Had a dinner with the girls Thurs. night so I moved my VO2 bike to Fri. Had some fun with it going after some Strava segments. (2nd for both so I'll be back next week to claim QOMs!)
Here's how it broke out: 6:32 @ 1.16IF; 55" @ 1.26IF, 49" @ 1.42IF; 1:15 @ 1.59IF. Not quite the 7 x 1.5' the plan called for but I think the work was there nonetheless.
I was running late so the ride to much a higher IF, and faster (cuz it is downhill). The ride home was rough but not as bad as I thought it would be. Doing some yardwork today, Z2.
Nice work Kim! I did my Sat ride alone today. Always harder to ride alone but I nailed the intervals so I'm pretty happy. Plus, it's good mental toughness.
Nemo- nailing the intervals is great! No formal intervals for me today, just gettin in some miles
Ended up doing a 5k tonight w my wife. She was registered already and I figured since it was going to rain tomorrow, I'd get my Sunday run out of the way. It was a little slower and a little hillier than the Wednesday 5k but not bad considering tpthis mornings ride. Plus there were burgers and beer after the finish. Now I can dedicate tomorrow to cleaning. My wife is having her networking group over next weekend for a party and I'm on inside cleaning duty since I hate yard work. (Although I've done more of that than I would have liked). SAUs right?
Nemo - ditto here. I missed the am ride with my local team to attend my son's swim meet. Then successfully completed today's planned ride solo - 94 degrees! I literally dropped 6 lbs by the scale after the ride. Hit all targets so worth the effort.
Kim I don't envy the cleaning tomorrow but hard to ignore the SAUs you'll rack up.
Robert, I was feeling all smug and happy about rocking the intervals on my long run today in the 90 degree heat index, but you win with 94! Just bummed all this heat acclimation is happening too late for my early season races that are already over! By the time IMMD is here, I wonder if I'll be worried about packing arm warmers! HA!
Today was rough. My wife and I went over to the neighbors for a wine tasting party last night. I literally only had a splash of each....but all of those splashes can add up. Today was supposed to be 2x1 mile z4 after warmup and then z1 for total 70 min. I held z4 for the 1st mile and then during my 2nd my neighbor started waving at me. I slowed to say hi and then never recovered - all of the heat (90 and rising today) and pre run dehydration hit me. I tried jumping ahead to the z1 work but my old knee was hurting (it always hurts to go slower than fast). I walked/jogged to the neighborhood pool and Aqua jogged for half an hour before getting out to run home. Fortunately I was able to hold z2. Oh well.... I'll do better with my hydration status in the future.
Hot, hot, hot! That's all I have to say about yesterday's workout. I had to work in the morning so was forced outside at noon to run. Fortunately I have a great park to run in that is a 1.5 mi loop so my car is natural aid station. Managed to hit the intervals and so zone 2ish work for about another 4 miles. All in all it felt great, good to be back on track.
Knocked out today's swim outdoors in neighborhood pool....kinda sorta of like an OWS. No lane lines in, I had to dodge kids, mini little waves from the "cannon balls" being performed nearby, but I still had the black line to look at on the bottom of the pool. Pool water so warm it was like swimming with my wetsuit but without the added buoancy.
Looking for to the triple digit temps for tomorrow's ride
Great work everyone getting these really tough workouts done despite the heat we've been having!!! I hopped on the trainer this morning for those VO2 intervals. I kinda like doing those on the trainer because I feel a little safer than being outside (where a few seconds of lapse of mental alertness can be a costly mistake). I'm usually staring at the stem by 45 seconds into the interval!
Robert- Guess the wine doesn't count as hydration! That "OWS" sounds interesting...
Sarah- Good work getting it done! It is tough when it is hot!
Nemo- I know how time seems to come to a screeching halt on the trainer! I actually moved my bike from the WKO room to the finished area in the basement in front of the big TV so I could watch various recorded cycling events. Made a big difference, since I was trying to "win". LOL
Got some VO2 work done last night with some more Strava attempts. Fail. Legs weren't feelin it but managed somewhere around 10' total of VO2-ish stuff. I usually have Mondays off but since we're due for some storms tonight, I swapped Mon & Tues. My legs were not in favor of that change apparently! Did a short 1 mi brick run after. Note to self: Bike shirt not a good place for iPhone when running! Bouncing all over!
Pretty good run tonight... 3 x 1 mile Z4, hit all targets then one mile at Z2.5. Not ridiculously humid so it wasn't too bad. Not looking forward to those 90+ days with lots o humidity!
Did some Z1 tennis ball throwing in the yard with the dogs now time to chill!
Yesterday was brutal. I rode into work with the local team. 104 heat index on the return home ride. Since I was with the team I didn't work in the intervals but with the bridges, overpasses, and Strava segments, I'm sure I got in some work (overall TSS for both rides 174). I did the hill repeats as well but in costal virginia it was more of a bunny hill. I had to resort to the treadmill for today's run but able to hit all planned intervals. Due to my son's swim meet I missed my swim workout. Hopefully I can sneak one at lunch tomorrow. Planning to ride into to work again tomorrow.
I think the east coast is as hot as it is in Cali, but we don't have the humidity. In my last week of GF before I move over to IM training in preps for IMLT (and about 4 Oly's). It has been great reading all of your work out discussions and many of them have been inspirational for me inspite of not always getting the time to write myself. I leave today for vacation in the Virgin Islands so will only get swimming and running in for the next two weeks, but what a place to do it. Anyway, good luck you all and keep up the work. You guys are really something. till we meet again in another training forum.
Hello. My name is Nemo and I have a counting problem! Seriously, how hard is it to count to 7 for 7X1:30/1:30?? I finished what I thought was the last one and then second guessed myself so I did one more. When I got home I looked at the file and found I had done 9!!!! DOH! That's gonna hurt tomorrow!!! It's end of quarter for me, which is a busy and stressful time at work, so I blame work brain!. I've had to skip a lot of the "Priority = L" workouts but have been able to get in all the "Priority=H" workouts so that's good.
Have a great vacation Craig! What a perfect way to relax and get in a break before really knuckling down into the IM Prep!
Well, I learned from Nemo and tried to make my vo2 intervals easy.... To count that is. I did up one and then down and back up another. That way I only had to count to 4. I can handle that. Lol. Hit all the intervals on target except the first one was more like 1.11IF vs 1.20. I also did a bonus 30" on one of them cuz I needed more time to get to 215NP for the interval. These wkos are super time efficient for me. Banged it out in like 25'. Pretty much no admin time, no warm up and no cool down. I don't do that all the time but I find it works well for VO2 stuff. Next week I'll likely get in a midweek group ride and might even plan for another "Mini Big Bike Weekend" for the 4th....
I tend to only lose count in the swim workouts, but I can see myself doing the same on the bike intervals if I hadn't programmed them ahead of time. Being the tech geek that I am, I try to program the workouts on my Garmin devices. Of course my wife and kids like to tease me that I spend almost as much time getting ready as I do riding (if they only knew how long I will be riding later in the season...).
I rode in with my team again, we combined for 3 flats today. I rode home solo without any problems (thank goodness as I only leave the house with 1 extra tube). I programmed in the planned bike workout for the ride home. Hard to hit all of the 1st 15' in z4 with traffic etc but nailed the 2 nd with a longer stretch of road. I was hoping to make up yesterday 's missed swim but t-storms killed that plan.
Great week so far. Had an awesome outdoor ride with some friends on tuesday night...on the tri bike (thanks to everyone who has chimed in on advice on that topic you are VERY helpful). We got caught in a monster rain storm which forced me to both get comfortable quickly and ride fast both of which boosted my confidence in my ability tremendously. Wednesday I got caught in some stuff at work and had to miss the run intervals so I did them yesterday instead of a second bike workout - they were great as well, my legs are tired after the efforts this week but all in all I feel good. However, the real highlight was that I did a swim analysis yesterday with a local coach. Wow, was that helpful. There were some real positives to my swim (body position primarily) but she adjusted some things on my stroke that improved my efficiency drastically in a matter of seconds. I have some things that take more concerted effort to improve, like bilateral breathing and the timing of my breath, and a more relaxed recovery arm, and kicking through my breath but at least now I know what I can do to get faster other than just trying to move more quickly. Huge boost in confidence there too! I also did a gait analysis which was helpful in that it confirmed that I have good cadence and good position. My only problem there is weak hip abductor muscles which I already knew - that probably wasn't worth the money so much but good to know I don't have too much to work on there outside of getting my right hip back in shape.
I'm hitting the pool today and the bike tomorrow morning then leaving to go to North Carolina for two weeks - not quite as cool as the Virgin Islands but a change of pace! If anyone has any good recommendations on where to swim/bike/run in the Holden Beach area send them my way!
Congrats to all on getting the work in this week - I am in awe of everyone's consistency!
Robert- do you ride with Keith Buell? He mentioned that he had 2 flats on his bike commute yesterday too!!!
Sarah- so glad you got outside on the TT, and I'm jealous that you found a local swim coach to give you some one-on-one instruction. That stuff is priceless!
T-storms totally ruined doing anything this morning before work. But if I can get a little break this afternoon, maybe I can get in my swim before the afternoon storms return. Grrrrrrrr.
Nemo- I ride with Team Kainer but Keith Buell is not on the roster.
Sarah please be careful - Holden Beach is next to Oak Island.......
I was back in the indoor pool this am. Nice and cool, stuck to the plan. Long day at work but the scheduled z1 run with strides was a perfect way to end the day not to mention the fact that the storms brought in some cooler temps and strong breeze. Time to catch up on sleep.
I absolutely bonked today. I don't know if it was the sleep deficit I piled up this week, dehydration, or the heat and humidity in my garage but I crashed and burned. Instead of the 10'-15' w/u, I used the EN standard 25' w/u, I hit the 3x1'(1') without any problem (1.0/.97/1.01) and then the first 15' at Z4 I was on track for a perfect 1.0 but the last 2-3' killed me and I finished 0.94. At the end of my recovery 4' I felt as though I could fall asleep. I started the 2nd 15' z4 but had nothing in the tank. I needed more cow bell but could only ring the finishing bell. I know my current FTP was set outdoors on the road and is usually higher than a FTP set on a stationary turbo trainer, so holder the power may not have helped but I think it was all the factors above.
You can only absorb so much training. Today wasn't my day. I slept the rest of the day until dinner. I usually get pretty mad at myself when this happens and I know I will take it out on tomorrow's workout.
Robert- live to fight another day. I'm sure the nap will help!
Frustrated at the weather forecasters... I can deal with inclement weather, but it's the bad forecasts that really tick me off! As of last night, they had said rain most of the mornings Sunday, heavy at times w possible t-storms around the time the metric century was to start so I resolved myself to the trainer. I'm not officially in IM training for another week so no biggy, but I was looking forward to the ride, esp since I was off fri and sat due to party prep and major SAUs. This morning woke up to a little rain but then they said it was moving out! I debated about starting the ride late but that would push back my whole day so I stuck w plan B. did 2 x 20' on the trainer. Man, the trainer is HARD when you've been outdoors for months! But I did catch up on the Girl ditalia and Tour de Romandie that I had DVRd in May. Then did a slow hilly 2.5 mi 'hood run.
It's all good and I got in a good structured FTP session, more so than on a 65 mi charity ride. But really, with Doppler this and radar that, you'd think they could figure out the weather 12 hrs out with some level of accuracy. *end rant*
Kim I hear you about the weather. as they say around here if you don't like the weather, wait another 60min. They will broadcast 50% chance of showers while its actively raining etc etc.
I slept like I had Mono but it really helped. I was able to compete my run holding planned paces for the intervals as written as well as the z2 volume. Looking forward to the rest of the week.
Due to some more iffy weather coming up, I decided to get my run done since the weather was really nice yest. Got my 3 x 1 mi @ target Z4 pace and the last one more like Z5 (thanks to a slight downhill grade)
Group ride tonight. 2 hours, 28 mi, 2,116 ft @.85IF. Bike shifting terrible so I left it at the shop.
Vacation has proved a good opportunity to get some good running and biking in and finish off my time in the Get Faster Plan on a high note. The only part that has been harder than anticipated is swimming so I have only done that once. It's hard to believe tomorrow is my last day on this plan and then it is one to the final build to IM...both exciting and nerve wracking! Good luck to all as you continue your training. Happy 4th!
Sarah- it's always nice when you can get some good training on vaca!
Got in a swim on wed. And a 39mi group ride @.81 IF yest. Bike shifting was awesome! Nothing like new chain, cassette and cables! 82 miles already this week and tomorrow in riding w the "Ironcowboy" for 56+ miles.
Sarah and Kim - best of luck and much success with the IM training and your races!
I've had an interesting week of in-house overnight calls, lots of group rides with plenty flats, and fortunately able to squeeze in the high priority runs with an occasional swim. Will try and get back to the plan for the remaining 4 weeks until I start my IM plan as well
Grrrrr, feeling frustrated. Freedom 5K this morning, I really thought 8:30 pace was doable and hoped for just a little faster if things went well. I did the Frostbite 5k ( In January on a nearly identical course- but about .1 mile shorter) averaging 8:31 with AHR at 177, Max 185. I really expected to go under the 8:30 pace with a slightly higher HR given the heat/humidity. Instead, my avg pace was 8:39 and AHR=184 with Max=194. Had a few dry heaves after crossing the finish line- so I know I put it all out there. Grrrrrrrrrrr!! I know some of this is the heat, but still kinda bummed.
Time to rest up and get ready for the next set of tests. I'm hoping to see better results with the Time Trial on Saturday.
Wow Nemo, I don't know your age but that is some impressive heart rate numbers. I'd say you put it all out there. You have to at least be proud of your effort, you can't control the heat or the other conditions of the course.
Thanks Robert, I turn 50 in February (and I plan to celebrate all year long)! My HR has always been a little higher than most folks- something about having a hummingbird heart :-)
Comments
Here's how it broke out: 6:32 @ 1.16IF; 55" @ 1.26IF, 49" @ 1.42IF; 1:15 @ 1.59IF. Not quite the 7 x 1.5' the plan called for but I think the work was there nonetheless.
Today I did a 30mile group ride and rode to and from the ride so a total of 45 miles @ .83IF. https://connect.garmin.com/activity/809503593
I was running late so the ride to much a higher IF, and faster (cuz it is downhill). The ride home was rough but not as bad as I thought it would be. Doing some yardwork today, Z2.
Ended up doing a 5k tonight w my wife. She was registered already and I figured since it was going to rain tomorrow, I'd get my Sunday run out of the way. It was a little slower and a little hillier than the Wednesday 5k but not bad considering tpthis mornings ride. Plus there were burgers and beer after the finish. Now I can dedicate tomorrow to cleaning. My wife is having her networking group over next weekend for a party and I'm on inside cleaning duty since I hate yard work. (Although I've done more of that than I would have liked). SAUs right?
Kim I don't envy the cleaning tomorrow but hard to ignore the SAUs you'll rack up.
Robert, I was feeling all smug and happy about rocking the intervals on my long run today in the 90 degree heat index, but you win with 94! Just bummed all this heat acclimation is happening too late for my early season races that are already over! By the time IMMD is here, I wonder if I'll be worried about packing arm warmers! HA!
Oh well.... I'll do better with my hydration status in the future.
Looking for to the triple digit temps for tomorrow's ride
Sarah- Good work getting it done! It is tough when it is hot!
Nemo- I know how time seems to come to a screeching halt on the trainer! I actually moved my bike from the WKO room to the finished area in the basement in front of the big TV so I could watch various recorded cycling events. Made a big difference, since I was trying to "win". LOL
Got some VO2 work done last night with some more Strava attempts. Fail. Legs weren't feelin it but managed somewhere around 10' total of VO2-ish stuff. I usually have Mondays off but since we're due for some storms tonight, I swapped Mon & Tues. My legs were not in favor of that change apparently! Did a short 1 mi brick run after. Note to self: Bike shirt not a good place for iPhone when running! Bouncing all over!
Did some Z1 tennis ball throwing in the yard with the dogs now time to chill!
Have a great vacation Craig! What a perfect way to relax and get in a break before really knuckling down into the IM Prep!
Robert- the heat is killing us all!!!
I rode in with my team again, we combined for 3 flats today. I rode home solo without any problems (thank goodness as I only leave the house with 1 extra tube). I programmed in the planned bike workout for the ride home. Hard to hit all of the 1st 15' in z4 with traffic etc but nailed the 2 nd with a longer stretch of road. I was hoping to make up yesterday 's missed swim but t-storms killed that plan.
I'm hitting the pool today and the bike tomorrow morning then leaving to go to North Carolina for two weeks - not quite as cool as the Virgin Islands but a change of pace! If anyone has any good recommendations on where to swim/bike/run in the Holden Beach area send them my way!
Congrats to all on getting the work in this week - I am in awe of everyone's consistency!
Sarah- so glad you got outside on the TT, and I'm jealous that you found a local swim coach to give you some one-on-one instruction. That stuff is priceless!
T-storms totally ruined doing anything this morning before work. But if I can get a little break this afternoon, maybe I can get in my swim before the afternoon storms return. Grrrrrrrr.
Sarah please be careful - Holden Beach is next to Oak Island.......
I was back in the indoor pool this am. Nice and cool, stuck to the plan. Long day at work but the scheduled z1 run with strides was a perfect way to end the day not to mention the fact that the storms brought in some cooler temps and strong breeze. Time to catch up on sleep.
Pouring buckets here this morning so looks like it is time o que up some good TV for trainer time.
You can only absorb so much training. Today wasn't my day. I slept the rest of the day until dinner. I usually get pretty mad at myself when this happens and I know I will take it out on tomorrow's workout.
Frustrated at the weather forecasters... I can deal with inclement weather, but it's the bad forecasts that really tick me off! As of last night, they had said rain most of the mornings Sunday, heavy at times w possible t-storms around the time the metric century was to start so I resolved myself to the trainer. I'm not officially in IM training for another week so no biggy, but I was looking forward to the ride, esp since I was off fri and sat due to party prep and major SAUs. This morning woke up to a little rain but then they said it was moving out! I debated about starting the ride late but that would push back my whole day so I stuck w plan B. did 2 x 20' on the trainer. Man, the trainer is HARD when you've been outdoors for months! But I did catch up on the Girl ditalia and Tour de Romandie that I had DVRd in May. Then did a slow hilly 2.5 mi 'hood run.
It's all good and I got in a good structured FTP session, more so than on a 65 mi charity ride. But really, with Doppler this and radar that, you'd think they could figure out the weather 12 hrs out with some level of accuracy. *end rant*
I slept like I had Mono but it really helped. I was able to compete my run holding planned paces for the intervals as written as well as the z2 volume. Looking forward to the rest of the week.
Due to some more iffy weather coming up, I decided to get my run done since the weather was really nice yest. Got my 3 x 1 mi @ target Z4 pace and the last one more like Z5 (thanks to a slight downhill grade)
Group ride tonight. 2 hours, 28 mi, 2,116 ft @.85IF. Bike shifting terrible so I left it at the shop.
rain likely tomorrow so I guess I'll swim!
Got in a swim on wed. And a 39mi group ride @.81 IF yest. Bike shifting was awesome! Nothing like new chain, cassette and cables! 82 miles already this week and tomorrow in riding w the "Ironcowboy" for 56+ miles.
I'm moving to the IM plan Monday too. Yikes!
I've had an interesting week of in-house overnight calls, lots of group rides with plenty flats, and fortunately able to squeeze in the high priority runs with an occasional swim. Will try and get back to the plan for the remaining 4 weeks until I start my IM plan as well
Time to rest up and get ready for the next set of tests. I'm hoping to see better results with the Time Trial on Saturday.