3/5 -- CTR & ZeroZeroTwo vs. Wind

Saturday... another day of 15+ mph winds. Come on, really?

I ran about 9 miles easy in the morning, 4 of which were with Brian to help him through his trail marathon, which he did well in. Wasn't sure of pace, but it wasn't too quick, and I ran the other 5 by myself around aerobic pace. So more miles than planned, but not too taxing. The little ache I had on my plantar/base of left big toe from the beginning of Friday's run was gone, so the preventative measure I took last night (golf ball + homemade strasburg sock) appeared to work.

Early afternoon I met Bart and Dirk at Sibley for a long ride to and through Poolesville. Dirk had just done a 4 mile tempo so was a little tired, so he sat in as Bart and I exchanged pulls... good idea. Bart is POWERFUL. I pulled at 210-240w, averaging between 23-25 mph on my pulls... but when Bart led, my power didn't drop enough (only down to maybe 180 behind him, but really around 210w average). Damn, this was going to hurt. No real recovery on this ride for me and a 15-mph headwind through hills. But I remained pretty strong, surprisingly... I wouldn't have been able to keep this power/pacing going last year, especially with a headwind. About 49 miles in, we had been averaging close to 22 mph even with the brutal hills of poolesville, and I kept a good wattage, around 230w. Hit mile 49.5 and I noticed Dirk was hurting a bit, so I waved Bart on and rode it in with Dirk. The last 10-12k segment on MacArthur was a good one, as I pulled it in, staying around 205-210w, even after feeling tired/weak from sticking with Bart + headwind. For the entire ride, 67 miles, 220 watts.

Overall, a tough but really solid ride for me. I can tell Todd's training has made me stronger and smarter as a cyclist. I was in control for this ride and could find the strength I needed to finish the ride strong. Of course, work remains to be done on controlling my effort up hills. Dirk noted and I agree, Andy of 2010 would not have been able to get the job done in the same conditions. Really motivating to keep the training intensity high as it has been, and not rest on my laurels. It's good to see the work paying off. Also fun to do it with ZeroZeroTwo (TT bike). It's been a while.

But for real, wind, come on. Give me a break.

3/4 -- CROM!

Friday AM swim @ GISC with Michelle. This was a fast workout, with a long warmup and main set of 3x250 (200build, 50hard, 20" recovery), 300 pull, 10x75 (50mod, 25hard, 10" recovery), 200 pull. Again, didn't time myself, but made myself work and focused again on form. It falls apart the faster I go, but I've gotten better at lengthening my stroke and lowering stroke count in the moderate and build sets, which are paces closer to what I want to do in the 1500m.

I ran for an hour in the afternoon. It was really windy AGAIN. Geez, it's like 3-4 days a week now when we get 15-20+ mph winds. Anyway, good reason to stick to my 2.8 mile loop near my neighborhood. Just ran around 6:45 pace, first loop was a little tough and for some reason difficult to get a fluid stride going, but after one of the short trail branches I found my form and enjoyed the run.

That evening I watched Conan the Barbarian twice in a row to feed my need for intensity and might. Here, he prays to Crom for the first time before his greatest battle:

Conan's Prayer to Crom
Uploaded by vrmgi. - Classic TV and last night's shows, online.

3/3 -- An easier day and lots of apples

I was happy when Thursday rolled around as it was an easier day on my schedule, with just a bike trainer workout, and not a very tough one at that. A 75 minute ride, with 3x10min builds, starting at tempo/L3 and working up over the 10 minutes. Todd didn't specify a recovery, so I just did 3 minutes in between, making for a 15min warmup and 24min spin cooldown. I stayed in one gear (53/19), working from 91 rpm to 100-105 rpm over the 10min, working from around 218w to the 260s on the first two, and up into the 300s for the last 2 minutes on #3. I wasn't really winded or too pooped by the end of this, so I think it served its purpose for recovery but also working on a little power. It felt good to work a little and mostly spin just under 170w.

Because it was a recovery day, I ate a TON. A breakfast of 2 donuts, 2 apples and a banana. A lunch of a footlong Subway sub (chicken teriyaki w/ pepper jack, extra jalapenos, pickles and southwest sauce), a salad, 2 more apples, another banana, molten hot wing chips, and 2 bottles of water. Dinner consisted of a pizza, baby carrots, tater tots, and ice cream. Maybe not the healthiest day, but I think I can handle it just fine. Apples are the way to go though. They're slowly but surely replacing chips and cookies in my diet, eating upwards of 15-18 a week. Jazz apples. So good. These ones here are PRISTINE. They should have some of that yellow. That's crispiness there.

3/2 -- Time for speed

Wednesday AM I swam at GISC solo. A pretty basic workout, with a main set featuring a 3x200 drill/swim/pull, 5x100 build and 8x50 sprints. I only timed recoveries, which were 10 seconds for all sets, instead just focusing on form and effort. With all the comments Mark has been making on my form, I am determined to fix it and make my stroke more efficient.

In the evening I had my first full track workout in at least a month and a half. Finally off the hills, I was looking to start running at threshold... no more tempo (or threshold on hills)! The workout seemed daunting, 2 mile @ 78s/400, 1.5 mile @ 76s/400, 1 mile @ 74s/400, .5 mile @ 72s/400. Even though I wasn't sure I could stay with them at this point, I slotted in behind Dickson, Charlie and PMurph. I surprised myself however and ran even and strong with those guys for the whole workout! We actually ran a little fast for each interval:

2mi -- 10:20 (5:10/mi)

1.5 mi -- 7:36 (5:04/mi)

1 mi -- 4:53

.5 mi -- 2:21 (took over the second half)

I'm pretty sure this is one of, if not the best track workout I've ever done, and not just because of the paces (I've never run a sub-5 mile toward the end of a workout) ... what made it so good was that I felt really smooth and comfortable the entire workout. No forcing or dying off. The recoveries were long, however, so that may have affected things. It helped to have a good B group, especially with Dickson and Patrick's encouragement. We have some good workouts ahead of us.

It seems that Todd's training... the hills, building speed on long runs, and even the bike/swim workouts have really helped me get stronger. I really felt it on the 2-mile... that was a 16:00 5k pace, and yet I felt like I could have kept going and sped up for at least another mile. It's making me pretty excited for Shamrock 5k. I'm feeling confidence in my running again, which I hadn't really felt since Columbia 2010.

3/1 -- Oops, no rests

I woke up pretty tired from Monday's masters practice... Wasn't that hard, but perhaps I need to focus on getting more sleep. I felt a lot better though after a huge breakfast and lots of apples during the workday.

Tuesday PM's bike trainer workout looked kind of easy at first glance: 4x(3min @ L3/L4, 30sec @ 65 rpm biggest gear, 1min L3/L4, 30sec @ 65 rpm biggest gear). But I realized after the warmup that there were NO recoveries for 20 minutes... essentially a zone 4 ride, close to TT. The L3/L4 is the "recovery" which isn't much of a recovery at all! So after the first round, I figured out this wasn't going to be easy! I stuck with it though and maintained some good averages (235-240w for the L3/L4, basically low L4 avg; 310-330w for the low RPM/gear minutes, basically mashing the pedals hard). After the 65 rpm minutes, 240w definitely felt easy, and kept the cadence around 95 rpm. I felt my glutes and other leg muscles being activated in the 65 rpm minutes, which I think was the idea. Overall, a short but intense workout that I definitely felt!

But what's the oops? Turns out I was supposed to take a short recovery after each round! A miscommunication between myself and Todd led to me not knowing. OOPS. But he said the workout looked good even without the recoveries... so it turned out ok! I'm looking forward to a time trial next week so I can see if I've gotten more POWERFUL over the past 2 months. I averaged around 260w (my current FTP) in the 20 minutes, so I imagine with a consistent effort and no shifts, I should be above that in my next test.

2/28 -- Leave me alone, Molten Hot Wing Ruffles

Monday had to have been one of the most annoying days in the past few weeks. The weather just wouldn't make up it's mind. I was promised "strong storms" and tornado watches sprang up mid-morning. Exciting for a weather fan like me! Alas, we got some wind and rain. As a result, I kept postponing my 45-minute recovery run because an 80% chance of thunderstorms loomed until the sun set... and nothing happened. And neither did my run. D'oh. And because I kept postponing the run, I gave myself more and more excuses to keep eating my current favorite potato chip, Ruffles Molten Hot Wing chips. They are awesome. Not really hot, but a great taste and Ruffles are definitely the best, uh, ruffled chip. Just kept eating and eating until I left work. I guess it's a good thing I didn't end up running because for 2-3 hours after the last chip, I had that yucky acid feeling where you burp and taste the stomach acid mixed with buffalo flavor. And it burns too. Oh it burns.

It was gone however by the time swim practice rolled around, thankfully. Wards and Curl Burke merged again for a joint practice. Dirk and I were joined by Jacky and eventually Jason. A good lane. Good thing that Jason doesn't like freestyle, so that he isn't pushing the pace way harder than I can handle. Main set had a NUGGET of 2x (5x100 free on 1:30, 4x50 kick descend 1-4, 8x25 coach's choice). The 5x100s were good and I came in under 1:14 on every one, with the second set averaging 1:12/100y, finishing with a 1:10. It felt very comfortable, which means either I'm in good shape or recovery was too long... I prefer shorter recoveries now so I can see what I can really hold. But as of now, it seems I've made the jump from 1:17 to low 1:teens, and that's pretty nice. The kick sets were hard and Jacky/Jason just brutalized poor Dirk and I, who switched off leading the 5x100s. Overall a good practice, but again I'm looking for shorter recoveries so I can really test that 1:12-1:14/100y average.

2/27 -- Good swim, better run, best movie

Sunday AM I started out by swimming at Ward's Masters swim practice. Had a good lane of myself, Dirk, Jacky (who qualified for USMS nationals in the 50 and 100 backstroke and trying for the 200 back, 50/100 breast and 100 IM, geez!) and Eileen, our favorite Curl Burke coach who can put Dirk and me to shame easily with her speed (despite being 15-20 years our senior!). Main set was a good one, consisting of 2x(8x100 on 1:35, 4x50 descend). The recovery was a little much, but oh well. I came in consistently at 1:13-1:14, which is a jump for me, as a month or so ago, I'd do the same set but coming in at 1:17-1:18. And I still felt strong for the descending 50s, being able to descend by at least 2 seconds on each. Still got plenty of lecturing on my stroke though. I really need to extend my arms out, especially my left arm, as my breathing can cause it to pull too quickly. I'll be sure to integrate more catchup into my drills to improve on that.

Just after practice I arrived at the Capital Crescent trail for a 10 mile run. My plan was to go out 5 miles on the downhill portion, easy and controlled, at 6:45 pace, and come back on the uphill grade at a faster pace, maybe 6:00 pace. Despite being itchy from chlorine, I ran comfortably at exactly 6:45-:50 pace for the first 5 miles, picking up a little bit to 6:30 over the last half mile to the turnaround. I headed back up, and really picked up the effort. I hovered right at 6:00/mile. The first two miles back were not so easy, but with 5k left to go, my legs suddenly felt lighter and I really was able to cruise in, locked into pace. Finished the run with 6:20/mile overall average pace and a time of 1:03:19... perfect! My pacing was spot on, which was my goal. Not go out too fast, and finish stronger. This was a pretty major confidence booster in my fitness and ability to pace myself over longer miles. Legs felt strong afterward, but I was definitely tired from the 5500y swim followed by a hard run. Thanks to Jacky for keeping me company on the bike!

Later that evening, I watched Commando... a superbly awesome movie. It made me punch things repeatedly. LET OFF SOME STEAM, BENNETT!