I went off in search of MOO people today but ran out of luck. I suppose it makes sense, since i didn't exactly know where I was going before I left. I had a vague idea, but I wasn't sure which Caribou on Nicollet Ave. I was supposed to be at, so I traipsed up and down nicollet looking for my fellow Tri-geeks. Alas, it was not to be.
Things didn't turn out all bad though. I got back to work and had a check sitting there for me, which means... off to the bank and the bike store! I wanted to take a look at saddles. The Selle Italia that came on my Fuji is alright (especially in the width department) I like the narrowness better than my Serfas RX that's on the Trek, but it's just a little hard on "the boys". I also wanted to look at shoes. Ever since I bought my Diadora Cosmos last year I've regretted it. They're just not comfortable!
The bike shop I frequent is almost completely like something out of High Fidelity. There's the pretty normal manager, the quiet shopworker, the eccentric hyper shopworker, etc... all of them ride, all of them talk smack to each other about their riding. All of them follow "The Tour". It's really funny. I go in today and dig through the clothes for a little while, seeing if they have any bib versions of their store shorts. I fell in love with bibs before the Paul Bunyan, but the store shorts match my TCBC club jersey... if only the two could meet!
Anyway, I'm gabbing with the shop guys about Lance's win today (which hopefully one of these climbs' will be Roberto Herras' win) and we get back to talking about the Ironman. One of the shopguys, Bob's niece is competing at Madison, so we've talked about it a bit whenever I'm in. Conversation also swings towards my Fuji Team. The store just became a Fuji dealer so every time I go in I have to pull my Team out of the car so they can have a look at it. Today though we started digging in to what I needed to do before Madison. We settled on a couple things.
1. I HAVE to get a better seat.
2. I really need a Stem that will jut me out a little bit more. I'm sitting too far back right now.
Other than that, my bike is just about ready for Ironman. I think once I get the new stem things will be a lot more comfortable. I haven't completely decided what stem I'm going to buy yet, but maybe I'll buy some really cool bladed thing. :-)
Before I left, conversation swung around to talk about the ride they do out of the shop every thursday night. All of the guys live on the other side of the city, so none of them really know the local roads very well. I got recruited to lead the ride somehow. Best part? I got a discount on the shoes I bought. Oh, Shoes! I was going to talk about that.
I looked at shoes today. I don't know if the ones I ended up buying are going to be THE ones, but I think they're pretty close. i ended up buying Nike Cipressas. I have to admit I was swayed by the color, but they're much wider than my Cosmos, so I think they're going to work better. I'm still a little concerned about length, but they ARE supposed to be tight. I'm going to try them out tomorrow, and if they don't work, I'm going to trade them up to the next half size. (an 11 vs. a 10 1/2) The color though, they match my bike! Whee. Tey're kind of a cool grey and blue. Best yet? I got them for like $30 off! Cheaper than my Cosmos' and more comfortable. Can't beat that.
I'm thinking that I'm going to reformulate my Ironman training plan. I kind of want to crank it up from teh 13 weeks to a 13 hour ironman plan. I feel like I'm not working hard enough. There were three official rest days this week. This weekend IS going to be harder, but it just seems like the weeks are way too easy. I also really need to start examining my strength training and augment it a little bit. I need more than some nightly pushups. I think that's about all that's going on in this corner of the world tonight. Tomorrow a nice long bike ride and an 1:15 swim at E2. Sunday calls for a 2.25 run. Lots of work!
Brian
Friday, July 19, 2002
Thursday, July 18, 2002
A horse is a horse of course of course....or, I find my calling?
Yesterday? Not much at all... for some odd reason, even though last week seemed like a rest week, this week seems like it truly is a rest week. Tomorrow I have yet another day off. I might be a bad boy and just bike to work though. If there's anything that I don't like about this plan, it's that this summer my cycling has been down lower than it would normally be... obviously my swimming and running are higher than they'd normally be, but my cycling (which is my main sport, and will continue to be my main sport into the future more than likely) has taken a bit of a dive. It's all right. I'm not super paranoid or anything like that; it's just that I'm not on the bike as much.
I've been spending more time on this mile141 website. It's kind of cool to have a place where some other IMMOO people hang out so that I might actually have a chance of knowing someone once I get to Madison. I also got my first piece of e-mail from someone that read the journal. Kinda cool... another Minneapolis Clydesdale.
What's a Clydesdale, you ask? Basically, a Clydesdale is a triathlete that's umm... large. I don't think that I'll ever be under 200lbs. it's just not something that's going to happen. Even if I lose my gut, I'm still going to be over the Clydesdale classification at 170. So, I'll celebrate my Clydesdale-ness. I think there's something noble about it. I like the idea that I can still do big things, just not as fast... and when it comes to the Ironman, I'm sure that I probably won't be fast.
Tonight was supposed to be an hour of riding at Form. I can't ride at Form. It's SOOOOO difficult for me to do heart rate zone training. I like to ride fast and hard. Plus, since I hadn't ridden with TCBC in a while (Twin Cities Bike Club) I thought I should get a group ride in. I hustled home from work, grabbed my clothes and a bottle of Accelerade and ran back out the door. There were a couple of rides rescheduled to tonight so riders were spread out a bit more. I saw the group and thought... "Oh cool, I should find some people that I can ride pace with" Let me always cherish the fact that there will forever be old guys kicking my ass... it's the sort of thing that makes me feel better about growing up. That there are 50 and 60 year old club riders that can keep a 25mph pace makes me hope that I can do that at their age (or even NOW for that matter). I was thinking about doing the A/B version of the ride which was a 39 mile route, but right off the bat on the first hill I got completely dropped... so I settled in with these older guys that were doing the shorter route, technically a "B" pace... which, to quote the TCBC website is...
Ride Type-B / Avg Speed(Min.)-12mph / Rest Stops every 15-20miles / Leader rides at the rear
I don't think I've ever been on such a fast paced B-ride. My cycle computer says that we averaged 17mph, but that includes stops. As far as I could tell from looking at the computer during the ride, we maintained something closer to 20 and above. I'm healthy again, but three weeks off the bike have left me weaker than I should be, so I was working pretty hard to keep up. Luckily, I have my secret weapon. Aerobars! The greatest thing about them is that as soon as I drop into them, I get about a 2mph increase with no extra effort. With the seat I have at the moment, I put a little bit of pressure on my testicles, but the increase is worth it. When we hit the gateway trail on the way back, I did an extended jaunt in the aerobars and was maintaining around 26mph. I felt like I was flying. What's scary about pace? The Tour de France riders can do 20 mph in the MOUNTAINS... that kind of thing just makes me feel like quitting. ;-)
After the ride I headed back home and got my tri-shorts on. I guess that they're technically running short-tights, but I've found they work really well in the water. The best part is that they're tight like a Speedo, but they cover a lot more. There was no one on the lake tonight, and it was so peaceful swimming in the lake while the sun set. There was this orange glow that covered most of the lake... it was really beautiful. I was only supposed to do a half hour in the lake at E1 (which for some odd reason I thought was my racing pace, I look now though and realize that it's a calm swim. Oh well) I guess I did the workout at a higher intensity than I might otherwise have. I think when I get my next check I'm going to look into a decent pair of non-dark swim goggles. I hate the ones I have now, and I think it would help me with my freestyle form. Part of the reason I think the goggles might help is that I would be able to look up a bit more often. I think one of the things I don't like about freestyle is not knowing where I'm going when my head is looking down in the water. In the pool, I can see... in the lake? Well, it's just murky.
It's still SOOOO much easier for me to divert to a side stroke/scissor kick. When I can't see in the water, diverting to a side stroke lets me look out of the water with one eye and still keep a little bit of aerodynamic form. Not as much as freestyle, but better than the breaststroke.
Since I only had a half hour, I was going to do a different route in the water. I was ESPECIALLY going to swim a different route since there wasn't any traffic on the lake. I set off east across the lake
Actually... here, check this out
http://maps.dnr.state.mn.us/forestry/photos/jpegs/met/large/met32032.jpg
If you open that up in a new window, the big blob of blue is Lake Gervais <-- named after the founder of Little Canada! heh. Anyways, there's a beach that's towards the southern part of Gervais. I swam East, to the other side, than about 3/5 of the way to the peninsula jutting out on the east side, and then back and across to the beach. I had a really good pace going during the first fifteen minutes and I couldn't completely figure out why... THEN, I turned around and realized why.. There wasn't a HUGE current, but there was enough of one that it impeded my progress for a little while until I could get my bearings. I've been really good in my lake swimming so far to not freak out... tonight I had to fight it a little bit. When I realized I wasn't swimming forward nearly as fast, and my leg was cramping up a little bit, there were a few seconds where I thought, ACK! But, I buckled down and thought that I can do this. At the very worst you can float for a LONG time. You'll get there. Don't worry about it. I made it, but there were those few little moments. I haven't swum THAT far out into the middle of the lake before. I'll probably do it again, but only when there isn't any traffic around.
Tomorrow? A rest day. I'll try to do that book article I was talking about the other day. I don't have much planned, so hopefully I can squeeze that in.
More later,
Brian
P.S. - let me know what you think! Please! E-mail me. admin@pegtop.com
Yesterday? Not much at all... for some odd reason, even though last week seemed like a rest week, this week seems like it truly is a rest week. Tomorrow I have yet another day off. I might be a bad boy and just bike to work though. If there's anything that I don't like about this plan, it's that this summer my cycling has been down lower than it would normally be... obviously my swimming and running are higher than they'd normally be, but my cycling (which is my main sport, and will continue to be my main sport into the future more than likely) has taken a bit of a dive. It's all right. I'm not super paranoid or anything like that; it's just that I'm not on the bike as much.
I've been spending more time on this mile141 website. It's kind of cool to have a place where some other IMMOO people hang out so that I might actually have a chance of knowing someone once I get to Madison. I also got my first piece of e-mail from someone that read the journal. Kinda cool... another Minneapolis Clydesdale.
What's a Clydesdale, you ask? Basically, a Clydesdale is a triathlete that's umm... large. I don't think that I'll ever be under 200lbs. it's just not something that's going to happen. Even if I lose my gut, I'm still going to be over the Clydesdale classification at 170. So, I'll celebrate my Clydesdale-ness. I think there's something noble about it. I like the idea that I can still do big things, just not as fast... and when it comes to the Ironman, I'm sure that I probably won't be fast.
Tonight was supposed to be an hour of riding at Form. I can't ride at Form. It's SOOOOO difficult for me to do heart rate zone training. I like to ride fast and hard. Plus, since I hadn't ridden with TCBC in a while (Twin Cities Bike Club) I thought I should get a group ride in. I hustled home from work, grabbed my clothes and a bottle of Accelerade and ran back out the door. There were a couple of rides rescheduled to tonight so riders were spread out a bit more. I saw the group and thought... "Oh cool, I should find some people that I can ride pace with" Let me always cherish the fact that there will forever be old guys kicking my ass... it's the sort of thing that makes me feel better about growing up. That there are 50 and 60 year old club riders that can keep a 25mph pace makes me hope that I can do that at their age (or even NOW for that matter). I was thinking about doing the A/B version of the ride which was a 39 mile route, but right off the bat on the first hill I got completely dropped... so I settled in with these older guys that were doing the shorter route, technically a "B" pace... which, to quote the TCBC website is...
Ride Type-B / Avg Speed(Min.)-12mph / Rest Stops every 15-20miles / Leader rides at the rear
I don't think I've ever been on such a fast paced B-ride. My cycle computer says that we averaged 17mph, but that includes stops. As far as I could tell from looking at the computer during the ride, we maintained something closer to 20 and above. I'm healthy again, but three weeks off the bike have left me weaker than I should be, so I was working pretty hard to keep up. Luckily, I have my secret weapon. Aerobars! The greatest thing about them is that as soon as I drop into them, I get about a 2mph increase with no extra effort. With the seat I have at the moment, I put a little bit of pressure on my testicles, but the increase is worth it. When we hit the gateway trail on the way back, I did an extended jaunt in the aerobars and was maintaining around 26mph. I felt like I was flying. What's scary about pace? The Tour de France riders can do 20 mph in the MOUNTAINS... that kind of thing just makes me feel like quitting. ;-)
After the ride I headed back home and got my tri-shorts on. I guess that they're technically running short-tights, but I've found they work really well in the water. The best part is that they're tight like a Speedo, but they cover a lot more. There was no one on the lake tonight, and it was so peaceful swimming in the lake while the sun set. There was this orange glow that covered most of the lake... it was really beautiful. I was only supposed to do a half hour in the lake at E1 (which for some odd reason I thought was my racing pace, I look now though and realize that it's a calm swim. Oh well) I guess I did the workout at a higher intensity than I might otherwise have. I think when I get my next check I'm going to look into a decent pair of non-dark swim goggles. I hate the ones I have now, and I think it would help me with my freestyle form. Part of the reason I think the goggles might help is that I would be able to look up a bit more often. I think one of the things I don't like about freestyle is not knowing where I'm going when my head is looking down in the water. In the pool, I can see... in the lake? Well, it's just murky.
It's still SOOOO much easier for me to divert to a side stroke/scissor kick. When I can't see in the water, diverting to a side stroke lets me look out of the water with one eye and still keep a little bit of aerodynamic form. Not as much as freestyle, but better than the breaststroke.
Since I only had a half hour, I was going to do a different route in the water. I was ESPECIALLY going to swim a different route since there wasn't any traffic on the lake. I set off east across the lake
Actually... here, check this out
http://maps.dnr.state.mn.us/forestry/photos/jpegs/met/large/met32032.jpg
If you open that up in a new window, the big blob of blue is Lake Gervais <-- named after the founder of Little Canada! heh. Anyways, there's a beach that's towards the southern part of Gervais. I swam East, to the other side, than about 3/5 of the way to the peninsula jutting out on the east side, and then back and across to the beach. I had a really good pace going during the first fifteen minutes and I couldn't completely figure out why... THEN, I turned around and realized why.. There wasn't a HUGE current, but there was enough of one that it impeded my progress for a little while until I could get my bearings. I've been really good in my lake swimming so far to not freak out... tonight I had to fight it a little bit. When I realized I wasn't swimming forward nearly as fast, and my leg was cramping up a little bit, there were a few seconds where I thought, ACK! But, I buckled down and thought that I can do this. At the very worst you can float for a LONG time. You'll get there. Don't worry about it. I made it, but there were those few little moments. I haven't swum THAT far out into the middle of the lake before. I'll probably do it again, but only when there isn't any traffic around.
Tomorrow? A rest day. I'll try to do that book article I was talking about the other day. I don't have much planned, so hopefully I can squeeze that in.
More later,
Brian
P.S. - let me know what you think! Please! E-mail me. admin@pegtop.com
Wednesday, July 17, 2002
I can't sleep, therefore I journal... or something like that.
Today was basically an easy hour in the lake and a half hour run. I managed to get up after my alarm clock went off, almost right away.... this could be considered a minor miracle. I was actually able to be out of my house and at the lake by around 9:00, and in the water by 9:10. I definitely think it's easier swimming in the lake in the early morning. At the very least you don't have any boat traffic to bother you. The concern in the water today was that I was getting a little dizzy whenever I started doing freestyle. I couldn't understand it. For whatever reason, I'd feel very disoriented when I'd put my head down in the water and start to stroke. It was aggravated even more when I would do a body roll as part of the stroke. I ended up sidestroking as best I could.
For some reason, the waves also seemed to be moving much quicker in parallax than they usually do, and that aided again in the feeling of disorientation. Just switching to some sort of breast stroke seemed to be the best that I could do. At the very least, I'm getting better at working continuously for an hour-two hours at a time. When I get my next check, I really need to look into buying the Total Immersion triathlon DVD. I think it would help my swimming quite a bit to sit and watch proper swimming over and over again.
My swim to run transition went really well. I took probably a few seconds too long to dry off, but I'm not going to do breakneck transitions during IMMoo, so I'm not going to stress about the tran times too much. My legs were fresher today than they were on Sunday. I ran out of the beach parking lot and climbed a hill right away. A little painful, but nothing horrible. It was supposed to be a relatively easy run, and I forgot my Heart Rate Monitor, so i didn't push it incredibly hard, but I did a little over 3.3 miles in around 30 minutes, so if I can get to the run during Ironman Madison, I think I'll have a decent chance of finishing.
Anyway, I'll write more when I get a chance tomorrow. Things are incredibly hectic at work this week and tomorrow I need to dig out of what I didn't get done today.
-B
Today was basically an easy hour in the lake and a half hour run. I managed to get up after my alarm clock went off, almost right away.... this could be considered a minor miracle. I was actually able to be out of my house and at the lake by around 9:00, and in the water by 9:10. I definitely think it's easier swimming in the lake in the early morning. At the very least you don't have any boat traffic to bother you. The concern in the water today was that I was getting a little dizzy whenever I started doing freestyle. I couldn't understand it. For whatever reason, I'd feel very disoriented when I'd put my head down in the water and start to stroke. It was aggravated even more when I would do a body roll as part of the stroke. I ended up sidestroking as best I could.
For some reason, the waves also seemed to be moving much quicker in parallax than they usually do, and that aided again in the feeling of disorientation. Just switching to some sort of breast stroke seemed to be the best that I could do. At the very least, I'm getting better at working continuously for an hour-two hours at a time. When I get my next check, I really need to look into buying the Total Immersion triathlon DVD. I think it would help my swimming quite a bit to sit and watch proper swimming over and over again.
My swim to run transition went really well. I took probably a few seconds too long to dry off, but I'm not going to do breakneck transitions during IMMoo, so I'm not going to stress about the tran times too much. My legs were fresher today than they were on Sunday. I ran out of the beach parking lot and climbed a hill right away. A little painful, but nothing horrible. It was supposed to be a relatively easy run, and I forgot my Heart Rate Monitor, so i didn't push it incredibly hard, but I did a little over 3.3 miles in around 30 minutes, so if I can get to the run during Ironman Madison, I think I'll have a decent chance of finishing.
Anyway, I'll write more when I get a chance tomorrow. Things are incredibly hectic at work this week and tomorrow I need to dig out of what I didn't get done today.
-B
Monday, July 15, 2002
Subterranean Post Cornerstone Blues...
It's been a rough july training wise so far. After a Cornerstone that was just relentless, I find myself in the position of just not quite knowing how I'm going to make it to the finish line come September. After not being able to bring my bike to Cornerstone, I was going to really press on getting swim and run workouts in. Waking up to 90degree weather while you're outside though, covered in sweat, just doesn't lend itself to being workout conducive. Aside from being sweaty and hot when you woke up, swimming in the lake without earplugs got my ears really irritated and painful, and after the first day or so, I also had a really bad sunburn all over my back, which just made me not want to live even more. I could have probably worked out in the evening, but in the evening, you'd much rather go to a concert and see friends you only see once a year than run back and go jump in the lake for a 2 hour swim.
Needless to say, it was also too hot to run. After my attempt on Monday to run and another swim on Tuesday, I ended up with a really bad case of Heatstroke on Wednesday. Ang and I headed off to town Wednesday night to get away from the noise and get some fluids in to me. I'm glad we did, because I could have gotten quite a bit sicker than I was. Heat stroke just isn't very fun. Anyway, Wednesday ended most of my workouts for the rest of the week. I just never felt well enough again to make another attempt at anything very physical.
After I got back from Cornerstone, sickness crept upon me. BLERGH. If there's one thing I didn't need, it was to get sick. I was anxious to get back to working out and this cold hit me that literally knocked me off my feet. All my energy felt completely sapped from my body.
Tuesday, I made an attempt to get back into the swing of things. Before heading off to my young-adult bible study, I drove over to a local lake to get a swim in. I was aiming for what I thought was the lake a local triathlon takes place at, but the lake I thought was Turtle lake, turned out to be another lake. The thing that bothered me was that this lake turns out to be what must be the shallowest lake in the local area. It being incredibly shallow and incredibly clear, I had to swim through really thick weeds almost the entire time. Plus it was really disconcerting seeing the weeds come up at you because of the clear water. I cut my swim off short because of a lack of energy and ran up to where my car was parked. Running to my car is where I really realized that there was something wrong. I just didn't have any energy at all. I couldn't figure out why I was incredibly out of breath by the time I got to my car. The next day, the cold hit me full force, and I had my answer.
The cold kept me out of commission until Sunday... or at least I was bound and determined to get at least ONE long workout in this past weekend. I woke up feeling better on Sunday, so I decided that that would have to be the day. I looked up the 13 week training plan and found out that this weekend was supposed to be the first long brick workout. Basically a brick is this... you do your first sport, then immediately transition as quickly as you can to the next sport. For me, this meant a long bike ride followed by a shorter run.
I was really anxious to get back into the swing of things. After the Paul Bunyan fiasco, I didn't get to ride my bike the entire week before Cornerstone. I get my bike back the day before LEAVING for Cornerstone, and end up not being able to bring it with me because of packing space. THEN, I come back and get sick which leaves me no energy to ride if I WANTED to ride, so the reality is that I hadn't been on my bike in nearly three weeks. That's just way too long. I got everything ready and headed off on what was supposed to be a 1hr30min ride. Almost right of the bat I could tell that the cold wasn't completely gone and that I had lost some fitness. The other thing I learned was that I think my planned route hit every piece of construction in the northern suburbs. My planned route went from an hour and 30 minutes to a painful 30 mile hour and 50 minute route in weather that just happened to also be in the mid 90s. Why oh why can't i just have one variable to analyze so that I can at least do a little bit of analysis and figure out what's going on?
If it's hot and I don't perform as well, GREAT!
If I'm sick and I don't perform as well, GREAT!
If I'm undertrained and don't perform as well, GREAT!
But don't throw all three variables at me at once because it makes it hard to figure out which one has more weight. ERGH.
I finally got off the bike after running out of water and almost running out of my tepid bland accelerade (which happens to be palatable cold, but once semi-warm becomes almost undrinkable) Stumbling into the house, I got some water and changed into my US Postal Team cap (GO LANCE!) and Running Shoes... ran out the door and BAM! My legs told me that they didn't want to run. OUCH! I kept moving though and started to walk down the street. Just walking had my heart rate at 160. Running a few steps bumped it up to 180. Up and down my heart rate went as I toddled down the street. Somehow I managed to keep going, I'm not entirely sure how. Eventually, I even picked up a little bit of steam. I had a little bit of incentive in that I wanted to get home in order to watch a little bit of CBS Tour de France (or Tour de Lance, take your pick) coverage. Coming around my block, I turned on the engines as best I could and musted up some energy. I decided that I'd push it as hard as I could go and for the first time in quite a while, I went anaerobic. I think I remember seeing my heart rate peak somewhere around 193 BPM. I tried to push through the lactic acid building up as best I could and ran into the house a big heaving, sweating, sloppy mess. I think it's so funny that my mom has become used to this. Without missing a beat she just asks if I had a good run and goes back to her movie.
After I got into the house my heart rate for whatever reason kept going up. I went from 193 to 196 for a little while before finally coming down.
When I went to bed yesterday night, my legs were so drained that I couldn't fall asleep. They weren't in pain, they just felt like they were more tired than they had ever been in their lives... I was worried that they were going to be extra painful today... suprisingly though, they felt pretty ok.
Tomorrow's workout?
1 hour of swimming at FORM
and a 1/2 hour run at E2.
Actually one of my favorite workouts! :-)
Also tomorrow? A bibliography of all the books I've ended up buying in this year long process. Training for an Ironman has been more of a learning experience than I ever thought it would be, and I've got a bookshelf to prove it.
Deus te Amat, and I do to.
Brian
It's been a rough july training wise so far. After a Cornerstone that was just relentless, I find myself in the position of just not quite knowing how I'm going to make it to the finish line come September. After not being able to bring my bike to Cornerstone, I was going to really press on getting swim and run workouts in. Waking up to 90degree weather while you're outside though, covered in sweat, just doesn't lend itself to being workout conducive. Aside from being sweaty and hot when you woke up, swimming in the lake without earplugs got my ears really irritated and painful, and after the first day or so, I also had a really bad sunburn all over my back, which just made me not want to live even more. I could have probably worked out in the evening, but in the evening, you'd much rather go to a concert and see friends you only see once a year than run back and go jump in the lake for a 2 hour swim.
Needless to say, it was also too hot to run. After my attempt on Monday to run and another swim on Tuesday, I ended up with a really bad case of Heatstroke on Wednesday. Ang and I headed off to town Wednesday night to get away from the noise and get some fluids in to me. I'm glad we did, because I could have gotten quite a bit sicker than I was. Heat stroke just isn't very fun. Anyway, Wednesday ended most of my workouts for the rest of the week. I just never felt well enough again to make another attempt at anything very physical.
After I got back from Cornerstone, sickness crept upon me. BLERGH. If there's one thing I didn't need, it was to get sick. I was anxious to get back to working out and this cold hit me that literally knocked me off my feet. All my energy felt completely sapped from my body.
Tuesday, I made an attempt to get back into the swing of things. Before heading off to my young-adult bible study, I drove over to a local lake to get a swim in. I was aiming for what I thought was the lake a local triathlon takes place at, but the lake I thought was Turtle lake, turned out to be another lake. The thing that bothered me was that this lake turns out to be what must be the shallowest lake in the local area. It being incredibly shallow and incredibly clear, I had to swim through really thick weeds almost the entire time. Plus it was really disconcerting seeing the weeds come up at you because of the clear water. I cut my swim off short because of a lack of energy and ran up to where my car was parked. Running to my car is where I really realized that there was something wrong. I just didn't have any energy at all. I couldn't figure out why I was incredibly out of breath by the time I got to my car. The next day, the cold hit me full force, and I had my answer.
The cold kept me out of commission until Sunday... or at least I was bound and determined to get at least ONE long workout in this past weekend. I woke up feeling better on Sunday, so I decided that that would have to be the day. I looked up the 13 week training plan and found out that this weekend was supposed to be the first long brick workout. Basically a brick is this... you do your first sport, then immediately transition as quickly as you can to the next sport. For me, this meant a long bike ride followed by a shorter run.
I was really anxious to get back into the swing of things. After the Paul Bunyan fiasco, I didn't get to ride my bike the entire week before Cornerstone. I get my bike back the day before LEAVING for Cornerstone, and end up not being able to bring it with me because of packing space. THEN, I come back and get sick which leaves me no energy to ride if I WANTED to ride, so the reality is that I hadn't been on my bike in nearly three weeks. That's just way too long. I got everything ready and headed off on what was supposed to be a 1hr30min ride. Almost right of the bat I could tell that the cold wasn't completely gone and that I had lost some fitness. The other thing I learned was that I think my planned route hit every piece of construction in the northern suburbs. My planned route went from an hour and 30 minutes to a painful 30 mile hour and 50 minute route in weather that just happened to also be in the mid 90s. Why oh why can't i just have one variable to analyze so that I can at least do a little bit of analysis and figure out what's going on?
If it's hot and I don't perform as well, GREAT!
If I'm sick and I don't perform as well, GREAT!
If I'm undertrained and don't perform as well, GREAT!
But don't throw all three variables at me at once because it makes it hard to figure out which one has more weight. ERGH.
I finally got off the bike after running out of water and almost running out of my tepid bland accelerade (which happens to be palatable cold, but once semi-warm becomes almost undrinkable) Stumbling into the house, I got some water and changed into my US Postal Team cap (GO LANCE!) and Running Shoes... ran out the door and BAM! My legs told me that they didn't want to run. OUCH! I kept moving though and started to walk down the street. Just walking had my heart rate at 160. Running a few steps bumped it up to 180. Up and down my heart rate went as I toddled down the street. Somehow I managed to keep going, I'm not entirely sure how. Eventually, I even picked up a little bit of steam. I had a little bit of incentive in that I wanted to get home in order to watch a little bit of CBS Tour de France (or Tour de Lance, take your pick) coverage. Coming around my block, I turned on the engines as best I could and musted up some energy. I decided that I'd push it as hard as I could go and for the first time in quite a while, I went anaerobic. I think I remember seeing my heart rate peak somewhere around 193 BPM. I tried to push through the lactic acid building up as best I could and ran into the house a big heaving, sweating, sloppy mess. I think it's so funny that my mom has become used to this. Without missing a beat she just asks if I had a good run and goes back to her movie.
After I got into the house my heart rate for whatever reason kept going up. I went from 193 to 196 for a little while before finally coming down.
When I went to bed yesterday night, my legs were so drained that I couldn't fall asleep. They weren't in pain, they just felt like they were more tired than they had ever been in their lives... I was worried that they were going to be extra painful today... suprisingly though, they felt pretty ok.
Tomorrow's workout?
1 hour of swimming at FORM
and a 1/2 hour run at E2.
Actually one of my favorite workouts! :-)
Also tomorrow? A bibliography of all the books I've ended up buying in this year long process. Training for an Ironman has been more of a learning experience than I ever thought it would be, and I've got a bookshelf to prove it.
Deus te Amat, and I do to.
Brian
Posts from the road… June 30, 2002
Well, at the very least, I know that my computer is working as I ride along in the back of Ang’s Parents minivan. We managed to get on the road about 9:00 this morning and things never seem to go off without a hitch. Ang had to run home after she left so that she could get her Health Insurance card and then when she got to my house we realized there was no way in God’s good heaven that we were going to get my road bike into the car. Strike one against being able to go about a regular training week this week.
I had no conceptions of everything going off without a hitch workout wise since I’m going to be in the middle of Illinois corn country camping out with 40,000 other people, but I was hoping to get some miles in on my bike now that it’s back from the shop.
I’m still not too sad about bagging the quintuple century ride. I think I hit a little spot of overtraining. I kind of lost the short term desire to do longdistance stuff. I think next season I’ll focus almost predominantly on long-distance stuff. Maybe I’ll even get a Randonneur (Randonnay) thing going with the Twin Cities Bike Club. It’s a long distance type thing where you go through a circuit of Kilometer rides… in order to ride Paris-Brest-Paris or Boston-Montreal-Boston, you need to do a 200,400,800,1000,1200 km set of rides. Boston-Montreal-Boston is this year and it won’t be for another 4 years? So I’ll have time to be able to set my sites on that possibly.
Before that though, I need to focus on Ironman Madison. Not bringing my bike could be a good thing because it will allow me to focus on running and swimming this week which are probably what I need to be focusing on anyway. The bike is the given in the race for me. Albeit, I want to still train to make a decent split on the 112, but if I’m riding it and not necessarily racing it, I know that I can do 112. It’s the 2.5 and the 26.2 that boggle me a little bit and so I’ll focus on that this week. There’s a lake on the Cornerstone farm that I hope I’ll be able to swim in. I know there’s a swim area, but I don’t know how they feel about people that decide to swim the lake… maybe if I do it early or late.
There’s a little film festival going on at Cornerstone this year, and one of the things that they’re going to be doing is a “Make Your own Film at Cornerstone” thing. I don’t have a digital camera with me so what I think I’m going to do is this… I have my minidisk recorder and digital camera, so what I think I’ll do is to create a Cornerstone cartoon. I’ll tape all my audio there and cut together something like Waking Life. I think it could be an interesting experiment.
Anyway, that’s all from the road for the moment. We stopped at Wendy’s for lunch and I didn’t eat healthily at all. It’s going to be hard nutritionally this week. I brought a bunch of applesauce and granola bars for breakfast so that should be fine, but it’s the rest of the day that I’m a little more concerned about. We’ll see how it goes.
To all the ships that sailed the sea
Brian
Well, at the very least, I know that my computer is working as I ride along in the back of Ang’s Parents minivan. We managed to get on the road about 9:00 this morning and things never seem to go off without a hitch. Ang had to run home after she left so that she could get her Health Insurance card and then when she got to my house we realized there was no way in God’s good heaven that we were going to get my road bike into the car. Strike one against being able to go about a regular training week this week.
I had no conceptions of everything going off without a hitch workout wise since I’m going to be in the middle of Illinois corn country camping out with 40,000 other people, but I was hoping to get some miles in on my bike now that it’s back from the shop.
I’m still not too sad about bagging the quintuple century ride. I think I hit a little spot of overtraining. I kind of lost the short term desire to do longdistance stuff. I think next season I’ll focus almost predominantly on long-distance stuff. Maybe I’ll even get a Randonneur (Randonnay) thing going with the Twin Cities Bike Club. It’s a long distance type thing where you go through a circuit of Kilometer rides… in order to ride Paris-Brest-Paris or Boston-Montreal-Boston, you need to do a 200,400,800,1000,1200 km set of rides. Boston-Montreal-Boston is this year and it won’t be for another 4 years? So I’ll have time to be able to set my sites on that possibly.
Before that though, I need to focus on Ironman Madison. Not bringing my bike could be a good thing because it will allow me to focus on running and swimming this week which are probably what I need to be focusing on anyway. The bike is the given in the race for me. Albeit, I want to still train to make a decent split on the 112, but if I’m riding it and not necessarily racing it, I know that I can do 112. It’s the 2.5 and the 26.2 that boggle me a little bit and so I’ll focus on that this week. There’s a lake on the Cornerstone farm that I hope I’ll be able to swim in. I know there’s a swim area, but I don’t know how they feel about people that decide to swim the lake… maybe if I do it early or late.
There’s a little film festival going on at Cornerstone this year, and one of the things that they’re going to be doing is a “Make Your own Film at Cornerstone” thing. I don’t have a digital camera with me so what I think I’m going to do is this… I have my minidisk recorder and digital camera, so what I think I’ll do is to create a Cornerstone cartoon. I’ll tape all my audio there and cut together something like Waking Life. I think it could be an interesting experiment.
Anyway, that’s all from the road for the moment. We stopped at Wendy’s for lunch and I didn’t eat healthily at all. It’s going to be hard nutritionally this week. I brought a bunch of applesauce and granola bars for breakfast so that should be fine, but it’s the rest of the day that I’m a little more concerned about. We’ll see how it goes.
To all the ships that sailed the sea
Brian
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