Fish Week

Second week of a 3-week "heavy" block.  I did a decent job this past week, although I'm clearly struggling to absorb the training load--my aging body is just recovering as quickly as it has in prior years.

I had a very big swim week, the biggest of the year, which included two IM distance OWS--one of which was the Cedat Island "5K" race yesterday in Avalon (more on that shortly).  My bike was solid with a mid week 108 mile ride.  My run suffered as my legs were still feeling the effects of last week's 40+ mile week.  I bagged my long run and cut my run rolume in half--I hope to pop it back up this week and will definitely fit a long run in.

Totals for this past week:

Swim: 14,800 yards
Bike: 277.5 miles
Run: 21.2 miles
Time: 23:22

A little more on the swim--here is the map of the Cedar Island Swim:

As I mentioned, I did the swim mid-week as part of our weekly OWS group, and then again as the race yesterday.  Yesterday, the conditions were considerably more challenging with a 20+ mph wind from the NE (pushing us through the first 3 quarter-mile splits and in our face  in 6-8 above.  Also, the race started at 7:45 and high tide was not until 8:02 and we really didn't get much help.  Here are some summary stats from the two swims:

Practice:  61:18 for 4,407 yards (2.50 miles).  Pace: 24:30/mile or 1:24/100.  Total strokes: 2,203. Avg. stroke length: 2.00 yps and average cadence: 35.9 spm.

Race: 62:41 for 4,251 yards (2.42 miles).  Pace: 25:58/mile or 1:28/100.  Total strokes: 2,277.  Avg. stroke length: 1.87 yps and average cadence: 36.3 spm.

The benefit of the tidal push for the practice swim is evident in the total time and the average stroke length.  I worked quite a bit harder in the race (subjectively) and that is reflected in the very high (for me) cadence of 36.3 spm.  This cadence is typical of a sprint race for me and I think is a testament to the great strides I've made in my swim endurance this year.

Looking at the splits yields a little more light on how the conditions affected each swim:

Quarters 1-3

Practice: 6:16, 6:15, 7:41
Race: 6:25, 5:37, 5:36

I was 2:05 faster in the race through 3/4 of a mile.  This is in-part a function of my effort and in-part a function of the waves pushing me a lon during this segment.

Quarters 4-5

Practice: 6:55, 7:14
Race: 6:38, 6:32

I was 59 seconds faster through this half-mile section.  Here there was no impact from the tides or the wind and I think this best shows my harder effort during the race.

Quarters 6-8

Here is where the tide helped the practice and the wind/waves hurt the race:

Practice: 5:33, 5:47, 5:33
Race: 7:25, 6:57, 7:09

I lost 4:38 vs the practice swim.  (During the practice swim I took 589 strokes over this 3/4 mile segment and in the race I took 771--a 30% increase!)

Quarters 9-10

Practice: 5:03, 5:33
Race: 7:09, 6:15

This last section is where the tidal effect is greatest and my practice swim was 3:24 faster for this half-mile.

All-in-all, I'm very pleased with my race (and my swim).  I think I'm in 63 minute or so IM shape (with a wetsuit), which is very good for me.  I finished 39th overall (150 entrants) and did comparably well vs. some other folks who have served as swim benchmarks for me through the years.

Thanks to Jimmy Moore for this picture (I'm in the Roka):

last week and looking ahead

Pretty solid training week last week with the emphasis on my run:

swim: 9,500 yards
bike: 250.1 miles
run: 42.2 miles
time: 23:55

At this point we are 55 days out from Kona.  Given everything going on, I've decided to bag racing triathlons until then and focus principally on training.  I plan to go pretty hard the next two weeks and then during the first week of September, have a bit of a consolidation week.  I also plan on doing the National Aquabike Championship in Ohio (1.2 mile swim/56 mile bike).  I'll then go hard again  until about the 24th or 25th of September when I'll start my taper for Kona....

Back at the beach

Epic weekend at our family wedding.  Not much training time afforded, especially given no bike access for 4 days.  Still, a good thing as my bod was crushed post big training block and the NYC triathlon.  I finally felt "normal"--generally not a good adjective to describe me--today on my run.

In any event, I had at the very least, an unavoidable recovery week, and most likely, an overdue recovery week:

Swim: 8350 yards
Bike: 99.8 miles
Run: 27.1 miles
time: 12:20

Back on it now!

Chillin' post NYC triathlon

I did the NYC Olympic tri last weekend.  Always wanted to do that one from an experience point of view and I needed to shake the race rust off after not racing for 6 weeks.

My expectations were modest given the very heavy training load of the prior 4 weeks--especially the last two weeks before the race.  I wanted to do a 2:30 and finish in the top 10% of my Age Group.  As it turned out, I did a 2:30:06 and finished 15th out of 130 so pretty close.  I had an exceptionally good swim for me finishing 91st OA out of about 3500 triathletes.  My bike and run were sluggish as expected as my legs were deeply fatigued coming into the race.

Still, a great experience and money in the bank from a training perspective.  Post race my legs are fried and my body told me it was time for a recovery and consolidation week, which with the family wedding this weekend works well.  So just doing some easy training this week (probably 12-15 hours) and then I'll get back into next week.

I'll post an NYC race report over the course of the next few days...

July: NJ and December: Antarctica

Lots of good news to report.

Finished July on a bit of a run.  I was able to put in a pretty high quality 41 hours over the last 11 days of the month.  Despite a bunch of work and personal spikes I was able to pretty much nail my aggregate goals for the month:

My swim is very good right now.  I'm hitting all my volume targets and my intensity, especially in my longer swims, is reaching new levels--I feel like I'm reaching a new level as far as long course swimming goes.  In this month I swam longer than 2.4 miles 6 times and most of those were pretty hard--capped by my 93 minute 3.3-mile swim in Minnesota (67 minutes for the IM distance).

I targeted 40,000 yards this month and hit 46,500 yards.

On the bike, I'm beginning to finally feel my normal legs.  I've been behind in my training all year but over the last two months I've been able to finally get enough high quality riding in that I'm improving in my rides and my bod seems to be comfortably absorbing the progress.  I did my 4th big ride in July yesterday and ended up doing 101 miles in 5:24.  I was at 185 watts avg/195 watts NP when we decided to cool down at 85 miles.  This is about 69% of my FTP of 270 watts and I certainly could have kept going for all 112.  Despite my late start, I'm increasingly getting optimistic about being able to lay down a PB at Kona this year.

I targeted a minimum of 1000 miles in July and despite missing about 10 hours of biking do to personal reasons I was still able to ride 1012 miles in July.

I missed a bit on the run but my back half of the month I did 75 miles.  I did two long runs (1:55 and 2:02) that were encouraging in the last 10 days so I feel like I'm beginning to build some real endurance now.

I targeted 125 miles for June and I reached 113 miles.  I still have a ways to go on the run but its definitely going in the right direction.

Most importantly, my body seems to be getting stronger and everything seems to indicate that I can continue to add training stress in the days ahead.  So all good.

Also, Anders and I received confirmation that we have been accepted to a team that will attempt to climb the Vinson Massif, which is the highest mountain in Antarctica.   We leave on Dec 26th.....can't wait.

All good here!

solid week this week

Got back to NJ and into a pretty solid week this week--volume wise:

Swim: 11,600 yards
Bike: 325 miles
Run: 32.2 miles
Time: 27:12

As noted before my swim continues true and steady on the flight plan to Kona.

My bike featured a ride of 100.3 miles at 165 watts and 106.0 miles at 169 watts.  I know from experience the latter effort would yield around a 6:20 bike split at Kona (at least with the tough conditions I faced in 2010 and 2012).  I do want to try to break 6 hours at Kona this year so I probably need to be up closer to 185-190 watts.  Lots of time to get there...

Run--I did a 11.5 miler this week.  will do a 13 miler on Tuesday.  slowly building fitness but my run continues to be a real frustration....

Long ways to go still...76 days until the big dance....

Training Update

I'm back in NJ after the Minnesota trip and a couple days helping our doggie, Roxy get through her surgeries.  The poor little thing has a couple of 3-4 inch incisions on either end of her where her tumors were removed.  She is quite uncomfortable and requires a fair amount of love and attention--her preferred place to do so is our bed so I've been optimizing recovery time as of late.

Anyways, I missed about 10 hours of biking last week as you can see:

Swim: 9900 yards
Bike: 144 miles
Run: 33.3 miles
Time: 16:23

Not much to be done about that expect to keep pressing forward.  This week should be back on plan as I have already executed a 1:50 run yesterdat and a 100.3 mile ride (in 5:49 @ 165 watts).  I have a 4600 yd swim planned for Thursday, another 100-miler for Friday, and another 8-9 mile run later in the week along with all the other workouts.  should be a real solid week.

I'm hopeful that despite everything I'll get in shouting distance of my original monthly plan....

BTW, the run was a bit of a struggle but the ride was very encouraging.  I significantly negative-split it despite a pretty strong headwind on most of the way back.

I'd say at this point my swim is 100% ready for Kona, my bike maybe 90%, and my run not ready....

I know what I need to work on....