assessment

Tonight was the start of the new season. THE Assessment.

Started off with weight and height measurements, then onto body fat caliper measuremeants. I came in @ 25% body fat. So I have LOTS and LOTS of room to loose some poundage :)p

Then it was onto the treadmill. I remembered from last year's bike test that it was gonna start out easy then get hard, VERY hard. It happened just like that. Towards the end I was running 9 mph (or about a 6:44 min/mile) at an incline. I was moving fast and starting to lose composure and I thought my heart was going to pop out of my chest, so I called it quits. It was enough data anyways. My heart rate peaked at a max of 194, and prolly could have gone higher had I gone longer. I was putting out a max VO2 of 61, which for my age is above average (yay! at least I have one thing that is above average!). If I lose some body fat, that number is going to increase.

So my heart rate zones break down as follows:
Zone 1: 144 -154 BPM or 10:00 - 10:56 min/mile pace
Zone2: 154 - 164 BPM or 9:31- 10:00 min/mile pace
Zone3: 164 - 174 BPM or 8:13 - 9:31 min/mile pace
Zone4: 174 - 184 BPM or 6:40 - 8:13 min/mile pace
Zone5: 184+ BPM or 6:40 or faster min/mile

So this means that my Anaerobic Threshold (AT) is at 174 BPM. That means that if I train at 174 BPM or higher, then I will improve that threshold, meaning I will get faster and be able to hold it for longer. I think, though, that I will train at pace and feel rather than staring at my heart rate. Or, like I did this past summer, if I need to do a recovery run at a slow pace, I will set my alarm to go off I go over a heart rate limit, so force myself not to overdo it.

After the treadmill, I did some raw strength work, starting with benchpresses. I can bench a max of a whopping 107 pounds. WOW! I can however, leg press 447 pounds.

And now for the best part. I can do 20 pushups in 60 seconds and can do 21 situps in 60 seconds. I am a lean, mean, not so great core machine! haha

Sooooo.....doing strength 2X per week is gonna help with that, such as a Kettles and Bells workout and an at home simple strength workout such as pushups, planks, situps, etc. Plus I am going to try to start yoga once per week, starting next week when it starts.

So I am mostly sore right now from doing the freaking pushups and sit ups. ouch!

a new year and time to get things going

The holidays are finally over and they took a bit of a toll on my endurance. Time was one thing, but not getting outdoors on a regular basis definately took more of a toll, I think. From here on I will be on a fixed schedule without very many time wrenches thrown in. Plus, I will have scheduled races thrown in to keep up my motivation!

So this morning I hopped onto the treadmill and ran a 5K in about 28.5 mins, or a 9:30 min/mile pace. Still not the same as going outdoors, but I kept my pace a bit higher than usual to simulate the outdoors.

From here I am taking it easy until Monday night, which will be my treadmill assessment test to determine heart rate zones, VO2 Max, and zone paces. This will set me up for my first race on January 10th, almost a week away. The race is 5 miles around a portion of Central Park, in NYC.

increasing run-nin-ning

did 45 mins on the dreadmill up here in snowy NH. so thats about 5 miles. That comes out to ~13 miles this week. I am slowly ramping my mileage back up in the runner department. I remember averaging 15 miles per week over the summer and I didn't realize I was putting that much in. Now it takes so much effort to just get through half of that.

Im becoming better friends with the treadmill....able to tolerate it more, BUT I'm looking forward to getting out onto the road. Its supposed to be in the 50's-60's tomorrow, but alas I will be in a car driving.

BUT! Monday and Tuesday are looking like possible biking days!

run, swim, and MOVED

Did a 36 min/4 mile dreadmill run yesterday afternoon. Yeah, a 9 min/mile pace on the dreadmill is a lot freaking harder than a 9 min/mile pace on the road, even going uphill. I sustained a 3 min 9 min/mile interval but realized at the end of it it was more like an 8:30 pace on the road.

Then today I did a half mile swim in about 25 mins. My swimming endurance is completely shot. I was doing mostly 50's and had to stop and take a short betwen between. I'll get it back, and this time with MUCH better form.

And I am excited to say that my company has moved right smack in the middle of my training ground over in northern Greenwich, CT/Armonk, NY. Now I don't have to drive up there everyday after work, i'll just go FROM work. And to top things off, I will still be able to go the pool during lunch. Its gonna be great and our new facility is just gorgeous.

fast dreadmill run

Did the usual 30 mins this morning, but I upped the last 30 seconds of my longer intervals to 8 min/mile paces. I am feeling it now....oops! I think I went a bit too hard. Hopefully I will be recovered enough for the relay race this weekend.

back in the pool and a "normal" run

Got back into the pool yesterday for 30 mins working on drills and working on fixing my squiggly arm. I think its getting better, gotta wait for the underwater video tonight to see if its looking better. Besides a bad roll to my right, I think when my hand enters, I rotate my palm inwards, causing my to swoop my hand to make it straight again, this I "think" might be contributing to the squiggly arm. So to combat that, I am not rotating my palm inwards, cause there is no point to it, and by keeping it straight the entire time, there is no need to swoop it. Afterall, I don't rotate my left palm inwards, and that arm doesn't squiggle.

Then this morning I hopped onto the dreadmill for a 30 min zone 3 run. It hurt a bit, but it was good that I did this because it again showed that I still have that runner's edge. Our relay race for this saturday is gonna hurt, but at least I should be able to do it with some sort of speed.

first run in a long time and more wattage fun

I ran for a solid 15 mins on the treadmill this morning, my first run in 2 weeks. Surprisingly, it felt like I hadn't stopped running. I even did the usual 4 X (30 second on/90 second off) intervals to see how my speed work was doing, and again, it felt fine. After the 15 mins though, I did feel like my overall endurance was not the same, and that was confirmed when I got off the treadmill and I felt some inflamation in my quads. That went away quickly, which means that I haven't lost my running shape entirely, I just need to reclaim it and get back to doing a 10K and feeling fine afterwards.

Then I took a small break, ate some food, let it digest and hopped onto my new trainer, the Kirt Kinetic Road machine:

I did another test, this one is for finding your MAP, or maximum applied power. My coworker is a self proclaimed "wattage junkie", he gave me some rough instructions on how to conduct the test. Basically warm up for 15 mins, then get into a 90 RPM cadence starting at about 170 watts. Every three minutes increase your wattage by upping one gear in the back, while maintaining that 90 RPM. Stop when you can't hold 90 RPM any longer. It took me three iterations before I could no longer hold 90 RPM. I'll post the data when I get back. I think I got the same number as my previous test, since I haven't really had time to improve over a 2 day period. Still, a good test! I am gonna need to consult my coworker to see how to do the test better, as 3 interations was not enough data to clearly find the number I was looking for.

fast dreadmill run

33 mins on the dreadmill, with lotsa intervals. It was good to be indoors running! I did about 3.5 miles. Intervals are the way to go!

5 min WU
2 min speed increase with incline increase
4X (30 seconds fast, 90 seconds recover)
1 min fast, 1 min recover
2 min fast, 2 min recover
3 min fast, 3 min recover
2 min fast, 2 min recover
1 min fast, 1 min recover

dreadmill run

First run in exactly a week. Oops! Never felt like I stopped running, which is good. I did the usualy 30 mins of boredom. Thankfully there are intervals.