Weekly Workout Totals: 2/20/2006-2/26/2006

Since people are always asking me whether I actually have a job, I thought I'd include this photo of me wearing my corporate starched shirt. Please notice that my company doesn't let me carry a gun while on the premises (this was taken in the Minneapolis office last Thursday). A friend of mine thought it would be funny to have the sign in the background. Priceless! You can't tell, but I'm wearing my Ironman bling--I have gold M-dot earrings and a gold Big Island with an M-dot cutout pendant. When I qualify for Ironman Hawaii, I will have the "dot" replaced with a diamond.

In other news this week, I am not sure what age group I am in. I know that USAT changed the rules so that you are in the group including your age as of 12/31 of the year, which puts me in 50-54 (my 50th birthday is in October). But I'm not clear on what the Ironman races are doing, and then I'm doing a 70.3 race in 3 weeks as well. Bueller??? I did write Ironman Brasil (it is pronounced bra-SEAL) to ask formally what they are doing, since they are not a part of IMNA. Thank God for that! At least my medal won't have FORD all over it!!!

Training-wise I had a good week. A little bit of a volume decrease, which was nice. But not so much decrease in intensity! I always find it amusing that when I get some "rest" that I feel incredibly tired. I think this is because usually we are so used to how we feel and we are anticipating our next workout which keeps the adrenaline flowing.

I did my last huge strength workout--this week I go into maintenance mode. I had a great swim TT on Tuesday, good running all week, a killer brick workout on Saturday and capped it all off with a fine, fine long run and recovery swim today. I got plenty of sleep, which is key when trying to keep up the level of workouts I've been doing.

Yesterday's brick workout wasn't epic in length, but the intensity on the bike, which is close to my actual HIM intensity (and longer than the 56-mile ride should take me in the race in 3 weeks, fingers crossed!), was high, and coming off of solid training for the past 5 weeks I felt a little cooked afterwards. Not to mention I didn't start the workout until 12:30, so by the time I finished and showered, it was close to 5PM, and I hadn't yet eaten lunch. So I did what I had to do--I ate for 3 straight hours! And I mean I ATE. Big bowl of stir-fry over brown rice, then about 10 oz. of Porterhouse steak, a few beers, Gummi Bears (many bears were decapitated), string cheese and pecans. I went to bed with a full stomach, so of course I tossed and turned for a few hours as my body valiantly elevated my core temperature while processing all that food and kicked off residual heat from the workout. I was a little concerned how I'd feel running today, but I made sure to get a ton of sleep (10.5 hours) so at least I'd feel semi-recovered.

I felt just fine running today, starting at my usual 10AM (so I finish when lap time starts at noon). My heart rate was pretty low again, which tells me I'm VERY fit. And, you know the drill--I need to run faster next week.

I had a chat with my coach on Wednesday to discuss how the training for the next 2 weeks would roll in preparation for Ralph's. When I heard him say, "Let's just keep it rolling through the 12th," I about crapped my pants. Why? Because whenever he says "keep it rolling," it means NO BREAKS FOR ME HERE IT COMES UP MY BUTT. So 2 more weeks of putting the hurt to myself. That will make EIGHT STRAIGHT WEEKS of solid volume and increasing intensity. Holy hardcore training, Batman! Once again, it absolutely ASTOUNDS me that I am able to keep up this level of work. My coach and other people keep telling me I'm incredibly fit, and I guess I must be. But this is H-A-R-D, HARDCORE H-A-R-D, the kind of thing that most 49 year olds aren't stupid enough to do. The kind of thing that most age-groupers don't do. I guess it's the kind of thing that you do if you are training at a level knocking on the door of Kona, or at least getting very close to that door.

Today, when I got out of my car to go into the Y to run and swim, I even cried for a couple of minutes. Just to acknowledge to myself that what I am doing is hard. Not that it makes me a better person than anyone else (it doesn't), not that I'm truly suffering (I'm not), not that I couldn't just ease off on what I'm supposed to do (I won't), not that this is as hard as it will get (it's not)--just that for those few minutes, I let myself acknowledge the effort I have been putting out. It's something I let myself do every now and then as a stress-reliever.

Friday night I had some fun, too. I got together with my women's cycling team to shoot the shit and talk about some rides and races. Unfortunately, I won't be able to race with them too much, but I do plan on doing a 4-man 60K TT in September, and I'll be riding with these ladies once or twice a week. It was so much fun to get together with a bunch of really fit, competitive women. I was tickled late last summer when they asked me to join their team (Team Apache). I only got to ride with them a few times, but this year I am going to make it a point to drill myself at least once a week with them. This should be the prescription that cures what my coach calls my "only cycling weakness." That is, the ability to ride ultra hard in a group setting beyond my comfort level for long periods of time. After all, you get fast as a cyclist by going fast. That's why I've been doing all the intensity work on the trainer, but very soon it will be time to take it to the road. I am very excited to see how well my indoor fitness gains will match up against this great group of women roadies!

Here are the details of the week:
Swim: 9,000 yards in 3.12 hours; 24% of weekly workout time
Bike: 4.92 hours; approx. 86 miles; 38% of weekly workout time
Run: 3.77 hours; approx. 25 miles; 29% of weekly workout time
Strength: 1.3 hours; 10% of weekly workout time
Total Hours: 13.11
Approx. Calories Burned by Exercise: 5,885
Average Sleep: 8.96 hours/night
Stretching: 2.37 hours

Goals from Last Week:

• Average 8+ hours of sleep per night. DONE
• Stretch 15' per day. DONE
• BEAT 165 watts during all FT intervals. DONE
• BEAT previous 1,000 yard TT time. DONE
• Keep the mental focus. DONE
  

Accomplishments This Week:

• Met all goals.
  

Goals for Next Week:

• Average 8+ hours of sleep per night.
• Stretch 15' per day.
• HIT 170 watts as new FT in Tuesday’s workout (GULP!)
• Keep the momentum and mental focus going. While I got a little bit of a break this week in terms of volume, there was more intensity (oh joy!), and there is more in the next 2 weeks.
  

Workouts Completed this Week
Monday: Strength 1:18
Tuesday: Swim 2,000 yards including 1,000 TT @1:41/100 yds.; Bike 1:05 including 2x15’ FT, watts=173, 173
Wednesday: Swim 2,700 yards in :58; Run :52 including :25 tempo
Thursday: Bike :50 including :20 HIM watts (had to catch a plane today so cut the workout short and eased off on the intensity so I didn’t projectile vomit my breakfast)
Friday: Swim 3,100 yards in 1:05; Run :40 pretty quick pace because it felt good (was supposed to do strides)
Saturday: Bike 3:00; brick run 35’. Felt sick when I began to run (this isn’t unusual after a hard ride), but legs were working just fine. A girl on the next treadmill forced me to play “You SUCK,” and she gave up after 5’.
Sunday: Run 1:40, ending with 20’ Upper-Steady and 25’ Tempo; Swim 1,200 yards in :24