Category: training

13mi of fun

Last day of camp. A couple of decided to run the course. We set out from the tennis courts. We running at the same time as the placid marathon. A couple of team members are doing the 1/2 marathon. I run out of town and quickly find out I will be running with the leaders in the 1/2 marathon, a bunch of kids from the Olympic training center. I decide to give them a run for their money and for 2mi pick up the pace to run with them I figure I can always slow it down later. After that i slow it down. Keith runs by me he is doing the 1/2 . I was debating pacing him but decided against it. Run past the turn around of the race and continue on river road till the pink rock which is the turn around of the IM course.
On the way back I run with the rest of the people in the race. It gives me a good bulls eye to catch up wih people and pass them. I run back up the nose bleed hill into town and boy is that painful. Get back to the hotel and it is time to leave.

2 down 44 to go

Just started the 12 week race-specific prep. In the words of crowie “Race Speeeecific Brriik” , need to add an Australian accent to that. 2 days of a long bike-run, followed by a long bike. Man my ass is sore, my legs are tired, my eyes have wind/sub burn and I am starting to think what the hell an ironman is all about. Did a 80mi bike ride, followed by 4mi run. Felt I was going to collapse. Total of 6hr of constant moving, a lot less than the 12 I am going for in an ironman.

The next day was a 60mi bike ride. It is almost a wonder I could get back on the bike. Lets just say certain parts of my anatomy were really really sore.

A good training week

So returning from a weekend with the family. And a somewhat avg training weekend. It was time to turn the dial up. It is called the ironman ! Not sleep on the couch, eat nihari, and pie man . Ok well maybe if they made that a triathlon I would participate anyway.

I knew each day counted this week. I was able to get all of the scheduled workouts in, even the swims. Which for the lazy ass I am at 5am is a surprise.

It started off with a good swim monday , and then a run. On tuesday I joined the masters swim, to get royally whiped by doing a total of 3800yd swimming. I felt like a drowned rat at the end of the swim.

Wednesday felt strong on the bike doing some serious interval work. On the bike to work I hit hammered it home, and then ended with a 3mi brick run. The legs felt good. I was thinking ok this is not that bad I know I can run 3 at interval pace after 30mi of hammering a bike.

On thursday did a long run for 1 1/2 hrs. Which felt decent had to cut it short because I was not feeling well. And then took friday swim off. Finished the week with a total of 15hr of training for the week.

13 weeks and concerned

93 days, or 13 weeks left to IM. And I am close to freaking out. I have not worked out for nearly week , mainly because of a trip to DC and now I feel like I am way way behind the 8ball.

I need to make hours count from now on.

Bad Weather Days

Nothing puts the dampener on the mood than bad weather. Or maybe more when the weather changes from winter to wonderful spring, and then cold harsh winter again. I guess most would call that living in new england. I just call it the weather gods playing with our emotions. They give us a couple of good days, and then a thunderstorm. They give us a clear sunny day, and then a tornado. I am sure my college roommate would have something more educated/informed to say about the weather all I can say is “I want good biking weather”.

Saturday was horrible went out for 60 mi bike ride in cold miserable windy 32F weather. Cut it down to 20 mi and returned bushy tailed from west haven beaches.

Sunday didn’t even bother with the run.

29 weeks, 1 day

So I wish I could find something funny about 29 weeks, but it doesn’t match any lunar, solar, celestial, biological cycle I know of. But hell all I know is after 29 weeks of training, I have to do an IM . So I planned this out way back in sept, tweaked it in nov/dec, jan and finally I am settling on this plan in march. Being the obsessive compulsive I am I might need to tweak it again.

But Lets just say that between now and jul 26th everyday counts

1/4/2010 1
1/11/2010 2
1/18/2010 3
1/25/2010 4
2/1/2010 5
2/8/2010 6
2/15/2010 7
2/22/2010 8
3/1/2010 9
3/8/2010 10
3/15/2010 11
3/22/2010 12
3/29/2010 13
4/5/2010 14
4/12/2010 15 Transition Week
4/19/2010 16 Transition Week
4/26/2010 17 IM Training
5/3/2010 18
5/10/2010 19
5/17/2010 20 Big Day
5/24/2010 21 1/2 HIM
5/31/2010 22
6/7/2010 23 Lake Placid Camp
6/14/2010 24
6/21/2010 25 Olympic race
6/28/2010 26 Race Sim
7/5/2010 27
7/12/2010 28
7/19/2010 29 IMUSA

Sleepless nights and days off

So it figures in the cosmic karma that the 1 day I have off from training. I get woken up by 3 blazing phone calls in the middle of the night . I wonder if mr. murphy took into account that a dev server can go down the same day , that a bomb blast in lahore, same day as a major deployment with issues. So basically with little sleep , I decided to go drown my self in the pool with a morning 1500 yd swim.

Now I just have to live through the rest of the day/night, deploy some code and then crawl into bed. You I never thought for a moment doing this race would be easy, but it is almost a wonder what I will have to go through to do it.

Days off and day back

So after feeling completely burnt out from training, taking a couple of days of . I was ready to hit the workouts again. Started early monday with a long swim. And now have an entire 15hrs of workouts planned for this week.

Somebody has to explain to me that if I do this for 15 hrs, what do normal people who don’t do this do for the 15hrs. Hmmm, whenever I don’t workout like the maniac triathlete I find you have a lot more hours in the day.

So now I just have to worry about hitting these workouts on the money keeping the intensity and focus up. Then in 1 week do a power test.

3 days off

So I am burnt. My mind is running in circles from thinking about work, about grad school, and then finally the IM. So my simple solution is that to take 3 days off from IM training. I am still in week 3/4 of the training, so the consensus seems to be that I won’t lose a lot of fitness.

So the end of my 3 days is tomorrow. So far it has been relaxing. I am always suprised how much free time I have when I am not training.