9 Weeks To Go!
9 weeks and 62 days to go! WOOHOO!
Had some fun with my fitness yesterday and swam the 1 mile channel between Angel Island and Tiburon in the San Francisco Bay yesterday with Tom Glynn and another friend. It is a USA swimming event with lots of uber-skinny, fit pro's.
Our friend is usually stressed when swimming in the bay and she did freak the first 10 minutes or so of the swim but then she just started swimming. I had us on a nice sight line across but then a current started pulling us slowly towards the Golden Gate Bridge. We worked our way back and got done in 35 minutes. Was a fun swim. I pulled the whole way.
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I swam today, air temp was about 47 and the water was cold. If not for my fearless partner I was outta there. She got me going as I wanted to bolt.
No run today as I am doing my long run tomorrow as I am doing back to back centuries
Normal swim today and then weights for 45'. Yesterday's day off was much needed, as me knees have been squacking lately. Must've been from trying to outrun Al Truscott Saturday!
Tic Tock Tic Tock........
I am a week ahead of you guys as I am planning for a 3 week taper, but I switched my long run to today as I am doing hopefully back to back centuries this weekend. I was a little hard going this morning but once I was it got easier. I did a local lake run which is 3 miles, did it four times to get the loop thing going. Its hard to run by your car when your tired and not jump in. It also has some concrete around it, while I hate doing it I know we will be running on it very soon.
You don't try to catch up, you pickup in the plan where you would be.
I'm doing the weekend rides today and tomorrow, looking forward to an Oly race on Sunday. Either because I'm lazy, or because it's what I think I need, I'm doing my long rides now at a steady pace a bit faster than IM race pace. Four hours in the aerobars today. The warm up and cool down were at 0.7 IF, and the 3+ hours in the middle were at 0.757, 0.76, 0.717, 0.763. Followed by a 20 minute run.
Theses rides, with a brick, are 50/50 about building fitness, and confidence in that fitness and ability to run at goal pace afterwards. Right now, I'm really all about building a big ol' far onto whatever fast I've got. I'm planing on racing at 0.72 IF for the last 4.5 hours once I finish the first "downhill" -about an hour into the race. Doing a bunch of rides at 0.75 with a good run afterwards will help convince me I can do that on race day.
Tomorrow I'll go shorter (after a swim), and try to get closer to 0.80.
My evening was a 100min run workout on the treadmill listening to old skool Foreigner songs, such as "Dirty White Boy".
1.5 miles at 6.8mph
12 x 800m (3') at 8.0mph
Remainder of time at 7.0mph
Work Works, Work=Speed
Did my first ever *real* roadie ride this morning. Local group with race teams like Wells Fargo, Taleo, etc. and there were about 30 of us. I guess that is smaller than normal. Chris Lieto sits out on front regularly when he is in town. Glad he missed this ride.
Totally different than EN plan rides and I LOVED it!
I never got totally dropped, stuck in the middle of the group and held my own. Interesting part was how intensely I was aware of my surroundings. Watching other riders, making sue I didn;t move to quick;y, etc.
Entire workout:
Duration: 2:29:44
Work: 1503 kJ
TSS: 163 (intensity factor 0.83)
Norm Power: 216
VI: 1.29
Distance: 48.068 mi
Elevation Gain: 1272 ft
Elevation Loss: 1291 ft
P.S. I love my road bike!
@John sounds like a fun ride...we are getting to the point that rides are ready to move inside. Was hoping that the weather would hold out for another month but getting pretty cool for evening rides.
Took 7 days off from running because of a calf strain/tendonitis. Maintained all of the bike/swim workouts, and was able to push through the FTP test on Tuesday (indoors) without quitting all pain free. Not a great FTP result, but I put in 7.5 hard hours on the bike this weekend.
I keep looking thru this week's training plan, trying to find the runs, and wondering if I should do some extra credit work. Then I remember a few things: I'm still trying to gain weight, and running always eats me up (literally). I'm sure I need a *little* bit of recovery to get ready for the next big push into the first race rehearsal and 2.5 hour run. I've been telling myself I want a stronger swim, and what better time to focus on it than this week. I'm gettng a little antsy, feeling so totally not fatigued, but I keep telling myself this little "break" will get me stronger.
So it's just 2 swims, those two longer bike rides (with a short run after each), and then my Olympic race on Sunday to eat up the FTP bike test, 5K run test, and swim TT all at one swell foop.
Incline = 4%, 80min at 6.6mph.
Work Works, Work=Speed.
Where's Stark?
2 hrs on the treadmill - DONE!
Now only if those punkasses at the gym would stop breaking into the locker and stealing my cash! I'll explain more tomorrow in another post...GRRR...
@Scott you gotta quit looking like a rich triathlete and more like a broke ass runner and they'll leave your locker alone! Sucks that they have to hang out there and mess with other peoples stuff.
@ Scott - More locker room woes, eh? I thought of the old thread here when I saw a guy shaving, @ the sink, (naked of course), with ONE FOOT RESTING ON THE COUNTER right next to the skin - kinda like a dog at a hydrant?
Now I'm off for Sunday's 3 hour ride, in the bright sun, temps going up to 75F (Shh, don't tell anyone we get this weather here).
Thursday I did the long run from last week since I am happy with my current vdot and not sure that I would improve it anyways. Made the zone 2 intervals and most of the zone 3's until the wheels came off. I started to do a weight routine this week and it took more out of me than I had expected. The last 3 miles of the run I was dragging, although I was able to maintain a pace a little faster than zone 1.
Today I did the swim test, 1000 yards in 14:59, was still feeling the fatigue from the week. I actually didn't really swim that hard, maybe 80%, I was just interested in keeping my pace under 1:30/100y. I could have swam another 1000 after that and maintained the pace without difficulty. The entire workout was close to 3000 yards. I was hoping to go for a run after the swim but the legs were extremely stiff and I thought better of it. This afternoon we were a little slow around the shop so I went out on the local river trail and got in a zone 1.5 four miler. I want to get in some run volume in the next month, so along with the scheduled EN runs, I am going to supplement a few more runs per week.
@ Steve S - It's a daylight finish for you for sure - two years ago, I did a 1:10 in AZ after a 15:29 1000 yd TT
@Al- thanks for the vote of confidence! Good luck at your Olympic tomorrow.
Today was my 4 hour ride, did 77.8 miles @ .774 IF and then got in 4 good run miles @ 7:56/mile. Got a flat at mile 15 of the ride. Rode right through the middle of a local 70.3 race, was pretty cool to pace with the first place male, even after logging 50 miles on my training ride. (he was on mile 3)