Thursday, July 26, 2012

Awesome ride--Awesome day!!!!

We did it.  We finished Ramrod in 9 hours and 15 minutes--I did 153 miles in total.  3 climbs--2 were really big--one was 13 miles and the other 9--the first took almost 2 hours and the second just about 90 minutes.  10,000 feet in climbing in total.

Beautiful weather, incredible views and we had a great 4 person team--we really rocked the last 40 miles after the last climb averaging 22 mph.

I'm off with my bud Bill Price to the Bohemian Grove, so a bit of radio silence for a couple of days.

All good--awesome day--my bod felt good and strong today!

Onward and upward!

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

RAMROD!

I'm in Seattle right now with my good bud, Bill and a friend of his Frank. We are heading towards Rainier now for tomorrow's Race Around Rainier in One Day. 152 miles and 10,000 feet of climbing so should be a big day! I went on Monday for a big ride but cut it short to just 4 hours. I'm glad I did because my bod clearly needed a break after the last 3 weeks. Took it easy the last two days so should be good to go. Weather looks good so it should be a blast! More later!

Sunday, July 22, 2012

week that was

Pretty good one.

Monday saw a solid 100 miler.

Tuesday brought a nice 4330 yard group swim

Wednesday saw a 1-5-5-1 jacobs ladder--30 min of supra-threshold intervals.

Legs got very tired after that and then 11 relatives visited--no time to get R&R--ended up bailing on my long run--that's ok--my 13 week build calls for 10 long runs so missing a couple is cool.  I'll look to get it in before I head west on Tuesday.  Mostly an off-week next week with the big exception of RAMROD--will be my longest one day bike ride.  should be great!

Stats (obviously missing one 14+ mile run):

Swim: 12,230 yards
Bike: 307.4 miles
Run: 26.2 miles
Time: 25:07

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Lake Lenape Race Report


2012 Lake Lenape Sprint Triathlon Race Report
July 14th, 2012


Background

Location: Mays Landing, New Jersey
Distance: 0.27-mile swim/10.4-mile bike/3.3-mile run
2012 Triathlon Race Number: 7
Career Triathlon Race Number: 121
Conditions: Mild for July in NJ.  75 at start and mid 80s at finish.  Cloudy and very little wind.  Water temp around 80 degrees.  Great mid-summer conditions for a triathlon.

This was to be my 7th time racing at Sean Clancy’s venerable South Jersey triathlon classic with the Creature from the Black Lagoon as its mascot.  This race has been around for quite a while and I have found it to always be surprisingly competitive.  In the 6 prior times that I have raced this race, I was only able to win my AG once—this was way back in 2003 and was in-fact, my first ever AG victory in a triathlon—in my 10th triathlon.

The swim is in a fairly nice cedar lake and has been fairly variable in length from year-to-year.  The bike is an out and back on some sketchy roads near the transition area and then a lightly rolling NJ back road.  It’s a very short bike leg, which I’ve consistently measured around 10.4 miles in length and for some reason I’ve always been very competitive on it.  The run is 3.3 miles in length (which I’ve never understood why) and winds through a local neighborhood area and then has an out and back during the last mile which is always critical from a tactical perspective.

My body seemed to be returning to normalcy post-RAAM but I was in my second week of my Kona IM build so I was on a 23+ hour training week with 276 miles on the bike and another 33 on the run.  I was clearly racing in a fatigued state.

There were 244 triathletes racing this morning with 16 in my AG.  I felt there were just 4 serious contenders.  Frist, Tom Dillon was there and given his recent results, I knew that while I might be close through T2 that there was no way I could run with him and that the AG victory was all but assured to go to him.  Also present was Mickey Syrop who I have raced more than any other competitor through the years.  I’ve won about 2 out of 3 of our races but during 2009-2011 he was the stronger triathlete.  This year we’ve raced twice and I’ve beaten him both times but I attribute this to his ankle injury that he now seems fully recovered from.  The other thing I’ve learned competing with Mick through the years is that he gets competitively stronger as the year goes on as he races himself into higher levels of fitness.  I felt it could go either way on this Saturday morning.  Finally, there was Jack Boyle, who won this AG last year and who I’ve also raced many times through the years.  I think I have almost always beaten Jack but he has lost 30 pounds since I last saw him and indeed looks like he could be a real challenge this morning. 

Should be a good one!

The Swim

Us 50+ dinosaurs are in the 5th wave.  The swim is a counter-clockwise box (my preferred direction) and is my custom I head to the outside away from the buoy line.  There I find Tom, Mick and Jack!  Well, we can at least all keep an eye on each other.  Historically, Tom has been a better swimmer than I but in recent races that gap has been narrowed (I actually outswam him in our last race together).  Mick and I are pretty even with Mick out-swimming me more than the other way around.  I usually outswim Jack—but that was the old Jack.

At the start, I see to my left that Jack has decided to swim about 45 degrees off-course.  He’s coming straight for me but fortunately he runs into Mickey and they play water wrestle for about 5 seconds or slow.  After this, Jack seems to decide to swim the most direct route and calmness is restored.  I see right away that both Jack and Mick are stronger than I.  I don’t seem to have it this morning.  I am wearing a sleeveless wetsuit, which of-course is a bit slower, but I just don’t have a great feel for the water either.

Typical Lenape swim.  With 2 minutes between waves there are plenty of slower swimmers to swim around and over.  I keep Mickey in sight for the whole swim but can’t match his pace.  My goggle malfunctions and my left eyecup fills with water—this is annoying but I try my best to ignore it.  I hit the beach with a swim split of 6:34.  This turns out to be my fastest swim spit of my 7 races here at Lenape.  I clock the swim at 0.27 miles and I take 242 strokes to get around it.  This works out to 1.97 yards per stroke at a stroke rate of 37 strokes/min.  Here is how that stacks up against my other wetsuit/open water swims this year:

         Race                Min/Mile      Stroke/Min      Yds/Stroke

Rumpass                      23:27                           37              2.02
Devilman                      22:58                           37              2.09
Hammonton                 21:56                           36              2.23
Tri-It                             24:24                           37              1.94
Lake Lenape                24:13                           37              1.97

Looking at this data, I come to the conclusion that my swim form has suffered a bit since I transitioned from pool swimming to open water swimming (I did so between Hammonton and Tri-It).  This is not surprising to me, as the lesser emphasis on repeats has probably affected my efficiency.  Also, post RAAM my swim volume needs to be rebuilt.  I think all of this is very doable but on this morning, I was off just a bit.  Had I achieved the swim stroked distance that I had at Hammonton I would have been 46 seconds faster this morning.

Given this, it’s no surprise that my relative swim competitiveness suffered this morning.  I had the 26th fastest swim OA and just the 4th fastest in my AG.  Here is how my relative percentile performance has fared through the years:

         Year          Time          OA Percentile             AG Percentile

         2002          9:25                   72.0                             79.3
         2003          8:23                   63.0                             70.6
         2004          8:22                   80.0                             80.9
         2005          6:42                   80.5                             75.0
         2006          9:00                   84.7                             83.3
         2011          7:03                   92.8                           100.0
         2012          6:34                   89.8                             81.3

The conclusion from all of this is while I had a pretty good swim, it was off from what I should reasonably expect to do.  I’ll take this as an invitation to work harder on my swim in the days ahead.  Here is where we stood after the swim in my AG:

1.  Boyle                                --------
2.  Dillon                                + 0:02
3.  Syrop                               + 0:23
4.  Christofferson                           + 0:30
5.  Perlberg                                    + 1:43


Transition One

I could see Mick up ahead of me about 20 yards so I certainly had a feeling of needing to move it.  As I ran through the “neutral flow” transition, I looked up towards where I was racked—they do it alphabetically here—and I could see Jack already putting his helmet on.  Yikes!  I’ve had Mick in front of me after the swim plenty of times but I certainly didn’t expect to see Jack there as well.  In fact, Jack killed the swim and had the best split in our AG.  He and Tom went 8th and 9th OA.   I knew I was in a bit of trouble at this point.  My T1 was a disappointing 2:03—I’m not sure why.  I was 46th OA (81.6%-tile) and 5th in my AG dropping time to all of my three major competitors.  Tom had the number 1 transition OA and put a whopping 36 seconds on me in T1 and he led us out onto the bike:

1.  Dillon                                --------
2.  Boyle                                + 0:31
3.  Syrop                               + 0:47
4.  Christofferson                           + 1:04
5.  Zacharias                         + 2:51

The Bike

Despite the less than desired results through T1, I set out on the bike in good spirits and with the intention of really hammering.  I was hopeful that my legs would be pretty good this morning despite RAAM and my IM build.  In this I received good news straight away—I could tell that some of the jump had indeed returned to my legs.  I cranked out 281 watts over the first mile and then I settled into a more sustainable output—mostly in the 250s.  I didn’t have any dead spots like at Vincentown.  I still couldn’t crank it to my full potential as you’ll see by the sub 160 heart rate (when my legs are 100% I tend to average around 165 bpm). 

I caught Mick around 3 miles in and Jack shortly there after.  At the turnaround at 5.2-miles I could see that they were both not that far behind me.  Mick would later say that he had his best bike ride in years.  I never saw Tom but I wasn’t looking for him.  Here are my numbers by mile:

1.      22.4 mph   281watts   159bpm     83rpm
2.      24.5  264   161   87
3.      24.5  242   157   85
4.      23.2  247   158   88
5.      24.8  253   158   88
6.      22.2  256   159   88
7.      24.2  252   158   90
8.      25.5  249   158   89
9.      25.3  247   158   88
10.    23.8  256   156   85
10+   21.0  255   159   85

My bike split was 25:53, which works out to an average speed of 24.1 mph.  This was actually only the 5th fastest of my Lake Lenape bike splits but as you can see below 4 of these splits are just 4 seconds apart:

2002          27:20
2003          26:22
2004          25:49
2005          25:11
2006          25:52
2011          25:49
2012          25:53

I averaged 255 watts, which is 4 less than last year’s 259.  My HR averaged 158bpm, which compares to 161 last year and 165 in 2006—you can see that my aerobic capacity has more potential than my legs delivered this morning.  I know I can go quite a bit faster and I expect I will in August and September.  Still, I’m not disappointed in this ride as I did manage to turn in the fastest ride of both my AG and for the race overall.  Here is how my relative %-tile performance on the bike has varied through the years:

Year           OA %-tile   AG %-tile

2002             89.8           93.1
2003             98.6          100.0
2004             99.5          100.0
2005             99.5          100.0
2006             98.2          100.0
2011             98.8          100.0
2012            100.0         100.0

This is just the 4th time that I have posted the fastest OA bike split.  My other three races where I did this were at Marlton 2005 (334 triathletes), Metroman 2007 (115), and SkipJack (81).

The race winner posted the second fastest bike split and Tom actually posted the 3rd fastest time OA—not bad for the old guys!  Here is where we stood after the bike:

1.  Dillon                                --------
2.  Christofferson                           + 0:56
3.  Syrop                               + 1:47
4.  Boyle                                + 1:53
5.  Zacharius                         + 6:09

Transition Two

As I dismounted and headed into transition I could see Tom just heading out to start his run.  After arriving at my bike rack after the long run around transition I quickly did all the T2 tasks.  Just before I finished I saw first Mick and shortly thereafter Jack come running in.  I knew they were both likely less than a minute behind me—oh-oh, trouble in River City!  I was going to have to find a way to run a little better than I have been recently.

I completed T2 in 1:23.  This was 44th OA (82.4 %-tile) and I was once again just 5th in my AG—not really what I needed at this point.  Tom put 15 more seconds on me but I actually was 2 seconds faster than Mick and a vital 27 seconds faster than Jack—these would prove to be very valuable seconds.  Here is where we were after T2:

1.  Dillon                                --------
2.  Christofferson                           + 1:11
3.  Syrop                               + 2:04
4.  Boyle                                + 2:35
5.  Zacharius                         + 6:23

The Run

As I start the run it occurs to me that I actually feel pretty good.  I can tell right away that I’m running faster than I have been as of late—not fast by any stretch of the imagination, but faster for me.  I decide to not turn around and look for my pursuers.  I know there is a turnaround at 2.5 miles and if I’m still ahead of Mick and Jack then I’ll still have 0.8 miles left to make tactical adjustments.

I hit the first mile in 7:53 with an average heart rate of 165bpm.  The latter number indicates that I was working pretty hard.  Still, I’m encouraged by my run so far—I feel if I can keep my pace below 8 min/mile it will make Mick and Jac o work real hard to catch me.  I decide to try to pick my pace up—I’m feeling pretty good.

Mile 2 is completed in 7:43 with an average HR of 167.  This fills me with confidence; maybe I’ll be able to hold them off.  Shortly after the 2-mile mark I feel my HR accelerate and I feel like I’m about to pass out—hmmm, maybe I’m pushing too hard.  I back off a bit and the feeling subsides.  So much for tactical adjustments—it’s clear I’m at my limit and if I need to go faster down the stretch it’s doubtful I’ll have it in me.  A short distance before the turnaround I see Tom on his way home—frankly I’m surprised to be this closed to him.

Finally, I hit the turn and glance at my watch and begin looking for my pursuers.  I don’t see them right away, which fills me with hope.  Then, to my surprise I see Jack—he yells something at me that sounded like 45 seconds—I calculate that I’m 38 seconds in front of him.  I’m surprised to see Mick another 15 seconds later and I know he is more than a minute behind me.  I determine that Mick won’t catch me but there still is a chance that Jack could.

There is a left turn at 3 miles and as I approach it I look back for Jack and don’t see him.   This is obviously very encouraging.  My 3rd mile passed in 7:52 and my HR was now 168.  I looked several more times over the final 0.3 miles and the last time Jack yelled at me to stop turning around and that he wasn’t going to catch me.  Good thing because I was absolutely spent.

I crossed the line with a run split of 25:38 (7:46/mile average) and my HR averaged 168bpm for the run.   My overall race time was 61:43, which was good enough for 22nd OA (91.4 %-tile) and my run was 6th best in my AG (68.9 %-tile).  My overall time was actually 35 seconds faster than last year (my run was 18 seconds faster this year) but with my slow run, it was the 5th fastest of my 7 races here.  I ended up beating Jack by 17 seconds and Mick by 72.  Jack had outrun me by 70 seconds but I actually outran Mick—perhaps his strong bike killed his running legs.  Tom was 2:58 in front of me.

All in all, I’m satisfied with the race.  I obviously am still very slow in the run and my swim was off but the bike was very encouraging and I should be able to race well the rest of the summer—especially with the heavier training I am currently engaged in.  Onward and upward!


Sunday, July 15, 2012

Positive signs--the ones I expected!

Raced Lenape yesterday.  I was eclipsed by a better triathlete but finished 2nd in my AG.  OK swim....actually,  compartively good, but less than I would have expected.  A much better bike than last week.  Still--and it's clear in the numbers, either due to RAAM, or my big training weeks, I'm still a ways away from being fully on.  But, I did still manage to post the best bike split OA--out of 244 triathletes.  And I actually didn't really stink up the run--very exciting race---race report soon!

2nd week of the Kona build:

Swim: 8700 yards
Bike: 277 miles
Run: 33.3 miles
Time: 23:12

Relatives visiting next week.  I'm so primed to start winning my AG (and I was a bit unlucky yet again this weekend--I would have won Stone Harbor by 7-8 minutes had I picked that race this weekend).  But I'm bailing on a race next Saturday, I know I would win to be a good husband.  it will also allow me to really go after it training wise in the week ahead.  Tomorrow morning I'll start the week with an 100 mile ride and we'll build from there.  I definitely want at least 25 hours but with no race this weekend I don't want to limit it...we'll see, but I suspect a real-deal week!

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Vincentown Race Report


2012 Vincentown Sprint Triathlon Race Report
July 7th, 2012


Background

Location: Vincentown, New Jersey
Distance: 0.27-mile swim/14.4-mile bike/3.3-mile run
2012 Triathlon Race Number: 6
Career Triathlon Race Number: 120
Conditions: HOT—in the 90s.  Sunny and humid.  Modest Wind.  Water temperature near 90 degrees.

Knowing that I really wasn’t ready to race, but also knowing that at 5 triathlons so far this year I’m under-raced, I decided to have a go in this small Jersey DQ sprint triathlon.  I had raced here once before—back in 2009.

I was just two weeks removed from the end of RAAM—Race Across America—and I was still not fully recovered.  This was also the first week of my 12-week IM build for Kona and my legs really felt the effects of the surge in training load.  Further, I had spent the prior two days in NYC with Kara helping her secure a new apartment.  It was brutally hot and I arrived back in Jersey Friday afternoon tired and dehydrated.

Despite drinking 4 large bottles of water Friday night I awoke and in the bathroom soon discovered I was still way under-hydrated.  Also when I awoke, I checked my resting HR and it was 58 bpm—this is a good 15bpm over my normal wake-up HR.  I also knew that today was going to be the hottest day of the summer to boot but still, I was excited to race.  Sometimes my “C” game can be competitive in a race like this.

There were 151 triathletes starting the race and 9 in my 55-59 YO AG.  Before the race, Gary Smith racked next to me.  Gary is in my AG and has a similar profile to me—he’s a LC specialist and has completed many IMs including Kona—in his case several times.  Notably, we both raced Kona in 2010 and he was about 2 hours faster than me.  Gary is a MOP Kona Ironman Age Grouper.  I, on the other had, am a decidedly bottom third competitor in that race.  Given where I was body-wise, I was hopeful to not embarrass myself this morning.  Also in the race was Tom Senff, whom I raced 6-7 years ago and as I recall, he usually beat me—but not by much.  It would be interesting to see how our bodies had fared (relatively) as we entered and then reached our mid-50s.

The Swim

This swim takes place in one of the worst places you should ever have to swim in a triathlon.  First, the RD measured the water at 90 degrees!  No wetsuits of-course, but that temp is ridiculous!   When I jumped in it seemed more like 85 or so to me.  Second, the swim is in a small pond-like body of water that is a “cedar lake”, which means that you can’t really see anything.  Third, there is a lot of vegetative matter on the bottom of the lake and when the triathletes wade in it gets stirred up emitting quite an unpleasant odor.

I wore my TYR Torque and lined up way right in this out-and back, left turning swim course.  Those of you who have read my RRs in the past know that I’m a pretty solid wetsuit swimmer but my competitiveness dramatically decreases without a wetsuit.  I seem to slow-down without a wetsuit more than most people.  This is due to my late introduction to swimming and my very weak kick.  Still on this morning, I felt pretty good about my swim—I focused on being in control and being in the mix when I hopped on my bike.

My swim was uneventful and I cruised around the pond at about 90 %.  I knew I could go faster but given the heat, I wanted to err on the conservative side.  I hit the shore with an 8:03 swim split.  My Garmin had the swim at 0.27-miles and recorded 286 strokes for me, which is about 1.66 yards/stroke.  By comparison, at Hammonton, with my wetsuit, I averaged 2.22 yards/stroke—a 25% reduction in average length per stroke.  I averaged 36 strokes/min—the same as I did in Hammonton—so my body position—with and without wetsuit caused me to go 25% slower today than Hammonton—which is quite remarkable—and in other words, with a wetsuit, I do this in 6:02.

That’s theory, but in practice my 8:03 is slower than the 7:31 I did back in 2009 with my wetsuit.  In 2009 this was good enough for the 78.9 %-tile.  Today I am at the 68.2 %-tile OA.  Still, I have the 2nd fastest in my AG (88.9 %-tile) and I’m just 2 seconds off the lead—I certainly didn’t embarrass myself this morning:

1.  Senff                        --------
2.  Christofferson           + 0:02
3.  Smith                       + 0:12
4.  Denko                      + 0:17
5.  Zobel                       + 0:42

Transition One

I don’t see Senff as I run through transition even though I obviously passed him there.  Without my wetsuit, I seem to have a great T1.  Right before I leave T1, Smith runs up and I know the early advantage is mine.

I record a 1:21 transition split and my Garmin reports I ran 523 feet in transition.  From a competitive perspective, this is great news indeed.  I have a much better T1 than anyone else in my AG (Smith is 19 seconds slower and no one else is within 30 seconds):

1.  Christofferson           --------
2.  Smith                       + 0:23
3.  Senff                        + 0:33
4.  Denko                      + 1:07
5.  Zobel                       + 1:21

Overall, I have the 13th best T1 (92.1 %-tile).  In 2009, I had the 33rd/84.3 %-tile T1 and was 3rd in my AG.  Very satisfying, especially since it’s been 4 weeks since I last raced a triathlon.

The Bike

Even short of it’s advertised distance, the bike at 14.4-miles suits me.  In 2009, I did the course in 36:28 (23.9 mph) and averaged 260 watts at an average HR of 160bpm.  I was curious to see how my body performed today.  With RAAM, I had a tremendous training load in 6 days and could reasonably expect to see a real jump in fitness.  On the other hand, I could tell that even with 2 weeks, my body had not fully recovered yet from RAAM.

I jumped out quickly on the bike and felt amazing.  My watts jumped well north of 300 and I had to consciously slow myself down.  I hit the first mile with an average speed of 21.9 mph, but with an average of 273 watts (84 rpm/159 bpm).  I was very optimistic—I could feel the latent fitness in my legs but I was still cautious—I had been warned about the difficulty that one faces post-RAAM.  My next two miles were still strong, but I was definitely holding back:

Mile 2: 24.8 mph/247 watts/89 rpm/160 bpm
Mile 3: 23.4 mph/247 watts/86 rpm/159 bpm

Towards the end of third mile, and despite my low HR, I could really feel my legs “rig-up”.  They were uncharacteristically leaden.  I knew right then that RAAM was still negatively affecting me.  I kept pushing the rest of the ride but it was a struggle.  I just couldn’t go hard enough to really stress my aerobic engine—you can see that in the HR numbers below:

Mile 4: 22.5/242/86/160
Mile 5: 23.9/236/87/159
Mile 6: 24.9/230/88/157
Mile 7: 24.9/242/85/159
Mile 8: 23.2/246/85/160
Mile 9: 23.4/227/87/158
Mile 10: 21.5/224/83/160
Mile 11: 23.6/239/86/159
Mile 12: 23.8/239/86/158
Mile 13: 24.0/228/81/156
Mile 14: 23.6/239/84/158
Mile 14.4: 20.6/246/84/157

For the ride as a whole I averaged 23.4 mph, 240 watts, 85 rpm at an average HR of 158bpm.  My bike split was 36:51, about 23 seconds slower than 2009.  My watts were 20 watts lower as well.  Consequently, I fell from 7th (97.1 %-tile) to 11th (93.4 %-tile) OA.  I still managed the fastest bike split in my AG with Gary the only one hanging close:

1.  Christofferson           --------
2.  Smith                       + 1:05
3.  Senff                        + 4:39
4.  Denko                      + 4:46
5.  Zobel                       + 7:02

Despite the slower speed, power and OA placement, I felt pretty good about this ride.  I believe (or at least I’m hopeful) that I have really improved my bike fitness post RAAM, and as my legs fully absorb that training stimulus and I more fully recover that I will be seeing a nice improvement in races to come—we’ll see.  In any event, I entered T2 with a lead that needed protecting.


Transition Two

I enter T2 feeling pretty good about things.  I know at 240 watts, my bike was somewhat limited in the damage I was able to inflict on my Gary.  Still, I had no idea what his bike was.  I was surprised, frankly, to be ahead of him after the swim and so the optimistic part of me was hopeful I had opened up a big gap.  The realistic side said I probably needed at least 3 minutes to hold him off in the run.   Had I know he was just 65 seconds back I would have know for sure the race was lost right then.

But I didn’t know that and hurried through T2.  My T2 was a disappointing 1:02 and measured 323 feet in length.  My HR was 160 bpm throughout.  I had the 37th fastest T2 OA (76.2 %-tile) and 3rd in my AG as Gary clawed back 17 seconds on me:

1.  Christofferson           --------
2.  Smith                       + 0:48
3.  Senff                        + 5:00
4.  Denko                      + 5:05
5.  Zobel                       + 7:02

The Run

Very, very hot.  Very, very dead legs.  I knew I was really, really slow today.  Gary caught me just past one mile and at the out and back, I could tell no one else was close so I just mailed it in.  I clocked the run at 3.3 miles.  My splits were: 8:15/165, 8:32/162, 8:50/162, and for the last 0.3 7:48/166.  My run split ended up being 27:22.  Only 3 guys broke 20 minutes and Gary, while being the fastest in our AG, only clocked 24:05.  It was a long course and a slow day.  And on top of that I was about as slow as I’ve ever been in a triathlon sprint run.  Still, I felt good afterwards and was able to put a big 4+ hour training day the next day—onward and upward towards Kona!

I was 4th in my AG and 67th OA (56.3 %-tile) for the run.  for the race as a whole, I finished 31st OA (80.1 %-tile).  Here are the final AG standings:

1.  Smith                       --------
2.  Christofferson           + 2:26
3.  Denko                      + 7:08
4.  Senff                        + 7:45
5.  Zobel                       + 8:56

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Faster, Stronger, Longer.

This is the focus.  Inside of 14 weeks to Kona.  96 days.

My body is definitely showing signs of recovery post RAAM.  That said, it's not fully recovered.  The good news is I feel better tonight--on this Sunday night than I did a week ago--this is a good sign given a wek that included some honest to goodness IM Build training and a sprint race.  The bad news is my body is not nearly at 100%--some nagging issues and a body that is not really ready to really go for it.  Still, I'm very bullish on the progress this week and hope that the next week of training continues the upward ark.

As i mentioned prior, I wanted to keep my efforts under control this week given the post RAAM effect.        
I targeted 20 hours of work and cam pretty close:

Swim: 8950 yards
Bike: 241.3 miles
Run: 28.5 miles
Time: 20:49

My 4 key workouts were spot on:

Long ride: 81.5 miles
Medium ride: 52.5 miles
Long run: 95 minutes
Long swim: 3000 yards

This week the plan is to ramp up 15% or so on all of these numbers.

As far as Kona goes, I'm in a good place--i could just about hit my T2 exit time (7:30) right now given my current S/B fitness. My run is another story.

I raced yesterday and finished second--to a far better triathlete--that post will probably be up tomorrow.

To bed now--looking at 5 hours on the bike and a 3000 yard swim tomorrow...

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Last week

This past week was spent recovering from RAAM.  I'm quite surprised at ho toasted my legs are.  I'm fine for going out and spinning along in Zone 1 but anytime I throw another log on the fire my legs start to complain a bit.  Felt a little better the last two days.  Where I really notice it is on my runs--my legs are very sore and it's all I can do to manage a 9:30 pace.  I did get out and start up my open water swimming and I don't seem to have lost much even though I had 10 days without swimming.

Last week's totals:

swim: 6,000 yds
Bike: 186 miles
Run: 16.7 miles
Time: 15:22

I'm now into my Kona build.  I have my first long ride tomorrow morning--probably shoot for 80 miles of relatively easy riding.  I'll try to do a "long" run on Wednesday--probably 10ish miles given where my legs are at.  I'll also do a 3000 yard OW swim--those are the three key workouts.  I'm going to keep the overall volume on the low side for an IM build week to make sure I don't get any post RAAM overtraining like effects--I'll probably shoot for around 20 hours or so and hopefully ramp from there as we move through July

June Totals

Here are the June training totals--obviously RAAM and it's aftermath have greatly influenced these numbers.  I'm starting to recover from the RAAM workload and am now am turning my attention to my Kona build, which starts today!

Swim: 17,900 yards
Bike: 922 miles
Run: 76.6 miles
Time: 70:31