Fury conquers all

My training is starting to go awry. After several months of perfect scheduling, it seems like things are starting to unravel. And I blame the snow. Montgomery County state of emergency means the pool is closed, 4+ foot snow banks from plows make sidewalks and curbs un-runnable, and the whole snow/wet thing makes biking impossible. I've been able to run and bike indoors, but I haven't been able to swim since Wednesday. And that's really bad. Hopefully Montgomery County will end its state of emergency by the weekend so I can start swimming again. It's got me pretty nervous. It feels like the weather and I are just fighting over my training.

Kind of like Godzilla and King Kong fighting over this castle.

Yesterday I met up with Michelle and Brian for a treadmill tempo run. 4 miles easy, 4 miles tempo. About 3.5 miles into the easy half, I started cramping up. I hadn't eaten since breakfast (only had 1 packet of oatmeal) and hadn't drank anything since the night before. Add to that quad soreness from the long snow run, and I was in line for a bad workout. And it got worse, a mile into the tempo half I was feeling miserable and had to run around 6:00/mile, which is about 20 seconds slower than tempo pace for me. Michelle was catching up to me. But after that first mile passed, I started feeling the FURY. Motivated by my own anger and Michelle's Michelleness, I sped up gradually to my usual tempo pace and was able to finish the last 1.5 miles at tempo and faster. The workout left something to be desired, but I got over the mental block I was having. Mental strength had been a weakness toward the end of 2009, but I'm conquering it. I ran FURIOUSLY.

Here's hoping for an incorrect weather forecast.

Snowtorious C.T.R.

Another blizzard, another weekend of dour and sour Chicken Tender Runner.

Missed out on the 1Km swim time trial on Friday afternoon, because I forgot my pool pass and the snow was starting to get nasty... too nasty for my low-to-the-ground Honda Civic to traverse safely.

Saturday, when the snow was piled high, I got in a 30 minute time trial on the bike trainer. BIG success! I kept a 180 bpm HR average over the final 20 minutes of the trial, meaning that I am capable of operating at a high heart rate (a little higher than race pace) for a long period of time... this shows that I am race ready and the endurance training paid off. I wish I could know if I got any faster, as I can't measure that on the trainer. But I'm happy... very happy with my progress. Exciting!

Sunday I ran 10.5 miles on roads that were "plowed," or covered by a dense layer of snow and ice. I ran at a moderate effort while slipping and sliding all over the place. Trucks and SUVs tried to intimidate me off the road, but I wouldn't have any of their games. The Chicken Tender Runner fears no moving vehicles. Which is dumb.

The recovery week is over... the build begins again this coming week.

White is my least favorite color

Except when it applies to white meat in my chicken tenders.

I hate this snow. It's not fun nor is it useful. Biking is my triathlon weakness and I need to be outside on the roads improving myself. Indoor training helps but I need to get a better feel for the road and the varying elevations it provides.

But I've been whining since December about this.

Yesterday after lifting I decided to take the rest of the day off as I wasn't feel totally comfortable in my legs. This is a recovery week and I should be feeling fresh.

I felt much better today and met up with Scott, Jake, Christiam (who I finally had the pleasure of meeting) and Karl for a 75(?) minute run. Haven't calculated distance yet. I felt light and my HR was pretty low, which means the day off yesterday had the desired effect.

I'm going to try to swim in a few minutes, maybe get that 1Km time trial out of the way. Not sure I'll set a PR today, but I might as well try.

An all-out recovery week

So this recovery week is still a recovery week, but I'm working a little harder than I expected. This weekend should put an end to that.

Monday I did a mile time trial on the treadmill. Zone 4, a level below race pace. I started out at 5:14, which I did the same intensity mile in about 7 weeks ago. My HR zone wasn't quite reaching the target of 184 bpm, so I sped up over the next half mile to 5:00, which got my HR at 184, and I stuck with that for another quarter. Finished in 5:07! Not bad for a sub-race pace effort. This should be my 5K pace on a flat course and good day. That's got me excited... I'm getting so much closer to sub-16. I can really see it now. Followed the TT with chicken tenders at Famous Dave's with Jordan and birthday girl Zoe! The tenders were fantastic, and the honey mustard dipping sauce was just as good. Jordan made incessant noises of pleasure as he consumed his honey mustard drenched tenders.

Tuesday had weights in the AM and biking in the PM. The bike consisted of a 40 minutes easy, with 6 minutes in the middle being all out, 100% effort. That was INTENSE. It felt like I ripped off my legs from the middle of my quadricep region and ground them into fine powder with the teeth of my carbon chainring. I closed my eyes around the 5:30:00 mark from the effort exerted and nearly fell asleep mid-full-throttle effort because I was so exhausted. That was quite possibly the most intense 6 minutes on the bike... ever.

Wednesday had an awesome, albeit indoor, track workout with Michelle. We were both snowed out of our respective track workouts, so we decided to compromise and mix my GRC workout and her Pacers workout. We did mile repeats, but in 4-8-4 style (400 at mile pace, 800 at 10k pace, 400 at mile pace) for 4 sets. I did my miles in 5:12 (5:07 for 400s, 5:27 for 800s). Michelle followed with (fast) 5:40s or so, but we didn't get accurate measurements because of the difficulties associated with accelerating on the treadmill! Still, a great workout, Michelle and I pushed each other hard as usual. Followed with an easy pyramid swim with Steve, although that was one of the tougher swims I've done (probably because I did it right after a tough track workout! D'oh...).

More biking to come this week and hopefully even with the snow I can fit in 2-3 more time trials.

I hate snow.

Mileage for Dec/Jan.

Just counted my total miles between the three sports for December and January:

Swimming -- 30.7 miles
Biking -- 1035.5 miles
Running -- 366.1 miles

TOTAL -- 1432.3 miles!

By month:
December (15.8 - 415.5 - 133.6)
January (14.9 - 620 - 232.5)

4-hour brick

Michelle and I conquered a 4 hour brick today that was looming over us like Godzilla looms over Monster Island and it's giant praying manti.

3 hour ride with 40+ minutes of hill surges, taking turns on the Kinetic and working up a general appetite for victory and food. Indoors, of course. The weather wouldn't have my bricks be any other way. Hips tired and sore afterward.

1 hour treadmill run at the gym. On adjacent treadmills, we pushed each other after the first half hour. Starting with medium paces, we picked it up to finish the last 5-10 minutes a tempo pace and faster. By the time I was finished, my stomach felt like it had sucked itself into a tightly knit ball and I raged for replenishment. Powerbar and sushi were soon to follow.

Wonderfully done, Michelle (and me), the dreaded 4-hour brick has been beaten.

That 4 hour workout ends my 18 hour build week, the longest weeks-worth of workouts I've ever done in my life. Legs are weary but stronger, and this coming week will be a well-deserved rest. Mr. Chris Sloane valiantly sold me a foam roller which I have used and will continue to use until my hamstring and quads are in just-like-new form.

Almost there!

3 weeks of build is ALMOST over. Only today and tomorrow left!

Friday evening I did a bike super-workout. 2 workouts in one sitting, 40 minutes of trainer hills followed by 40 minutes of dominant leg. The new bike trainer works GREAT, and makes the hills feel almost like real hills. Was really pushing my heart rate into the 5A zone on the hills and was breathing and sweating hard. Even when followed by an easier dominant leg workout, I still felt intense burn and it gave me all I could handle. I had a clean towel before the ride and a towel that smelled like rotten cheetos afterward (evidently sweat from my head smells like bad cheese snacks?).

This AM had a 12 degree Fahrenheit, long tempo interval run with Scott. 11 miles on the Millenium trail, same as last week, but did the trail in reverse to do tempos uphill instead of downhill. Averaged my normal tempo pace of 5:45 and pushed the HR to the zone 3 limits. I really like this run as my long run of the weekend. The tempos make it interesting and quite a bit more difficult. Followed the run with a 90 minute trainer ride, and will do an hour when I get back from the Mustang show this afternoon.