Wednesday, 27 January 2010

Tuesday Workouts

Tuesday morning was crazy. Here in Kentucky we got hit by a mini-snow storm. It didn't leave much snow, but it covered the roads in ice. Rather than running on the snow/ice early in the morning, I waited until lunch time when the ice melted to go out and run. Normally, I just run back and forth on a 750m flat stretch in front of the house. I do this for two reasons. First, I don't necessarily want to run on the rolling hills in my neighborhood. And secondly, I want to keep track of how far I run and that is difficult without a measured track. Since I recently purchased a Forerunner 305, I was able to go beyond my traditional running grounds and run anywhere with confidence that I can track how much ground I covered.

For my run at lunch, I decided I was going to run out and back down my street for a nice change of pace. It would afford me the opportunity to get in some hill running. The hills on my street aren't particularly big, but they have a steep pitch. It made for some fast running on the descent. The increased speed and constant up and down caused my heart to soar above it's normal zone 2 levels. On top of that, my knees were a bit sore after running it.  I may have to find other courses to run. I don't mind hills, just not the constant steep rolling hills on my road. One of these days, I am going to have to run on a track to know what it is like to run on a flat surface.

Anyway, my run was 60 minutes. I ran 2k at zone 1 pace and 9k at a zone 2 pace. My overall pace was higher than normal because of the hills. I didn't need to do any speed work because I got that on a number of the down slopes.

In the evening, I went to the FAC to swim. I swam for 51 minutes mostly doing 100 yard swims working on different aspects of the stroke. I finished with a 400 yard swim that felt slow. My efficiency was not very good. I need to keep working on it till I can get a consistent stroke count around 15-16 for a good paced swim.

Posted by brians at 8:36 PM in Training
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Tuesday, 26 January 2010

Monday Workouts

This week began my third week of Base I and is the highest volume week of the period. I am expecting to do 16.5 hours of training this week before a rest week next week. I can already feel the fatigue building. I imagine this will be a difficult week.

Monday morning was a bike workout. The temperatures dropped Sunday night, so I was forced back inside on the trainer for a 90 minute bike ride. 90 minutes outside is a breeze. 90 minutes on a trainer is not so easy. It is difficult to stay in the moment on a bike when you aren't going anywhere. The worst part is I'll be forced inside all week for my rides. Sigh.

Anyway, my 90 minute ride was broken into three segments. The first was a 15 minute warm up where I slowly transitioned from an easy 60 cadence up to a mid 90's cadence. I also increased the resistance every 5 minutes until I ended on my base training resistance. The next 70 minutes were spent riding in zone 2. I broke up the ride by doing either a spin up or an isolated leg segment for about a minute with three to four minute recoveries. I did five sets of each exercise. The final 10 minutes on the bike was a cool down as I slowly lowered my cadence and resistance. After biking, I spent around 10 minutes on stretching exercises.

Monday evening was weight lifting at the FAC. It was packed which makes it take 10 minutes longer than it should. For some reason, people love to just sit on the equipment between sets. I inevitably have to re-arrange my workout to accommodate these inconsiderate boobs. I didn't have the energy to do a core routine, so I pushed it off for Tuesday.

Posted by brians at 10:53 PM in Training
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Monday, 25 January 2010

Weekend Training

Friday morning was a 75 minute bike session. The rain kept me indoors so I had to use the trainer. My focus during the bike was a zone 2 ride sprinkled with a couple of force sets. I did a 15 minute warm up followed by 40 minute zone 2 ride. I broke up the zone 2 ride with two 8 minute force sets. For the force set, I adjusted the trainer until my cadence fell into the 80s. I then shifted up a gear every two minutes. On the last two minute section my cadence had fallen into the 60s. After the zone 2 ride, I did a 5 minute cool down and 5 minutes of post workout stretching.

Friday evening, I rushed to the FAC to get in a 30 minute weight lifting section before heading into Louisville to watch a performance of Cats.

Saturday morning, I went up to the FAC to do a 45 minute swim session. I had three goals for the swim. First goal was to continue working on technique to improve efficiency. Secondly, I wanted to work on longer sets. Finally, I wanted to time myself in a 400 yard swim. For most of my longer swims, I was settling into around 16 stroke per length pace. My time on the 400 yard was 10:45 which was almost a minute faster than the previous week. I still have 45 seconds to gain to meet my goal for base period.

Saturday afternoon was a 2.5 hour bike ride. I felt good for the first 90 minutes of the ride. About that time, I came to Jeptha Knob. It is the highest point in the Bluegrass region and one of the bigger climbs in my area. Afterwards, I had a series of good size rolling hills and I just never was able to keep the pace on those hills. I finished my ride averaging about 27.73km/h which is OK. But I need to improve that average by .3 km/h to meet my Base 1 goal.

Sunday was my long run for the week. I did a 70 minute run in a light drizzle. I ran a 2k warm up followed by 10k zone 2 run. I was able to meet my goal for Base 1 by running 60 minutes with a pace under 5:35. In fact, I was able to stay under 5:30 the entire zone 2 portion of the run. My heart rate held steady throughout. At this point in the year, running is apparently my strongest sport.

Posted by brians at 8:49 PM in Training
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Thursday, 21 January 2010

Thursday Training

In the morning, I went out and did a 50 minute run that covered 9k. The first 2k was done in zone 1, the rest was in zone 2. I did six pickups in the middle of the run to work on speed. It was my first run with my new Forerunner 305. It was cool to be able to see your pace as your running and not have to worry about how far you have run.

In the evening, I had to fill in again for a missing person at volleyball. Not a problem since I was going up to the FAC to do some swimming anyway. Unfortunately, it tired me out a little bit before the swim negatively effecting me. Anyway the swim was 18 sets of 50 yard swims. I spent most of my time trying to improve my breathing as I swam. Currently, I pause the stroke while turning for the breath. I was trying to make the breathing more in time with my stroke. I was a bit frustrated with sinking tonight causing my head not to be above the water line when I turned to take a breath. Apparently, I still have a lot of work to do on my stroke mechanics. At least I have something to practice!

Posted by brians at 10:25 PM in Training
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Wednesday, 20 January 2010

Mon - Wed Training

Monday, I was waiting for the weather to warm to take my bike out on the road. It never warmed, so around lunch I took my bike out for a spin. It was cold but I did better than my first venture. I was also going a shorter distance. Regardless, I was able to maintain a cadence around 100 even though my speed wasn't spectacular. Towards the end, I slowed because of set up issues with the bike. My seat wasn't straight and it was to low (My knees were a bit sore). I was also having problems with my handle bars being to low and my neck being sore. Eventually, I'll get the bike set up for riding. But I did get in a good 75 minute ride.

That evening, I was going to the FAC to do the abs class, but I was stalled by network problems. As I was about to walk out the door, our ISP called and I had to walk them through the problem. They were having a problem with not allowing enough outbound TCP connections on their routers. They fixed it and apologized. But I missed my class by then. Grrr. At least I got to lift weights.

Tuesday was a running and swimming day. I was supposed to receive my new Garmin Forerunner 305 that afternoon, so I was planning on swimming in the morning and running that evening. But we had a maintenance guy coming that day to fix a whole in the downstairs ceiling. I had no idea when he was going to arrive. I decided it would be best to run in the morning so I wouldn't miss him and swim that evening. Of course he didn't show up until 3:30pm. Sigh. At least I got my Forerunner and tested it by walking part of my running course. I'll do a review of the watch after I use it a couple of weeks. For my run, I did 55 minute run - 2k in zone 1 with the rest in zone 2. I did 6 sets of 20 second pickups during the run to work on speed.

Tuesday night, I went up to the FAC and swam. I wanted to work on my stroke length and I may have hit upon something. I was pressing my arm pit down on each stroke and I squirted forward a little faster. At the end of the night, I slowed my stroke down to the 14-15 range and using the technique I was able to get it down to 13. So I am gaining some efficiency already! Woot!

Wednesday was a biking and weight lifting day. It was raining in the morning, but was going to clear off and warm up for a few hours in the afternoon. Of course that didn't happen. So early that afternoon I put my bike up on the trainer and rode for about 65 minutes. Zone 2 ride with 4 sets of spin-ups and 4 sets of isolated legs. Three minute recoveries between sets. Wednesday night I went up to the FAC and did both weights and core work.

Posted by brians at 10:00 PM in Training
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Sunday, 17 January 2010

Weekend Workouts

Friday morning was the bike. I spent 60 minutes on the bike with 4 spin-ups and 3 isolated legs segments. That afternoon, I went to the weight room to get in another lifting session. I didn't do an ab workout, so I have now missed 2 of the 3 ab workouts I wanted to do. That isn't good. I need to make sure I focus and get them in this week.

Saturday morning was a trip to the pool. I spent a little time working on form, and did a 400 yard timed swim. My time was a slow 11:48, but I don't consider it a bad starting point. My goal is to reduce that to 10:00 by the end of base, so I have my work cut out for me. Ideally, it would be down between 8 - 9 minutes range. But first things first. I need to get below 11 minutes. The rest of my swim was finding my stroke count range for 25 yards. My slowest stroke was around 13-14 range. My mid range stroke was between 16-18. My fast stroke was around 20. I think I am going to work around the speed where I was doing an 18 stroke count. My goal is to get that down to 15 which would knock 2 minutes off my 400 time

Saturday afternoon, I took my bike out on the road for the first time of the year. I was going for a two hour ride to see how I did. The best word for the ride was struggle. I struggled to keep a reasonable speed, and I pushed for about 90 minutes before hitting a wall 15km from home. I limped back home in about 45 minutes. It was an awful experience. Just two months ago this ride wouldn't have been a problem. The weather has warmed up, so I am going to get off the trainer and get outside this week and try to regain my form on the bike.

Sunday, I did a 60 minute run. 12 minutes (2k) was a warm up in zone 1. I  followed it with 48 minutes in zone 2. I held up at 5:24 kilometers for about 6k before I began to fade. The last 3k was run around 5:32. I feel I am on pace with my running which makes me feel good. I didn't do any Yoga this morning which was my fault. I should have done it in the morning when I had the time. I couldn't do it this evening because I went to my parents for dinner. Oh well, Yoga and Abs will be a big focus for next week.

Posted by brians at 11:29 PM in Training
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Friday, 15 January 2010

Thursday Workouts

Thursday morning was a short run (3.25k) followed by five sets of strides. I think the strides are great for developing running speed, but I am not sure I want to do them every week. I think I am going to save them for the recovery week. I would rather spend most of my base time working in zone 2 to increase basic endurance.

In the evening, I got sucked into substituting for a recreational co-ed volleyball team. It had been awhile since I had played, so I didn't mind too much. Of course the team we played was awful, which meant a lot of standing around wondering if they would get the ball back over the net. I had fun, but I think it sapped needed energy for my swim. (Of course only getting 5 hours of sleep had something to do with it as well - stupid data center problem kept me up late)

After volleyball, I suited up and hit the pool. My first 250 yards was 5 sets of 50 where I worked on a different aspect of my stroke. The next 250 yards was 10 sets of 25 where I played with variations to find my stroke rate range. At a slow comfortable pace, I was able to do 25 yards in 13.5 - 14 strokes. If I went fast which felt hurried it took 21 strokes. I slowed it down a bit to take out the hurriedness, but kept a high pace and it took 17 strokes. The final 500 yards was a 25x50x75x100 and a 100x75x50x25 where I tried to hold a 15 average stroke count each length. I struggled on the 75 and 100 yard swims because I was tired and wasn't able to maintain good form and my breathing suffered. Hopefully, this weekend I'll be well rested and have a better swim.

Posted by brians at 9:37 AM in Training
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Wednesday, 13 January 2010

Birthday Workouts

I turned 38 Wednesday. So how did I celebrate? Working out of course! Just joking, kinda. In the morning I got on the bike and did a 50 minute ride with 2 five minute force exercises. I replicated hills by shifting gears up to a higher gear 3 times every two minutes. It slowed my cadence, but I was able to stay seated and power my way through the drill.

In the evening, I went to the FAC and lifted weights while my wife did her Zumba class. I felt good and did a good job with the weights. Afterwards, we celebrated my birthday by going to Hardees for dinner. I had a cheeseburger meal with a coke. It has been a while since I have had a cheeseburger and it tasted delicious. The coke (with popcorn ice) tasted wonderful. Yummy! Afterwards we got dessert at the Homemade Ice Cream and Pie store. I splurged and got the chocolate cheesecake. It was absolutely decadent. I am sure I'll pay the price on the scale, but who cares.. it was my birthday. Besides it is early enough in the season that a few break downs in food discipline shouldn't matter too much.

Posted by brians at 11:26 PM in Training
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Tuesday Workout

Tuesday morning was a run workout. I was slated to do 2k warm up in zone 1 followed by a 5.25k run in zone 2 interspersed with a couple 20 second pickups. I was concerned about my hamstring so I only did two pickups just to test out the leg. My hamstring felt fine after the run and is probably back to 100%. I don't plan on doing any weight exercises with it this week just in case, but I plan on doing Thursday's scheduled run. I did struggle with the pace during the run. I seemed to be 10-15 seconds off my normal pace. I am just going to chalk it up to an off day right now. I spent some time after the run working on mental imagery. I replayed the run replacing the slower run with a faster run. Replacing the struggle with the smoothness of a good run.

In the evening, I did Ab Ripper X to complete the core work I didn't do the previous evening. Afterwards, I went to the Shelbyville FAC to swim. I spent the first 250 yards working on basic swimming skills. The next 250 yards I experimented with different stroke rates to see how it affected my stroke counts. My low was 13 and my high was around 21 for one length of the pool. I then did two sets of 25x50x75x100 swims. Each set I averaged just shy of 15 strokes a length. I finished the swim with a 200 yard swim with a goal of 120 strokes. I finished right on the 120 strokes.

Posted by brians at 9:33 AM in Training
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Tuesday, 12 January 2010

Base I Goals Revisited

I was thinking about my goal of eating clean 20 days during the period, and it didn't work for me. I thought a better metric would be centered around results so I am going to adjust my goal to be weight oriented. Currently, I weigh around 158. I am going to reset my goal for my diet to weigh under 156 pounds by the end of the first base period. I know to reach that goal I will be forced to eat better each week.

Posted by brians at 3:06 PM in Nutrtion
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Monday, 11 January 2010

Monday Workouts

In the morning I did a 55 minute bike workout. It had to be cut a little short because I had to teach a class today and needed to be on-site by 8:15. I felt really good on the bike. My hamstring has been a bit sore, but I didn't feel any soreness after the bike ride and stretching.

The evening workout was weight lifting and core. I spent 30 minutes in the weight room at the FAC lifting. I skipped leg curls because I didn't want to injure my sore left hamstring. I won't do leg curls again until I feel it has fully healed. Tomorrow, I am supposed to run again so I will get a chance to test the hamstrings to see how it feels. If it is sore during the run, I'll probably take the rest of the week off from running and try again this weekend.

Posted by brians at 8:40 PM in Training
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Base I

This week starts the first period in base which I call "Base I". My goals for base one are fairly straight forward. I want to improve my base aerobic condition with the following specific aerobic goals.
  • 2 hours on the bike averaging 29km/h
  • 1 hour run staying under 5:35 min/km pace
  • 400 yard swim in 10 minutes
My secondary goals are to work on mental skills and eat clean. I want to have 4 mental skill sessions a week. Three of the sessions should use visualization skills before and after workouts in each of the triathlon sports. The fourth will be a review of my notes on mental training to make sure I am on track. I know it is not possible to eat clean every day (for instance today - I was teaching a class and the sales person brought in donuts. Of course I had to eat one or two), but I want to eat clean most of the time. I am going to set a goal of 20 clean eating days out of the 28. I'll keep track on my palm.

Now it's time to turn to the workouts. First let's start with swimming. Here my goal is to continue learning to swim freestyle to the point where I can swim 400 yards in 10 minutes. I am planning on 3 workouts a week. Two will be 45 minutes long and the third will be an hour. My goal is to spend 15 minutes each practice working on technique and 30 minutes on stroke counts drills. Once a week I will do a 400 yard swim to test my time against my goal.

Biking is the second leg and will take up the majority of my training time. I plan on four rides a week. The length of the rides will increase each week. The first week my time will be 60, 60 , 60 , 120 minutes. The second week will be 75, 70, 75, and 160 minutes. The third week will be 90, 80, 90, and 180 minutes respectively.

The first and third ride will be dedicated to zone 2 and speed drills. Here I will switch between spin ups and one leg drills every 4 to 5 minutes during the ride. The second ride will be dedicated to force and I will simulate seated hill climbs using the trainer. The fourth ride will be on the weekend.  Hopefully the weather will warm up so I can get out and do the long rides outside. Otherwise they will be broken into two sessions to maintain sanity. I don't think it is possible to do more than 90 minutes on the trainer. The long ride will be used to test against my goal.

I plan on doing three runs a week. In week one they will be 45, 45, and 60 minutes long. The second week will be 60, 45, and 85 minutes. The third week will be 70, 45, and 105 minutes long. The first run will be a zone 2 run with 30 second pickups every 5 minutes. The second run will be a 20 minute warm up followed by 6 sets of strides. The final run will be a zone 2 run so I can test against my goal for the period.

Lastly, I plan on three weight lifting and core sessions a week and one yoga session a week. The fourth week is a recovery week and running and biking times will be cut down and weight lifting will be eliminated so workout time is less than 8 hours a week. Swimming will stay the same. I will probably do a 7k  time trial run to set my pace baselines for Base II.

Posted by brians at 8:36 PM in Training
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Wednesday, 6 January 2010

Wednesday Workouts

In the morning, I did a bike workout on the trainer. The temperature is still in the 20s so there is little chance of riding outside. I did a little over 40 minutes on the bike performing several spin ups to work on speed drills. I tried watching television this morning while biking and noticed a drop off in my performance. I had difficulty keeping a cadence of 90 at the same setting I was easily doing 98-100 a few days ago. I think television was too great a distraction from the workout. I'll just have to come up with more drills to do to keep myself from getting too bored on the bike.

This evening I went to the pool for some swimming. The temperature is so cold that they are having a difficult time keeping the temperature warm in the pool area. You could see steam rising off the water. Fortunately, the water was still fairly warm. I spent the first 500 yards working on different aspects of swimming efficiency. I was able to get my stroke rate down to 13 for one length of the pool. Most of the time it was 14 strokes. I did two sets of 25x50x75x100 yard swims. On the 25 and 50 yard swims I was able to maintain 14 strokes for a length. The longer swims the efficiency fell and I averaged 15 strokes a length. I need to keep working at it so I can get my efficiency on longer swims down to 14 or 13 strokes a length.

Posted by brians at 10:11 PM in Training
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Tuesday, 5 January 2010

Tuesday Workouts

The morning session was a 40 minute run. I did the first 2k of the run in zone 1 to warm up and then moved into zone 2 pacing for the final 5.25k. It was a tough slog this morning. I never got comfortable on the run and felt like I was forcing it. Dissatisfied with the run, I spent some time afterwards working on visualization drills. I went back over the run and imagined myself doing the same run, but running effortlessly.

The evening session was swimming. I spent most of the time working on stroke mechanics. The final 15 minutes was spent counting strokes. I did 4 25 yard sets averaging 14 strokes a length. I finished with a 25x50x75x100 yard swim sets. I wasn't able to maintain efficiency of 14 strokes, but I did average around 15 strokes for each length. I need to be able to maintain the efficiency over longer distances. I think part of my problem was tiring at the end of the session.

Posted by brians at 10:05 PM in Training
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Monday, 4 January 2010

Weight Lifting

One of my goals for the preparation period was to work heavily on strength training. Rather than spend a series of days isolating a small set of muscles, I decided to work all of the muscles each session in a circuit style training program. I built my workout around the fitness equipment available in the gym filling in with dumbbell free weights for muscles not covered by the equipment. I picked my free weight exercises from the book "Dumbbell Training for Strength and Fitness". Below is my strength training list.
  • Leg Press (1)
  • Leg Extension (1)
  • Leg Curl (1)
  • Inner Thigh (1)
  • Outer Thigh (1)
  • Calf Raises (2)
  • Chest Press (1)
  • Pull Ups
  • Vertical Butterfly (1)
  • Seated Row (1)
  • Shoulder Press (1)
  • Upright Row (2)
  • Calf Raises (2)
  • Leg Curls (1)
  • Leg Extension (1)
  • Leg Press (1)
  • Front Arm Raises (2)
  • Lateral Arm Raises (2)
  • Lower Back (1)
  • Shrugs (2)
  • Bicep Curls (1)
  • Tricep Extension (1)
  • Wrist Flexion (2)
  • Wrist Extension (2)
  • Leg Press (1)
1 = Fitness Equipment
2 = Dumbbell Exercises

Notice I did a number of leg exercises twice. I really wanted to focus on leg strength to help with biking this year. The grueling circuit took about 50 minutes to complete. During the three week trial, I realized it would be too much weight work for the season. It would be too draining. I decided to trim it back to around 30 minutes. I had to reduce the leg work and just focus on working each muscle group once. Below is the modified workout I plan on using throughout the season. It came in at 30 minutes including pre and post workout stretching.
  • Leg Extension
  • Leg Curl
  • Inner Thigh
  • Outer Thigh
  • Hip Flexors (New move using dumbbells)
  • Calf Raises
  • Chest Press
  • Pull Ups
  • Shoulder Press
  • Shrugs
  • Lateral Arm Raises
  • Bent Over Arm Raises (New move using dumbbells)
  • Vertical Butterfly
  • Seated Row
  • Bicep Curl
  • Tricep Extension
  • Leg Press
In addition to weight lifting, I plan on adding in a separate 15 minute core session two to three times a week. I will probably switch between P90X's Ab Ripper X, P90X+'s Abs Core, and some custom core workouts.

Posted by brians at 10:25 PM in Training
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Monday Training

Coming off the weekend, I decided to make today an easy day. I did P90X's XStretch this morning to get in some mindless stretching. Tonight, I went up to the Shelbyville FAC to do some swimming. I did seven different 100 yard sets working on a different stroke skill each set. For the final 100 yards, I counted strokes. Each 25 yard segment was either 14 or 15 strokes. It was a solid swim session. I am definitely feeling more comfortable in the water.

Posted by brians at 9:19 PM in Training
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