Race Report – Pelican Fest

Pelican Fest Sprint Tri

Finally! I’ve been anxious to put some of this training to the test and Saturday I was able to do that at the Pelican Fest triathlon in Windsor, CO. I wanted to get in a tune-up race before Ironman Coeur d’Alene that included an open water swim and this was one of the few local options. Not to downplay the race though, because it was well organized and a lot of fun.

Before the race on Friday, the forecast was calling for 20-30 mph winds with 40 mph gusts. I’m not a huge fan of racing in the wind, but at least everyone else racing would’ve been in the same boat. When I woke up Saturday morning and started the drive to Windsor at 4:45 a.m. I was shocked to see fog everywhere. The good part about that is fog equals little or no wind. The fog continued the entire drive so I felt great about the day.

I got to the start and quickly set up my transition area. I was happy to discover that I didn’t forget anything since I hadn’t raced a tri since last September. I was then able to relax and talk with some first-timers to give them some advice and hopefully help them relax. About 45 minutes before race time, I started the half-mile walk to the swim start. Once the pre-race meeting was over, I jumped into the 63 degree water to warm up. As it turned out, I needed it more to get used to the cold temperature. Of course my De Soto T1 First Wave wetsuit kept me warm, but the cold water on my head was shocking. It took me a few minutes to get used to that and get a regular breathing pattern down. Since I was the second wave to start, I actually did a swim warm-up twice.

As the start time approached, I found myself surprisingly relaxed. As the horn went off I began my first tri of the season. The swim was largely uneventful except for getting one big hit in the face early on.  Of course that’s part of open-water swimming so you just have to carry on…even though I wanted to punch back.  After a short swim straight out from shore, we turned left towards a far shore where the finish was.  The buoys were in a half-moon shape along the shore, but what I didn’t really realize is that following the buoys didn’t take you on the shortest route to the swim finish.  So as I stayed too close to the buoys, the best path was to my right so obviously, I swam a little more than I should have.  I corrected the path as best as I could and tried to make up as much time as possible. Once I climbed on shore, I wanted nothing more than to look back and see how many of my wave’s swimmers were still out there, but I didn’t want to waste even a second.

I quickly ran to my bike which was only about 50 feet away so I got there quickly.  After stripping my wet suit, I quickly got the bike gear on and headed out the other direction from the transition area to the bike mount zone.  This was a long haul to the mount zone so I was jogging quite a way down the road with my bike, anxious to climb on the saddle and go.  I hopped on the bike and let it go.  I had to keep in mind that I only had to ride 10 miles so, unlike my recent training rides where I had to hold a power that I could handle for hours,  I needed to let it all out and give it all I had.  The course was in pretty good shape and was slightly uphill for most of the first portion.  I passed quite a few riders early on which got my confidence soaring.  After about 3 miles, another rider pulled up next to me on a hill.  As I sensed him, I thought ‘no way this guy is getting around me’ so I pushed harder and dropped him.  I started to look behind me occasionally and noticed he was still there…a little closer than he probably should’ve been.  It sure seemed to me like he was drafting which just made me push more.  At about 6 miles, this same guy actually got around me.  Of course I let him get the 4 bike lengths ahead but I knew I wasn’t going to let this last.  After about 30 seconds, I’d had enough and pushed again to pass him back…he didn’t make it back around.  I never had my computer showing my speed and only had time, power and heart rate.  I knew I was turning over pretty high power numbers and a high heart rate so I was feeling good about the results I thought I would have on bike.  Once I got to transition, I ran the bike a short distance to my spot and prepared for the run.

The one thing I forgot to do before this first race was to switch my laces on my running shoes so I wouldn’t have to tie them.  I’m a big fan of Xtenex laces and I’ve had several pairs in the past.  Unfortunately, several months ago I recycled all my old running shoes and left the Xtenex laces on them…what was I thinking?  That was a complete lapse of reason on my part, but there was nothing I could do about it at the race.  I realized I would lose a little time having to tie the shoes.  I did that as quickly as I could, but my hands were a little chilled from the ride since it never really warmed up yet.  I took a quick drink and headed out on the run.  I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my legs felt great!  They seemed to not be suffering at all from the bike.  The course took us about 3/4 of the way around the lake on a concrete path where we would turn around and head back.  I passed a few more people, most of whom were from the wave before mine.  Unfortunately, I had a couple people pass me too…including some from my age group.  I tried to not let them get too far away so I could strategize a way to bring them back.  I actually found myself planning an attack based on what I was seeing in the path, with the small inclines and declines.  We cruised to the turnaround point and headed back, past the transition area and on to the finish (which was near the swim start).  With all my planning for an attack, I tried but wasn’t successful in passing those in front of me.  It seemed like they were matching my pace changes exactly.  I knew I was running hard though so even though I was suffering, I was feeling great mentally.  As I rounded the last corner, I gave one last effort toward the finish line.

As expected (and as it should be) I was destroyed at the end and couldn’t walk straight.  I grabbed my water and started to regain my normal breathing.  I wanted to wait for a while and see the official results so I cheered on the others as they ran in.  Of course, while waiting for the results to be posted, I had to take in the pancakes, fruit and coffee that they had for us.  I noticed the results being posted so I stalked the guy as he walked towards the building.  I saw the results and was 1/3 upset and 2/3 happy.  The bad part was the swim.  My time was around 14 minutes and I was expecting closer to 12 so that was frustrating.  I saw the bike though and I averaged 23.7 mph which made me pretty happy.  Then I saw the run and saw that I averaged a 7:04/mile pace which shocked me…in a great way.  I started to think about it and I was pretty sure that was a 5k PR.

The results put me at 6th place in my age group and I was happy with that.  I was hoping for a higher place but I wasn’t about to complain.  Once I saw the official results later that night, I discovered I had been dropped to 7th in my age group and 37th overall.  Still not too bad.  Of course, I had to check the PR status for the 5k when I got home.  My last PR was 22:54 which I ran in a Turkey Trot 5k in 2011.  My 5k in this tri was 21:48…a 1:06 PR after a swim and a hard bike!  That alone was enough to get me super-charged on my fitness level.

The conclusion to take away from all of this?  I feel good about my readiness for Ironman Coeur d’Alene.  This race showed me that, while I can’t remember a lot of things as I’m getting older, I did remember my transition routine and, other than the shoe laces, was able to get through the race without any major hiccups.  I also found that my fitness is in a great place.  Of course, the fitness for this race is different than what I need for an Ironman, but this race showed some results from all the hard hours, miles and laps I’ve put in over the last several months.  My first A race is quickly approaching so there won’t be another race report until Ironman Coeur d’Alene (and that sort of scares me).

Thanks for reading!

- Brian

Catching Up…Again

I find myself repeating this in my blogs lately…I’ve been too busy to do any posts.  So rather than spare you with all the details and lame excuses, I’ll just right into what’s been going on with my training.  The last month’s worth of training has been going great!  I’ve had some great accomplishments and I’m gaining more confidence that I can do the upcoming Ironman and enjoy it (along with the pain of course).  In my last block, I had some pretty long bricks that were a little tough.  I had some nutrition and hydration problems that keep plaguing me (see nearly all my previous posts with long duration workouts/races).  In an effort to try and put these issues to a rest, I decided I would do a metabolic efficiency test.  Here’s what the test does, in a nutshell…it determines the ratio of carbohydrates and fat stores your body burns as fuel at different levels of effort.  The goal is to figure out at what point (in my case power and heart rate on the bike) your body will burn fat most efficiently and preserve the body’s limited carbohydrate stores and not rely on dietary carbohydrates for energy.  There are several advantages to this including:

1)  Your body has tens of thousands of calories in fat reserves to burn which is what you want in a 12-hour race

2)  Because your body has so many available calories, you don’t have to intake as many calories during the event, which limits potential stomach distress and lowers the energy the body must use to process ingested calories

There are other advantages too, but I’m obviously not a nutritionist so I’ll leave it at that.  In the end, the hope was that I could improve my nutrition to max out my performance at Coeur d’Alene.  So, after my coach’s recommendation, I contacted Dina Griffin (dina@fuel4mance.com) at Fuel4Mance here in Denver.  We set up a test which is done at a great local tri shop, Kompetitive Edge. We set up the bike on a CompuTrainer in a room just off from the main part of the shop.  We had a few technical difficulties that Dina was able to address and fix pretty quick…and then the fun was to begin.

I’ve never done a test like this before and certainly have never had to exert any effort breathing into a breathing tube (if that’s even what it’s called).  Dina was certainly correct when she warned me that the head piece and breathing tube would be a little uncomfortable.  If the head piece wasn’t plastic, you’d think you were putting on some dark-ages torture device.  Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it was a unique device for me.  The mouth piece also holds your mouth open and with a pinched nose, your mouth quickly dries out more than you could imagine.  All the while, saliva is dripping in what seems like gallons, into a catch bottle (which I quickly overflowed).

I actually singed up for this? I’m glad I did!

I had to fast for 12 hours before the test which was a challenge.  If you ask my wife, you’ll know what my calorie intake has been during these big training blocks.  Not eating anything for 12 hours had me concerned, but it ended up not being as bad as I anticipated.  The test was based on my power output while on the bike.  We started at a pretty easy effort level and Dina increased the power 20 Watts every 3 minutes.  With my exhalations, the machine is able to determine the calories burned from fat vs. those burned from carbohydrates.  As we increased the effort and power levels, Dina could see the crossover point at which I began to burn equal fat vs carbohydrates.  Above this level, my body would need more carbohydrates than fat to maintain the effort.  I honestly don’t recall exactly how long the test lasted, but I’m sure it wasn’t as long as it felt.  Really, the hardest part was the dryness of the mouth.  I was so anxious to take of the breathing tube and get a drink of water.  Dina, with my approval of course, pushed the test a little further beyond that crossover point so we could get more data which is almost always a good thing.

Once the test was finished, Dina had the unfortunate task of cleaning up that breathing tube…I wasn’t gentle on that and I commend her for taking on that task.  Then she needed a little bit of time to crunch the data so we could discuss my specific situation and work up a plan.  This wasn’t a problem at all, because it gave me a chance walk around Kompetitive Edge and shop (yes, I said I enjoyed shopping, but only because it’s tri stuff).

Once the numbers were done, Dina called me to a conference room to break it down for me.  She fairly quickly told me that I was already in a pretty good spot in regards to my body’s efficiency at burning fat stores.  Dina explained to me where the crossover point occurred and encouraged me that it was a good place for me to be already.  That alone was a huge confidence boost for me, especially since I’d been having some less than ideal training sessions.  One of the main reasons, she said, for my fat burning efficiency, is due to my daily nutrition.  I try to limit carbohydrates from foods like pasta and breads and replace those carbs with fruits and vegetables.  Dina explained how important this was especially on easier workout days.  After discussing the results for quite a while, it was time to go and for Dina to work on getting me even more detailed results and a nutrition plan.

As the following week moved along, I was getting excited to put the nutrition plan in place for the week’s long workout.  Dina had already given me some tips on my daily nutrition, such as increasing my protein intake and trying to spread that evenly throughout the day.  I had already seen how that had helped me early on in the week.  On Thursday, Dina sent me an email with a very detailed nutrition plan for the evening before the long workout as well as a plan for the morning of and during the workout.  I knew there were going to be less calories than what I was accustomed to, but I was still a little shocked.  I won’t go through all the details of the plan here, but I’ll summarize the plan during the workout, which was planned as a 4:30 bike followed by a 1:30 run.

Bike:

• One water bottle with two scoops of First Endurance EFS Drink, with 3/4 scoop of First Endurance PreRace and 1/4 tsp salt.  I was to start drinking this after 30 minutes on the bike and finish about 1/4 of the bottle each hour.
• One water bottle with two packets of Gen-Ucan, with 3/4 scoop of First Endurance PreRace and 1/4 tsp salt.  I was to drink 1/3 of this at 1:00, 2:45 and 3:45 into the bike.
• 2.5 oz (half a bottle) of First Endurance LiquiShot.  I had half of that at 1:45 and the other half at 2:45.
• 1 Bonk Breaker bar.  I had half of that at 1:45 and half at 3:45.
• Water…just have plenty of water to drink as I was thirsty.

Run:

• One small bottle of 1.25 oz of First Endurance LiquiShot mixed with 1 scoop of First Endurance EFS Drink.
• One small bottle of water.

That was all I had on the plan.  It equalled about 900 calories (I’d burn about 5000 during the workout) to be consumed, which was about 1/3 the amount I had the previous weeks.  I gave it a shot of course and was completely shocked with the results.  I finished the bike and had plenty of energy for the run.  And even after the run was over, I still felt like I had energy to continue if I had needed to.  This completely shocked me but at the same time, it was a huge boost for me and my confidence.  I also had no stomach issues at all since I had hardly consumed any calories for my stomach to work through.  The plan was amazing!

I’ve since used that plan a couple more times and I swear by it now.  I now have a nutrition plan that I can use for Ironman Coeur d’Alene that I think will get me through the race in better shape than I ever thought possible.  If you’re interested in the testing and nutrition, I encourage you to contact Dina.  She was a blast to work with and obviously, the methodologies they use at Fuel4Mance work!

Thanks for reading!

- Brian

Distracted and Unable

I realize that it’s been a while since I posted a blog and I’m glad I can get an update back out here. For those of you that know me personally, you’re aware that first quarter of every year is an extremely busy time at work. This year was no exception to thy rule and do I found myself pretty much working and sleeping for a few weeks. there was one week that I only got in one 30-minute run. Not ideal at all, but Coach has assured me that the fitness is there and not to worry.

Then, just as things start to ease up at work (a little anyway…it’s all relative) I get my annual allergy/cold/who knows what that kicks my butt every single year the first part of April. It’s so predictable, I almost wonder if it’s mental now…no, the throbbing headaches and sinuses packed tighter than a clown car tell me different. So thy has stopped a few workouts; some of them in the middle of the training. That includes the 30-minute time trial run last Sunday where I could barely hold 7:45 minute pace, all out, with my HR sky-rocketing. I completed 10 minutes of that one and had to stop for fear of passing out (when I’m under the weather like this I’m constantly light-headed). So, it’s been a rough few weeks in many ways. Even as I write this, I haven’t completely recovered from the allergy deal, but it need to go away quickly…an Ironman race approaches.

Enough with that! This last week has been another ramp up in my workouts. Here’s a brief look at what I did.

Monday: Masters swim class was odd today. I felt horrible all morning and wasn’t even sure if I should go to class. Fearing the ridicule of my swim coach, i decided to go anyway, but warn her that it would not be my best performance since I could barely breathe and had occasionally coughing spells that don’t typically have favorable results under water. she reassured me that it would be a relatively easy class and we were going to work on breathing.

You see, I’ve plateaued in my swim progress and she’s trying to get me past that. One of the things she was concerned with is that I take breaths too often. That never really seemed like an issue to me; after all, I like breathing. She speculated though that I was on the edge of hyperventilating and that was causing me to not be able to hold pace for longer intervals. So, we did a number of 25 yard sprints, with fins on, but could only take 2, 1 or no breaths…she would let us know before each one.

Tuesday: I had a hilly bike ride on tap for the day. Given the fact that I was still under the weather, I chose to ride this on the trainer. I usually prefer being light headed when I’m dodging 4000 pond vehicles for my share of the road (and I take up very little space). It was a good decision in the end. I was doing 10 minutes of simulated climbing on the trainer followed by 5 minutes of “downhill.” after the third one though, I started coughing and felt dizzy so I stopped. I should’ve done one more round but it just wasn’t worth it.

Wednesday: Masters swim was relatively in eventful. I found it much more difficult to breathe though as I think some of the congestion had settled into my lungs and my nose was completely plugged. I still had an okay swim though.

Thursday: Well, I was supposed to ride the bike again but work consumed too much time so I never got out there.

Friday: I thought I’d celebrate lunch by doing a 5 hour brick! I started off with a 4 hour ride. I decided I’d head out West and explore some different routes to mix it up a bit. I knew it would result in more climbing than race conditions, but that was just fine with me. All was well, except for some wind, until just after the 2:30 point on the ride. I started to get that bonking feeling…which is never good. One of those where going downhill seems to require too much energy. I passed a couple of freasy burger joints along the way and was very tempted to grab something, but i never gave in. I powered through, though at a slower pace, and still got a good ride in for the day.

By the time I got home for a transition, I needed to take a few extra minutes to eat an Espresso Chip Bonk Breaker bar. these things are so good they shouldn’t be allowed to be called an energy bar. After a longer than normal “transition”I hit te pavement for an hour run. I had a little more energy but overall still felt a little depleted. That was a rough one, but it was done and I felt pretty good for pushing through when I easily could’ve quit.

Saturday: We had family coming into town Saturday afternoon do I chose to do my weekend long run in the morning. I was scheduled to run 2:15 in heart rate zone 1 so pretty relaxed pace. The legs were most certainly tired from Friday’s effort but I actually felt pretty good. I chose to run the dirt path along the Cherry Creek trail and it was a nice change of pace. Plus, the bugs are out in full force so I didn’t have to drag any heavy protein bars around.

I also found one section of the trail that doesn’t have an out. As I was turning around to backtrack to an exit, I felt a sharp pain in my toe. Assuming I stepped on a rusty nail, I looked down at my shoe to see it had been impaled by a 2″ long thorn from a Russian olive tree branch that had fallen. I pulled it out of the shoe and thought “I better cruise home and check out the damage there.” expecting to see some blood on my socks at home, I was shocked to see no blood at all. The thorn fortunately slid right between my toes with no major damage. That was lucky!

PRS Fit Tri Camp

Once again I find myself behind on my weekly workout reports. Rest assured, the workouts are getting done, I have just lacked the time to write about them. It’s not like I’m a professional and don’t have a job to do as well…that would be great. Actually, I was able to do that last week though; train like a pro that is.

For a few months, my coach Jeff Kline of PRS Fit and my buddy Michael Hutto have been talking about an early season tri camp here in Colorado. Somehow we all managed to make our schedules work (thanks to the wifey and son for their support) and had the camp last week in beautiful Estes Park, CO.

Michael flew in from California on Wednesday afternoon and I was able to go pick him up at the airport and drive us up to Estes. After fighting ridiculous winds on the drive up, we arrived at Coach’s place with pizza, beer and Gen-Ucan packets and a shaker waiting for us. Coach had everything ready for our arrival and right away we felt at home. We talked about training and racing quite a bit that night, way past what should’ve been our bed time. But, when you get three people so passionate about triathlons in a room together, you sort of expect that to happen.

After a good night’s rest, we were up at 6:00 to prepare for our first workout at the Estes Park Aquatic Center. Brandon, who is a great swimmer, even drove up nasty roads from Boulder to join us for the dip in the pool. After our morning Gen-Ucan drink we were off to swim. We pounded out a difficult 4000 yards that morning and we were starving by the time we were done. We headed back to Coach’s place where we had a Gen-Ucan recovery drink and the first of three great breakfasts Coach made for us.

After a short rest, we were off to the local gym for some gait analysis on the treadmill. We ran through different paces so we could get a good understanding of what we needed to work on while out on the road. In the end though, it’s easier to put these things into practice out on the road so we headed into Rocky Mountain National Park to run. I didn’t mention it before, but the weather on Thursday was still a little breezy with fresh snow and pretty cold temperatures. We didn’t mind too much though since we were all dressed appropriately. We started our run up a trail which had several inches of fresh snow. It didn’t take long for us to realize that, given the conditions, we weren’t really going to be able to work on our running form. We turned around and headed for the plowed road instead. This was a much better solution and we were able to put what we learned on the treadmill into practice.

After a while, we came to some short hills and decided to work on our uphill and downhill running form. While we were discussing form, the wind was picking up noticeably and I was starting to get chilled. We all finally agreed to head back to the truck and were unpleasantly surprised at how strong, and cold, the wind was. I’m talking pain on the exposed skin cold. It became a threshold type run back to the truck just to get out of the wind.

We headed back to get some lunch and relax for a bit. We knew we were in for a tough trainer ride so Michael and I were preparing mentally. Later that afternoon, we headed back to the gym, trainers and bikes in hand. Coach ran us through some very challenging intervals, some short and some long. Our shiny new PRS Fit shirts were now…soaked, but that’s what they’re for.

Of course we didn’t stop there. We headed into the weight room for some strength and core work. It was an exhausting day. Fortunately, Coach knew we’d be starving and he made us a great dinner of steaks and veggies. The steaks were huge, but we had no troubles cleaning our plates.

Day 2 of camp started with another swim; this time 4500 yards! That was the longest swim practice I’ve ever had and I was exhausted. After another delicious breakfast, we took some downtime to let the weather settle a bit. After an early lunch, we packed the bikes to go down to Boulder to ride the Boulder Peak bike course. For those who aren’t familiar with this course, it’s tough! Especially the 16% grade climb for about 2/3 of a mile! To top it off it was windy…and one of those days where it’s a headwind no matter which direction you’re riding. We finished strong though and transitioned into a short run to get those legs accustomed to that stress.

We hopped back in the car for a trek to The Newton Lab where we met Brandon again and some of the people behind the shoes. It was nice to check out their shop as I hadn’t been there yet, and we got to clean up a little before we headed to Illegal Pete’s for a burrito, which I inhaled in a few short minutes.

Then it was back up to Estes for some recovery time and another fantastic meal. After all, the next day’s events were fast approaching and we needed to be ready.

After a great night’s sleep, we woke up to a perfect pre-ride breakfast. We were fueling up for the 38 mile bike that lay ahead. Of course, this wasn’t any 38 miles…it included the long haul up from Boulder Res to Estes Park. Twenty miles of that is just climbing so we knew we’d need the energy. Anthony, a friend of Michael’s showed up and we loaded the van and headed down the hill. It’s amazing how long a route can seem in a car when you’re about to turn around and ride it on a bike. We were happy though because the winds were calm and it was a gorgeous day.

We arrived at Boulder Res and quickly saddled up and started the ride. It didn’t take long for us to realize that we had jinxed ourselves talking about the lack of wind…it was picking up.

I was maybe a little ambitious on Hwy 36 from Boulder to Lyons and pushed the pace a bit. I was feeling good though and enjoying the downhill stretches. Once we got to Lyons, we were all back together and started the 20 mile climb (after a nature stop on the side of the road of course).

I got hot pretty quickly and had to start shedding the outer layers. I can’t tell you how awesome it was to be able to toss the stuff to Coach Jeff and have him hand us nutrition and other needs. I felt like a pro out there. I haven’t been successful in convincing Coach that he should do that for all my long rides, but I’ll keep working on him.

I’m not much of a climber, especially compared to Michael, but I held up well. I felt pretty good and Michael and I were taking turns pulling to try and block the wind. It wasn’t all that helpful though as the winds were quite strong and variable so it was hard to stay in the draft zone.  We finally got to the last uphill section before a quick descent into Estes.  Michael and I had decided we would have a King of the Mountain (KOM) competition to see who crossed the top first.  He was behind me as we headed toward the top.  I told him that was the last hill and I could see him start to make an effort to pass me.  I tried to stand and crush his attempt, but I didn’t have it in me.  I sat back down just trying to hold onto him and conserve a bit, hoping he had gone too early.  As we got closer to the top, I tried one more time to catch him but just couldn’t muster up enough power to do it.  That’s impressive on his part, to come up to 8000′ from practically sea level, climb for 20 miles and then crush me on the KOM!  Kuddos to Michael.

I had to stop at the top and get some gloves back on as my hands were frozen and I knew the 5 mile descent wouldn’t help that at all.  The downhill was fun, but not as much as it should’ve been.  I would’ve like to stay in aero position the whole time but the winds were too strong and variable to do that safely, so I sat up and kept my hands near the brakes.

We arrived at the Estes Park Visitor’s Center and Coach was there with all our stuff to transition into a run around the reservoir.  We started out going pretty strong but tried to hold back a little as we had a way to go.  It started slightly downhill though and we had a tailwind so it was easy to head out fast.  Once we turned and started heading back West though, we were once again treated with a wonderful headwind.  That’s a tough thing on a good day, not to mention what it’s like after a tough climb and on tired legs.  We toughed it out though and had a great brick to end a wonderful camp!

I have to say, after my first tri camp, I was extremely happy!  It was a great 3 days, with great company, great (and very challenging) workouts and a lot of learning and fine tuning.  I’m positive this was a great step towards leading me to a great 2012 race season.

By the way, I wasn’t smart enough to take my camera, but Michael was.  He has some great photos on his blog, so get over there and check it out!

Thanks for reading!

- Brian

Weekly Workout Catchup – With Photos!

So I missed last week’s post and feel horrible about that. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, but I should’ve posted. I’ll use a lame excuse like “I’m too busy” or “my computer broke.” While I won’t go through excruciating detail of each of those workouts (lucky readers), I will do that for the latest week (don’t go buy lottery tickets yet) and show both weeks’ mileage and time summaries. Worthless, yes, but I’m a data dork so you’ll have to live with it.

Monday: I had mixed feelings about Masters class today. On one hand, I was excited to work and keep up the improvement I’ve seen since I started the sessions. On the other hand, my body was on quite a bit of pain after Sunday’s 2 hour hilly run. When I got to class, Coach Kelly introduced me to a man who was interviewing for a swim coaching job and let me know that he was taking the practice. Once she reassured me that it wasn’t for the afternoon sessions I go to, I was fine with it.

Unfortunately, the guy wasn’t a great coach. No yelling, screaming, encouragement or anything. “Come on man, I can swim laps on my own, I came here to be coached!”. I said that out loud, in my head. After several laps of his planned backstroke (I don’t do backstroke) I was about done. I really didn’t get anything out of that class except to loosen up the muscles, which did help my soreness. Coach Kelly apologized profusely after the class. I still got yardage in, but it wasn’t a great start to the week.

Tuesday: I had another 40 tempo bike ride on the trainer. Felt great and really pushed hard to keep the speed and heart rate going. Legs were shelled after, but I felt good. Oh…and I sweat a lot! Just had to add that in there.

Wednesday: Masters class was a great one, but my body’s fatigue was noticeable. I was off a few seconds on each interval, but I just didn’t have anything left in the muscle tank. Even with that, the day was far superior to Monday’s session.

Thursday: I was destined to have another less than ideal day. I had a lunch run planned and headed out at 10:00 to beat the storm. I just had one of those days where your run feels labored, and not very smooth. I struggled to get into a rhythm, but it wasn’t meant to be. My pace wasn’t far off from a typical run like this, but I ended it not feeling all that great.

Friday:  I was set to do my long brick again today but it didn’t go as planned.  First, work was so busy that I couldn’t get on the bike in the morning like I had planned.  I finally made it on the bike just before lunch, but had to escape for a conference call.  With only 45 minutes in, I still had to crank out another 2:15 and a run.  Once the call was over, I hopped back on the bike and finished out the ride while working.  I had to bail on the run though…we were in the midst of a big storm and ended up receiving over 18 inches.  Instead of the run, I decided to do some 100 Ups to get some leg work in the set.  It wasn’t as good as a real run, but I had to improvise.

Saturday:  My son had a big day planned for us on Sunday, so I pushed my long run to Saturday…snow or not.  The snow had mostly stopped and I decided to go out after breakfast for the planned 2:15 minute haul.  I ran to the nearby 470 trail and ended up breaking first tracks for most of the run.  It was great and nice to have the solitude.  I was happy and smiling the whole way, even though it was getting tough to push through all that snow.

Fresh snow before I broke the trail.

 

...and after.

At the halfway point though, I could tell I was getting tired.  Not so much from an aerobic perspective, but my legs were feeling the effort.  The last 1/4 mile before I turned around, the snow was up to at least knee deep and I had to walk a few times just to get through.  I turned around and struggled back with another hour left on the push.  I was surprised when I got to within about 50 yards from where I was to break off the trail, that the snow plow showed up.  He kindly plowed that last 50 yards for me to give me a short break.

I made it home, but my legs were destroyed!  Having said that, I was excited about what I had just accomplished.  It was a good day!

Snow balls on the shoes.

Sunday:  A much more relaxed workout day, with some ab work (not easy, but didn’t take 2 hours so I’ll call it relaxed…relatively).

Previous Week’s Workout Summary: 1/23 – 1/29

Run:  3 hrs 15 minutes, 24.37 miles

Bike:  3 hrs 50 minutes, 71.15 miles

Swim:  2 hours, 5700 yards

Total:  10 hours, 98.8 miles

 

Workout Summary 1/30 – 2/5

Run:  3 hrs 14 minutes, 19.05 miles

Bike:  3 hours 56 minutes, 76.68 miles

Swim:  1 hr 48 minutes, 5400 yards

Total:  9 hours 58 minutes, 98.8 miles

 

Thanks for reading!

- Brian

Weekly Training – 1/16 through 1/22

This week was a great week for training. There were a lot of good sessions and I feel like I had pretty good results. The sessions are definitely getting longer too with the long brick and run added, which added up to over 100 miles this week. Of course, they’re only going to get longer, so this week’s workouts will seem relatively short in a few months.

Monday: Masters swim class was another great session. Coach Kelly is really pushing me, which is exactly what I need. We did some really hard intervals, and then at the end, she tells us we’re doing another timed 500. I was petty tired already and wasn’t expecting much. Even during the swim I felt like I was going slow. Turned out, I broke another personal record and came in at 8:09. I couldn’t believe it! Breaking that 8 minute barrier seems pretty realistic at this point.

Tuesday: Another 75 minute zone 2 run was on the schedule today. It was a cold day out there with decent winds to chill things off. The temperature didn’t bother me all that much though until I turned the last half mile to home. It was right back into the wind. As soon as that breeze hit my sweat-soaked clothes, I was freezing! I couldn’t get home fast enough to just get in a hot shower. Regardless of the temps though, it was a very productive run.

Wednesday: Justin, another IMCDA guy, made it to the swim session again today. After a few intervals, Coach Kelly put us in the same lane to help push each other. It worked great and it was good to have us both pushing each other. Justin began the sets doing flip turns and it became obvious how much those help. I can do flip turns…sort of, but they’re not very clean. I typically don’t do them while swimming hard just because I’ve struggled with the breathing when coming out of the turn. I need to change that though, so it’s on my list of things to work on in the future sessions.

Thursday: This was a fun, but difficult, tempo session on the bike trainer. After a warmup, I rode 40 minutes in zone 3. There’s something about the trainer that makes this more challenging than riding on the road. It’s always been difficult for me to get my heart rate up while on the trainer…and to maintain it at an elevated level is even more challenging. There were times when I dropped out of zone 3, but legs wouldn’t have thought so. That’s part of this workout though; building the strength in the legs. I think it served it’s purpose.

Friday: I was able to switch my long brick session, which was planned for Saturday, to Friday. This may become a frequent option for me, as I can get it done while Seth is at school and it won’t interrupt family time as much. The bonus is that I set up both of my work computers on either side of me and was able to get quite a bit done in those 3 hours on the trainer. I could even talk on the phone while spinning. Now that’s productive. After the 3 hour bike session, I was quickly off to a 15 minute run to complete my first brick of the season. After about 100 yards of getting my run legs on, I actually started to feel pretty good and averaged a 7:40 pace (zones 1/2) for the 15 minutes.

Saturday: a huge part of Ironman training is working out when your body is tired. Saturday especially, was that day. After a tough week and long brick Friday, the legs were definitely fatigued for my 1:45 planned run. The run actually started off well, but near the halfway point, the winds really picked up. And by that time, any little uphill reverberated through my tired legs. The planned surges on Te return trip were admittedly weak and the last couple of miles were pretty hard. It’s supposed to be though…that’s the point, right?

Sunday: Rest day! What!? I don’t know what those are, but I’ll figure it out.

Weekly Training – 1/9 through 1/15

Monday: Coach Kelly crushed me again during Masters swim. I thought I had recovered from last Friday’s session until I started my warmup…I was wrong. I could feel those sore muscles that you really only use while swimming…this was going to be a painful session. After some warmup, we did the following two painful times: 5×100 at 1:40 interval (that means you swim the interval and start the next 1:40 after the last one…the faster you swim, the more you rest). I swam most of these at 1:30 average, so I had about 10 seconds rest. After those it was the 500 yard swim at 9:00. The good news is that I was consistent and made all the 100 intervals except the last two, so those got no rest. I swam the two 500s at 8:24 and 8:22. That’s about 10 seconds faster than last week. Coach Kelly thinks I’ll soon be in the 7 minute club, which would be great for this non-swimmer.

Tuesday: I ran with my friend, Jerry, downtown to try and push myself a little. He recently broke the 3 hour mark in a marathon, so he’s significantly faster than me. He went easy on me though, but still helped me push the pace. We did a nice run up to City Park before heading back.

Wednesday: another swim session today. There were 4 guys in the masters class so it was nice to get some more people in the mix. One guy is even doing IMCDA this year too, so it will be nice to have someone else in the class and on the same training path. This class we did 600 yards of drills which is always good to throw in there. That was followed by some brutal 200/100/50 sets on short intervals. I was still sore from Monday’s swim, so this hurt.

Thursday: I had an interval bike workout in store today and I was really pumped to test the legs. I haven’t done a lot of strength bike sessions recently, so this will be a good baseline. Plus, I have some friendly competition out there (yes, you Hutto) and I want to build the leg strength. After a warmup, I got to do 5×6 minutes in heart rate zones 4/5 with 2 minute recoveries. First, I must say that those 2 minutes fly by! I did this on the trainer so I had a nice consistent test for the intervals. in the end, my average speeds for each of the intervals were: 23.7, 23.2, 22.9, 22.9 and 23.0. Overall, I’m pretty happy with those intervals, but I’d love to push those into the 24 mph range. Something to strive for. Now if I only had a CompuTrainer so I could get power data.

Friday: I got to run with a couple of friends at lunch again today. It was chilly out there and the wind was less than pleasant. Still, suffering with others made it infinitely more enjoyable than a solo adventure. It was a nice steady zone 2 pace with some surges thrown in again. I pushed through two extra laps around the lake at City Park solo and got my full run in…just over 9 miles. Not bad for a lunch break.

Saturday: This was a nice week in that I only had an hour ride on the trainer. I still got up early to get the ride in before my son woke up, but it sure is easier to get up a 6:30 rather than 4:30 to ride in the dungeon.

Sunday: I had a 90 minute zone 2 run (with surges of course) to crank out before football games today. I was able to get out around 10:30 and enjoyed the warm weather. The problem around here though, is that when it’s warm this time of year, it usually means wind. Well, mother nature didn’t disappoint today. I headed west on an out and back trail that is mostly uphill on the way out. Not drastic or anything, but steady climbing. It also gets out into some open areas so there’s nothing to help block the wind. This made the trip out pretty challenging. I spent quite a bit of energy fighting the wind and hills, and never really felt great. I still was able to put up just over 11 miles though, so I can’t complain too much.

This coming week will be another big one…including my first brick of the season. Might as well start getting those run transition legs under me now. Numbers for this week are:

Run: 3 hours 42 minutes, 27.87 miles

Bike: 2 hours, 40.39 miles

Swim: 2 hours, 5950 yards

Strength: 1 hour 10 minutes

Totals: 71.6 miles, 6565 calories

Thanks for reading!

- Brian