@William - If you are getting a sore at the bottom of the strap, place a bandaid around the lower edge of ther sensor. See DC Rainmaker's recent blog. Works.
Paul- Solid SBR WKO! Nice way to kick off the weekend!
Last RR swim today... Yahoo! I am already dreading RR swims for IMFL. SOOOOOO boring! Anyway, got it done in about 48mins. (Shooting for 44-ish) A few stops for various adjustments and shoulder massaging. (Only acted up once... have dr. appt. 9/5)
I had the questionable privilege of sleeping in this morning in my hotel, then had lots of time to hit the pool in Bethesda before the meeting that required me to stay over and miss another day of vacation.
When I got to the pool I ought to have been very well-rested and thus full of energy, but instead I was lethargic and despite having a positive metal approach to the workout my paces were just, well, slow. I was doing the Tuesday workout that called for 4x500(30) at RR pace minus 2-3 sec, and it took over 1000yd until my body decided it wanted to swim. Since the beginning was such a writeoff and I was improving with each set I decided to add an extra set of 500 and push the pace for the last one. So it ended up as a pretty good workout.
Overall 2785 yd in 48:47 (avg pace 1:36/100yd, excl rest intervals). Avg efficiency 37. Bethesda pool…23.75yd long, so with the Garmin set to 24 yards the reported paces are about 1 sec/100 faster than actual.
@ Jimmy. I don't think the 13.1 distinction matters too much. And I believe time is the main important variable. The logic uunderpinning the "run by time" philosophy (i.e. we all do the same amount of work) is sound. But I do think that some modification is appropriate for folks who run faster. When I do a half-iron, I'm out there running for under 1:40 (I hope...). So doing a lot of runs over 2 hours, while valuable from the standpoint of building endurance, in my view is not worth the added risk of injury.
As to working harder during those runs, I am probably not the example you want to follow. That run you saw was probably one of the least intense I've done this year. I do very little running slower than MP. I don't think I've ever run my EP of 8:24. Since joining EN I have developed more "gears" to use running, but not enough and I am working on running easier. Perhaps if I learned to run at EP I would not feel the need to pull back on duration so much (given lower risk of injury). One of my goals for next year will be to do longer long runs at a slower pace and be less of a "2 gear runner".
180min EN ride 55mi .82IF @Matt- Not trying to be argumentative, just to understand. That said, the run by time logic is still fuzzy for me. Just because we both run the same amount of time, we cant conclude that we did the same amount of work. Any more than we can conclude that if we ride the same amount of time we did the same amount of work. We just don't have power meters for our running shoes to quantify the work on the run in the manner that we do on the bike. At this point in time it seems to me that you are doing more work than I am. And that is by no means meant in a derogatory fashion. My suspicion is that you have developed your ability to work hard for longer over time. I intend to head in that direction. I look forward to looking up in a few years and realizing that my 180min sunday interval ride covered well over the 56mi that i will be racing. And that my 120min thursday en run has grown to cover well over the distance that i will run in a 70.3. It might be that running/biking by time is simply the safest way to get from point "a" (where I am) to point "b" (where you are). BTW - If you need inspiration in your quest to run slower, let me know. I can be your role model!
As I noted yesterday, I got in a nice RR swim on Friday. Translated to short course, it was about 1:40 pace. Not super fast, but very comfortable. Friday evening, I put in a 45 minute hill run. About 1.5 mi from my house, there's this really (but not ridiculously) steep hill that takes about a minute to run up. So I warmed up by running over, did however many repeats i could fin in and still get home in ~45 min (10? 12?) and then ran home...It felt great. Again, warmup was a little slow, but not too bad. I was generally running sub-7:00 pace up this hill...which i obviously can't translate, but trust me, it's good (for me). The run home also just felt great and moved pretty quickly.
I had a family event at ~8 am for my kids' CC team, so I swam early. The pool opens at 7:00. It was 50 degrees!!! (the air not the water) Since I knew it was going to be pretty short, I kept it to warmup plus a strength based set i like to do once in a while. I have some over-sized paddles that earlier in the season i couldn't get tired/winded using because I wasn't strong enough to pull them hard enough... but I have gotten better, and I can do a great set of 20 x 100 where aerobically I'm at race pace, but it's all about lats and core strength, and I'm beginning to break down at the end, so.. 300 swim up 300 kick 20 x 100 (10') at race effort with big paddles
By midmorning, I could get out on my bike, and I was really pleased how well that went too. Carried 6 bottles with me, so I could go tackle a local hill that's 25 miles out (i.e., not a loop or double out-and-back for refills). This ride was hard but it felt good and what felt even better was that I was ok with keeping up the effort. I did the set almost as written (2 x 20 at FTP and 2 x 35 at 80-85) but had to break up the 70 min of 80-85% in a different spot because of this hill. 20.9 mph, 61 mi 193 TSS, 0.81 IF NP 204, VI 1.07
Back in Michigan finally. Got in a great bike ride this morning. I came up ~14' short of the 180' target due to a bit of a short routing and an average speed that was a bit higher than expected. But I need some SAUs after the business trip interrupting the vacation, so no worries about 14 silly minutes. The ride was "all business" – only two stops totaling 3:10 in the whole ride, and one of those was due to encountering a rare traffic light near the very end of the ride. I abbreviated the warmup slightly but did the z4 work exactly as prescribed – 2x20'(4') – and hit some great numbers with IF 1.06 and 1.04. I modified the z3 from the scheduled 2x35' to be 2x45'(4') based on routing.
@ Jimmy, I didn't think you were being argumentative at all. Hopefully this discussion is helpful. Two more thoughts based on what you wrote:
Just because we both run the same amount of time, we cant conclude that we did the same amount of work. Any more than we can conclude that if we ride the same amount of time we did the same amount of work. We just don't have power meters for our running shoes to quantify the work on the run in the manner that we do on the bike.
If we both did the same workout -- i.e. both hitting our target paces for the prescribed amount of time -- I'd suggest that yes, we did roughly the same amount of work regardless of the mileage we ran. I say "roughly", because, as you noted, we don't have powermeters for running. But pace for a given duration relative to our TP is a good approximation for work and training stress. In this case our HR % of max HR or LTHR should also be roughly in the same ballpark.
At this point in time it seems to me that you are doing more work than I am.
That might be true too. But if we're doing the same workouts and hitting our zones for the same durations in the intervals, I'd say probably not. Now if you don't always hit the interval targets and I do, or if you do z2 "remainder time" after your intervals and I do z3, then it will be different. But as I said above, that doesn't mean that my doing "more work" is actually better...it may in fact be worse!! Generally the MS is the most important part of the workout. But the overarching point is that distance, and in particular "overdistance" relative to the triathlon race distances, isn't too relevant in my view.
I missed the 30' brick the morning so substituted a quick run this evening. It was a point-to-point run from the vacation rental house to where the girls were having ice cream…it was the only way I was going to slot it in. I followed my pacing for a short run…started moderately hard and built it up from there…
Overall 3.53 miles in 23:31, avg 6:40 pace. No stops. Took splits manually every 5 mins. Current z4=6:45, z3=6:52, z2=7:09.
12 miles easy jog this morning. Cannot run hard in South Georgia in August. I've successfully completed my 'return to IM' training block. Volume since Muncie has been 8, 12, 16, 18, 20, and 21 hrs. Next week starts with a massage and lower volume to absorb the work, and then prepare for harder work to come.
Today was supposed to be 120min ABP ride. But It was actually raining here @ 630am. Shocking. and much needed. So I pulled out the trainer. Much harder! I ended up grinding out 90 minutes. And the wattage was low. I spent the last hour bargaining with myself - If you hit 3 more minutes at 80%, you can go easy for a couple of minutes. Got to the 90 min mark in 5 minute blocks and got off the bike. I missed yesterday's 30 minute easy run so I went right in to that as the rain had stopped. What a payoff! It was only 74 degrees! Ended up being one of the most pleasant runs I have been on in a while.
Paul- Nice ride and training hours over the past several weeks! Take that lower volume week seriously!
Matt- Way to go getting in the training on vaca and with travel.
Yesterday was scheduled ride but I switched the days since it was raining yesterday.
1:54 total, about 28 mil
20' @ .72 IF 35' @ .84IF 59' @ .78IF
12' (1 mi) run around the block afterwards. Hilly in my 'hood so slower than my usual trail runs. Then off to walk the dog in a "doggy pack walk" and to the dog park. Tuckered pups.
@ Jimmy.... been there done that. Chalk it up to the mental part of riding a drainer and get some sleep. I'll be that much easier to go hard Tuesday. :-)
Despite a good night's sleep, I was pretty tired on the bike today. Despite being a bit subpar, I'll take solace in it being yet another >20 mph ride. Low IF because the warmup/easy parts were really easy, and the ABP parts were closer to .80 than .85 :-) Still, not too awful, especially given that this has been a good hard week overall of 15.5 hours. (Not Paul Hough hard, but good. I've been at this volume for the last couple weeks, and this week was harder than last...so that's good again. Ride 1:59:16, 20.4 mph, 100 TSS, 0.71 IF. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/212541430
Run was similarly a bit sub par statistically, but not a disaster. Four mi at 8:39, 7:58, 7:13, 7:00. The last two should have been at 6:55 or so, but I decided to do these by RPE rather than killing myself to get the number. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/212527174
Just the "the good 'ol days"…my training partner Andrew (who I hadn't worked out with since Kansas due to his being injured) treked out to Michigan for some good riding. Nice! It was a good time and my girls were just thrilled to see him after all this time! We took it pretty easy on the ride, esp with some long recoveries to talk and catch up, but that's okay…still a good amount of z3 time after an intense ride on Saturday.
Comments
Last RR swim today... Yahoo! I am already dreading RR swims for IMFL. SOOOOOO boring! Anyway, got it done in about 48mins. (Shooting for 44-ish) A few stops for various adjustments and shoulder massaging. (Only acted up once... have dr. appt. 9/5)
When I got to the pool I ought to have been very well-rested and thus full of energy, but instead I was lethargic and despite having a positive metal approach to the workout my paces were just, well, slow. I was doing the Tuesday workout that called for 4x500(30) at RR pace minus 2-3 sec, and it took over 1000yd until my body decided it wanted to swim. Since the beginning was such a writeoff and I was improving with each set I decided to add an extra set of 500 and push the pace for the last one. So it ended up as a pretty good workout.
Overall 2785 yd in 48:47 (avg pace 1:36/100yd, excl rest intervals). Avg efficiency 37. Bethesda pool…23.75yd long, so with the Garmin set to 24 yards the reported paces are about 1 sec/100 faster than actual.
Paces:
W/U 200 – 1:36
MS: 5x500(30) – 1:38, 1:37, 1:36, 1:35, 1:32
C/D 200 – 1:38
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/211614422
As to working harder during those runs, I am probably not the example you want to follow. That run you saw was probably one of the least intense I've done this year. I do very little running slower than MP. I don't think I've ever run my EP of 8:24. Since joining EN I have developed more "gears" to use running, but not enough and I am working on running easier. Perhaps if I learned to run at EP I would not feel the need to pull back on duration so much (given lower risk of injury). One of my goals for next year will be to do longer long runs at a slower pace and be less of a "2 gear runner".
55mi .82IF
@Matt- Not trying to be argumentative, just to understand.
That said, the run by time logic is still fuzzy for me. Just because we both run the same amount of time, we cant conclude that we did the same amount of work. Any more than we can conclude that if we ride the same amount of time we did the same amount of work. We just don't have power meters for our running shoes to quantify the work on the run in the manner that we do on the bike.
At this point in time it seems to me that you are doing more work than I am. And that is by no means meant in a derogatory fashion. My suspicion is that you have developed your ability to work hard for longer over time. I intend to head in that direction. I look forward to looking up in a few years and realizing that my 180min sunday interval ride covered well over the 56mi that i will be racing. And that my 120min thursday en run has grown to cover well over the distance that i will run in a 70.3.
It might be that running/biking by time is simply the safest way to get from point "a" (where I am) to point "b" (where you are).
BTW - If you need inspiration in your quest to run slower, let me know. I can be your role model!
As I noted yesterday, I got in a nice RR swim on Friday. Translated to short course, it was about 1:40 pace. Not super fast, but very comfortable.
Friday evening, I put in a 45 minute hill run. About 1.5 mi from my house, there's this really (but not ridiculously) steep hill that takes about a minute to run up. So I warmed up by running over, did however many repeats i could fin in and still get home in ~45 min (10? 12?) and then ran home...It felt great. Again, warmup was a little slow, but not too bad. I was generally running sub-7:00 pace up this hill...which i obviously can't translate, but trust me, it's good (for me). The run home also just felt great and moved pretty quickly.
I had a family event at ~8 am for my kids' CC team, so I swam early. The pool opens at 7:00. It was 50 degrees!!! (the air not the water) Since I knew it was going to be pretty short, I kept it to warmup plus a strength based set i like to do once in a while. I have some over-sized paddles that earlier in the season i couldn't get tired/winded using because I wasn't strong enough to pull them hard enough... but I have gotten better, and I can do a great set of 20 x 100 where aerobically I'm at race pace, but it's all about lats and core strength, and I'm beginning to break down at the end, so..
300 swim up
300 kick
20 x 100 (10') at race effort with big paddles
By midmorning, I could get out on my bike, and I was really pleased how well that went too. Carried 6 bottles with me, so I could go tackle a local hill that's 25 miles out (i.e., not a loop or double out-and-back for refills). This ride was hard but it felt good and what felt even better was that I was ok with keeping up the effort. I did the set almost as written (2 x 20 at FTP and 2 x 35 at 80-85) but had to break up the 70 min of 80-85% in a different spot because of this hill.
20.9 mph, 61 mi
193 TSS, 0.81 IF
NP 204, VI 1.07
Overall 2:45:53 @ 230 watts, IF 0.905, TSS 225.9. Distance 58.62 miles, avg 21.2mph.
Warmup
15'(4') – NP: 191 (IF 0.754), VI 1.01, HR 127/136, cad 83, 19.5mph
FTP intervals
20'(4') – NP: 270 (IF 1.061), VI 1.00, HR 160/173, cad 90, 21.8mph
20'(4') – NP: 265 (IF 1.042), VI 1.01, HR 168/172, cad 89, 23.0mph
ABP (z3) intervals
45'(4') – NP: 222 (IF 0.876), VI 1.00, HR 149/155, cad 88, 21.7mph
45'(4') – NP: 225 (IF 0.887), VI 1.02, HR 151/160, cad 88, 22.0mph
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/212066985
Up early and rode 112 miles as 30 solo, 55 w South Georgia Cycling Club then 27 miles solo to get the IM distance. Hot too!
Wanted to do a brick run but had to get to my granddaughter's birthday party, but got in 3 miles easy after a 6 hour "transition."
Just because we both run the same amount of time, we cant conclude that we did the same amount of work. Any more than we can conclude that if we ride the same amount of time we did the same amount of work. We just don't have power meters for our running shoes to quantify the work on the run in the manner that we do on the bike.
If we both did the same workout -- i.e. both hitting our target paces for the prescribed amount of time -- I'd suggest that yes, we did roughly the same amount of work regardless of the mileage we ran. I say "roughly", because, as you noted, we don't have powermeters for running. But pace for a given duration relative to our TP is a good approximation for work and training stress. In this case our HR % of max HR or LTHR should also be roughly in the same ballpark.
At this point in time it seems to me that you are doing more work than I am.
That might be true too. But if we're doing the same workouts and hitting our zones for the same durations in the intervals, I'd say probably not. Now if you don't always hit the interval targets and I do, or if you do z2 "remainder time" after your intervals and I do z3, then it will be different. But as I said above, that doesn't mean that my doing "more work" is actually better...it may in fact be worse!! Generally the MS is the most important part of the workout. But the overarching point is that distance, and in particular "overdistance" relative to the triathlon race distances, isn't too relevant in my view.
I missed the 30' brick the morning so substituted a quick run this evening. It was a point-to-point run from the vacation rental house to where the girls were having ice cream…it was the only way I was going to slot it in. I followed my pacing for a short run…started moderately hard and built it up from there…
12 miles easy jog this morning. Cannot run hard in South Georgia in August. I've successfully completed my 'return to IM' training block. Volume since Muncie has been 8, 12, 16, 18, 20, and 21 hrs. Next week starts with a massage and lower volume to absorb the work, and then prepare for harder work to come.
So I pulled out the trainer.
Much harder! I ended up grinding out 90 minutes. And the wattage was low. I spent the last hour bargaining with myself - If you hit 3 more minutes at 80%, you can go easy for a couple of minutes. Got to the 90 min mark in 5 minute blocks and got off the bike.
I missed yesterday's 30 minute easy run so I went right in to that as the rain had stopped. What a payoff! It was only 74 degrees! Ended up being one of the most pleasant runs I have been on in a while.
Paul- Nice ride and training hours over the past several weeks! Take that lower volume week seriously!
Matt- Way to go getting in the training on vaca and with travel.
Yesterday was scheduled ride but I switched the days since it was raining yesterday.
1:54 total, about 28 mil
20' @ .72 IF
35' @ .84IF
59' @ .78IF
12' (1 mi) run around the block afterwards. Hilly in my 'hood so slower than my usual trail runs.
Then off to walk the dog in a "doggy pack walk" and to the dog park. Tuckered pups.
1 week til Maine!
Despite a good night's sleep, I was pretty tired on the bike today. Despite being a bit subpar, I'll take solace in it being yet another >20 mph ride. Low IF because the warmup/easy parts were really easy, and the ABP parts were closer to .80 than .85 :-) Still, not too awful, especially given that this has been a good hard week overall of 15.5 hours. (Not Paul Hough hard, but good. I've been at this volume for the last couple weeks, and this week was harder than last...so that's good again.
Ride 1:59:16, 20.4 mph, 100 TSS, 0.71 IF. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/212541430
Run was similarly a bit sub par statistically, but not a disaster. Four mi at 8:39, 7:58, 7:13, 7:00. The last two should have been at 6:55 or so, but I decided to do these by RPE rather than killing myself to get the number. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/212527174
Overall 2:14:40 @ 192 watts, IF 0.757, TSS 128.3. Distance 43.51 miles, avg 19.4mph.
Warmup
30' – NP: 152 (IF 0.600), VI 1.06, HR 113/129, cad 78, 17.8mph
ABP intervals
30'(9') – NP: 209 (IF 0.821), VI 1.00, HR 136/144, cad 87, 19.8mph
40'(18') – NP: 210 (IF 0.828), VI 1.00, HR 133/141, cad 88, 21.3mph
7.5' – NP: 224 (IF 0.881), VI 1.00, HR 135/143, cad 91, 22.9mph
Extended recoveries
9' – NP: 131 (IF 0.516), HR 105, 15.5mph
18' – NP: 162 (IF 0.639), HR 115, 17.9mph
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/212478029