Short Course 26 August - 1 September
Season is starting to close for many of us! Kim just finished a great season with 38 min PR vs same race in 2010 and first sub-3 Oly! Full report here http://members.endurancenation.us/F...fault.aspx 
Jim raced a sprint at the Chicago Triathlon today - he has had an awesome season and just made the USAT World Team in '14 for his AG! Looking forward to reading that race report from today! 
For the first time in a long time, my workout for Monday reads "Rest" and it is not a test week in the GF Week #4. So, I think I'll just play and do IM's, Free Drills, and kick at the pool for active recovery. Aleksander would be proud! 
Hope everyone is doing well and staying healthy! Ralph - yes, you need a bike fit. You can lose many SAUs without one. 
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Well this race wraps up my Triathlon season - kind of sad to see it go (I have 1 duathlon left in Sept)' but I have to say that by all accounts, this has been a year like none other! In my 8 Multi-sport events I finished 1st in AG in all but the USAT Nationals where I finished 7th which qualified me for the Team USA at the 2014 Worlds in Edmonton, Canada. Thanks EN and a big thanks for the great support from the SC Team in this forum!
My plan said off Sunday and Monday as Saturday was an 18 mile run. Today I will do a warm up and maybe 15 min Z3 spin to work the legs out. I think the marathon hat is beginning to turn around. Today is the fit of my new Tri bike @ 1200 bike porn pic to follow. I'd like 1 more duathlon for Sept and Oct.
2500 swim this AM. WU then 8x100, 3x200, 2x300, then cool down.
The garmin gives ample evidence that I am the master of the 2 min 100. Just sayin.
It's depressing but getting better.
So Coach P said to get back to training Wed. but wife's b-day is Wed. so I did my Z5 run today. Felt OK, surprisingly. Guess I really didn't push hard enough at race on Sun.!
4 x 1/2 mi @ Z5 (9:22 pace) done at 9:23, 9:19, 9:09, 9:19
Tomorrow will be off. I'll try to stay away from the birthday cake.
Today was not a good training day. long day at work and then 1/2 a bottle of Far Niente Red celebrating my wife passing her board Exam. I'm thinking that isn't going to help my split.
Jim, what a great results!!!
Ralph, the 2 min 100 is no shame. I still figure that a workout takes me 2 min/100 even though I'm swimming faster than that. :-)
I found out Monday that I had swum my last LCM session of the year...thought I had one more week. The good news is that I got to the pool and had a set of 6 x 100 hard (50 easy), and all the 100s were under 1:30 without trying to kill myself. That's very encouraging.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/366552131
I'm starting to feel like my fitness is starting to come back. But this week we (like a lot of folks) are suffering another ridiculous heat wave, which is not helping.
I'm taking the week pretty easy anyway, because I'm going to race an Oly distance on Sunday.
Tuesday was a short FTP bike indoors (http://connect.garmin.com/activity/366552147) where the intervals were in the upper 240s...that's progress for me. Then a brick run in approximately 100 degree heat. 7:48, 7:12, 6:48 paces for 3 miles. I decided that to compensate for the heat, I'd run a mile and take a short (30 second?) break in between. Just enough to get the HR down a bit and keep the temp under control for the relatively short run.
Today, I can't swim due to time commitments, so that's going to happen tomorrow. Run will be another roaster in the early evening. It is my kids' birthday today, so no morning running before it was hot again.
Today - ran the 3 X 1mi @ Z4 with 4' R with a target of 7:27. It was 74 degrees and 94% humidity and I eked out a 7:35, 7:28: 7:32 and on the last one, hit my MHR of 185. So, I was working hard even if the splits don't show it. After work, I swam 2100m with the main set 2 X 400m (@7:06, 6:40) and 2 X 300 (@5:00, 4:54) and 2 X 200 (@ 3:18, 3:13) and went home officially very tired.
Tomorrow I will bike to and from work. It is 16mi there in the morning on my MTN bike with a 23lb ruck and 17.5mi home. I average for the whole ride about 16mph, but it is a hard work out. I'm also lit up like a Christmas tree and I am very humble with the morning commuters now that school is back on and the SUVs are up and out with lots of kids.
@Jim - what an awesome season! I am certainly impressed! You certainly have a lot of ability that didn't take long to come out in your first EN season!
@David - let's see the bike! We have seen Kim's Blaze and are waiting to see Ralph's Granny! No sense in showing mine - just a Cervelo P3 like maybe 2 million others out there!
@Ralph - celebrate hard and earn those SAUs! I use mine up every weekend my wife wants to go out Saturday morning and I wander back home at 9:30 smelling like a goat!
@Kim - I get an ice cream cake for my birthday and it takes me about 2 months of Sunday's to work through. I refuse to give it up. I already gave up all night drinking, smoking, and jumping out of planes in the middle of the night. But I can't give up ice cream cake.
@William - I looked at the link for your swim workout. If your strokes are 10 per 25yd, you are right on. The times are pretty good as well - all under 1:30. I can't say you really have much to improve. If this is your weakest, then that in itself is very impressive!
This weekend's race is going to be an Oly with no wetsuits, so it'll be an interesting test!
X = Execution, not fitness
/ = The Line (Don't "race" until late in the IM run)
B = The Box (Stay within your Box. Only worry about what you can control...and handle that well)
1 = Your One Thing (What's the One Thing you think about when time gets rough?)
My Wednesday: just a 45 minute run. It's just crazy how much harder these 100 degrees runs are. OK the actual temperature was only 95 in the shade. But it was humid, and not very shady. You can't really see it on the Garmin trace, but this turned into an easy pace run (near 8:00), just working the (fairly short) uphills hard. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/367058951
The plan is for an hour bike ride tonight during soccer practice with the race wheels on and maybe a very short transition run...then swim Friday. Saturday is the Ironkids race so I'll have to be outside in the heat for a long time. Probably won't do my scheduled short run because of that. So this will end up being a little more taper than I might have planned, but what the heck. Race is Sunday morning.
Yeah, I know, I have been quite. I have been reading but not much posting. Congrats to all of you for great racing. I have been reading and enjoying your successes. I raced one sprint locally and even with sub par performance secured 2nd M40-44, 6th OA, just not many fast athletes on the day. It was a pretty morning and lots of my friends and training buds at the race. I am obviously way way past my peak for the season as I milked and milked SC plan with no racing. At some point I no longer could hold on to high FTP and fast running paces and should have reverted to more base like training in order to rebuild my durability. I simply was no longer recovering enough and I noticed as the season progressed and I was further away from my solid base I built, I was having more difficulty.
I still have, much like WJ, HyVee Ironkids to support, and HyVee to race, just the general entry, I did not hit any 5150 races this year, which will greatly change next year. I am bringing my 10 year old snot rocket to Ironkids, that will be fun. More later as I get on the flight.......working, traveling home from Phoenix.......
AT- Welcome back!
Good FTP bike tonight. 3 x 8' Z4 @ .96, .975 and .995 IF. I almost bailed cuz I was cranky after a crazy day at work then sitting in 45mins of traffic and wasn't feeling like changing, pumping the tires, all that. But I got it done. TGIF!! (Almost!)
Ok, here we go, on the flight.......gotta love wifi. I notice some talk about swimming above. If there is anything I can help by answering questions for you, fire it. I first tow the EN line and will remind of coaches advice as I have read and reread and read again all that was written on swimming, here.
For those of you that don't know me, I managed to collect a few years of coaching an age group, year around team. In swimming , age group means kids, 8-18 years of age. I have worked and still work with developmental swimmers, yep most adult late onset swimmers are in that group with 8 and unders.
I have a few ASCA certifications collected along the way, huge library and am always eager to research, I do not have all the answers, but we can find most and heck we can go ask more serious coaches about fine detail.
I am currently coaching an adult swimmer who started this past Spring at about 2:00/100m racing sprints and is now regularly clocking in intervals sub 1:45/100m........so it is very fresh. I can relate. I am also in that group that got off the couch and into triathlon with no swimming experience and can relate that way as well. Managed to clock in several sub 30min HIM swims along the way. So, use it if you like, always happy to share what I know.
Now back to short course stuff.
Yep bringing my little snot rocket to HyVee, she is not like William's girl, but I hope when she grows up, she follows the footsteps
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William is raising a fine "race machine", she is awesome.
I will be racing the general entry HyVee with no goals. I have been milking the SC stuff and you can only hang to your peak gains for so long, than you have to let go, take down time and rebuild. I just would not let go and it did leave on it's own. Now, much like William, going in way off my peak form, into a very hot race....
, goals, I don't think so, if I don't walk, it will be success. I have a serious mental problem watching my 500 show 235s-240s after the SC work I did and watched 280-290s on 2x20s......huh, gonna have to swallow that. Same with running.......
No formal race report from previous race either, I did go commando no gadgets as Kim was doing. I loved it, it was liberating and surprisingly very even. No swim recorded, I did come out first in 40+ wave, no HR recorded at all, power only and pace only. Bike power was touch under IF.92, but 11W of my peak levels, 251W, 23.0 mph for a rolling sprint, run was 7:00/mi all 3 mi even, love that....
Don't let him kid you...his daughter is a killer. :-) Hope we see you out there Saturday. Both my just-turned-13 twins will be racing. If T has a good day, they'll be within about a minute or two of each other, but being a girl, OJ will place higher. He's still a little more inconsistent than she is. She has a realistic chance of being on the (extended) podium...top 8 or 10 for her age. T will probably be looking to be in the top half.
AT, have you figured out the Hy Vee start? It looks like it might be a time trial start. If it is, I'm going to jam up to the front even though I'm a mediocre swimmer...because I want to spend the least time in the heat I can.
As most of you know, I am a short course guy in that I have never raced the IM distance.
BUT the EN team deal to get early registration for IM Chattanooga seems awfully interesting to me.
I was thinking of doing a Half as my long race for next year but then I started to talk myself on up to the full deal in Tennessee.
Any thoughts from the more experienced members here?
BTW for those who were interested, here are the photos of granny before the new aero bars and after....
http://www.flickr.com/photos/101049999@N06/
Have a great labor day
Well since you hang around here virtually anyway It is easy to want to do an IM.
I can tell you it is very rewarding a confidence booster that you can do what only 1% of the population can do and of course you can do this. If you have the time to train the plans are here and least you follow one into a brick wall you can do it. So if the family is on board and they have your back it is a win win situation.
For me, I think I did a full too soon. (ie I was too slow) However, I figured, I'm healthy, and not getting any younger and knew I wanted to do one "someday" and would regret it forever if circumstances changed, preventing me from doing one. So I jumped in earlier and got it done. Now that I am an Ironman, I can "start over" and try to get some speed for attempt #2.
Everyone's reasons are different, but if you want to do it, I say do it! You never know what the future holds....
I'm off from work this week too so I get to sleep in lots!
@Kim - I also had a run that I shortened due to the heat. No, you get to a point and when you walk and your HR is up in the Z3-4, I think you are just building then mental toughness.
So - today was supposed to be 70' of LTHR. But, instead of the 8mile, I stopped at 6.4 mi, which was one lap short. At the 4.8mi mark, my shoes were going "schwish, schwish" because of all the sweat and I switched shoes and thought "okay, it is 91 with the heat factor and all I need to do is one more". I ended up averaging 9:05/mi, which is at the top of my Z4 range.
AT - welcome back! Hope you and WJ met at HyVee!!