2010 resolutions

to be honest I stole these from an article I read but I'm in:

1. To be more personally responsible about things that affect all of mankind. You know, recycling, turning lights off, etc.

2. To be more compasionate. I'm going to do at least one really kind thing to someone every single day this year. If I miss I'll do two the next day. Pay it forward. Homeless people get ready to get some warm clothes from me. I'll defintiely be holding doors and letting people cut in line. I really want to see what my character is like after a year of this. Om Mani Padme Hung!

3. To not say anything if it isn't positive. OBVIOUSLY I really need to do this and I shall.

Please remind me if I falter against these three--I'll really, really respect any of you who do--hopefully you won't get many chances!

Happy New Year!

Today's 3000, December and 2009 Data

Well today I was able to swim my timed 3000 in 48:41. This is over 2 minutes faster than 2 weeks ago. It's also faster than I've ever timed myself over 3000 yards. It works out to 1:37/100 and is equivalent to a 68 minute IM pace. The last 1000 was in 15:40 so it seems like I can get a fair bit faster. My goal is to swim this in 45 minutes by Oceanside. I'm feeling very positive about my swim!

December:

824 miles on the bike up from 638 in November
152 miles running up from 139
40k yards swimming up from 22k
93.2 hours training up from 73.7

December was a very solid training month in terms ov volume and my body has held up well. I was very pleased with both the swim and the run progress. My bike miles are pretty good but they lack some of the quality that I'll need as the year progresses.

I'd like January to come in around 100 hours with modest increases across the board and considerably higher quality (long rides and speed w/os) on the bike.

2009 totals

Here is how 2009 ended and compares to 2008 and 2007:

Total hours training:

2009: 796.8 (15.3/week)
2008: 864.2 (16.6)
2007: 934.7 (17.8)

Swim yards (000):

2009: 259 over 80.6 hours (5.0 per week) (Average pace: 1:52/100)
2008: 303 over 96.1 hours (5.8 per week) (Average pace: 1:54/100)
2007: 472 over 149.8 hours (9.1 per week) (Average pace: 1:54/100)

Bike miles:

2009: 7762 over 474.0 hours (149 per week at 16.4 mph)
2008: 9185 over 554.3 hours (177 per week at 16.6 mph)
2007: 8586 over 498.6 hours (165 per week at 17.2 mph)

Run miles:

2009: 1002 over 145.1 hours (19.3 per week at 8:41 per mile)
2008: 1228 over 180.8 hours (23.6 per week at 8:50 per mile)
2007: 1510 over 216.8 hours (29.0 per week at 8:37 per mile)

The above data reflects the "take it easy" year that 2009 was. Expect 2010 to see run volume at or above 2007 and bike volume at 2008 levels. I'd like to see my swim volume come in close to half-way between 2007 and 2008.

I'll post a review of 2009 racing/climbing results shortly.

Back on patrol

Just returned last night from a great five day family reunion down in sunny Mexico. It was a real fun time and allowed for me to happily execute an overdue recovery week. I woke up a week ago Monday feeling like my body had been hit by a ton of bricks so i definitely needed the break. (I probably didn't need to eat and drink as much as I did but what can you do?).

Stats for last week: 14.6 hours. 8300 yds swimming, 124 miles on the bike, and 21.5 miles running (with some cross-training mixed in as well).

This week is a bit of a ramp-up, although will necessarily be constrained by travel and New Year's and then full-bore next week.

I'll post an eoy anyalysis in a couple of days....off to the pool!

that's how we roll

24 hours/195 miles on the bike/43 miles on the run/11k swim--this was another solid week---prob need to back off next week!

new 2009 bests for run/swim

6 days running--nice new frequency level

2 run speed w/o's this week:
-10X 1.5 min@ 6:53/1.5@ 9:22
-20X 1 min @ 6:49/1 @ 9:22

bw--I had no run speed w/o's during 2008 and untill recnely 2009

I have now settled into a 3 speed w/o per every two weeks for each bike and run. this week i had two run speed w/os. next week will be two bike speed w/os.....pace is not super demanding but I'm trying to cultivate continued momneum!

Prob need to back off a bit this coming week what with the holidays....on it though no matter what!

Speed on the bike 2

So among other things I did my second speed session on the bike today. I essentially replicated the w/o of 5-6 days ago with an important modification. I did the single-leg drills and the two 10 min. high (113-115 rpm) cadence sections. For the mixed mode ladder I started at 6 minutes and then stepped through the same intensity pattern as before (with the same 2:1 work:easy ratio. So it looked like this:

6 min @ 220+ watts/3 min spin
5 min @ 230+ watts/2.5 spin
4 min @ 250+ watts/2 spin
3 @ 270+ watts/1.5 spin
2 @ 290+ watts/1 spin
1@ 325+ watts/.5 spin

This actually represented quite an increase in total workload from session one:

session one speed workload: 15 minutes @ 246 average watts

Session two speed workload: 21 minutes @ 252 average watts

While the first session was well within my current fitness envelope the second one was definitely closer to the edge--I was still able to comfortably do the work sessions but definitely had to motivate to do so!

It's interesting to note that all of my best half-IM watts have averaged 222-228 watts in the past so this w/o starts there and builds. Based on my body's response to the above I'd say my current functional threshold power is probably in the 220-240 watt range. Before IMFL 2007 I had it tested at Cadence and it measured 293 watts. I'll need to get it up to at least 275 watts by Ocenaside. Should be doable.

In my next speed session I won't increase the overall workload by nearly as much as I did between sessions one and two (which was probably a 45% increase). I'll shoot for maybe another 5-10% increase--after that it'll get much tougher....

2010 Overview

Here's the idea for 2010:

Overall Mission: Reestablish myself as a competent and competitive Long-Course Triathlete

Meso-Cycle 1: November 1, 2009-March 27th, 2010

Objective: Reach a level of LC fitness that will allow me to be competitive at IMCalifornia 70.3

Target "A" Race: IMCalifornia70.3
-Low 5 hour performance (roughly equivalent to 4:50 eagleman fitness)
-Qualify for IM Hawaii through XC competition

Training emphasis: 1. Run; 2. Swim; 3. Bike; 4. Cross-training
-Steady 30-50 mpw on the run with Heavy emphasis on speed work
-Swim: standard Pete Reid swim approach with weekly volume in the 10-15k range
-Bike: as much volume as I can fit in with weekly CT sessions to build top end

Support races: 2-3 5k runs, Icicle 10 miler, B&A Half-marathon; Cherry Blossom 10 miler

Meso-Cycle 2: March 28th-July 4th

Objective: Reach IM fitness level

Target "A" race: IM Germany--Euro championships
-sub 11 hours
-qualify for IM Hawaii through XC if I have not done so already

Training emphasis: 1. Run; 2. Bike; 3. Swim
-more of the same on run with several long runes in the 20+ mile range
-consistent 200-300 mpw on the bike with several 5-8 hour bike rides; spring training camp
-maintenance on the swim with 9-12k weekly volume

Support Races: IMNOLA70.3, Eagleman70.3, several sprint tris

Meso-cycle 3: July 5th-November 7th

Objective: Maintain strong LC fitness with second peak at IM Hawaii or IMFL

Target "A" race: IMFL or IM Hawaii if i qualify
-Florida: new PR
-Hawaii: finish

Training emphasis: 1. Bike/Run; 3. Swim
-classic long course training pattern on the bike
-after post IMGER recovery back to 30-50 mile weeks on the run with sept/Oct long runs
-swim: maintenance mode with open water emphasis

a day in the life

So here is how yesterday went down:

4:35 am up before alarm

5:03 am on the pool deck

6:00 swim wo over

6:08 weight/flexibility session

7:05 leave YMCA

7:10 pick up bagels for Alex's sxhool

7:55 drop alex off at School

8:10 start 1 hour spin on trainer

10:17 catch Acela to NYC

1:15 pm go to iQor (where I work)

2-5 Board of Directors meeting

5:30 check in at Gramercy Park Hotel

5:40 out for 45 minute run along Hudson

7:00 meet Judy and Kara for a drink on the roof of the GPH

8:00-10:00 have nice dinner at BLT Fish

10:15 go to Rose bar at GPH-order first bottle of champagne

10:30-2:00am joined by kara's room mates. Meet Gavin DeGauw who is at table next to us. He decides to hang with us for the night. Many more bottles of champagne. Meet bunch of rocker dudes who are friends with him. play pool. Judy and I leave at 2am--much hugs all around. Kara stays with Gavin and crew until 5 am.

7am this morning. get up and hop on hotel exercise bike--decide today will have to be an easy day....

and so it goes

Good week goin.......

Monday solid 4 hour day. Yesterday on the pool deck at 5:03 for a 3500 yd swim. A real nice tready speed w/o: 10x (1:30@ 6:53/1:30@ 9:22) and 3 hours outside on the bike. Up in NYC tonight but was again in the pool at 5am and then did some weights, a quick trainer ride and just finished a 45 minute run....12+ hours in a nice IM week.....

Still on plan

Another week down. This was supposed to be a recovery week and I guess it was--of sorts. I ended up a little over 20 hours which is a little more than I intended. 189 miles on the bike, 30 running and 8750 in the pool (plus some EFX and weights).

I had to contend with a fair amount of work including a Monday session in San Diego which was followed by a red eye flight and a Wednesday night/Thursday day in Boston so that took a bit of my flexibility away. I had intended to run a little less and get in the pool one more time--oh well.

My body and mind seem to be handling the volume. An interesting stat is that in the first 44 weeks of the year, the number of times I went 30+ miles running in a week was zero. In the last six weeks, I've beat that target 6 times.

This week will have a little more volume and will again feature some speed sessions on the bike and run. I started the week with around 4 hours today. Easy run and bike and a fairly tough swim. Main set included 4x200 @ 3:00-3:05 and 7x100 @1 :27-1:30. Definitely felt sluggish and slow--probably in part related to hard weight session prior to the swim.

Up early tomorrow and I'm off to NYC for work Wed/Th so will have to get creative once again....

Oh Lord, I'm shinning!

I have rediscovered that I surely do LOVE to train!

Today was time for my first Computrainer speed session of the 2010 build. I borrowed a bunch from what Coach Pete taught me in 2007, specifically in this case from a Canadian National Team w/o. This w/o incorporated a couple of technical elements and a mixed-mode ladder section. Here is what it looked like:

60 min wu on my stationery trainer and then hopped on my CT for the 75 min CTSS:

10 min easy spin

10 min single leg drills: 3x (1 min left/30 sec both/1 min right/30 sec both). This w/o is designed to build the small coordinating muscles at the top of the thigh. This more complete muscle recruitment, especially of the "pulling-up" or "de-weighting" muscles over time leads to a smoother, more circular pedalling stroke which allows one to achieve higher pedalling efficiency and thus a higher average power output relative to peak power. Today, this was cumbersome and a bit painful--lots of rust to work off here!

10 min high cadence. by high I mean I was trying to target 110-120 rpm and today i averaged 111 rpm. This is strickly a neural-muscular oriented drill designed to make it easier to generate a given angular velocity during the stroke.

25 minute mixed mode ladder. This is the "meat" of the w/o. By mixed, I mean the time and the wattage for each segment are moving in oppossite directions. In this case I was descending on time and ascending on power. Today I used a 2:1 work/rest ratio and utilized pretty modest power targets to ease me back into the world of speed. Here are the specifics:

-5 min @ 220 watts/2.5 min easy spin
-4 min @ 230 watts/2 min easy spin
-3 min @ 250 watts/1.5 min easy spin
-2 min @ 270 watts/ 1 min easy spin
-1 min @ 310 watts/.5 min easy spin

All of these watt numbers were minimum targets for each segment and I exceed them by several watts in practice. while not easy (that is the point after-all--to not be easy) I fould this w/o comfortably within my current fitness level and so will build upward from this fairly quickly in the weeks ahead. A few weeks down the line I'll do a function threshold test to better set my wattage targets but this will do for now.

10 more minutes of high cadence. the second high cadence section is always one of my favorites because for some reason it always is easier than the first (some type of neural-muscular learning effect) and indeed I averaged 117 rpm.

Then a warm down--nice!

The workout was helped immensely by a nice Chemical Brothers mix....

can you hear me now, like I'm hearing you?
is it sweet and pure and true?
oh Lord, I'm shinning!

Hey you FT fibers--time to come out and play.

Starting to turn my attention to speed work in earnest (I have been throwing casual "fartlek" type eforts on the bike/run for a while and of-course getting into it now in the pool). Today's w/o's included an easy 1 hour spin on my trainer for warm-up (very nasty outside).

Then the main course--a structured LT interval session on the tready. This was a gentle intro back into the world of speedwork after about a 15-16 month hiatus (not counting races). After a 15 min warm-up at 9:05/mile, I did 15 x (1min @ 6:58/mile and 1 min @ 9:22/mile) followed by a warm-dwon and then 15 minutes of EFX. The 15 repeats felt relatively easy and I was pleased to see an excellent HR transient during the recovery intervals (probably dropping 15-20 bpm during the minute of slower running). The 15th was still quite easy--in fact I did it at 6:40/mile. In the days ahead I'll play with the length and intensity of the fast sections, the total "fast" duration (target is 15-30 minutes per session), relative length of fast vs slow, number of repeats, and incline % (today was 0%). I hope to do a run speedworkout every 5 days or so for the next 6-8 weeks.

My body's response today indicates I have very good "base-endurance" fitness but need to work on my headroom or LT threshold. and so I will.

Then jumped in the pool and did a timed 3000 at 50:55 (1:42/100 or about a 71-72 minute IM pace). this was about 30 seconds faster than last week (without straining). Would like to get this time down around 45 minutes (63 minute pace) by March.

Onward and upward!

Crash Week and post crash

Well I survived a big "crash" week. Crashing is a somewhat risky training move where you dramatically up the volume in the hopes of jump-starting training adaptation. I used to do it a lot back in the day whaen i was a runner--I'd jump from 50 mpw to a 100 mpw. The key to this is to have a fairly big base (in my case--I'm counting the last 9 years of training) and to carefully monitor soft tissue stress points to not get injured. I used the month of November to prepare me for this week as well.

So I was able to go over 27 hours of training with in excess of 250 miles on the bike, 40 on the run and 10,000 yards of swimming. The run and swim totals were high points for 2009 and this was my second biggest bike week. i also did some weight sessions. This was also the 5th consecutive week of 30+ miles running. so for an old guy not to bad.

Off course, i found I was tired and dead-legged alot during the week but did generally have some pretty good workouts. My body composition continues to improve and I'd no longer describe my self as "fat". I think I have a decent shot of getting under 170 pounds by New Year's which is a stone's throw from my race weight of 163 pounds. My actual fat composition has now dropped back into single digits.

The key for this week is of-course to back-off and absorb the training and let my body adapt without breaking down. I'll be looking for something more like 15 hours this week with substantially less bike and run volume. i do plan to throw a couple of speed sessions in here to begin to stimulate FT muscle development. I will to try to keep swimming volume up this week as I really did not "crash" my swimming muscles last week.

Nice swim today. The main set was what i call my step-down Oly ladder. This is a 1500 yd set in the form of 500/400/300/200/100 where I go on the 2 min/100 yd pace intervals. I keep track of my total rest time. Today that was 6:54 (ie I swam the 1500 yards in 23:06--av average of 1:32/100). I've always tried to get this up to 7:30+ rest time and I'd like to shoot this winter for 10 minutes of rest which equates to an average pace of 1;20/100 yards. Once i flatten out improvement wise, I'll add a 600 on the front which will give a 2100 yard main set which is an excellent indicator workout for the half-Ironman swim. At 1:32/100 this is equivalent to a 32-33 minute hal-IM swim and at 1:20 it's the equivalent of a 28-29 minutes. I've found that these workouts are reasonable indicators (in good conditions) of an open-water racepace swim with a wetsuit. I'm not saying I'm in 32-33 min half-IM swim shape now but I'm pretty close and in any event, I'm confident I'll be ready to swim well come Oceanside.

It was fun this weekend to train in LA and San diego even though the weather sucked. It was great to be back with Anders my son and old training partner.

All good!

today's 3000

Nice little workout day today!

Decided I was a little burnt pool-wise from two hard interval sessions this week and since I had to bump up Friday's swim to today (flying to west coast tomorrow) I decided to just cruise through a 3000. Did first 500 in 8:48 and second in 8:50 which is about a 74 minute IM pace. Even though I wasn't really doing a time-trial I decided to pick it up as I felt pretty good and lo and behold I finished the 3000 in 51:23 which is a 72 minute IM swim pace. Not bad for December! I think the fact that I'm a stronger swimmer than I was in 2007 and I'm ahead of my training versus 2007 means I have a good shot at going under my IM swim PR of 66....

Beautiful day today. Actually ran outside without a shirt--again not bad for December!

Was only supposed to cruise for an hour on my trainer but since it was nice I went outside and rode for 2.5 hours. One of the advantages of self-coaching is the ability to adjust on the fly and i intend to do that a lot this year--basically get outside and ride whenver the weather let's me this winter.

Clearly looking like a big week with 17:45 in trainin ghrough the first 4 days with some big rides with anders in LA this weekend....

Today's ride

34 degrees at game time. 15-20 mph wind. Flat tire. Four and a half hours with a 20 min transition run. Feeling the love!

IM Germany on the schedule!

OK--2010 schedule starting to shape up! Key races on the books so far include:

March: IM Oceanside 70.3
April: IM NOLA 70.3
June: Eagleman 70.3
July: IM European Championship--Frankfurt, GE
November: IM Florida

Additionally, I'd like to add a LC race in May and perhaps one in September (or in Hawaii in October!)