PM:
Got in 10.35 miles tonight in some pretty dreary weather. Did 3 laps of the booty loop and then added on an out-back to get up and over 10. Felt pretty fatigued, but that's understandable considering the number of miles I've put in recently. In the past 30 days I'm up over 200, not bad. I'm excited for this week, but know that my mileage is going to take a pretty big hit from Dec 29th to January 20th - a lot of that 'hit' will be countered with a massive bump in bike mileage, but still. I'm thinking that I'll take a couple of down weeks, maybe 50 next week and then a couple of weeks around 30-45 depending on how I can fit it in my schedule. Also not sure about swimming, but I think I'll be able to do at least one swim while I'm at home and maybe even an open water event in the Gulf if we go to our beach house.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
12/15/08
AM:
Went out for a long run and since I wasn't wearing my HR belt it ended up being a little faster than I really intended. Not a bad thing, just means that I was more tired at the end than I would have been otherwise. Got in 13.52 miles in ~95 minutes and was happy that it was the longest run I've done in a good long while. My plan to hit 70 this week has started pretty much on track.
I was going to swim this evening but I've been feeling pretty tired all day so I decided to bag that and just be lazy the rest of the day. Considering I probably burned over 1400 calories on my run this morning (it was actually pretty warm outside today - and will be the rest of this week) I think it's ok that I sat around and ate some junk food.
I was running by this day school at about mile 8 or 9 and it was recess time so there were a ton of kids out in the fenced in playground of the school. As I was running by this group of boys runs up to the fence and one of them said "Excuse me! Excuse me! Could you please get that?" and pointed at a nerf football sitting just out of their reach. I said sure and picked it up and tossed it to him. As I started to run again I heard him saying "Thank you sir" and I was really taken aback by how polite this kid was. It's funny to me that rather than that being the norm it's really the exception. So many people these days - let alone children - just don't have any sense of etiquette or decency. They don't care when they're impolite or rude and don't care about anything other than what they are doing or want. Some people really are just selfish. I would have thrown the football to them regardless of how polite they were but the fact that this kid was so polite made me feel a little better about society. I guess it didn't hurt that this child was attending a very, very nice school and his parents hopefully are raising him well and in complete comfort. No, that definitely probably certainly contributes.
Went out for a long run and since I wasn't wearing my HR belt it ended up being a little faster than I really intended. Not a bad thing, just means that I was more tired at the end than I would have been otherwise. Got in 13.52 miles in ~95 minutes and was happy that it was the longest run I've done in a good long while. My plan to hit 70 this week has started pretty much on track.
I was going to swim this evening but I've been feeling pretty tired all day so I decided to bag that and just be lazy the rest of the day. Considering I probably burned over 1400 calories on my run this morning (it was actually pretty warm outside today - and will be the rest of this week) I think it's ok that I sat around and ate some junk food.
I was running by this day school at about mile 8 or 9 and it was recess time so there were a ton of kids out in the fenced in playground of the school. As I was running by this group of boys runs up to the fence and one of them said "Excuse me! Excuse me! Could you please get that?" and pointed at a nerf football sitting just out of their reach. I said sure and picked it up and tossed it to him. As I started to run again I heard him saying "Thank you sir" and I was really taken aback by how polite this kid was. It's funny to me that rather than that being the norm it's really the exception. So many people these days - let alone children - just don't have any sense of etiquette or decency. They don't care when they're impolite or rude and don't care about anything other than what they are doing or want. Some people really are just selfish. I would have thrown the football to them regardless of how polite they were but the fact that this kid was so polite made me feel a little better about society. I guess it didn't hurt that this child was attending a very, very nice school and his parents hopefully are raising him well and in complete comfort. No, that definitely probably certainly contributes.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
12/14/08
AM:
25 mile bike ride on the Booty Loop in the 40 degree weather. Actually, it may have been slightly higher than that but I don't really care because I felt very cold. My toes were like little ice blocks at the end of a measly 1:15 bike ride. For shame. Felt just ok on this ride. My legs were tired and didn't really agree with the whole 'biking' thing. I wasn't going slow though, which was a small consolation. When training camp rolls around on January 7th I am going to be thrashed. Cory is going to ride me pretty much into the ground. Should be...fun.
PM:
6.1 miles on the treadmill to get up to 60 for the week. A light drizzle began as I was returning from my bike ride so that instantly de-motivated me for an outdoor run, even though I really wanted to get in a transition run this week. Oh well. Mixed up the paces a lot just to keep from being bored. Did a bit as fast as 5:15 pace and a bit as slow as 15:00 pace. I enjoyed the walking pace much more.
Did my swim exercises as well plus a lot of stretching after the run before hopping in the pool for a quick 100 yards. Yes, I jumped in the pool for a mere 100 yards (that's 4 laps, fyi). I really just wanted to cool down a bit and loosen up and it worked moderately well in achieving those goals. Just gotta keep working on that stroke; it felt pretty good today. Still have a long way to go if I want to do a ~31-34 minute swim come April.
As a side note, this week I got in 11 hours and 40 minutes of swimming, biking and running. While not a career high, it is close. I feel pretty tired, but not in a way that I can't get over with rest and food. I don't have any pains or injuries that I'm aware of (always nice). My career high came back in August but I had 50 more miles of biking that week and biking is where you really get your hours in on a weekly basis. Although the trade-off is of course my run volume wasn't nearly as high then (13000 yds swimming for 4:07, 82 miles biking in 4:05 and 27.6 miles running in 3:30 hrs). There are trade-offs with everything in life I guess.
25 mile bike ride on the Booty Loop in the 40 degree weather. Actually, it may have been slightly higher than that but I don't really care because I felt very cold. My toes were like little ice blocks at the end of a measly 1:15 bike ride. For shame. Felt just ok on this ride. My legs were tired and didn't really agree with the whole 'biking' thing. I wasn't going slow though, which was a small consolation. When training camp rolls around on January 7th I am going to be thrashed. Cory is going to ride me pretty much into the ground. Should be...fun.
PM:
6.1 miles on the treadmill to get up to 60 for the week. A light drizzle began as I was returning from my bike ride so that instantly de-motivated me for an outdoor run, even though I really wanted to get in a transition run this week. Oh well. Mixed up the paces a lot just to keep from being bored. Did a bit as fast as 5:15 pace and a bit as slow as 15:00 pace. I enjoyed the walking pace much more.
Did my swim exercises as well plus a lot of stretching after the run before hopping in the pool for a quick 100 yards. Yes, I jumped in the pool for a mere 100 yards (that's 4 laps, fyi). I really just wanted to cool down a bit and loosen up and it worked moderately well in achieving those goals. Just gotta keep working on that stroke; it felt pretty good today. Still have a long way to go if I want to do a ~31-34 minute swim come April.
As a side note, this week I got in 11 hours and 40 minutes of swimming, biking and running. While not a career high, it is close. I feel pretty tired, but not in a way that I can't get over with rest and food. I don't have any pains or injuries that I'm aware of (always nice). My career high came back in August but I had 50 more miles of biking that week and biking is where you really get your hours in on a weekly basis. Although the trade-off is of course my run volume wasn't nearly as high then (13000 yds swimming for 4:07, 82 miles biking in 4:05 and 27.6 miles running in 3:30 hrs). There are trade-offs with everything in life I guess.
12/13/08
PM:
Did my usual run but instead of doing 3 easy laps plus an add-on I decided I wanted to test myself out and see how I felt about going fast after having some miles in my legs. So I did my first two laps at relatively easy pace (although not quite as easy as I had intended) then did a lap at 170 bpm. It was tough at first to get my HR going enough to get up to 170, my legs just didn't want to turnover fast enough. But I managed and ended up with just under 3 miles at 6:12 pace all while feeling pretty comfortable. I was tired for sure, but I think that was a combination of all the miles this/last week and the not quite so easy miles before the hard stuff. Not too shabby.
Also did a little bit of swimming at the Y. Swam a continuous 400 free and for the first time felt pretty solid in the water. The stroke is starting to feel much more natural, which is a big step. The more and more I do the exercises (which I also did today) and practice my ODS (also did that today) the better it'll feel and the smoother I'll become.
Did my usual run but instead of doing 3 easy laps plus an add-on I decided I wanted to test myself out and see how I felt about going fast after having some miles in my legs. So I did my first two laps at relatively easy pace (although not quite as easy as I had intended) then did a lap at 170 bpm. It was tough at first to get my HR going enough to get up to 170, my legs just didn't want to turnover fast enough. But I managed and ended up with just under 3 miles at 6:12 pace all while feeling pretty comfortable. I was tired for sure, but I think that was a combination of all the miles this/last week and the not quite so easy miles before the hard stuff. Not too shabby.
Also did a little bit of swimming at the Y. Swam a continuous 400 free and for the first time felt pretty solid in the water. The stroke is starting to feel much more natural, which is a big step. The more and more I do the exercises (which I also did today) and practice my ODS (also did that today) the better it'll feel and the smoother I'll become.
Friday, December 12, 2008
12/12/08
PM:
With my birthday a week from today I decided to do an early celebration by...running 9+ miles yayy!!! Just kidding, I was scheduled for 9+ so I ran 9+. Pretty uneventful except for the fact that my stomach was kicking my a** on the run (almost literally...). I took it very easy - average HR of just 141 - but my pace was still decent and sub 7:30.
Drove to the Y from my run to swim but realized that I had left my swimsuit behind. I probably could have done the swim in my running shorts but I was already skeptical of swimming anyway so I just decided to bag it and do some light resistance workouts that Lance gave me last week instead. They consist of basically strengthening my shoulders/upper back/weird arm muscles that are all involved in getting me to both pop my elbow consistently in the beginning of the 'catch' phase and to push strongly all the way through to my hip. It's a lot harder than it sounds.
With my birthday a week from today I decided to do an early celebration by...running 9+ miles yayy!!! Just kidding, I was scheduled for 9+ so I ran 9+. Pretty uneventful except for the fact that my stomach was kicking my a** on the run (almost literally...). I took it very easy - average HR of just 141 - but my pace was still decent and sub 7:30.
Drove to the Y from my run to swim but realized that I had left my swimsuit behind. I probably could have done the swim in my running shorts but I was already skeptical of swimming anyway so I just decided to bag it and do some light resistance workouts that Lance gave me last week instead. They consist of basically strengthening my shoulders/upper back/weird arm muscles that are all involved in getting me to both pop my elbow consistently in the beginning of the 'catch' phase and to push strongly all the way through to my hip. It's a lot harder than it sounds.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
12/11/08
PM:
Got in a solid 9.85 mile run tonight and it wasn't even raining! Throughout the day at work it rained and poured but once 5 o'clock rolled around the clouds started to dissappear...if only to make way for the moon. Ran 2 laps of the Dilworth loop with people then added on a little over 2 by myself to make sure I stay on track this week. I think my endurance has definitely improved this past month. A 9 mile run no longer feels like it leaves me tired. In fact, I've been having trouble falling asleep for the past week, but I'm not really sure if there's a correlation between that fact and the length of my runs. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say there isn't one.
I'm trying to come up with a good Christmas list (better late than never) and have so far put one thing on it: the Giro Advantage 2 aero helmet. I can't decide on things because I'm never sure whether they will be a lasting investment. For example, I want a pair of tri shoes for the bike but it's hard to justify that when I'll probably only use them for races and they wouldn't give me much advantage in transition. The aero helmet, on the other hand, is THE most cost effective aerodynamic improvement you can make to your setup for races. So instead of purchasing a whole new tri bike I'm going to turn my beloved (and old!) Klein Q-Carbon Team into a triathlon setup. Hopefully it will fit correctly.
Got in a solid 9.85 mile run tonight and it wasn't even raining! Throughout the day at work it rained and poured but once 5 o'clock rolled around the clouds started to dissappear...if only to make way for the moon. Ran 2 laps of the Dilworth loop with people then added on a little over 2 by myself to make sure I stay on track this week. I think my endurance has definitely improved this past month. A 9 mile run no longer feels like it leaves me tired. In fact, I've been having trouble falling asleep for the past week, but I'm not really sure if there's a correlation between that fact and the length of my runs. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say there isn't one.
I'm trying to come up with a good Christmas list (better late than never) and have so far put one thing on it: the Giro Advantage 2 aero helmet. I can't decide on things because I'm never sure whether they will be a lasting investment. For example, I want a pair of tri shoes for the bike but it's hard to justify that when I'll probably only use them for races and they wouldn't give me much advantage in transition. The aero helmet, on the other hand, is THE most cost effective aerodynamic improvement you can make to your setup for races. So instead of purchasing a whole new tri bike I'm going to turn my beloved (and old!) Klein Q-Carbon Team into a triathlon setup. Hopefully it will fit correctly.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
12/10/08
PM:
Enjoyed an easy run in a light to moderate rain tonight. Did my usual 3 laps of the Booty loop plus an add on to get me to 9.4 miles in under an hour and ten minutes. Felt pretty solid doing so. It's kind of amazing to me how many 'fair weather exercisers' there are out there; so many people claim to be 'runners' or 'bikers,' etc but chicken out when the weather is 'inclement.' I'll be the first to admit that I do indeed run on the treadmill at times but it's usually because of convenience, not cowardice (exaggeration). Really, it was so, so nice out tonight (60 degrees and a cool rain) but I only saw one other person running. Oh well, everyone's loss.
Did a little over half of the masters swim class at the Dowd before cutting out due to cramps in my left calf that refused to go away as much as I tried to work them out; I was also very tired. Did a bunch of 200 stuff (drill, free, stroke, kick, etc) which means that 200 is now the longest continuous swim I've done with this 'new' stroke. Felt pretty nice at times, but I still can feel my muscles start to get tired around the 100 mark. Gonna take a LOT of practice to get this going well.
Enjoyed an easy run in a light to moderate rain tonight. Did my usual 3 laps of the Booty loop plus an add on to get me to 9.4 miles in under an hour and ten minutes. Felt pretty solid doing so. It's kind of amazing to me how many 'fair weather exercisers' there are out there; so many people claim to be 'runners' or 'bikers,' etc but chicken out when the weather is 'inclement.' I'll be the first to admit that I do indeed run on the treadmill at times but it's usually because of convenience, not cowardice (exaggeration). Really, it was so, so nice out tonight (60 degrees and a cool rain) but I only saw one other person running. Oh well, everyone's loss.
Did a little over half of the masters swim class at the Dowd before cutting out due to cramps in my left calf that refused to go away as much as I tried to work them out; I was also very tired. Did a bunch of 200 stuff (drill, free, stroke, kick, etc) which means that 200 is now the longest continuous swim I've done with this 'new' stroke. Felt pretty nice at times, but I still can feel my muscles start to get tired around the 100 mark. Gonna take a LOT of practice to get this going well.
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