up a battery soon. Until then, whatever, I'll just stick with what I've been doing.

Before I dive into the workouts, I'll mention the grad school update. So far I've been accepted to UNC Chapel Hill and Johns Hopkins. These are both awesome schools and I'm super excited. I'm trying hard to keep my athletic ambitions out of my decision for grad school, because ultimately school is the number 1 priority. There's still 4 schools out there that haven't sent out decisions, along with 2 fellowships. We'll see what happens, but if everything stopped here, I'd be very happy. I'll try to keep you updated.

Most of my workouts have been less focused on intervals, and more focused on long, intense efforts. Instead of 1 or 2 minute intervals, I'm doing 5-10 minute intervals. About half way through it becomes a mental game to withstand the pain for as long as possible. I think these will be highly beneficial come race season. Everybody hits that point in every race when your intensity starts to drop. If you train to overcome that point, or train to push it further and further back things should come together (keyword is should).

Everyone was giving thumbs up yesterday before the workout. I think Chris was just giving a thumbs up because it was his birthday. What better way to celebrate a birthday??? A workout when both of us were pretty fried. To top it off I decided to ride my fixed gear. If you ever want to know what concrete legs would feel like, ride 20 miles on a fixed gear and then run a 5k at a 6:30 pace. Holy crap.

Weight training has been great. I can't preach the benefits of this enough to all of my friends who are into some sport. I think no matter what sport you do, you should do some weight training. Granted the weight training I do is far different from the weight training a football or baseball player would do, it still plays a huge part in my workout schedule. I feel stronger on the bike, and I'm feeling more solid all around. I've been basing a lot of my workouts around the type of stuff they do at CrossFit. It's a lot of joint exercises with no rest in between. Lots of pullups, pushups, situps, and functional exercises that help build muscle that you can use, instead of the kind that just sits there and looks funny. Not only are they exercises that build functional muscle, they're also kind of fun. Pair this with lots of cardio (aka swimming, biking, and running) and it all starts to come together. Everybody is so worried about getting bulky. Who in the world is going to get bulky if you're running 20+ miles a week, cycling 150+ and swimming a little bit. :)

So I got a new camera yesterday. Apparently it takes great pictures so I took a bunch of pictures of my fixed gear, and a few pictures before our brick yesterday. I enjoy taking pictures of bikes, and triathlon related stuff, so hopefully in the future I'll have the opportunity to do this. I figured I'd post a few...

Ok, the last one isn't a fixed gear, but he's equally as mean. He will chew your hand off.

There you have it. I say this every time, but hopefully I'll be posting more in the future. I have some new skates coming soon, so I'll have a post dedicated to them fairly soon. They're sick, I can't wait. 4x100 frames, w/100mm wheels. I don't think I've ever seen inline wheels that big. Ridiculous. Oh yeah, new saddle for the road bike soon too... and hopefully a disc... :)

Peace out people.

Good days and bad days...

2008-01-29T08:43:00.001-05:00

Things were looking better in terms of my health. After almost a two week battle what was apparently a bad viral infection with a taste of pneumonia (apparently there was stuff in my lungs), everything was starting to improve. I rode the trainer for 45 minutes on Saturday and felt OK. I coughed up a storm when I was done, but I was finally able to get back to doing what I loved, and I knew it would get easier with time.

The next day, I received the unfortunate news that a family member had passed away very unexpectedly. The sadness was mixed with confusion and surprise. I couldn't believe it when my mom had told me. I found out Sunday morning 5 minutes before my best friend called me about running that morning. I answered the phone still very obviously upset and told my pal what had happened. He asked if I still wanted to run. While to most it might seem that it should have been a time to sit and collect myself, I knew that I needed to get out and talk with somebody. While there is nothing that can fix the loss of a loved one, there are ways to help yourself come to grips with what has happened. I will end this story by saying that the power of friendship and sport has no limits. No matter what happens in your life, they will always be there to help you out.

While the run on Sunday wasn't necessarily geared to getting a huge workout in, it ended up being a pretty blistering 5.5 miles. After 2 weeks of almost nothing, 5.5 miles at a 7:30 average pace (mind you some of it was under 7:00) is a tough workout. Now that I had done two workouts, I could easily see that my condition was greatly improving. I wasn't coughing as much and I was doing distances and times close to what I had been doing before I was sick. Sounds good to me.

I also got back into the weight room on Monday. I'm confused about the condemnation about weight training in the triathlon community. I have seen some very obvious gains in my training and the only big thing I'm doing different is lifting weights. It's not to say that theres a direct relation but I feel better all around and I think it's good for general health. Unfortunately I wasn't able to run afterwards because of time constraints, but none the less I got in a good workout.

Finally, this morning I made it to the pool and got in an hour workout. It came out to be 2200 meters, so a fairly sizable workout. I tried to split it into 2 sections. the first half hour was long slow warm ups or drills (about 1000 meters worth). The second half hour was a ladder set (1200 meters). So here's the break down...

1st Section

200 free warm up
200 kick warm up
300 free warm up

100 1 arm stroke drill alternating by 25
200 ladder stroke drill (1 stroke, 2 strokes... by 25)

2nd Section

50 hard + 50 easy
100 hard + 50 easy
150 hard + 50 easy
200 hard + 50 easy
150 hard + 50 easy
100 hard + 50 easy
50 hard + 50 easy

All of the hard sets were done on roughly a 1:30/100m pace. Obviously the shorter distances (50, 100) were on a bit faster pace, and the longer distances were a bit slower. Rest between each set was kept to less than 10 seconds, so it was a highly cardiovascular workout along with some sprinting with the shorter distances and some pace work on the longer distances. I'm getting used to the buildup pacing that my masters coach always to talk about. It's easy to start slower and build up with distance while you're training.... but I'm not sure how easy it is to contain yourself during a race and do this. We'll see.

Well, that's that. Now that things are coming back to normal, hopefully there will be more posts.

My weight is down to 172.5 and my diet feels great. More smaller meals and snacks. No more than 500 calories at a time, and snacks no more than 200. Seems to be doing the trick of keeping me full and not expanding my waste line.

Time to eat, I'm hungry.

Things are looking good...

2008-01-19T21:41:00.000-05:00

Well, my situation has done a 180 since my last post. I'm feeling better, I can eat again, and I'm not so achy. I haven't started working out again yet though, so once I'm able to get a solid workout in I'll know I'm 100% again. Not much to write about since I haven't really done much except watch the news and cycling videos on Youtube all day. On that note, I figured I'd post something exciting. Enjoy!

A flat tire on a rainy day...

2008-01-17T17:35:00.000-05:00

I woke this morning at about 4 because my stomach hurt. I thought to myself, "this is unusual". From that point on it was quite apparent that I was sick. I could barely get out of bed, and by 10 when I finally woke up it hurt to roll over. I couldn't bring myself to eat or drink. A glass of water felt like a 10 gallon jug that I'd never finish. The rest of the day was spent sleeping on the couch and not eating. What a terrible combo. By 4 p.m. all I had to eat was a piece of peanut butter toast, half a glass of water, and a Gatorade. I have never felt so terrible. Finally I was able to eat a proper dinner about an hour later that consisted of a small bowl of chicken soup, a few pita chips and another Gatorade. Now I had a bit more energy but I still feel like a train wreck. The point of this post is to get to the bottom of this.

The only thing I could think all day was "why was my body so achy?". I couldn't find the energy or the will to get off the couch, and to consider leaping up to get the phone was ridiculous! Was my training finally catching up to me? Was the intense workouts that were becoming a staple on my schedule just too much? I don't think so, but I do think that getting sick is much worse when your body is already beat up.

What to do about this? Take some time off, let everything get back to normal and start back slow. While I was laying on the couch, I decided that while training like an animal is awesome, laying on the couch feeling dead isn't.

Not only was I really dehydrated I was undernourished, not being able to finish my piece of bread with peanut butter. I have always read about how devastating it is when Tour de France athletes get sick because of their low body fat and intense schedule. I don't claim myself to be a Tour caliber cyclist, but I do think that everything that happened today illustrated this phenomena better than any book or race report could.

From now on I plan on mixing in some more Z3, and even Z2 workouts, maybe on the range of 2-3 hours, instead of these face melting 2 hour brick workouts that burn over 2000 calories.

A little more energy but still not 100%. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

Goodnight!

Half full? Or half empty?

2008-01-15T08:58:00.000-05:00

Two posts in two days... holy cow things must be going haywire over here! No, I just have a few extra minutes so I'll post something about this mornings workout.

I feel like I may have jinxed myself. Yesterday at dinner my best friend and I were talking about hitting that point in your training where you can't get out of Z3, or your legs just aren't moving, or the intensity just isn't there. With that in mind, I woke up this morning at the usual time, headed into the garage and got everything set up. Hopped on the bike and started going. I could tell immediately that my HR wasn't going above 160 without some work. I had a gel before I started, and didn't feel any different besides my legs being a bit sore from yesterdays weight workout. After 10 minutes or so I just decided this would be an unstructured, ride at a comfortable pace and HR as long as you can. Here's what came about:

20 minutes spin - 150-160 bpm
15 minutes hard spin - 160-170 bpm
Ladder exercises (0:30, 0:45, 1:00, with 0:30 rest in between) - 165-175 bpm
5 minute spin - 155-160 bpm
10 minute hard spin - 160-165 bpm
5 minute easy spin/cooldown - 150-155 bpm

Total time - 1 hour
Total calories - 950

I felt pretty sub par, and my HR certainly didn't get as high as normal, but 950 calories and an hour long workout isn't too bad. I was pleased with the final results, considering when I started I was thinking 30 minutes might be a stretch. That sort of inspired the title of this post. I'm not sure whether to be satisfied that I got in an hour on the trainer burning almost 1000 calories (all before 7:30 a.m.), or too be a little worried about why my legs were feeling so sluggish, and my HR was so low. I've been thinking about this a lot lately and there are a few things that I can think of that might be causing this.

1. Overtraining. Maybe I'm just pushing too hard too much of the time. I don't think this is it, only because workouts like this don't happen everyday, and they seem to pop up fairly regularly on a random basis. Once every 2 weeks on some random day. Sometimes it's the run, sometimes it's the bike. So I don't think I'm overtraining.

2. Plateauing. We talked about this last night. The more I thought about it I don't think this is it either. It seems that plateauing occurs when you reach some level of fitness and get stuck. This is defineatly not the case. I don't feel like I'm stuck. Even though this happens fairly regularly, the other 95% of my workouts are revolutionary. I finish feeling 9000x better than I did when I started, and I'm seeing improvements in terms of average pace, endurance, my body's ability to handle the workload etc.

3. Fatigue. This seems to be the most reasonable. I lifted weights yesterday. My hamstrings were a bit sore. It was 6:15 in the morning when I was getting started. Sometimes muscles just get tired and don't want to do their job. I think the fact that I was tired and a bit sore is almost a good thing. Getting in a workout regardless of this is even better. Even in the case of my friend, he's been doing a lot of tempo runs and and fast trainer workouts, so naturally he's tired too. I think it's not that our bodies are incapable of coming out of Z3, it's just that are muscles can't facilitate it at that time. With that in mind, the workout still has a massive amount of physical benefit, but the mental aspect kicks in because you're tired, sore, and frustrated, three things that will kill a normal person's workout instantly.

So, for the question posed in the title of this post.... since I'm an optimist and everything else seems to be going well, I'll just go ahead and say the glass is half full. I'll be taking tonight off. In the a.m. tomorrow, upper body weight training and then interval practice tomorrow night. It might just be too cold to ride outside tomorrow night. If that's the case, I'll probably be stuck on the trainer again.

Well, it's almost 9:30, and I've already burned almost 1000 calories, eaten breakfast, had a protein shake and a cup of coffee, and posted here, at this point things will only get better or plummet very quickly. I'm hoping for the first option.

My legs are sore, time to go to class.

Things are coming together

2008-01-14T21:33:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I've last posted, as seems to be the trend these days. A lot has happened since my last post, and all of it has been good. I think last time I talked about bonking on the long New Years Eve ride, and my nutrition realization. Considering that was almost 2 weeks ago, there have been too many workouts to summarize them all, but I'll at least try to give you a feel for what's been going on.

My pal and I have been doing some pretty intense brick workouts involving interval workouts on the trainers and some crazy fast tempo runs afterwards. The workout on the trainer usually breaks down into several sections. First, a long 30 minute section with some faster spinning to get the heart rate up. We usually broke it down into a 10 minute and 15 minute part, both at different intensities, with a few minutes before to get the legs moving. I was usually able to get my heart rate up to the low 170's during these beginning stages which is reasonable. It was a comfortable 170, but it certainly got me sweating.

The rest of the workout which was another 45 minutes involved ladders going from 2 minutes down to 30 seconds, and also some shorter ladders to work on speed. None of the portions of the workout had more than 2 minutes of rest in between. My legs were on fire during these parts of the workouts. I don't know what has gotten into me, but when it's go time during these interval workouts, I push as hard as I can and don't stop. I think I'm getting a lot better at disconnecting my mind from the pain in my leg muscles. I keep finding more and more advantages of doing trainer work, because you're in a controlled environment where you can focus on some aspect of your training. During these intervals, I tried very hard to ignore the pain.

Even though we mixed things up a bit between workouts but the idea was the same. Keep the intensity high and the chance to take a break at a minimum. The norm for caloric expenditure was usually in the low 1200's, and all the way up to 1400 for some of the harder longer workouts. Needless to say, none of this would have been possible without cliff bars and gels. As I mentioned before, being on a trainer helps you focus on certain things, another area was the need to drink and eat while you're working out. It's not very pleasant to go hungry when your pedaling your brains out for over an hour sweating your ass off.

If the interval workouts weren't enough, the run workout afterward sealed the deal. We started out fast, and kept it going the entire time. Most times our runs were in the range of 4-6.5 miles. Our pace? Almost always below 7:30 and usually closer to 7:00. This is a huge difference from where things were last year. We're running sub 7 minute miles consistently during training. That didn't even happen during races last year. I think that we might be able to push closer to the 6 minute mark during race season. I'm really feeling great about the progress both of us (me and my friend) have made this year with regards to our running. Running has always been unpleasant for me, and now it has started to become natural. On our bad days, we're still well under an 8 minute mile, that's awesome. Along with just plain running more, I think the interval workouts on the treadmill have made a difference. Having the treadmill as a pacer forces you to stick to your pace. That translates to the road. You don't get used to backing off when you get tired or your legs hurt, all you remember is telling yourself to push harder and get through it. The only problem I've had with running recently is my legs tightening up a bit after a hard run. I think this is normal, and can probably be fixed by some extended stretching. But hey, if the worst thing I have to worry about right now is tight muscles... I'll take it.

The weight lifting has been great. I changed my workout up a bit to involve some more upper body exercises. While the other workout plan was good, I think it caused me to lose some muscle definition in my upper body. I agree that muscle mass is not your friend when it comes to triathlon, but some muscle definition and solidity in your body is a good thing for overall fitness, and isn't that what we're going for here? I've also gotten more and more into eating organic foods, all natural breakfast food, protein shakes, meal shakes, and just less of the crappy greasy processed preserved shit that everybody else is easting. It feels good when you sit down for dinner and what you have in front of you is made from maybe 10 ingredients, from everything. None of these long lists that include chemicals that I can't even pronounce (I'm a chemist) that are added for color. No thanks. I like looking and seeing a short list of ingredients that are all things I recognize. I've never been a food snob, but I'm just tired of eating crap.

If you couldn't tell from this post, I'm pumped about this season. Everything is coming together. For everyone, and especially for myself. I say that only because I know how I'm feeling, and how my machine is running. Even though I can't directly say how my training friend is doing (only because I'm not him), I can say that both of us are on track to be kicking ass and taking names in the near future. Even if that isn't the case, I will at least be able to look back and say that we trained like animals and pushed ourselves to the limit. If that doesn't do the trick, well then that's too bad, because that's all we can do.

I'd like to post more pictures here, so maybe in the near future I'll ad some training pictures.

Thanks for reading.

A healthy reminder

2008-01-01T18:30:00.001-05:00

So after our massive brick workout on Saturday I was thinking of maybe taking Sunday off, completely forgetting that I had speed skating practice. It was hell on my legs. We did some intervals (a common theme these days), and some stride exercise that were brutal. My legs were sore afterwards, scratch that, my entire body was sore after that. The HRM said i was 1100 calories in the hole after almost 2 hours of speed skating, not too bad considering half of that was spent coaching.

So you'd think that maybe I'd take Monday off. I thought that too. But... I forgot it was new years eve, and I had been invited to a 65 mile group ride with lunch afterward. Who am I to turn down a good bike ride and free lunch? The ride was awesome. Nothing too crazy. We averaged about 20 mph. The second half of the ride had some decent hills. I bonked at about mile 50. Completely drained of energy. It was obvious it was from calorie deficiency. There was 10 of us and most everyone there was at least a CAT3 cyclist, some were 2's and I think one or two of the guys were 1's. I swear, they were eating the entire ride. I always learn something when I ride with large groups of people, this time it was that you have to get used to eating on the bike if you plan on making it all the way through and especially if you have to run afterward. I made it back with the group, but the last 15 miles were unbelievably painful. The free lunch tasted even better with all this in mind. Calorie count was over 2600, a great workout.

With an amazing workout under my belt, and feeling pretty good after loading up on food at the lunch, I got a little ambitious and decided today would be a good day for a 50 miler. After a rough new years eve however plans changed. The 50 mile ride wasn't in the cards. It just wasn't the day for a long ride. My pal and I were both frustrated because of other things. No need to train if you've got too much on your mind. So I thought I'd be taking it easy today. I sat down at my computer, started looking through the Slowtwitch message boards, and drank a cup of coffee. I was still frustrated, I'll even go as far as to say I was pissed, it was just building up inside. So what was the remedy for this? Hill repeats of course. I was out the door for the 90 minute workout of my life. I rode to a spot that I knew had a long steady hill, and rode up and down it until I lost count. The wind was nice enough to blow directly against me the entire time, making the workout even better. About half way through when my legs were burning and I was getting ready to start heading back, my right contact fell out. Oh man this sent me over the edge. I left the spot I was at and went and found an even steeper hill and rode that for awhile. On the way back the wind was behind me, and let me tell you I was glad for that. The ride back was much easier on my legs than the ride there. All in all I got in around 22 miles of hill repeats and ended up with some sore legs. A great fix. I was in a better mood and I got in a great workout. Or maybe I was just to worn out to be angry any more. Either way, sounds like a good solution to me.

My legs? Destroyed.

Tomorrow? Running in the am, and biking mid afternoon. Should be a good day.

Time to eat.

More tomorrow.

Best quote ever: "You do realize it's almost 8 a.m. in Germany right now... that means Norman has been training for 4 hours already! We're behind!"

Back to business...

2007-12-29T23:13:00.001-05:00

The new year hasn't started yet, but training has. I think it's finally time to start transitioning from winter base miles to a little bit of intensity. Not too much though, just every once and awhile. Don't want to overdo it too early. The goal is to stay focused on just getting out there and doing the mileage, but it's nice to throw in some face melting workouts every once and awhile. Sooooo, in comes today.

My pal came over and we decided to do a brick, the bike portion on the trainer (it was too wet to ride even though it wasn't actually raining) and then running outside. There's something about training with somebody else that raises the bar. All of a sudden you're pushing harder, not because you want a good workout, but because you don't want to look like an idiot in front of your friend! The plan was to do an interval workout on the trainer (rollers in my case) and then go for a run. Previous to this, the longest amount of time I could stand on the rollers was 45 minutes, but today we were going for an hour. Since we weren't actually going anywhere, we did the intervals by heartrate, and to give you an accurate picture of how the workout went I'll just give you my stats.

10 minute warmup and finding base heart rate (mine was 165)
1:30 on 0:30 off
2:00 on 0:30 off
2:30 on 0:30 off (175 on and 170ish off for all cases, ideally the off should have been 165, but it's hard to come down that much in 30 seconds)
Spin for several minutes to bring heart rate back down to base HR.
0:30 on 0:30 off
0:45 on 0:30 off
1:00 on 0:30 off
0:45 on 0:30 off
0:30 on 0:30 off (185 on and 178ish off. The last 30 seconds were reallllly hard with a HR slightly over the 185 from the previous intervals).
Spin for several minutes to bring heart rate back down to base HR.
5 minutes on 2 minutes off
5 minutes on, finish with 1 minute really hard (178 for the 5 minute intervals, and 187ish for the last minute).
10 minute spin/cool down.

There were several points in this workout that we were trying to nail home.
- The first interval set was mainly to get our HR up, but also do start working on a little bit of endurance, slightly longer intervals at a slightly lower HR)
- The second interval set was more of a speed workout and was also intended to tire out our legs (which it did very well), short ladder set of intervals with high HR and quick intervals.
- The final 2 intervals were intended to be endurance focused, with the added fatigue from having done the previous intervals.
- The final hard minute was intended to be a "burnout" set, leaving nothing in the tank.

Great workout on the bike. I was drenched in sweat afterwards and my HRM said I had burned over 1000 calories and I certainly felt like it.

Once we were done with the bike workout we started our run. It was a brisk 4.5-5 mile tempo run. We kept it quick the whole time. My heart rate hovered around 185 for most of the run, so it was a decent workout. We ended the run with 1/4 mile hard push and finished with an all out sprint. Man did it feel great. It's been a long time since I've had one of these workouts. I'm really looking forward to this season. I felt great on the run after the interval workout and I know I could've pushed harder on the run given the adrenaline pumping do-or-die situation of a race. Even though it was a tempo run, it was comfortable.

Total caloric expenditure was on the order or 1900 calories. Been a loooong time since I've had one of those. I forgot how amazing they felt. It's been a good week.

I've been doing a lot of interesting stuff with my nutrition lately, mixing it up with some shakes and smoothies, some protein supplements to aid in recovery and some extra ab and core workouts. More later, I'm tired of typing. More posts will be coming now that things are getting interesting again. Goodnight people!

Running and not eating enough.

2007-11-25T20:20:00.001-05:00

So, as you already know, my goal for the off season was to nail down my running. The plan was just to run as much as possible without getting injured. I wanted to mix in some long slow runs, with some interval and tempo work.

The workouts have been great. I found a new long loop that's just about 7 miles from my estimation (it takes me about an hour at a slower tempo). It's only a single loop so I don't get bored when I have to retrace my steps. My legs have been taking in the longer runs a lot better than they used to, i.e. they're not totally dead the next day. I've only done it twice so far, and each time I was able to maintain a heart rate of about 170, which is good, sort of under my tempo heart rate, but certainly higher than what it'd be if I was watching football on the couch.

The exciting part is the interval and tempo workouts, all of which, might I add, are on the treadmill. I used to shy away from using the treadmill and pick on people when they opted for an indoor run. But a few weeks ago I thought to myself, it's raining out, and it's cold, why not give it a try. The main advantage in my opinion is the fact that you can't stop. The machine forces you to keep a constant pace. Even if you're trucking along at what is usually a slow pace, it doesn't feel so slow after awhile. So, about those interval workouts....here's the layout.

10:00 at 7-8 minute miles.
1:30 on, 1:00 off 6:40, 6:00, 5:40, 6:00, 6:40.
7:30 at 7-8 minute miles cool down.

The tempo workouts are looking similar, just minus the rest in the middle, and not so much of the 5:40 part. I'll usually stick with a 6:00-6:30 mile for a certain distance (3-3.5 miles) or time (20-30 minutes).

While the workouts have been great, the diet hasn't been. It seems like every 3-4 weeks, usually on a Friday, I'll wake up, and be barely able to move. This is usually accompanied by a terrible headache and a great attitude. I can usually tell it's calorie deficiency because I'm tired, irritable, and there's nothing that feels better than eating. Whenever this happens, I try to take a day or 2 off and just eat some normal food, and a decent amount of it. I think I usually don't eat enough, but it's not so little that it's noticeable. But the calorie debt builds up until it's too much and then I wake up feeling like crap. I'm trying to eat some more protein throughout the day and not worry so much about calories, but more about what it is that I'm actually eating. I don't feel so bad about eating a big lunch, as long as it's healthy.

OK, so that's it for now. Once things pick up and I start signing up for races, there will be more to talk about. Now it's all about just getting out there and doing the job.

Training so far...

2007-11-10T10:30:00.000-05:00

As you may have noticed, I haven't been posting as much lately. It's honestly because not much has been happening. Training has basically been base miles, some light interval training, some tempo workouts, and some endurance strength training. I guess I'll just go through each one and give you an idea of what exactly I've been doing.

Swim: I take showers, once, sometimes twice a day.

Bike: A lot of workouts on the rollers. I usually warm up for 10 minutes, then do 15-20 minutes of intervals by heart rate. I try to maintain above 150 for my warm up and non interval time, and then when I'm on the interval I keep it above 160 and usually 170. The intervals range from 1:30 all the way to 3:00. I like this workout because it's tiring, and it doesn't take long, but I can walk afterwards. Far different from some of the 60 mile rides from the summer where I'd be wiped out for 2 days. I think a lot of it has to do with nutrition (which you can read about below).

Run: Lots of running! I bought some sweet tights, I've got my new running shoes, and I've got my iPod, what else do I need? Some weeks I'm able to do 25-30 miles (usually in increments of 6 miles, maybe a 3 miler here or there), but most of the time it's less than 25 but more shorter tempo or interval workouts. I've grown fond of tempo and interval workouts on the treadmill. It's a great chance to work on form and unlike running outside, you can't slow down. Well, unless you press the slow down button, but why would you do that? You may recall from one of my previous posts that my calves were always sore after running because of my new form. Well, this isn't the case anymore, and I really don't have to focus on how I'm running. It feels unnatural to heal strike. I'm just more comfortable coming down on my forefoot, and a lot of the muscle soreness has gone away. I think stretching helps a lot with this. The shoes so far.... awesome. Best running shoes I've ever had. It was like going from a mountain bike to a time trial bike. They're fast, and don't leave much room for bad form.

Nutrition: Since I haven't been doing too many workouts longer than 2 hours, the nutrition issue hasn't been too much of a problem. I have, however, been trying to add one additional item to each meal. For example, at breakfast, I'll eat 2 pieces of toast with my cheerios. This might sound stupid, but I really feel the difference. I no longer hit rock bottom in the middle of the day. At lunch, I try to eat something health (usually a wrap or a bagel with humus), but just a little bit more of it. Since I've been working out consistently, and lifting weights, I think this is a good idea.

Weight training: So here's the new part of the training regime. I've been doing an endurance focus workout. The breakdown goes something like this:

Warmup (Eliptical or bike for 15 minutes, just enough to break a sweat).
Compound leg exercise (Squats, leg press, etc.)
Back (Lat pull down or seated row, basically anything that works a few other muscles in the process)
Compound leg exercis (Whatever I didn't do the first time)
Chest (Fly or press)
Abs (2 exercise, crunches with ball, regular crunches, leg lifts, and then an exercise that involves twisting, usually bicycle crunches)
Running of some sort (Usually a temp or interval workout, roughly 30 minutes or 4-5 miles)

3 sets of each, 20 reps per set. Usually one weight, but I go up if it feels to easy.

By the way, I'm loving the weight training part. Since I've leaned up in the past year, you can actually see my muscles. Kinda nice. I was really worried about bulking up, but so far this workout has just helped tone everything up and keep my muscles in shape. I did sort of get it from the Triathlete's Training Bible, so that might be why.

Anyway, that's the scoop for now. Going for a run in a little bit. Maybe hitting the gym later. I'm trying to have a productive weekend. Grad school applications are starting to come up on the list of things to do, so the training schedule might get shaken up a bit. Some things are just more important. I promise I'll try to post again within the next 6 months. BYE YALL!

Setup Events Invitational Championship

2007-10-27T13:06:00.000-04:00

Ahhhh, so today was the Setup Events Championship Invitational. A day for those crazy enough to train day in and day out for the wonderful sport of triathlon. To qualify I had to be in the top 6 in my age group from the Virginia Triathlon Series. It just so happened to be numero 5, which was an accomplishment for me all in itself. They took the top 10 from some of the bigger age groups and people from VA, SC, NC, and Maryland. All in all I think 150ish people signed up. It was a fairly small race, which was nice. They had it set up similar to the Lifetime Fitness race, where the guys had a 14 minute handicap. Basically the women went and we left 14 minutes later. Then the first person to cross the line wins. It made it very exciting.

The race started on Friday night when I realized I had left my water bottles and Heed powder mix at home. I always leave something behind, unfortunately this time it was something really important. So I swung by the Ye Ol' Walmart to get some wonderfully expensive ($9 a piece!) Ironman brand water bottles (sort of ironic that's all they had) and some Gatorade. Not the optimal situation but I made due. Of course I got my usual bagels (cinnamon raisin), bananas and Gatorade.

I got to the race site with about 90 minutes to spare. For some reason, I don't know if my mind was out for breakfast but I racked up in the 55-60 section of the transition area. Someone walked over and said "hey, whoes number 78?", immediately, I looked and knew I screwed up. I felt like an idiot, it's ok though, it happens to the best of us (or maybe just me). So I went and set up my stuff in the right place. Only to find that some guy had already put his stuff where I put my bike. I asked, everybody said the spot was free, and none of his stuff was around. He wasn't mad but seemed to want to talk about it for 30 minutes and give me pointers about everything. This guy was older. Maybe he thought he needed to teach me a lesson. Anyways, I did my usual warm up, got my wetsuit on and headed toward the lake. I wanted to make sure everything was good with my wetsuit since last time there were some issues with it being to tight on my arms. It felt good and during my warm up it didn't feel too tight. The water was somewhat chilly but warmed up really quick. I don't know if the swim was short, or I was just benefiting immediately from swim analysis from a few weeks ago but I finished the 1500 meters in 22 minutes according to the clock on the beach (official results aren't up yet). My fastest swim so far.

I got on the bike ready to go! I always feel great heading out onto the bike course because I know it's my chance to make some moves and gain some time on people. Since we were in a state park we had the opportunity to ride over some speed bumps on the way out, where I was fortunate enough to lose the $9 water bottle I purchased the night before. I was sooo mad and yelled some really horrible things when it happened, this meant no water for 15 miles (until the bike water station). Not looking good, things brightened up though. The course was very hilly in my opinion. Nothing to crazy, just a lot of rolling sections. I'm not sure about my official time but my speedometer said 22.3 ave/mph a few miles before I got back and I was able to pass a lot of people over the 25.6 miles, so I was feeling good. I'm attributing this to the purchase of my sweet new helmet (see below). It clearly made all the difference. I also happened to eject my water bottle from the hand off also so I was running very low on fluids in T2. At that point I was so irritated I didn't yell anything, just kept pedaling. Gotta love the behind the seat water bottle mounts, they're great until the start acting like rocket launchers.

The run was fun. I expected to do very well on the run, but unfortunately started with a monster cramp from being dehydrated. I drank water and Gatorade at every aid station (alternated) and started to feel a little better, and yes I can run and drink at the same time. After 3 miles of water stations and a conservative pace things started to feel better and my last three miles were golden. I got my rhythm back, my form started to emerge from what was my old school heel striking form for the first 3 miles. If I had felt like I did for the last 3 miles for the whole run things might have been different, but I'll take what I can get. I think I finished the 10k in 45ish which is a good time for me. OK, I looked at the official results and it was a 52 min 10k. Not so good for me. If I had run a 45 which I am completely capable of I would've been 3rd in my age group and very close to second. Allthough, would've, could've , should've doesn't win races.

Even though a few things didn't go as planned I was just excited to have the chance to race with all of these amazing people. There was not a single person on the course that wasn't going their fastest, and it showed. There wasn't anybody on the run you could look at and say well at least I'm doing better than that person, or wow I'm not the only one struggling out here. Everybody was fast and everybody was in shape. It made it a lot of fun, and also a lot more motivating. Last year a woman was able to hold off the top guy, this year the guys caught the top women and I think 1 and 2 were guys. Awesome race! In the end I was 4th in my age group. Respectable. Next year we're shooting for top 3... of course.

Now that the season is over, I'm going to take a few days off. Relax, catch up on some sleep. Then start running again. I need to start reading more about race nutrition also and get more comfortable with a specific plan, not just going out with something to drink and drinking when I'm thirsty. That translates to not being very smooth and not getting enough fluids. No bueno.

Sorry for the delay on this, long week with lots of exams. I'll post pics as soon as I get them. Thanks for reading ladies and gents!

Lots of running and sore calves...

2007-10-14T20:02:00.000-04:00

So the new shoes came in, and man they're awesome. The idea was to get a light weight racing shoe that didn't leave any secrets about my form. These are the shoes. They are hands down the lightest shoes I've ever picked up. While my calves aren't exactly accommodated to the new running style, I am at least getting used to coming down on my mid/fore foot. I've put in around 24 miles this week and I can feel myself getting faster and more consistent. Previous to my research on running form I was doing a lot of heel striking, which in a way was like a really fast form of walking. Since we walk heel to toe, it sort of makes sense that this isn't the best running form to use. Sort of like a low gear, it's great for day to day use, but you can only go so fast with it. Now that I'm coming down more on my forefoot, my calves are absorbing the shock of the road, giving my knees and ankles a break and providing a smoother transition between strides. It's great. My calves are sore though, really sore. I'm going to have crazy calve muscles by next season.

I'm down 3-4 pounds to 175. This is good. I want to be around 165 before next season, which I think is very doable. Considering that I've been running so much and my diet has been reasonable (not perfect, but at the very least I'd call it reasonable), 165 is a good goal to shoot for.

I'm feeling good about this Saturday. Mentally, I'm a little psyched out that the competition is going to be steep. There will be a lot of people there who are really fast. None of the slow pokes you see at all the local races. I'm confident though that I'll be somewhere in the middle. Hopefully the only place I'll be lacking in will be the swim. I think the bike and the run will be my chance to move up the board. We'll see. As the week goes on I'll get more psyched and you'll hear alllll about it. I'm starting to remember how awesome this summer was with races 2 or 3 times a month. Time to do it one more time for the season.

Have a good night, time to work on some grad school application stuff.

Falling of the face off the earth.

2007-10-11T07:52:00.001-04:00

Wow. It's been so long since I've last posted. I think it's mainly because I've been so busy with everything and training hasn't been center stage. That doesn't mean that I haven't been training... thank you very much! I've been overwhelmed with graduate school applications, fellowship applications and the GRE. I really thought all of that would be a breeze, you know, just filling out a few applications and sending in a personal statement saying lots of nice stuff about yourself. How hard could it be? Damn it takes forever. The applications are asking things like the date that I last drank orange juice, or how many times I've had a flat tire. Give me a break, it's hard for me to remember how many laps I just did at the pool, let alone stuff that happened 2 years ago. Oh well, they're sort of almost done. Now onto to the training and racing (yes I said racing).

In my last post I said I've been riding my fixed gear a lot. I was riding between 12 and 20 miles every morning at a normal pace, maybe 20 mph average. Pretty good for a fixed gear. It felt great and it was fun. I did a few brick workouts, but for anyone who has ever considered do a tri on a fixed gear.... it's painful. haha. I've eased back into interval practice and have been thoroughly getting destroyed by my teammates. I can never figure out if they're getting as good of a workout as I am. For me it's my premier workout for the week. I'm dead afterwards and very sore the next day. I guess it makes sense since these guys have multitudes of experience and miles under their belt. I however am fairly new to the sport.

About a week or 2 ago it started getting darker every morning when I woke up. If it wasn't dark it was wet out, maybe not raining, but wet enough that riding a fixed gear probably wasn't a good idea. So I started running. I've been doing extensive research on running form, stretches and exercises in hopes of nailing down an lean and mean running form. I pinned down the fact that I heel strike really bad and I don't use my hip flexors enough. Basically I run like most of the population, no form and no attention to the details. Recently the focus has shifter to striking on the middle of my foot to my forefoot. Some say pure forefoot running (no not running on your toes) is the way to go, others say that it's better to incorporate your mid foot some so you don't wear out your calves on longer distances. My calves are really sore, and so are my ankles. It's muscle soreness, not joint soreness, and everybody I've talked to says it's normal if you're switching up your running stile. I am however running a lot faster and smoother. I can turn it up when I need to and it's a lot smoother than it used to be. Now for the most exciting part... I bought some new running shoes! 7 oz. They feel like air. I got them last night so I haven't had the chance to run in them yet but they're really light and low profile. Great for people who already are, or are trying to become more of a fore/midfoot runner. They're pretty sweet looking too (see figure 1).

So I said we'd be talking about training and racing today. You might say I thought the season was over??? Well... it isn't. haha. I qualified for the VTS Invitational. It's basically the top 10 in every age category from 5 east coast states. I was number 5 in the 20-24 age group in VA. I'm very excited. I just hope I still have it since it's been at least a month since my last race. Either way it's going to be fun. It's an Olympic distance race (my favorite) in NC. I'm actually going to sign up as soon as I finish this post. I just need to find somebody to come with me.

I'm hoping to get back into posting more. I enjoy having the outlet, it forces me to think about my training and see where I'm going. The only problem is that at this point it's just running. I might join the local running club and do some of their races. Then we'll have some times to post. I'm also hoping I'll lose a few pounds in the process, so we'll see.

I'll keep yall updated on the grad school stuff too as it comes in.

Have a good day.

Fun in the sun

2007-09-15T18:23:00.000-04:00

I said I was going to be changing things up, and I said I was going to approach this whole thing from a physical fitness aspect, as opposed to being focused on one goal. I really haven't gotten back into everything 100% yet, but I was going a little crazy doing nothing at all. So to curb the insanity I decided to start riding my fixed gear again. Man I can not believe how much fun it is! As soon as I started pedaling and got on the road I automatically remembered why I spent a year riding on a steel bike that I built with my own hands day in and day out. There's just something about it. Maybe its just the flow that happens when you start riding. Every movement, whether its accelerating, climbing, stopping or anything, requires knowledge of how your bike is going to react and extra muscle power to keep the wheels moving. The absence of coasting and brakes forces you to pay attention to your surroundings more so than any other type of bike. You can see a picture of my fixed gear on the left. It's the third bike down. Built, painted and ridden by yours truly.

I've been doing a lot of reading about proper running form. I think the best thing is going to be to find a track somewhere, and go out and run with the sole purpose of keeping proper form. After reading many different sources on the proper way to run, it's clear that I'm not doing any of them. haha. The biggest thing being that I heel strike. Everywhere that I've read says this is an immediate speed limiter. You can only go so fast of you heel strike. The other thing is my recovery. I sort of shuffle I guess. I don't know. But the proper way is to pick your feet up, almost like if you were pedaling a bike and bend at your knee. It's easier and less effort to move a leg that's bent at the knee when comparing it to a completely out stretched leg. Maybe tomorrow I'll make it out for a quick run at the middle school track, or maybe I'll just keep riding the fixie. I don't want to rush anything. Not like I'm short on time.

OK, time to eat.

Finding focus

2007-09-11T22:52:00.001-04:00

I've spent a lot of time in the past few days thinking about the best way to get back into the swing of things. I decided I would take at least a week off from anything, and probably 2 weeks anything too crazy. I think it's good to take time off every once and awhile and especially after a big race. Your body needs a break from physical activity sometimes.

The focus of my thinking has been how to come at my training from a totally different angle. It's a great feeling having this kind of breaking point in my season, because I'm starting to get the same feeling I had 2 years ago when I first got into triathlons. I don't know what it is or how to describe it, but there is something motivating to me about working day in and day out to be in optimal physical shape, and compete against other people who are going through the same struggles you are, well, more or less. The best part is even if you lose, you're still in great shape!

The key to all of this is being in optimal physical condition. I think this is going to be my new focus. Not winning races (well, yes winning races, but not that specifically), not one specific race, not only being a good cyclist, but being an exceptional swimmer, exceptional cyclist, and exceptional runner, all at the same time. There is plenty of time to work on this. Plenty of time to work on bike positioning, running form, and swim technique. The big change will be mixing in the short workouts and using them as time to get comfortable with that discipline. Something I read somewhere said that the only way to ride your bike better, was to ride your bike. It's true, I plan on going out in the mornings, even if it's only for 30-45 minutes. The one thing I noticed this season, even though my results were better, I really felt like I lost touch with all of the three areas. I was spending time on all of them, but not a lot of time on any of them. At least not enough time to find a passion for them. I attribute this specifically to the absence of short workouts and time just enjoying them. I say this with cycling in mind. I used to love getting out for short rides every morning. Why did I stop doing this? I don't know, but an appropriate response is to ask why I can't start doing it again. Aside from mixing in some short workouts, I really want to work in some stretching, and core strength workouts also, just to even things out. Is this painting a clear picture or am I just rambling about idealistic goals? The idea is that if I move the focus away from winning races, and concentrate on my overall physical condition, the races will come on their own... period.

Why is this so motivating for me? I'm not sure, but I think it has something to do with the fact that when you look at it this way, every little detail counts. For example, if you are training for an Ironman, or even a 1/2 Ironman, you might think that getting out for a 30-45 minute ride in the morning isn't very beneficial, and thus would be likely to pass it up. If you are training for the sake of physical health, then you'd be out the door on your bike before you even had a chance to think twice about what good it's going to do you in your training. Same thing with diet choices. When you're training for a big race, it's to easy to say, "well, I just went for a 60 mile ride and a 6 mile run, so it's no big deal if I eat something unhealthy". Now that every little detail counts, it's easier to tell yourself to make smart eating choices, whether you were out for a run that morning or not. Plus I think it's probably going to be more fun.

The response from my friends and family about the Patriot has been overwhelming. I was disappointed in my run performance but it feels good to hear that people are excited that I finished. Sort of goes back to what I was saying earlier, you don't even have to win to have a positive experience. Thank you to everyone!

I'll be hanging out for the rest of the week, maybe another post or two with some more philosophical stuff, but everything starts back up this Monday. Just easy stuff, easing back into the routine... never mind, not easing back into any routine, starting fresh with the NEW routine.

I hope others can find some focus or motivation from the change in thinking.

Goodnight everyone!

Starting fresh...

2007-09-09T11:02:00.000-04:00

Anyone who read my previous blog, even if it was only one post, could tell you that my most recent goal was to take on the Patriot's Half Ironman. I focused all of my training on going from doing only sprint races, to doing an Olympic, to doing the half. Well, yesterday was the big race, and or the most part everything went smoothly, well as smooth as it could have went given the circumstances. By my standards, in terms of placement, I did terrible. I usually end up in the top 10% and come within a short amount of time if winning, or at least being in the top 3 in my age group, and I was far from that. It all came down to one part of the race. I blew up on the run. I haven't figured out if it was because of nutrition or just not being used to pushing so hard and running so far in hot weather. Either way, now is the time to start fresh and make some changes to my routine.

The problem, which I realized especially in the final weeks leading up to the Patriot, was that when you set your sights on one major goal, you lose the well roundedness to your training and racing. I was so focused on doing a long distance race, that a neglected the focus on other parts of my training. Mainly, nutrition, technique, and speed work. Distance is nothing, anybody can go for a long distance. Doing it competitively is a totally different story. You cannot expect yourself to raise the bar, and be competitive. The bar needs to already be there before you plan on winning.

The goal of this blog is to act as a journal, or a record for me to keep track of what I have been doing, and how it has been working. I plan on changing things, one small thing at a time. I will be taking a week or two off from working out to fully benefit from the fresh start. I'll start out with some diet and scheduling changes, and then move on to some workout structure changes and then once the season is officially over, things will really start to transform. I'll be looking at this from the view of improving my overall athletic ability with respect to triathlon, and not necessarily focus on one race. I want to be able to go long distance, but also be able to do middle distance stuff (Olympic distance races), and also short stuff. I'm going to focus a lot on technique, and nutrition before, during and after workouts, and hopefully things will start to come together.

As I said in one of my last posts on my previous blog, next season, there will be no "top 10%", it will be "top 10 overall". I know I can do this, and I know what I have to do to get there. The first few posts on this blog will be more focused towards how things will work, what I need to change, and how I plan to change it. Once I get back into the swing of things, then we'll start changing up workouts and that's when it will get exciting. For now, it's rest and recovery.

Thanks for reading.