easy ride

feeling a LOT more comfortable on the TT bike. I am climbing MUCH better on it now. I guess I just needed to ride it more and more and more.

Did 23 easy miles tonight. There is just enough light outside to ride until 8PM. So I can put in 2 hour rides at night now. Sweet!

hard 100's

Did 10 X 100's on 2:00 descending. Wow, I can speak swimming lingo finally!

So I did 100 easy, 100 medium, 100 hard, then rinsed and repeated 3x total for 900 yards, and a 100 easy cool down from the set. That 100 cool down was one of the hardest 100's I have EVER swam because coming off of that last hard 100, I was dying! My arms felt like spaghetti. My fastest 100 was 1:37, my slowest was 1:50.

Then I did a 350 at medium intensity. No idea what my time was, but I felt strong.

Then I started to learn how to do flips in the water to lead up to doing flip turns. Doing a somersault with no momentum is a LOT harder than flipping with momentum.

recovery-ish week

This week is a recovery week. I did an easy easy 3.58 this morning at a blistering 9:50 min/mile pace. Yee haw!

Im glad I stopped when I did, because my blister was starting to fire itself up again. Go away blister!

2000 hard fought yards

My swimming coworker told me that things will get "uncomfortable" in the pool once the yardage picks up. We got "uncomfortable" today. He had us do 8 X 200 yards on 3:30 with 30 seconds rest.

Oh man oh man oh man! I sure surprised myself today!

After the 2nd or 3rd 200, I thought I was roasted pork! After the 4th I thought my arms were going to fall off. Then he gave us an extra 30 seconds rest and I was able to turn the heat up. I went slightly faster by about 1 -2 seconds (max 4 seconds faster the 6th 200) but I was finishing not feeling so wasted and my form was more consistent and my stroke count was more consistent as well. So I basically did 1600 yards at a 1:45 or faster per 100 pace! Sweet!

One thing that helped out on the last 4 200's was that I timing my turns better and not getting all fuddled up, which would throw my breathing and arm rhythm off which would slow me way down. I am going to try to learn flip turns on Wednesday.

This was probably the best swim I have EVER done!

Finished with a total of 2000 yards for today.

pissed off a blister, but put in 8.2

I put in a 8.2 mile run this morning, and my legs felt pretty good, despite yesterday's long ride. So this run was a huge confidence boost in the status of my overall endurance. I did it in 1:15:00 flat, or a 9:09 min/mile average.

Unfortunately around mile 6 my blister started to get aggravated and I added a little bit to it. Doh! I taped it up really well and it felt fine. Oh well. Maybe mile 6 is when my feel started to sweat a lot more? It was healing rather quickly until now. I'll just keep my eye on it.

This past weekend was a tough one, but one of those weekends where gains are made. I think last weekend's half marathon helped out today 8.2 miler a LOT.

Timberman bike course preview

I am up in NH this weekend and I previewed the Timberman bike course this morning. This is a much different sort of ride. I am used to lots of windy back roads with a lot of turns.

Timberman's course is about 10 miles of stuff like that, but then 36 miles out on Route 106 that is a wide shouldered main road that is pretty flat. Felt like riding on the highway for 2 hours. It was kinda boring in those portions actually....

So from the beginning, it starts uphill, but its not too long, then the road goes into that wide shouldered flat road where you can just big ring it. Eventually after a few curvy roads you hit the largest hill @ ~mile 10. This hill took me by surpise and actually had a good pitch to it. I was glad to get it overwith. After a descent (which I climbed on the way back) I hit route 106, which is the 36 mile portion. You descend gradually for 18 miles with a tailwind, then you turn around and head back up for another 18, only this time you have a headwind the whole way. My ears started to hurt by the end of it!

When I hit those same hills by the end of the ride, my legs were starting to feel it. Fortunately by taking a little bit of food, I felt a lot better.

Nutrition wise, I only took 2 GUs and 1 chocolate peanut butter balance bar. I think I drank 2.5 bottles of liquid, one being  pure water, the other a 50/50 mix of gatorade and water, the other half was an even more depleted mix of gatorade and water. Was that enough? I am not sure. I wasn't hungry by the end of the ride or thirsty and I didn't feel bloated.

I even did a quick 5 min jog to see how my legs and stomach felt. My stomach felt fine, but my legs felt like spaghetti. After the run, my legs were adjusting and felt better than I started. I have no idea how I will run 13.1 miles after a ride like that. I have about 15 weeks left!!!

Good ride, I did an extra mile because I missed a turn before asking for directions. So I did 57 miles in 3:13:00 or about a 17.78 mph average. I wasn't at race pace, so I am seeing that speed average as a good sign of my conditioning, considering the lack of biking that I have been doing!

another flat tire, but another good swim

My rear tire was flat again. It was due to a bad replacement tube, which is good because if the tube popped or leaked in the same place as the blown out tube, it would possibly mean my wheel was bad or damaged. That is NOT the case, fortunately. The latest tube that I installed still has pressure.

I am off to NH this weekend to preview the Timberman bike course.

Today @ lunch we did a great swim workout.

250 warmup
800 time trial, which I did in 14:21, or a 1:48/100 pace. I finished strong. I am feeling ever MORE confident about my first tri's swim this time around.

Then we did some drills and some 50 yard sprints. I did the first in 40 seconds, and the second in 41 seconds.