Monday, March 23, 2009

Another week in the bag

Swimming: 5075 yds (11%)
Biking: 186 miles (65%)
Running: 27.1 (24%)

This week was really solid; I feel like I made a lot of progress in all three sports. I went to Masters class on Monday, meant to go on Tuesday but I had lost my contact and stupidly enough did not have any extras (so I had to order more, which caused a temporary contact-less period) so I didn't swim Masters again on Wednesday like I wanted to, but I did get in a good swim on Friday and a short but good one on Sunday.

I biked 3 times this week...Tuesday was 15x60s V02 max efforts, 60 seconds off then the Inside Out Tuesday night ride, which is always 30-35 miles of very fast stuff (beyond the neutral roll-out and roll-in we averaged 25 mph, nice). Thursday looked to be a great day on the bike but then it started pouring and the temperature dropped 15 degrees. Oh, and it was gusting at 20+ mph. Not a great recipe for safe riding, but luckily I escaped unscathed (unfortunately Scott cannot say the same). On Sunday I joined a couple of people up in Davidson for a ~50 mile ride. We had one hard effort in there but the rest was easy so it wasn't too taxing. We then got back to the parking lot and I didn't feel like running with the group (leaving at 1) so I just hopped on the bike for another hour before meeting up with a couple of them that wanted to ride post-run (reverse brick = not as fun). All in all, I got in just a hair over 80 miles in a little over 4 hours on Sunday.

Running was pretty tame this week, but I did have my first really good run workout in a while on Saturday. Mixed a couple of different energy systems on the run by mixing a bunch of hard hill repeats with 10 minutes at Lactate Threshold (trying to hold 180 bpm for 10 minutes is NOT easy). It was promising.

14+ hours this week and I weigh 3 pounds less than when it started.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Weekly Summary 3/9/09-3/15/09

Weekly Summary:
8,950 yds swimming (23%)
146 miles biking (57%)
21.6 miles running (20%)

All in all it was a pretty solid week. The weather took a bad turn on Friday after being perfect earlier in the week so I didn't get in any miles on the bike over the weekend (Fri-Sun). I did, however, get in two really good workouts this week. On Tuesday I rode with some guys and we did 12 ~60s hill repeats followed by a group ride with a very fast pace. All told it was just under 60 miles with about 40 of that at a good effort level. On Wednesday I got in a test run, just to see whether I thought I could run the pace I want for the half-ironman in 3 weeks (holy crap, three weeks!?). I did 8.65 miles at a steady state HR level - first 2/3 @ 165 bpm and last 1/3 @ 170-175 bpm, garnering me a 6:17/mi average pace. I'm pretty sure I could run a stand alone half marathon at about 6:15-6:20 pace and feel fine (1:22ish for the 13.1 miles). Running that kind of a time off the bike will be a different story. It'll be interesting to see how that unfolds, for sure.

Monday, March 9, 2009

3/8/09

Weekly Summary:

3,000 yds swimming (8%)
224 miles biking (92%)
0 running :(

Well after my ankle injury on Sunday I decided it would be best to give it some rest for a while. The 3-4 days of rest turned into a week; it may even turn into two weeks, who knows. I haven't been able to decide whether or not I want to go to the doctor or not (well, I know I DON'T want to go to the doctor, it's whether or not I should go...). It's definitely gotten better, which is promising. I just didn't think it would take so long.

Even though I didn't get in much swimming this week, I still felt pretty good about it (who knows why). I'm planning on starting to attend 2 masters classes per week on Monday and Wednesday so hopefully that will pick up my yardage a good bit. 3-4 swims per week would be great for me.

Spent a lot of time on the bike this week (11+ hours!) because I couldn't run and the weather has been getting much better. The week was culminated with 78 miles on Sunday in ~4 hrs. I rode for 2.5 hours with a group up in Davidson then drove back down to Charlotte and didn't want to waste the good weather so I decided to get back on the bike and ride around the booty loop for an hour and a half. Fun times, terrible tan lines.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

3/5/09

Race Report:

Charlotte Long Course Duathlon

Race description:
The US National Whitewater Center will be the site for the 1st Long Course Duathlon of the Series. USNWC is the Official Olympic Training Center and hosts the world’s largest man-made whitewater river.

The run course will head through the Whitewater Center next to Class II-IV rapids and will provide a beautiful setting for both running sections. The run course is 2 loops and composed of packed gravel.

The bike course will proceed out through the small town of Mt. Holly in the beautiful countryside of Mecklenburg and Gaston County. The bike course will feature flat, rolling, and climbing sections sure to challenge all levels.

The race course revolves around a transition area located at the USNWC. The same transition area will be used for all phases. The transition area will open at 7am; ALL bikes need to be placed in position before the transition area closes at 8:45am.

The lowdown:

I'm just going to copy it from my log as that will be easier.

5th overall in 2:12:25.9


Run 1 - 4 miles in 24:44 (8th overall)
Felt pretty good on the first run. Stride was smooth and didn't feel like I was working that hard although my HR would disagree with me. My breathing was never elevated nor did I feel over-worked so I'm happy with this effort.

I ran most of the way with Cummins until he fell off just a little bit in the last mile to 1.5m.

Transition 1 (run to bike) (38th overall)
T1 - 1:13

Wow, this was bad. I didn't really know what I wanted to wear; everything I had set out was soaked anyway so it would have been freezing regardless. I dropped my sunglasses, couldn't get my shoes on...ridiculous. I made up 27 seconds on the first run on Cummins and he made up 30 on me in transition. Jeez.

Bike - 30 miles in 1:20:13 (7th overall)


Started off the bike course just me and Cummins and a bunch of people in front of us. We passed 3 people like they were standing still in the first mile so that was a good way to start. I was pretty comfortable to begin with but starting around mile 10-13 I got very cold. The downhill stretches were pretty miserable. I'm not sure when mileage wise but this big guy on a Look caught us and a little later on Behme caught us and we all ended up riding together the rest of the way. The course was very challenging, lots of rollers and barely any flats. The disc was not the best wheel option for this route. While it was great for the flats and downhills it felt very heavy on some of the inclines. My average HR was only 150 on this ride so I know I could have pushed it harder. I'm not sure what my LT is on the bike but my bet would be that it's higher than 150.

Transition 2 (bike to run) (19th overall)
T2 - :53

This was a little better. I only lost 19 seconds to Chris this time... There wasn't as much to go wrong, luckily. I followed Chris' lead and started unstrapping my shoes with about 100 yards to go, which proved to be a real pain b/c 6 total straps with cold hands is not the best. Shoes were a bit annoying to get on, I think I had the yankz too tight.

Run 2 - 4 miles in 25:26 (3rd overall)
Started off the run 20 seconds behind Chris with freezing feet and shoulders. I kept the pace fairly slow for a bit just to try and get my legs under me and feeling in my feet again. After a bit the stride smoothed out and I started feeling pretty good. I slowly made up time on Chris and caught him at the 1.5m mark or so. We then ran together for a bit before I decided to up the pace a little bit to see how it felt. I expected him to go with me but I was by myself. I kind of wish I had started going faster a little sooner because I felt really good on this run. I wasn't particularly tired (although the 2 uphills per lap didn't feel amazing) and my HR wouldn't even go that high. If I would have had better transitions (T2 mainly) I think I would have had a shot at catching Chris Olson. Although that's only because he made 2 wrong turns on the bike and lost a decent chunk of time.... Put a pretty strong effort out in this race though. I feel good considering that it's march. The 8 miles of hard effort felt good which is nice considering New Orleans is 5 weeks from now...



3/1/09

Weekly totals (2/22-3/1)
Swim: 3,650 yds (14%)
Bike: 80 miles (42%)
Run: 33.7 miles (44%)

The only workouts I had in there was a short tempo run on Wednesday and the race on Saturday. Not a big week by any means, but I was hoping for a little recovery before the hard effort in the race. I was worried about the lack of volume leading up to the race, as I was pretty much just planning on training right through it but I don't think it will end up mattering all that much. Got in just under 10 hours this week. My weekly goal is to be at 14 but sometimes I just can't hit that due to time constraints. With the time change coming soon that will definitely change.