recovery bike

Wow my ride today helped soooooooo much. My legs feel SO much better now. I did the usual 17 mile lunch time ride in ~1:04:00. Just took it easy and spun. No cranking it up the hills was allowed, and staying in the small ring as much as possible was a goal. I sat for the larger climbs as well.

A complete random occurence occured on the ride. Out in the middle of nowhere 2 runners going in the opposite direction on the my right side of the road and myself converged upon the same place @ the same time. It was strange! Then directly ahead on the road there was a slower cyclist which I buzzed by cuz I was just going that much faster than her. I did the usual "Howsit going?" as I passed and I startled her pretty well. Oops!

sooooooorrrrrrrre

I am SO sore today. I am paying the price for going fast yesterday. From my lower back on down, I am hurting! I haven't felt this sore since I did those kettle bell classes.

So I hopped into the pool tonight for the laziest 1200 yards ever. I did 5 x 100 on 3 mins. 4 x 50 kick on my back (25 kick, 25 swim). Then another 5 x 100 on 3 mins.

I feel better now actually. Swimming is great! I was averaging in the lmid-low 1:40's on the lazy 100's.

Easy short bike tomorrow to loosen up the legs further.

surprised myself today, Stamford Olympic

Went into today's Olympic tri with hopes of doing better than the Westchester Olympic last Sept. These two races are very similar in terms of courses, so a good comparison can be made between them.

I did today in 2:31:57. I did Westchester in 2:52:35......yeeeaahhhhhh, I sorta kinda shaved off ~21 mins. Heh....if I do that again I would be in Elite territory! haha.....unfortunately the curve for improvement isnt exponential 3-4 years running. But one can dream, right!?!

As for the official results, the computers got all messed up, BUT! they do have the splits, they just have to put em all back together. But as 0f now, I have my aproximate guesses based up bike computer and watch on the run.

Swim: ~25-26 mins for a 1:31 - 1:35 pace.
T1: NO IDEA
Bike: ~1:14:09 for 24.7 miles....19.98 mph average
T2: NO IDEA
Run: ~49:26 for 6.2 miles for a 7:58 min/mile avg

Overview:
This race was a 2 part transition course. You swim, get on your bike, but you don't return to the beach. Instead you return to a 2nd transition in downtown Stamford where you have your run gear already set up. So this added some extra logistics and time to setting up everything. It was good though, because it forces you to prune the junk you DONT need in transition.

Swim:
The water was colder than expected. They were guessing 70-ish, but since had 3 weeks of rain, the water was ~64/65. Its cool though, no way you were going to overheat!

I was in the first wave to go off and I stayed towards the back getting in. I went @ my pace. The sighting was good, but I kept drifting left even though I was aiming straight for the bouys. Otherwise, I wasn't zigzagging, just drifting. Current?

I felt comfortable by focusing on one bouy @ a time to break the race up. I felt sorta fast, figuring I would put in a 30 min-ish swim. There were no timers coming out of the water and I wasn't wearing a watch, so I just went with it. I had a good solid swim.

The crazy part was near the last bouy these 3-4 green caps of swimmers behind me were like a freight train just buzzing through water. They hauling!! It was inspiring actually.

Then a woman caught me @ the last bouy. She smoked a LOT of people by a good 8 mins. I think she took 3rd overall for the womens that day and 2nd overall @ tri ridgefield. Another inspiring thing to see someone swim SO fast.

T1:
This was the interesting transition, because not only did you have to do the usuals of getting out of the wetsuit and changing to go bike, but you had to make sure all of your non bike stuff had to get stuffed into a bag.

I had a little trouble getting out of the wetsuit, but other than that I was outa there in no time. No idea how long it took me.

Bike:
This was a MUCH better bike than @ ridgefield. I took it easier on the first part of the course to let the legs loosen up in anticipation for the hills.

I was yo-yo ing and getting passed on the flats, but on the hills, I would fly past people. Why do people think that because its a race that you have to big ring it up a hill? I would love for everyone to do that and waste their legs so that I can kick their butts on the hill, but seriously! Swallow your pride and realize that you are gonna go faster in a small ring spinning than mashing some hard gear while wasting your legs.

I yo-yo ed with this guy for about half the course and he was clearly faster than me on the flats, but after the final (and steepest) hill I just easliy spun past him and I never saw him again.

I averaged 206 watts, also my best yet which is great since this is a longer course. My threshold is 220, so I almost hit it!

I like this course a LOT better than Westchester. More uninterupted opportunities to get into the aero position and just grind it out in a big ring. Of course, at ~mile 20 my lower back was starting to hurt and @ one point I just couldnt take it any longer and had to sit up and stretch it out. I think that moment right there and then cost me .02 mph difference. haha!

Felt great coming off of the bike.

T2:
Really uneventful. Just the usual stuff. I got my watch on as I ran.

Run:
I had no idea how my legs were gonna react coming off of the bike. Of course they had the usual peg like feeling, but I felt FAST. By mile 1 I was still hurting and it wasnt until about mile 1.5 to mile 2 that that switch went off. The run course was a 2 looper, so it was pretty cool to be buzzing by people who were just starting their 1st loop.

By the time I was hitting ~mile 4 the sun finally came out and it baked me for about 20 seconds, then went away. Oh man, had that sun not gone away, I think the last 2.2 miles would have been sheer torture!

At mile 5 the anticipation of finishing was starting to kill me. I just couldn't take it anymore!!! I started thinking of anything that could keep my mind occupied and not focus on the run. Fortunately I was coming back into downtown and the buildings and people started to distract me. Finally saw the mile 6 marker and dreaded the last .2 miles. But as soon as I rounded a corner there was the finish! I sprinted for it, saw the timer @ 2:31 and I mumbled sorta under my breath "Holy SHIT!!!" since I was expecting to finish in the 2:40:00 range and not almost break 2:30:00 on my 2nd over Olympic.

So in other words, I completely surprised myself and put in the best performance of my life in a multi-sport race!

I liked this race a lot and will consider doing it again next year.

one last bike

Did my last long-ish on the road ride last night to spin the legs out, and see how my legs felt on the hills, which was they work fine!

Taper madness is settling and the guilt of not going hard everyday has also shown up. It has been nice though to sleep in (till 7:30) for a few days in a row.

I am doing my last taper swim tonight before I do a couple loops around SUNY purchase tomorrow to make sure that the bike is functioning properly.

My list of to-do things is made.

Time to race!

woah, where have I been?

I have been working out!!....just not blogging. So starting with this past weekend:

Saturday: 43 miles on the bike in 3 hours flat. Slow ride, but I attacked the hills @ the end.

Sunday: A MUCH better 8 mile run than last weekend. We ran through some puddles and my feet got soaked on more than one occasion, but yet my feet were perfectly fine the entire time. NO BLISTERS!

Monday: 3500 yards in the pool. Yes, 3500! Wait, this is a taper week! My swim buddy says I have plenty of time to taper and since he has been a competitive swimmer for a good 30 years, I'm gonna listen. Oh, and I set a new 100 yard PR of 1:29.
We did:
500 WU
2 x 400
3 x 300
4 x 200 (build on each within)
5 x 100 (3 EZ, 1 hard, 1 EZ)

Tuesday: Nuttin

And today: This is a tapered swim of 1150 yards in 30 mins. I did an easy 500 warmup, then a "dream" 500, where I do 5 x 100 fast on 3 mins and add up the times. So plenty of rest between reps. I went: 1:35, 1:30, 1:28 (new PR), 1:26 (new NEW PR), 1:28. Then finished with an easy 150.

3000 yards!

In an hour flat and I wasn't rushing it either. We did:

400 WU
8 x 300, fastest was in 4:58 for a 1:39 avg
2 x 100 CD

This brings this week's swim total to 8700 yards. BAM!

This was a really good week for me in the pool. I felt very lethargic on monday for 2900 yards, then felt stronger on wednesday for 2800 yards, and then felt my best today for 3000 yards. My season is hanging on these types of weeks!

what a difference a day off makes!

Took yesterday completely off. It poured the entire day.

So this morning I set off for a 5 mile run and boy did I feel MUCH BETTER! I ended up with 5.35 miles in 47 mins flat, for an 8:47 pace. I finished feeling the best.

but a not so good run

Went for a run after work but my legs felt like concrete.....so another bad run. I ended up with a little over 4 miles for an average of 8:34....so basically I was going too hard!

Tomorrow is supposed to rain all day and with the way my legs are right now, Im taking the day off.

2900 more yards

and I feel a LOT better today! Monday and Tuesday were just plain old baaaad days after last weekend's efforts.

We did:
4 x 600, with times of not sure, 10:25, 10:08, 10:05.
10 x 50 on 1:10.

So I was happy to be holding a 1:41 pace on the last 600 and I felt like I wasn't working as hard as the other 600's.

MUCH better swim today!

a not so good ride

i likened today's ride to a rusty chain going over a rusty cog....it would go, just not so smooth and you can easily feel the kinks along the way.

I did the same 17 mile ride as last Tuesday and I did it not only 4 mins slower today, but I also felt like crap the entire time. I knew this week was gonna hurt!

and punished in the pool

it wasn't in my head to do 2800 yards today in the pool. Not @ all!

Well it ended up being that way just cuz.

2 x 250 WU
9 x 100, descending on 3 on 1:55
2 x (4 x 25 EZ, 50 HARD)
5 x 200

we had to get to the other side of the pool cuz there was only one clock working, so 50 extra yards were added just to get to the other side and back; we also threw a 50 EZ in there to cool ourselves down after the second 50 sprint.

ouchy ouchy ouchy i felt so dead afterwards.

3.1 more miles

Now my legs feel really sore! I did 3.1 miles in like 28 something, so not moving fast at all.

Almost witnessed some woman get T-boned @ an intersection as a guy in an SUV came REALLY close to running a red light.

7.87 miles

Ran for 1:10 mins with some decent hills thrown in. This was a good long(er) distance benchmark run for me. My heart rate maxed out @ 177 on the two longest and steepest hills, whereas this past winter not only did a I crawl up those hills, but my heart rate was 180 and higher.

The legs also felt great considering I had my fastest 55+ mile ride yesterday on some rolling terrain.

I honestly feel ready to do Timberman.

And these next 8 weeks are gonna be icing on the cake!

55 miles

I had a great 55 mile ride this morning. I was shredding hills like nobody's business. I haven't felt that great on the bike while climbing since I think a few years ago. I got back just before the rain hit. Good ride.

just some bad luck

Today will be day #2 of no workouts. Ouch!

Basically yesterday was literally a wash with the weather and I was so bummed not to get outside that I couldnt muster up the strength to ride for an hour on the trainer.

Same thing this AM....rain and more rain and there was NO WAY I was gonna get onto a dreadmill for 30 mins. No way!

Then @ lunch we get to the pool only to find it closed for 3 hours. MAN!!!!!

Tomorrow is gonna be an awesome ride considering I have been resting for 2 straight days.

JP Morgan Challange....aka "dodging a minefield run"

I did a company run tonight in Central Park in the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge, which is a 3.5 mile run around the top portion of Central Park.

I wanted to race it cuz Wednesdays are my speed days now. So I got in a good 2 mile warmup, showed up the start line with 15 mins to spare, only to find 10,000 people in front of me. YIKES!

So racing this race went completely out of the window. I figure it would be slow, but at least consistent? WRONG! There were people evenly scattered across the road walking, making us runners run like we were running through a minefield. I figured after a mile of this it would open up. NOPE! Mile 2....still people walking.

I mean, there were people walking 10 abreast. It was utter mayhem!

It took me 10 mins to walk to the start line, 10 mins to run the first mile, and 9 mins to run miles 2 and 3. I wasn't until the final half mile that there were large clear sections to go all out.

I finished with a 32:44, or a 9:21 pace.

Whatever, I still got in 5.5 miles for the night.

And as a milestone, I actually drove INTO Manhattan for the first time. It actually wasn't all that bad.

new 100 and 200 yard PR!

and I did it @ the same time. I was doing a 6 x 200 descending set and on my 3rd 200, which was a more or less all out effort, I had a perfect swim and put up a time of 3:10, or a 1:35/100 pace. So not only did I break my old 100 yard PR by half a second, but I did it twice in a row to also set a new 200 yard PR.

I remember a few weeks ago I couldn't get below 3:35 or 3:30 for a 200 yarder. I broke that by 20 seconds! WOAH! During that set I also put up a 3:15 and 3:14.

I felt a LOT better, obviously, than my last swim where I was toast after 1500 yards. I got in 2000 yards this time, but was also cooked by the end of it. Maybe Friday I will be ready to rock again?

a freaking awesome midday ride

Got out @ lunch today and did a totally awesome 17 miles in 1 hour flat. My legs felt GREAT. I also used my road bike for the first since I think the Century ride last month. My road bike is SO much lighter than the TT bike. No wonder I can climb so much better on the road bike....im not dragging around an extra 5 lbs.

I love how when you are at the very end of the ride and it finishes up a pretty good sized hill, when your legs are usually dead, that I can stand up and attack to finish off the hill. I tried hard to stay seated on the longer climbs. I just wanna sprint up those suckers! Its so much easier!

Route

recovery run and toasted arms

Did 3 point whatever this morning to run the legs out loose. They were a bit sore from this past weekend.

But in the pool @ lunch, my arms were COOKED! They hurt from the beginning to the end. I only got in 1500 yards and boy was I happy to get out of that pool. Even going super easy @ the end was a chore. Can't wait for this soreness to settle in and see if this pays off.

Stamford Olympic course preview

Rode the technical and hilly parts of Stamford Olympic bike course 2X this morning. I have been up the hilly parts before, just not all put together. Its really not that much uphill, just a couple ups. I think Westchester has more vertical climb. The downhill though feels a lot more down than what it took to get up there. My legs felt really good. There is one hill, Erskine Road, that has the steepest hill. I was able to power up that on my TT bike like I would on my road bike, so my climbing is improving even better on the TT bike.

One thing that I have noticed is that I climb a lot better and easier while standing. I think this is not such a good thing....I need to really sit my butt down for some climbing now and use the standing for more explosiveness towards the top of the climbs. I know of a few climbs in Harriman that will fix that!

I ended up with ~35 miles in 2:17:00.....so I wasn't trucking it except when I attacked on the hills and tried to go fast down them. This was a good sorta longer distance ride to ease back into the longer biking thing again.

9380 yards

Woah, just looked at my weekly total of swim yardage: 9380. That is more yards in one week than the entire month of last November, twice as much as last December, more than half of February and March, and half of April.

Of course I swam 5 times last week, including an 880 race that was part of a triathlon.

I did:
880 (race)
2450 (supposed to be a recovery swim, oops!)
2000 (first 1650 test)
3000 (first ever 3000 yard swim)
1050 (OWS)

No wonder my swim paces have dropped.

So you mean to tell me that if I swim more, my speed in the water will increase? Wow! A breakthrough! I must tell everyone! ;)

short OWS and a 10K

Hopped into a much colder pond this morning to do ~.6 miles or so. I was taking someone out for their first OWS without support, so we just took it easy. My arms actually felt fine considering the 3000 yards I did yesterday. I am MUCH faster than this time last year, thats for sure! That pond was so gross with all of the weeds growing down at the bottom. It made my mind go into "What If?" mode, such as What If some turtle pops out of the weeds and comes straight for me. Then in the final 25 yards I swam over these pockets of algae that looked like gigantic blobs of green snot. EEEEEEEWWWWWW!!!!!!

The funniest part of the swim was when we were suited up and about to hop in and these fisherman were about to put their boats in thwater and they cocked their heads and asked us with a puzzled look, "Are you guys gonna go swim in THERE?!?!?" We just said, "YEP!" and dove in.

Then I ran 2 loops of a hilly 5K for a 10K total. The course looked like this:


I did the first loop slower in 28:46, then upped the pace signifigantly for the 2nd loop to run a 25:47. I haven't done this distance in about 2 weeks. Yikes! I am actually ramping up my running to 4X per week now by adding a Monday recovery run.

3000 yards

BAM! Hit a new milestone in the water today. I did it in about an hour.

I did:
2 x 250 WU
6 x 350 descending, main set
2 x (4 x 25 EZ, 50 HARD)
100 CD

On the main set for the 6 x 350, I did the following paces 1:46, 1:43, 1:42, 1:49, 1:43, 1:40. The last set was not only my fastest but I felt the best. 1:40/100 pace! Woah! That basically means I ratched up my pace SIGNIFIGANTLY @ 2350 yards and went a personal best. I'll take that!!!

This workout is gonna pay off later in the season I hope!

4 miles

Just an easy 4 miler this morning @ a 9:08 pace. Tomorrow the pain begins!

about as recovered as i'm gonna get

Did 19.57 miles in 1:27:16 for a very slow 13.46 mph average. I think my legs are about as spun out and recovered as they are ever going to get. Time to start laying on the heat!

1650

Did a straight 1650 at an intended race pace to see how I would do. Wound up with a 29:05 for a 1:46/100 pace. Not bad for a first test!

My swimming buddy, when he was in college did his fastest 1650 in 16:50 for a 1:00/100 pace. Wowza!

Today was a confidence booster especially when I was able to speed up in the final 500 yards.

However, after my 350 yard warmup and then the 1650 effort, I was pretty cooked! We actually finished off by practicing streamlined pushoffs from the wall. Amazing how much farther you can go with a more streamlined position.

easy easy easy

Did 16.56 last night at a super easy pace to spin my legs out. They are a bit sore going up the hills, but they have been worse before.

This morning I ran 3.5 at an easy pace as well. The run felt good and my legs did NOT hurt at all.

I think I am mostly recovered, but I am still going to take it easy to mentally get myself back into the game. The next two weeks are gonna hurt!

back in the pool already

for 2450 yards in 55 mins. Oops! I felt fine.....so why not? right?

Which brings me to the fact that I do NOT feel sore at all from yesterday's race. Strange huh?

Perhaps the amount of volume work that I have been doing just made yesterday's 1:16:36 effort just a bump in the road in terms of body bashing?

I did:
400 WU
4 x 50 (25 kick on back, 25 swim)
25 EZ
6 x 200 on 4:00
6 x 100 on 2:00
25 EZ

I wasn't exactly putting up speedy times, but it was some solid volume, nonetheless.