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.

Climb!

After Wednesday's track workout, I was feeling it in my hamstrings... approaching 3 weeks of little recovery is catching up to my legs, and my hammies and quads are sore. Gotta keep pushing... only 3 more days of effort until the recovery week!

Yesterday was weights in the AM, where I added in some new ab/core work on the medicine ball. I still feel it! Ran a quick mile to loosen up the legs prior to lifting and that helped quite a bit. Made sure I ate lean, high-protein foods throughout the day so I would be ready for another hills explosion-blast-fest in the afternoon.

So, afternoon was a hill workout with Michelle! Same place, in a cornfield near the Germantown Rec Center. And it turned out to be another leg-ripping, lung-squeezing, death-inducing slugfest in the land of corn. 10 hill climbs at all-out effort, preceded and followed by a not-so-easy trail run. I love this workout. I actually hate it... but I love it. Michelle was solid also... we truly RAN FURIOUSLY!

Fantastic swim this AM. 12x100 at 1:26 pace. That is huge. I had been stuck on 1:30 pace until the last few weeks, when my time started decreasing by about a second a week, so now I'm keeping a 1:26-27 pace consistently, as opposed to before when I wavered between 1:25 and 1:30. PROGRESS!

Hills on the bike this afternoon.

Forgive me, hamstrings and quads.

Yesterday I met up with my MCRRC pals for track. I originally wanted to do 800s or 1000s, but having done mile repeats the week before and two longer runs in the past 4 days, I decided to go with the scheduled 10x400 workout. I wanted to make it tougher though. As per Michelle's suggestion, I cut the recoveries in half, from 400 to 200. MCRRC workouts usually have at least 400 recoveries, but I proposed the 200s to Scott, Steve and Jamie and they agreed, setting up a tough workout. I want to do what the top runners in GRC or college runners do. That will make me faster.

I aimed to run 72s and did the first two in 72 and 71, but that felt a little slow, so I cut it down to 69s for the last 8. That speed plus the shorter than usual recoveries (for me) definitely created a burn in my hamstrings and quads and they complained vehemently. GOOD! I was hoping for that. And I was still able to keep the 4:36 pace despite the pain. And despite colliding with stubborn lane 1 users.

The other guys ran well too and Scott upstaged me with some extra 200s at the end!

Today and Friday have lots of hills on tap and a t-pace swim workout. I accept the challenge. I hope my quads do as well.

I accept the challenge.

In the immortal words of rock warrier Jon Mikl Thor, I accept the challenge. Watch this video to understand.

The challenge of an 18 hour training week.

Today started with a t-pace 1-2-3-4-4-3-2-1 pyramid swim. I kept the pace around 1:28-1:30 pace, right on target for longer distances. Workout was tough but I kept images of rivals and wise words from training partners in my mind as I pushed through it. I'm feeling comfortable in the water again. I have my feel for the water back.

Ran this afternoon, and intended to go out easy and back around tempo pace. Legs were shot from the brick yesterday though so I went out easy and came back maybe at zone 2 pace, but far from tempo. I still picked up the pace as planned, so not all was lost. Ran about an hour, which is a little short for the workout, but tonight I'll recover well so I can ATTACK the cruise intervals on the bike on my new trainer.

Gloomy Sunday

I came into today pumped about a 3 hour brick with Michelle that was to include lots of hills and strain on the Germantown loop. The weather forecast was holding strong, with rain not starting until the afternoon...

And that was where the weathermen were WRONG! Even The Chicken Tender Runner did a better job of predicting the weather. I stepped outside with my bike at 8:20 and looked at the clouds... they certainly didn't look like pre-rain clouds... they looked pregnant with rain. So I stuffed my bike in my car, sighed audibly, and walked back into the apartment to grab the bike trainer... just in case, as I had a bad feeling about the weather conditions. Got to Germantown Rec park and my suspicions were quickly realized... rain! DAMNATION! That is the 5th straight Sunday brick that I have had to miss because of weather. I sank deep into unholy rage and fury. Michelle showed up with similar feelings and we realized that another indoor brick was what it had to come to. 2:15 bike with isolated leg workout mixed in (wore my road pants instead of my "training" pants so my bony rear hurt), and a solid :45 run with hill attacks (as The Red Fox would say).

So, another brick, another incomplete feeling inside. I just need to get on the road for both the bike and run, not just the run. The road has a different feel. I hope my new trainer will feel more road-like so these indoor bricks, while fun, stop causing me to feel like I didn't do a full workout.

Or maybe the weather can put up and shut up.

Hills and Saturday Triathlon

It has been and will end up being a tough last half of the week.

Thursday, after weights in the AM, met up with Michelle for hill work on the Schaefer Farm bike trails. Found a steep hill with good length and POUNDED it ten times. First good hill workout for me since high school! It burned so good. Michelle did great too, keeping me within reach and gave me a run for my money on the last one (although she had a head start... sorry!). Was REALLY pleased with the workout. Looking forward to the next one.

Friday, did bike trainer hills in the evening, but was feeling a little fatigued from the Thursday hills, so cut the workout about 20 minutes short. Am getting to the point where I don't worry/feel ashamed if I need to skip or cut a workout short. I'm in good enough shape to be smart and take care of my body.

Saturday was another drawn-out triathlon! I love these days! Started with a great run in the AM with Scott and Alex Booth, who I recently met. We ran Millenium Trail, cruise intervals (4x6 minute tempo pace) within the 10.7 mile run. I got my tempo pace to under 5:45, and I was pretty tight from the hill workouts the previous days. That's good enough for me now though. Alex stayed close and Scott regularly ran under 6 minutes. Good run for all. Biked for 100 minutes around noon, and was able to do 40K in 1:18 on a very hilly course (Germantown loop). Need to be on the road more, it's much tougher than the trainer. Finished the day with an EXCELLENT swim, t-paced 100s, and was able to consistently swim better than 1:30, more around 1:26. That's a breakthrough for me as I have had trouble consistently swimming any single pace between 1:30 and 1:25. My feel for the water is improving!

Tomorrow is a difficult brick with Michelle followed by an endurance swim. 2 triathlons in 2 days again!