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Week of August 27th
OOOH me first me first!
Today was swim day. 2400M as 500 warm up then 3x100 on 20" descending, 3x100 on 15" descending and 3x100 on 10" descending. Then the same but with 4x50's. Then 400M smooth.
This was, I think, my longest swim set ever. Sad but there it is. Pretty sure that I PR'd 400M in my 500M warm up. Gotta check the splits at home tonight.
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I had effectively rested Sat and done a fairly hard pseudo RR yesterday (ditto Aug 20), so my legs were pretty tired today. But it was good to get out in the heat. Something like 87 degrees again. I know...not 110 like LV will probably be, but at least hot...and well timed.
Anyway, all I did today was a 45 min run with a 2 mile fast part. They were 6:27 and 6:45, which is reflective of them being a bit down and a bit uphill, respectively...so right near 6:35ish average...not bad for the heat.
Tomorrow I'm allowed back in the pool.
Got up to swim this morning, and the bands from Hurricane Isaac had the rain blowing sideways about 30-35mph, so I went back to bed. Scored 10hrs of sleep on top of 9 the day before.
Tonight... 20 mins core, 26 miles on the drainer, then a 5K run in super humidity.
@ Paul, I'm looking forward to meeting you. You're a machine...as if the workouts aren't huge enough, you get insane amounts of sleep.
Swim: overall 3000 yd in 53:38, avg pace 1:33 (excl rest intervals), eff 36, 10.0 strokes/length. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/215874473
W/U 200: 1:34
MS1: 6x400(30) – 1:35, 1:34, 1:33, 1:33, 1:34, 1:34
MS2: 8x50(20) as 25 hard/25 easy – 1:26, 1:27, 1:26, 1:26, 1:25, 1:25, 1:26, 1:24
Run: overall 6.64 mi in 45:01 (6:47 pace). Very short stops for water during the recoveries. Current z4=6:45, z3=6:52, z2=7:09.
Warmup: 10'@6:49, 4'@7:26
2x 7'(3') @z4 – 6:36, 6:35
(3' recoveries – 7:34, 7:19)
- 11' remainder time @z4 – 6:27
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/215874441
Track group this morning. 12x400M on 1:30 rest. Since I am tapering this week, I decided to rest duringthe rests. Times were 1:33 +/-
Now all I need to do is string them all together without stopping and I can run with the rest of you!.
More work today at lunch. Not sure what it will be. Taper week = WETFIW. (what ever the f I want!)
Went to crossfit at lunch. Felt like picking up something heavy. Wouldnt you know it, we were running 800's. Pardon me while I vomit.
Tue AM ... Swim 4000 LCM as 8 x 500m
Tue PM ... Bike 15 mi on the trainer w technique focus followed by 4 mi brick in the tropical soup as 8:57, 8:35, 7:36, and 8:42.
Overall 60' @ 214 watts, IF 0.842. Full warmup of 10' easy then 3x3'(1') @ z3. Then MS of 4x6'(2')@z4, followed by 14' remainder time @ a high z3:
Warmup:
- 10' easy: NP 131 (IF 0.516), HR 101/124, cad 82
- 3x3'(1') @z3, NP: 207, 216, 215 (IF 0.814, 0.850, 0.845)
MS
- 6'(2') @z4: NP 251 (IF 0.988), HR 145/154, cad 88
- 6'(2') @z4: NP 251 (IF 0.990), HR 154/161, cad 88
- 6'(2') @z4: NP 262 (IF 1.030), HR 161/171, cad 89
Remainder time:
- 14' @z3: NP 215 (IF 0.847), HR 154/161, cad 88
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/216272433
Did get to the pool though with enough time for
300 wup
300 kick
18 x 50/50 hard/easy (10-20" rest)
Those went pretty well. The first 50s were about 50 sec (LCM) and I was consciously getting stroke count down. I really wanted to focus on form, so I took a little extra rest..as much as 20 sec per, so aerobic exhaustion wouldn't be an issue. http://connect.garmin.com/splits/216018237
Tuesday late afternoon I went on a bike ride doing the same wko that Matt has posted. But mine went a little differently.... in the middle of my third interval, an F-150 started trying to pass a whole series of cars and just decided that no matter what it was going to do it. (This was on a 2-lane county road.) So at not-quite-the-last second I swerved off the road onto the shoulder/ditch and let him not head-on-collision run me over. As you can imagine, this was a bit unnerving. I finished up the ride, but it had some effects later.
MS
-6' 239 W, IF 0.96
-6' 243 W, IF 0.97
-5' 245 W, IF 0.98 .... WTF...Truck!!!!
Remainder ended up IF 0.70...partly disconcerted, partly traffic for last 10 min or so. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/216395451
In the early evening I had a swim lesson. That went well in that I was whipping out sub-40 50s (SCY) without any difficulty...except that i found myself oddly tired. Not sure if that was because of the truck thing or because of the vagaries of starting to taper some. Went home and had a very fun, but very hectic evening with the kids and then collapsed into bed a bit after 10 pm.
Wed morning, I went for the scheduled swim and it just was an exhaustofest. I did most of the yards (well, meters, actually), but 45 min was not enough to finish the proscribed who, but it was enough for me. Slow and not that pretty. I'm pretty sure this is a transient thing, so I'm not too worried about it. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/216395465
But I got an hour of decent work on the trainer with some good "on" time.
Then I snuck off to the pool for 30min and just swam. Did 1500M in 30:17. This is a pr by about 90 seconds.
The key to hitting swim pr's is to set the bar low.
I really wanted under 30 but I faded about 1/3 of the way through and didnt really pick back up till the last 150M.
My workout schedule today called for a 2800 yd swim and that's it. But looking at my Kansas and Racine tapering I was clearly doing more biking and some bricks early in week #19. I'm trying to replicate those two races by going a bit heavier volume-wise this week, then I'll really turn off the tap next week on Tuesday (when in any case I have brutal business travel for the couple of days ahead of the trip out to Vegas).
So I hit the lakefront path this morning for a ~2-hour ride just ~12 hours after a pretty hard FTP-focused indoor ride last night. I also was mentally committed to a brick run since I didn't do that last night. The ride ended up being a very hard effort indeed (overall IF 0.907), with solid z4 intervals of 19'(3') and 25'(2') (times dictated by the routing), then two strong "z3+" intervals of 25' and 9' to bring it home.
The 24' brick was the first time running from my new house although it is the same as my usual brick just with different starting and ending points on the out-and-back.
But after all that, my plan to make it to the pool before it was closed tonight was foiled by my wife getting out late for her 9-miler and not being home in time for me to swim. So I'll have to swim tomorrow instead. Luckily with the taper the "long run" is only 60' so I'll probably do another "aqua brick" tomorrow as a result.
Ride: overall 1:48:28 @ 230 watts, IF 0.903, TSS 148.1. Distance 38.1 miles, avg 21.1mph. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/216489899
Warmup
10' – NP: 147 (IF 0.579), VI 1.07, HR 116/134, cad 77, 16.3mph
3x3'(1') @z5 – AP: 308, 326, 332
Intervals
19'(3') – NP: 252 (IF 0.993), VI 1.00, HR 155/162, cad 93, 21.8mph
25'(2') – NP: 251 (IF 0.986), VI 1.00, HR 160/168, cad 92, 22.2mph
25'(3') – NP: 228 (IF 0.897), VI 1.00, HR 152/161, cad 91, 23.2mph
9'(6') – NP: 225 (IF 0.886), VI 1.00, HR 147/156, cad 91, 24.3mph
Run: overall 3.69 miles in 24:01, 6:31 pace. Some GPS error apparent in interval #3 where it reported the pace as 6:10…probably was more like 6:35 in reality. Not sure what was going on with the satellites around this house today but clearly it was a bit messed up and you can see the running track is not exactly on the streets. Strange. But in any case it was a good hard run effort. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/216489235.
Burning the candle on both ends again:
Wed AM ... Swim 3025 yards plus Run 2.31 miles
Wed PM ... Core 15 mins plus Bike Trainer 64 mins w Spinervals Hillacious dvd
@Matt - That's a hell of a hammer fest. Wow!
My schedule has been pretty crazy, so there wasn't time for the brick run yesterday... so I converted it to a not-so-hard run today. It's in the mid 90s to near 100 in the afternoons here all this week, and I'm trying to take advantage of that for prep for LV. (I think I'll post elsewhere on that just to be a little provocative) The brick run had some TP in it, but I decided that I wanted to use it to re-sensitize myself to HR pacing, since that's how I'll probably end up racing the run at LV with the heat and hilly course.
I had thought when I started looking at this a few days ago that I would want to stay in the low 150s, but I'm thinking now I can manage the upper 150s with a top of about 160.
Fortunately, the run felt better than this morning's swim.
6.15 mi at 7:45 average...the nice thing looking at this is that I experimented a little and was running in the 7:30 neighborhood for the last three miles. Despite what the elevation profile says, that's the uphill part of my run, although fairly gentle. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/216625830
I'd love to run 7:00s in LV, but I'm smart enough to know that ain't gonna happen if it's really as hot out there as it is right now...but if it is and I do 7:30s (average), I'd be good with that too.
Tomorrow's run is supposed to be an hour with about a half hour of fast stuff. I am thinking now that I will take advantage of the heat instead and more or less repeat this run, maybe throwing in a few uphill strides or something...but again out in the heat and doing it almost as race simulation.
@ Paul, haha, love it when the wind is at my back for the second half of the ride!!
@ William, when heat is the governing factor I really think that RPE is the best way to run. I use pace and RPE. Obviously you can get into trouble chasing pace on that course, but given the elevation profile I think a few extra bpm on the uphill segments is warranted so you'll have to factor that in.
Looking at my most successful marathon (2 years ago...haven't run one since), I spent most of the race in the upper 150s and then drifted into the lower 160s after recovering a bit from Heartbreak Hill where it obviously went up...and finished the race there in that low 160s. As then, that's lower than my threshold HR, which hasn't changed much...maybe gone up a couple beats to around 168. But that was a cool weather race.
Over the course of 50 min at LCM pool: 2600 m
300 wu (broken due to a goggle issue)
300 kick
200s as 150 solid effort/50 ~race effort; alternating pull and swim
Idea was to really practice the form lesson I got the other day. Can't totally sprint when you're doing that...and the alternating pull (buoy only) and swim felt like a really good way of pulling this off. Pleased with myself
So I got the rest of the run in over lunch on my way to and from the guy to do some core work.
Tomorrow I will swim and then take the weekend really easy ahead of Tri Rock Austin.
Overall 2800 yd in 48:46, avg pace 1:37 (excl rest intervals), eff 37, 10 strokes/length. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/216983339
W/U 200: 1:37
MS1: 4x600(30) – 1:38, 1:37, 1:36, 1:35
C/D 200: 1:38
I noticed that our strokes per length are more or less the same. But you swim a good bit faster than I do.
So to me that sounds like a faster cadence, right? I mean it takes us both 10 (11 in my case) strokes to get across the pool but it just looks like you are turning th strokes faster. I might try that out today to see what happens.
Just make sure you're comparing apples to apples.
but yes, people who are serious swimmers (more serious than any of us) worry a lot about stroke rate.
Picked up for 20 minutes straight to an average of 6:48, which is really not bad for that 90+ temp. HR did get up to about 160. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/216964220
This morning, I did do my RR swim after the usual 300/300 warmup. The time (37:17 for 1900 LCM) was not spectacular, but it was better than the last one and felt good/easy. I think the lesson tips did really help. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/217072969
Sadly, that's probably my last LCM swim until next May. The pool is outdoors and will close after Labor Day no matter how perfectly pleasant the weather here is in Sept. supposedly in 2014 a new indoor LCM pool will open, and then I will be happy again. Until then, it's back to SCY and twice as many of my really bad turns. :-)
Also - It might just be me but I cant see your garmin data via the links. When I click through it says that:
"You do not have sufficient privileges to view the activity with id 216964220"
You might have something in your profile set to keep the data private. Which is too bad because I really wanted to see a 6:48mi that only put your hr to 160. On some level I think that it is important for my brain to take in that this is possible...
So I did the Rx'd swim from the 70.3 (my race is on monday so I had to move the schedule a day which I am finding embarassingly complicated to keep striaght).
This swim was perfect for where my head is at as I really didnt want to push through a long intense session.
I tried to increase my turnover without also increasing my stroke count. But the water got in the way. Really dense stuff that water.
Oh well. I will keep looking for magical swim fixes. In the mean time my times keep creeping down towards the area where EN says to quit worrying about your swim and focus on bike run.
Fri PM ... 20 miles easy ride on trainer watching the 1st half of THe Bourne Identity. Every time I see that film I want to go buy a Mini. I used to drive an original Leyland Mini when I lived in England - not the oversized version they sell in the US.
@ William ... I try to get to a LCM pool once a week. I think it closes about 2 weeks before IMCOZ. My SCY pool is also outdoors but heated to 82 in the winter.
I'd love to be able to access an LCM pool. I used one in Prague and it was awesome. Also psychologically the workout seemed a little less daunting when I only had to do half the number of laps. But in Chicago there are very few, and even fewer that have public access. Interestingly the Chicago Park District has some that are open to the public, but the hours for lap swim are just terrible and the places are just jammed with people.
Btw William is right on with respect to 11-12 strokes turning into 28 when you swim in a LCM pool...in that swim I averaged around 27 stronkes per length.
Crazy schedule today but I managed to jam in a swim/run "aqua-brick" workout between meetings. The swim was a HIM race rehearsal…MS of 2200 yd nonstop. It was psychologically demanding (esp the first 15 laps where you haven't really accomplished a very large % of the workout), but I settled in and got it done. Interestingly my paces were better than yesterday's 4x600(30) workout, and were rock-solid with respect to consistency.
Today will be 30min run and 30 min swim with the swim hopefully being in the lake up in austin for monday's race. Water is crazy warm. I have not felt comfortable swimming at this race either of the past 2 times I have been there. So I am hoping the practice swim will help.
Hmm, Labor Day weekend...do I taper for Vegas or train for Cozumel. I chose the latter. 115 miles on the bike with a late start on a hot day. My QR had been in the shop for 10 days getting a lot of work plus a parts delay. I had the rear brake changed from center pull to side pull also. First job this morning was to swap wheels so I had power. That required me to loosen the rear brake a little so the power tap wheel would not rub. Didn't think to check the front wheel after I shoved it in.
So off I go and I'm working just a tad harder than I should have for a steady ride. Man it's hot, and I'm working. Time passes and I'm thinking of cutting the ride back, wondering if I need more rest, asking myself if my age is catching up to me. Finally, about 65 miles in I stopped and checked the spin on the front. DOH! What a difference that made ... Like 2mph faster at the same effort. Call me dumb ass.
With crap weather today in Chicago the outdoor ride got aborted and so my buddy Andrew and I did 90' on the trainer in place of the 150' scheduled workout. But we made it a good one – instead of the scheduled 3x10'@z3 we did a cool descending z3 set with intervals of 30'(3'), 20'(2'), 10'(1'). I targeted each interval to have higher power than the prior one and was successful with IF of 0.835, 0.857, 0.887. Then remainder time of 6' where I targeted z4 and ended up at IF 0.965.
And the best part? I figured out where the thermostat was in the new house basement and as a result was able to get the temp in the basement down to about 76. I could have gotten it lower if I found the thermostat more than 5 minutes before Andrew got to the house.
Overall 90' @ 206 watts, IF 0.812, TSS 98.3. I had an HR strap malfunction so no HR data.
Warmup:
- 15' easy: NP 142 (IF 0.560), cad 82
MS
- 30'(3') @z3: NP 212 (IF 0.835), cad 88
- 20'(2') @z3: NP 218 (IF 0.857), cad 89
- 10'(1') @z3: NP 225 (IF 0.887), cad 90
Remainder time:
- 6@z3: NP 245 (IF 0.965), cad 90
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/217615861