Blue Sky?

Ok so after a wet and cold weekend of training, the sun finally broke through making Tuesday a beautiful day. Actually got in a good run and could get by with just wearing shoes and shorts. The way a real run should be done! (didn't even wear the HRM chest strap)

Felt great to get out in the sun and put in some faster running. Legs did feel a little toasty after our 100 miles on the bike in the cold rain on Saturday and the 16 miles in the foggy/misty sprinkles on Sunday. Actually, I enjoy running in the cool rain, but riding in it? For 5-1/2 hours? Not so much...

Typically Tuesday is a track workout but I was reading the latest Runner's World the other day and there was an article on speed work which offered some different speedwork options. So I thought I'd try one out for fun.

This workout was a reverse ladder. After a couple mile warmup, five minutes hard, five minutes recovery, four minutes hard, four minutes recovery, three hard, three easy, two hard, two easy, and finally one hard and one easy and a cool down.

Here is how the workout looked...

The numbers say I'm faster on the new wheels, but I felt slow riding last night. Maybe it was just being tired or something because I felt like I was working a lot harder than I should have been. It was a beautiful night although a bit chilly. Sunny and just a light NW wind at about 8mph.

I should have been hammering it in these conditions and flying around the Lakewood loop. But I just wasn't feeling it and although I got the average up to 20.8 at one point, I faded like a little girl on a tri-cycle on the last loop and a half and ended at 20.4. Needless to say I was not very happy once I got home.

Ride Stats: 30 miles, 1:28:19 (20.4 avg), 133 avg HR

*compare this with last time on same route...
30.31 miles, 1:33:14 (19.5 avg), 131 avg HR

Ran 8 miles this morning and felt a bit dead legged again so I'm guessing it's just a bit of accumulated fatigue hitting me.

Run Stats: 8 miles, 1:06:53 (8:22 avg), 137 avg HR

Just in time for tomorrows 6 hour ride and 30 minute trans run! Yeah!

New Stuff

It's always fun to get new stuff even if it puts a small dent in your bank account. This weekend to go along with some quality training, Saturday afternoon I picked up some new HED 6 wheels to race with this year. And they are SWEET!





I didn't get a chance to get out and ride on them this weekend as it pretty much rained from Saturday afternoon on. Plus with other stuff going on there just wasn't time. Going to try and at least ride around the block tonight and see how they roll...


On the training front it was a good weekend of time and miles. Saturday was long ride day with a trans run. Brian came over and we setup my garage as T2. Met up with Hugh, Christopher and David and got in a good 4 hour ride. Out and around Raintree Lake then out to Raymore and back to the house. Quick transition and we took off on a 45 minute run. Perfect timing too because it started to rain just as we left on our run. Try as we might to hold our pace down, we just motored along feeling good.


Ride: 75.93 miles, 4:02:41, 137 avg hr
Run: 5.54 miles, 45:38, 144 avg hr

Sunday A and I did our usual trail thing, I ran and she rode, however this weekend we moved it to the Longview trail which is paved. With all the rain Saturday and Saturday night we were sure the Trace would be a muddy mess. Plus it was very windy Sunday morning and the Longview trail with all it's twists and turns through some wooded areas would shield us more from the cold wind.

The Longview trail wasn't muddy but it had a lot of puddles and areas of water on it so there was a lot of jumping over and around water. Ran real easy and kept the pace just under 8:30 when we went back through a deeper section of water. At that point we had less than 4 miles to go and I was tired of hoping over water so I picked up the pace and got it down to 8:22 at the end.

Andrea asked me if my feet were getting wet and they were. But I told her if having wet shoes during the Ironman marathon was the worst thing going on then I was having a good day. :)

A good run and nice to have some company.

Run: 13 miles, 1:49:18, 144 avg HR

Riding Long

Here are a couple cell phone pics of our long ride from Saturday. Six of us started the day at Buffalo Wild Wings in Independence and headed for Lexington. From there Jared and I rode on to Richmond and then back to Indep to meet up with B-How for a transition run.

Didn't feel great during the ride but managed to survive the first 100 miler of the season and should have gained some strength from it.

Picture of the courthouse in Lexington... Canonball in the top of the column from the civil war!

Pic of me in front of the Richmond courthouse. This used to be the turn around for the Tour de Blue ride and our turn around Saturday. Where are all the grandma's with fresh cookies and PB&J's?! Beautiful day but a bit chilly as you can tell by all the gear. I love this town square as it totally reminds me of the clock tower in Back to the Future!

Yeah still smiling here but the pain was about to begin...

Good Week So Far

Halfway through week 20 and things are going pretty well. The volume is slowly ramping up and it starts with the swim workouts going from 3000 to 3500. It doesn't sound like much but it can really add up and the fatigue level increases right along with the extra laps. Tuesday was the first day of the longer swim sessions at 3400 (yards now that I'm back to 24 HR Fitness and not at the YMCA). The workout wasn't too difficult, just a couple extra reps per set is all.

500 warmup
8 x 50 drill, swim
12 x 75 on 20 sec rest
12 x 50 on 15 sec rest
12 x 25 on 10 sec rest
8 x 50 drill, swim
300 cool down

Tuesday night A and I met Jared and Kloden at the track for some repeats. Kloden is 1-1/2 so while Jared and I did repeats A pushed him around the track in the jog stroller for a bit and then chased him around on the football field. She loves little kids so she was having fun with him while we did run.

2 mile warmup
2 x 1 mile repeats at tempo pace (6:40ish) with a 200 jog recovery between each
2 mile cool down

Wednesday night was the usual short brick (45 min ride w/ 30 min run). Felt like crap on the bike as the wind was pretty strong from the southwest and my legs were a bit sore from Tuesday. I continue to fight this upper hamstring/ lower glute pain on my right side and I really feel it on long steady climbs... Had me worried the run would suck too but I actually felt really good running. And even though I was trying to hold my pace down and just cruise along, it still shook out as 8:13 pace. Weird...

14 mile ride (44:24, 19 avg mph, 125 avg HR?! Felt harder than that!)
4.15 mile run (34:05, 8:13 pace, 140 avg HR)

Weekend Report

Ok so good weekend of training put in this week. I had a SQL training class Wednesday thru Friday so pushed back my Friday run until after class. And it was cool because we got out early so I was able to get out while it was still sunny and warm (shhh don't tell the boss...) Felt decent but struggled to find my form in the first couple miles and I felt like my heart rate was a bit high although my pace was good (8:10 ish). Matter of fact, A was on her way to a pedacure and waved but I was already deep in thought wondering what the heck was wrong with me and I didn't even notice until she was already past. After about 3 miles I slowed it down and started to feel better and ran smooth from there on in.

Run Stats: 8 miles, 1:06:51 (8:21), 149 avg HR

Saturday morning I met Jared and Brian at Buffalo Wild Wings and we were off for a 4 hour ride followed by a 30 minute transition run. It was a great morning with the sun coming up and light southwest winds. Along the way we met up with Dave and Eric and started south. Somewhere around Raintree Lake we dropped Eric and Dave went back to pick him up. We never saw them again. They joked earlier that they knew the way back and I didn't think we'd lose anyone, but we did.

We'd planned to ride out to Harrisonville if possible but it took us a bit longer than normal to get out of Lee's Summit so we made our turn around in Raymore at a Casey's. Refueled with a Coke and a PowerBar for me, Dr. Pepper for Jared and a pizza slice for Brian. I actually just stuck the Coke in my jersey pocket for later... So anyway, short break and we were back on the road. With a nice tailwind pushing us along, we made really good time coming back. We had to add on to our route in order to get the 4 hours we were seeking.

Once we got back to BWW parking lot, we made a quick change into running shorts and shoes and headed over to the little blue trace for a 30 minute trail run. Even though I didn't feel terrible last week, I felt a bit better this time. Didn't have any pain in my glute/hamstring and energy wise I felt good. Really tried to stick to my nutrition and hydration plan and it's amazing how much that can effect how you feel.

Brick Stats: Bike: 75.44 miles, 4:05:14 - Run: 3.56 miles, 30:01

Sunday we slept in a bit and decided to head to the trace again for a long run. Andrea wanted to do a short run and was going to drive seperate, but we had the idea to bring her mtn bike and she'd ride out to pick me up on the trail after her run. We got going a bit after 9am and I felt really good and I had my iPod playing and just cruised along. Made my turn around at the hwy 78 bridge and headed back... Oh now I know why it was so easy! I had the wind to my back the whole time. So now I got to run 6 miles back into the wind. Nice!

Actually it wasn't all that bad and I felt decent. Ran into Andrea near the 4 mile mark and she rode easy along side keeping me company the last 4 miles. She got in some good work running about 2-1/2 miles then riding nearly 8. I think she's well on her way to completing her first half marathon!

Run Stats: 12 miles, 1:42:27 (8:32/mi), 146 avg HR

Today's Post is Brought to You...

... by the letter W

W for wind... The last couple weeks have been crazy windy. Of course that's typical for spring in Kansas City so it's not that big a shock. But that doesn't make it any easier to deal with! Tuesday nights track workout was great going north, but brutal going south. Twenty mile an hour SE winds whipped across the track. Still managed a decent workout...

2 mile warmup, 2 x 1 mile repeats with a 200 jog recovery and a 2 mile cool down. I didn't push the repeats too hard since this was the first interval workout and I didn't want to tear anything up. Two years ago I pushed too hard too soon and injured my right calf/achilles and lost the entire month of June. Ran the first repeat at 6:41 pace and the second at 6:36. Didn't really worry about the heart rate and just tried to hold a strong steady pace. Felt pretty good and I think without such high winds I could have done these sub 6:30. Maybe next week.

Tonight, Wednesday night, is brick night. 14 mile ride (45 minutes) and 4 mile run (30 minutes). Once again the wind was crazy. From the NNW at 24 mph and COLD! Just tried to ride steady... and stay upright! The run felt great. First mile being with the wind, I just cruised along. Even after turning back into the wind I felt good. Not sure I'm quite ready for longer endurance stuff just yet but I think I'm making progress.