And then there was power...

I have been quiet for a while and wanted to put out a new status update.  I have been working on multiple things recently as well as battling a cold for a few weeks.  It was a rough start to the new year, getting a sore throat and sinus infection only a week in.  That lasted me up until mid last week which then tapered off to a dry cough that kept me up for hours on end at night.  Since I was feeling better last week, I decided to hit all my workouts in the week. I think I only missed a 30 minute recovery run, but I had put in some additional bike hours during the week.  I have less than 15 weeks until my first tri of the season in Alexandria, MN (pool swim) There are also less than 20 weeks until my first outdoor tri, New Brighton Sprint, my inaugural race.  I have been using a combination of a plan on Beginner Triathlete for Intermediate Olympic distance and a winter cycling plan from Jorge's Blog. While the workouts are not playing the best together, I have replaced all the bike workouts from the BT plan with his workouts.  I am slowly adapting to merging the two plans together.  I had started some of Jorge's bike workouts earlier but using the equation that comes with the Kurt Kinetic Road Machine trainer.  I am not sure how much I trust my calculated numbers versus the results I have gotten back from my Powertap... more to come later. 

Sorry, at this point, no pictures to share, in this blog at least. My new tool.  HED Jet 60 clincher rim laced into a Powertap SL 2.4+ hub, sporting the trainer tire at the moment.  I picked this combo up used with around 2000 miles on it for a great price.  I had been looking at the 2010 PRO+ model, but could not pass this option up, what can I say, I am a sucker for HED wheels!!!  When I received the wheel, I replaced the hub batteries, computer batteries, and swapped out a Campy freehub for a Shimano for the time being.  I ran into a small bump as I was building the rim back up.  I was told that it had been upgraded to ANT+ with the updater from Saris, turns out it was not the case, so working with the guy I purchased it from, I got a refund to cover the upgrade.  I started using the Little Yellow Computer to track my rides until the updater came and I could get the 310 working with the wheel.  Since I am now training with power, I started from scratch on the workouts and am getting to know how my gearing/cadence/speed/RPE efforts all tie together.  If you are a data junkie like me... this is heaven!

Hopefully I can use the results from my workouts to take my bike to the next level and be ready to rock and improve this season.  I tried to retest my 20 min TT, but had only fair results that must have been skewed by a longer ride the day before and still being a bit ill.  I did a 2 hour ride Sunday and averaged 205 watts over the course of the ride to give a rough idea.  I am currently basing my zones off my calculated 260 watt 20 min TT threshold.  Next test should give me a better idea.

The first race I mentioned is in Alexandria, MN.  We have some family that lives there and a few of us are registered to participate.  My birthday is at the end of April, and I remember multiple times there has been snow on the ground, hopefully this is not the case this year and it is warmer outside for this race.  I was recently looking at the race webpage and found that if you thought you would complete the course (600 yd pool swim, 13 mile bike, 3 mile run) in under 1:12, that you should enter the Elite wave, although you are still scored with your age groups.  Hopefully they can modify my registration as I did not initially think that I would fall into that category, but I now realize I could possibly hit that mark.  Unfortunately the race categorizes ages in 10 year increments, making it a larger pool of participants for awards.  I am not sure how competitive I can be that day, so I am only going to shoot for a time.  I think under 1:12 if I am starting with the elites is a good starting benchmark.  My thoughts are based on: 10 minute swim, 20 mph bike average, 7 minute mile run.  Depending how transitions are setup, it will be an interesting situation going from indoors to outdoors.  I think in my head, I am shooting to be sub 1:10.  Based on last year's results, it would take a sub hour finish to place, likely out of my league at this point.

My main thoughts right now are aimed at my upcoming vacation.  My wife and I are going to Colorado with her mom and step dad.  I also found out her step brother is going to join us for a few days as well.  This has been a long anticipated trip that is going to result in 8 days of skiing, so although there will be no pool to swim in, and no bike, I may have to take some shoes and Yak Trax to run on our non ski day.  Check back this week for the The Great Hydration Debate...

A New Year…2010

Happy New Years to everyone.  Although I have had some time off work, I have been quite busy with the holidays so I am just now getting to the first post of the new year.  Hopefully not a reflection of how the year will go!  As many know, I am from Minnesota, and if anyone follows the national weather much, you will know the weather has been quite cold here recently.  I say quite because there were a few days it has been in double digit highs… I decided to get a workout in on New Years Eve, but quickly found my plans to go by the wayside.  I got to the gym and found out the pool was closed, not good for me who wants to go swim for 45 minutes.  As I will post in more detail later, one of my resolutions is to not get overly anxious or worried about small things in life and allow them to get me in a bad mood.  I decided to improvise and what better way to kick off the new year by starting the resolution a day early.  I went home and started to bundle up… Luckily I received some pretty good gifts at Christmas which included Yak Trax, a very nice Brooks running shell, and a blaze orange Under Armor coldgear shirt. 

 

I started to bundle up:

Nike Pro Insulated Running Tights

Running Shorts
Long windbreaker pants
Dry fit short socks
Knee high wool socks
Compression style long sleeve top (pretty thin layer)
Under Armor Cold Gear Top
Brooks running shell
Under Armor glove liners
Heavier pair of winter gloves
Stocking hat
Yak Trax on my regular Brooks Trance 8s

I tossed the Garmin 310xt on the outside of the shell to give it a shot outside for the first time.  It was a tight fit over all the layers, but I got it worked out.  Off I went.  The workout called for 80 minutes with strides every 10 minutes.  I have not found exactly what is meant by strides, so I just extended my stride and increase the pace for a minute and then return to the normal running cadence/speed.  I was not sure waht to expect on my first frigid run.  I left and the temp outside was around 8 F.  The first mile felt good, brisk, but good.  I ran past a liquor store that is located on the south of the road I was running on, turned and headed north.  For over a half of a mile, there were cars lined up to go through the light and into the liquor store (the only reason to be in that lane and thus go straight through the light)  I would suggested that they add better planning to their 2010 resolution list!  I continued on my run, going to about mile 2.25 where I reached the first big intersection I had to cross.  At this point, I am warmed up and feeling stable on my feet although the sidewalks are packed snow.  I cross the intersection after waiting a couple of minutes.  I had to climb over a huge pile of snow to push the crosswalk button.  The sidewalk on this side of the road was a bit rougher than before.  A plow had gone by and kicked up chunks of snow, thus making my path feel more like I was trail running with softball size rocks.  I slowed my speed to deal with the uneven surfaces and then ran out of it half a mile later.

A few sections of the run had newly tossed snow that made my legs mimic the feeling of running in sand.  It added some challenge to the run, but I have run on the beach before when I used to travel, no biggy.  I kept pushing forward doing my strides, crossing a few more streets and continuing on my loop.  I decided to change from my 6 mile route to my 8 mile route since I knew I was on pace to be home much earlier than the 80 minute run scheduled.  A little past mile 5, I turn on the road that will take me almost the whole way home, a good solid 2 mile stretch with a fair hill to climb, oh yes, also directly into the wind.   I kept pushing through the run keeping my pace pretty steady, but now feeling the bite of the wind.  Every time I had to stop at a light, starting back up got a bit more difficult as the chill got a bit more intense each time.  I ran home, finishing 7.6 miles in 71 minutes, not too bad for the first time out in snow and single digits.  Note to self, I need to enable auto pause when running outside next time.

After i got inside and stretched out a little, I headed upstairs to start peeling off layers and I found this little present:
Yes… that is an icicle hanging from my hat.  They were on each side and over an inch long after I had been inside for a few minutes.  I cannot wait for the next run!

Speaking of resolutions, I have set some for myself.  Since they always say to write your goals, I did, and took it another step to let people know what they are so I stick to them.  Before I say my resolutions/goals for 2010, I will preface the first with saying a bunch of people I work with started up another health challenge.  In the past they have done it based on % weight loss, they now changed it to calories burned over a period of time based on an list of standard values by activity.  This will be the first challenge I have participated in.  I will try to post up the list of activities shortly.  We are using numbers for someone weighing 190 lbs.  Some activities I agree with more than others, but it is interesting.

 

Resolutions/Goals 2010:
160 lbs by May 1 (8 lbs or so since I put a few back on during the holidays)
Find a good work, life, exercise balance

Do not stress about little things (also realize that most things are little)
Update the blog more often and include more pictures
Start using my DSLR more

Tri Goals:

   New Brighton Race (6/5/2010)

      1:30/100 yd swim over 1/2 mile

      20 MPH Garmin Average on bike (<42 min bike, 14 miles)
      Sub 22 minute run (3 miles)
      Overall time under 1:20
      Ideally shooting for 1:15
  Sprint Course 21 MPH Garmin Average
  First “test” FTP = 260, Improve to 286 by race season

Sine I cannot control who shows up on at a race on any given day, I am not going to list placing in my Age Group as a goal.  I am just using numbers from last year to gauge finishing times that would be worthy of those positions for 2009 races.

On one final note, I lucked out.  My iPhone went on the fritz the past few days, vibrating when I would touch the screen as if it were toggling between silent and ring, except that it was almost always in silent mode, even when I wanted it to ring… not good when I am on call in the middle of the night.  I took it in to have it looked at, and walked out with a replacement, 11 days of warranty left… whew!

Next week will have some big posts, stay tuned!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

I started off with a well planned week of workouts around traveling for the holidays and it quickly got turned upside down by mother nature.  The initial plan was to leave Minnesota on Thursday to travel to my parents place in Iowa for a few days and then to the in-laws for a few days.  Mother Nature had other plans with a wonderful winter storm brewing.  We decided to leave MN on Tuesday afternoon and drove the full way to avoid heavy snow, sleet, ice, freezing rain, wind, and just about any other cold weather term you can conjure up.  Since I did not bring my bike, and there is no pool within 35 miles, on top of actually getting there, I will be having a very run focused week of workouts. 

I had a great workout on Monday night on the trainer while watching the Kona broadcast I put on the DVR.  I enjoyed watching this, and it provided me much motivation to pedal strong.  Shortly after it finished, as my wife and I were headed to get cleaned up, the following conversation took place:

Her: “Baby, I know you are going to do an IM someday”

Me: “Hah, Yeah you are probably right”

Her: “And I know that you will not be satisfied unless its Kona”

Me: “Hah, Yeah you are probably right” While smiling at her
Her: “And I will support your decision to do that when you want, but could we have a kid first so I can have something to keep me busy while you are doing those crazy workouts?”

 

It is wonderful to have such a supportive wife.  Thanks baby!  Back to the trainer ride.  I am currently reading Training and Racing with a Powermeter and I am loving every minute of it.  I hope to join this community after the first of the year and take my training to the next level.  The bike ride this week was 1:30 for 27 miles or so.  Nothing extreme, but building as the workout progressed. 

My run on Christmas Eve:

.5 Warmup

6x800 with 400 recovery

Some of the interval lengths look a bit off as I was trying to track to the hundredth of a mile on a treadmill that only reads tenths.  I am digging in deeper with SportTracks exploring the details a bit more, quite the powerful tool. 

Hopefully everyone has a safe holiday season, be careful traveling, and I hope that you have been good so Santa can bring you something nice!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yes, yes I know... Thanksgiving was last week and I am a bit late with this post but what do you do?  It just gives me a good amount to write about.  I did a long run since I had Wednesday off.  This is the first double digit run since the marathon nearly two months ago, and my body was a bit uneasy with the second half of the run.  I saw the forecast said 34 degrees and spotty drizzle turning into rain later in the day, so I set out first thing in the morning as the drizzle had not started.  I took one step outside, and turned around to put on another layer. It is amazing how cold it felt that day!  I started off on the run feeling good, running at a good HR and pace, averaging 9 minute miles on the way out.  I have never run this route before as I was out of town, but found myself running on a paved bike trail through some farm lands and cattle fields.  At one point I thought I needed to use the facilities, and then reconsidered after realizing my gloves were starting to frost over, I would just tough it out and hold it.  Only a few minutes later I saw that the fence next to me happened to be an electric fence, WOW! That could have been a very unpleasant experience.  I suffered back as the winds picked up and I felt my knee get sore and my lower back.  End result 10.2 miles in 1:40.  A bit slow of what I would have liked, but what do you do?  Next time, I am not going to run out 45 minutes and expect to make it back in the same amount of time for a 1:30 run.

 

Turkey Day!  The day when my willpower begins to be attacked for a solid month and a half.  My family always has much to do with food and socializing, then again how many families are not?  This is the time of year when people see the winter weight begin to stack up and wonder what happened.  As you will see in the coming month, I have a sweet tooth and love the holiday sweets and treats.  Since I have been hovering right around my recent low of 167 lbs, this is a tough part of the year.  I want to continue my fitness journey and drop a few more pounds by trimming off some of the extras and building up some more muscle mass.  I love all the food, but knew this year I was going to save myself for pies.  Obviously there would be pumpkin pie, but my other two favorites, chocolate and banana cream were also going to be available.  Little did I know they would be homemade from scratch (not using jello pudding!)  I purposely did not have seconds on the meal so I could have room for a slimmed down piece of each type of pie.  What a wonderful day!  I must say I am thankful for good cooking.

Sidetrack in the timeline of things, but today, Monday, a local radio station is doing their annual Wish-a-thon where people submit requests to have Christmas wishes granted for someone they know that is in a difficult situation.  Things range from job losses, to illnesses to recent deaths.  Every year this never fails to make me realize how lucky I am with a great family, our health, and overall life situation.  Many days it is easy to overlook the things we take for granted on a daily basis. 

Most of my Black Friday was spent inside, while some people were out chasing deals, I went to the pool for a pretty intense speed work day.  After a warm-up and some technique, I had 16 sets of 50m.  I forgot they were supposed to alternate between RPE 5 and RPE 9.  My sets looked more like 16x50m at RPE 8-9 on 20 seconds rest.  I did some errand chasing and unpacking of Christmas decorations to prepare for the weekend.  We spent some more time with the family and taking care of things around the house and snagging some gifts.   We picked up a new TV, luckily I found something online that beat any price I could find locally by nearly $100.  We picked up a ski/snowboard rack for our trip to Colorado this year since the boys are driving and the girls will be flying.  I also managed to find a sweet set of new skis to replace my older ones that got cracked on my last Colorado trip when I skidded across a boulder in the middle of a groomed run!  The new skis ended up being 2cm shorter than my older skis, so it looks like I am taking a step backwards in skill level, but a shorter pair of skis will allow me to ski the trees a bit more comfortably, especially since they are a bit wider and have some more flex!

Saturday also included a long bike ride.  It called for 2:30, but I cut it short since that is significantly longer than my previous long.  I ended up biking for 1:50 and covering 35.2 miles.  All in all, not a bad ride, the first half I covered 17.6 miles in 51 minutes.  With relatively low winds, I was pleased with this, a fair gain over my last bike ride especially for the length of the ride. Some time in the pool on Sunday and back at it again early this week. 

The holidays and travels make sticking with a schedule difficult, but in order to enjoy all my tasty treats this holiday season, it keeps me motivated.  Again hopefully everyone really takes some time this time of year to count your blessings and enjoy the time with your family!

Something to keep you going

I sit and write this message while wishing I were feeling better.  I seemed to have picked up a bug this past weekend that is making me extremely miserable.  Luckily for the most part this is all in my sinus and head, although I am run down, I think I am safe to say its not the flu.  This will be a rather short post since I am lacking energy in general.

 

I have had some extremely good workouts recently, a 3.65 mile run that was done at 8:15 pace.  Hey it was outside, that makes it good in general.  I had a pretty heavy swim week last week ending on Saturday with a 1000 yd TT at 16:34.  Not too bad, gives me an idea of my baseline and what to expect for next spring.  I got in the pool again on Monday despite feeling the onset of a cold for a good workout, about 2300 yards, during one of the main sets it had me do 100 yards at RPE 9, I came in right at 1:20, not anything to brag too much about, but still good for me.

 

Today was spent at home relaxing and trying to get better, although I still had to dial in to work for a little while, for the most part the day was relaxing.  I just wish I could kick the cold, it bothers me not being able to train!  I will probably take a couple of days off so I can make sure to recover before hitting it again.

A few things that keep me going through this time.  A new package came with another item for the future Hydration Post, this one I am very excited about and if I muster up some energy today I will start adding to that draft.  Another item on its way to me is a pair of Shimano TR51 shoes.  I cannot wait to get these to me.  My old shoes just never quite fit right so I think these will do the trick.  One strap will make transitions and maybe someday a flying mount a bit easier. 

Back to rest, movies, and an occasional nap for the rest of the day and evening, hopefully I will start getting some energy back tomorrow.  I may have to sneak in a few games of COD:MW2 tonight at some point if I am feeling up to it!

Beginnertriathlete.com Training Log Graph

I have had a good amount of people ask about the training log graph I have on my side bar that shows my weekly workout summary.  This is linked to http://www.beginnertriathlete.com and the workouts I upload there.  It is a pretty simple process if you are already uploading your workouts to the webpage training log, and if not that is also quite easy.

- Open the following link:

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/widgets
- Under Your Training Volume, click Add to your Webpage
- This directs you to customize settings, enter your BT account name so it knows what data to use, also enter your title
- You can preview your settings
- Click Get Your Code

- Click in the area with the code that begins with <script

- Hit Ctrl + A to Select all
- Hit Ctrl + C to Copy the code
- Log into your blog and click on customize

- Click on Layout then Page Elements

- Click Add Gadget where you would like to place the Training Log

- Select HTML/Javascript
- Give your Gadget a name (Training Log Graph)

- Paste the code into the Content window and Click Save
- You can either preview the entire blog to rearrange where the Graph is located or Save to save the changes

- The Result:

Recovery, Offseason, and Training

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So what have I been up to the past few weeks?  By looking at my blog some would think not much at all, which may be partially true, others may think I have been extremely busy.  If you are in that group, you would be correct.  Work has been absolutely insane the past few weeks which came at a good time in the training road, right after the Twin Cities Marathon, and before I ramp up my off season training. 

 

I will not go into details about how busy work has been, except that thank goodness for my workouts to keep me sane!  I did not take a ton of time off after the marathon, but gave myself some time to relax and get ready for the winter.  I have been riding the bike inside on the trainer and having some issues with numbness of the goods.  I have adjusted seat angles like crazy with the Fizik Arione seat only to result in varying degrees of bad.  I snagged an Arione Tri2 seat hearing that this helped many people out with the additional padding in the nose.  Well… it arrived and after some adjusting, still about the same results.  My thoughts are the next step is changing to the ISM Adamo seat.  (Skipping ahead in time to when I am writing the post, it causes no issues on the road… no idea what to think)

I started my offseason 26 week plan this past week.  Although it appears to be tailored for race season with some A, B, and C grade races, it is a good start until I am comfortable from reading the Triathlete’s Training Bible and making my own plan.  Here is what my workouts looked like this week:

- Monday: 2475 yd Swim, long set (Missed the bike ride due to some scheduling conflicts

- Tuesday: 45 Min Bike RPE 4, 30 Min Run RPE 2-3

- Wednesday: Rest Day (But I did Monday’s bike workout) 45 mins RPE 3 with 6x20 second top cadence spin ups

- Thursday: 30 Min Swim 3x400 RPE 3, even pace; 1 hr Run (45 RPE 2-3, 15 RPE 5)
- Friday: 2300 Yd 45 Min Swim

- Saturday: OFF!!!

- Sunday: 15 Min Swim (400 yds RPE 7, remainder RPE 3); 1.5 hour Bike RPE 3

This was the first week of the plan and it pushed me outside my comfort level, which was a good thing.  The swims are longer than I have been in the pool before, but it sounds like good way to get better at swimming.  The bikes have been painful with the annoying seat issue, and the run on Thursday was a challenge on the treadmill.  Luckily the bike on Sunday was nice enough that I could be outside.  Nice is a subjective term, nice to me meant mild winds 5 MPH or so and 49 degrees.  I put on some warm clothes and socks this time since the last time I rode outside my toes about froze. 

Lets continue to talk about the bike.  1.5 hours the longest I have biked before for a workout.  I decided to do a route I normally do 20 miles in about an hour give or take, a simple out and back.  Another 15 minutes on to the end of this would get me my workout.  I somehow forgot about wind, and the fact this would be my longest bike.  What did it result in.  45 minutes out got me 16.1 miles.  The way home did not go as quickly, winds picked up above 10 MPH and were conveniently in my face, so much for feeling strong.  The good news, no numbness, at least from the seat.  The toes started to go numb about 40 minutes into the ride making for a long ride back.  I made it back home in 1:42, not too shabby, not my 20 MPH average I was hoping for, but then again it was nearly 10 miles longer than any other ride I have done before.

 

I spent the majority of the day Saturday installing a new laminate wood floor after tearing out the carpet in our living room.  Not too bad for a days work.

 

Before:

During:

After:

Spent the night watching the amazing Iowa Hawkeyes win on the last play of the game to move on to 8-0.  I got a bit nervous, but they seem to pull out all the stops and do what it takes to win.

Back to work and workouts this coming week with a few more posts to be completed this week.