The Trifecta

Did my 3rd hard run in 3 consecutive days this morning. 12 miles in 1:47. I am not sure but that might be a PR. I'm pretty sure if I had run another 1.3 miles it would have been a 1/2 mary PR.

I knew I had to run before work today, and I didn't really want to run on the treadmill. I woke up at about 5:05AM, had 2 cups of coffee and my usual breakfast bar (Powerbar Triple Threat), loaded up my hydration bottle with 32 oz. of grape Gatorade, and I was out the door at 6:10AM. I can't just wake up and go, as I like my coffee, and well, it gets things moving, so I like to have about 1 hour until I start exercising.

I stretched a little last night knowing I would be running early today, and I wondered how my legs would feel running hard for 3 days in a row. My legs felt fine when I woke up today--there was a little residual soreness in my adductors was all.

When I am doing my shorter runs, I just can't mentally get myself to run as slowly as I should during a warmup, but when I know I'm going long, I get myself in the right place to run a slower pace, and I can usually tell from the first mile how the run is going to go.

I would like to have had time to drive to my hilly trail place (Waterfall Glen) to run, but that meant I would have needed to be up even earlier, so I took my chances that I could bang out a 1:45 run on the roads. I used to do all my summer running right from home, but the roads beat up my legs after awhile, which is why I am OK with lots of treadmill running in late fall and throughout winter.

So I decided to just run out my door, along the same area I ran yesterday, knowing full well that I would get > 3 solid miles of hill running. Even though I was supposed to do a progressive run today ending in tempo, I knew that with the route I was running and given the hard work of the 2 previous days that it would be OK to run more or less a steady pace, given the terrain, and just ensure that I didn't slow down.

As I started, my feet were not too happy to be on asphalt again, but after they surrendered, they were fine. I had no residual soreness in my quads from the last few days of training, and I felt surprisingly peppy, considering I hadn't run this early in the day for weeks.

Mile 1 was 9:28. Perfect. If I averaged 9:30 today, that would be fine. I hung out around from 8:50-9:15 for most of the run, and I ran strongly up all the hills with no walking. Technically, I was supposed to run for 1:45, but as I approached 6 miles out I figured I may as well make it an even 12. The actual temperature was about 75, but the humidity was 85%, so I was soaked through and through, and much of the time I had a puddle of sweat hanging off my chin. Delightful!

As I turned around at Mile 6, I was in a great mood. Maybe it was that I hadn't run this route in so long, maybe it was because it was still early in the day and I was watching all these commuters waiting for their train while I was out running, which made me think how we all make choices in our lives to be able to do what we want to do. Been there, done that as far as the daily train commute to downtown Chicago. I had absolutely no excuse not to be happy today. I was feeling the effort in Miles 6 and 7, as they are on total concrete, and I just imagine my legs turning to hamburger, but then I know that I'll be back on the relatively softer asphalt in no time.

Mile 8 is flat for the first 1/2 mile and then the hills begin on the return trip. I suppose because of the humidity and because I had a belly full of coffee I wasn't drinking much of the Gatorade, and it wasn't that hot either, and as I got to the beginning of the hills, I just didn't even stop to drink and kept running. I saw at least 10 other runners this morning, but none of them were carrying any fluids, so I assumed they weren't running too far.

As I began to ascend the second half of Mile 8, there was a guy running the same direction who passed me up. He had this look on his face like he's such a stud or something, but no worries, I knew he wasn't running 12 miles today. He crested the first hill a little ahead of me, stopped, bent over like he was going to puke or something and I just kept running uphill. See I am tough and I just keep going.

I had to wait briefly at a stoplight after a good, steep 1/2 mile climb, and then I got a bit of a downhill for about .1 mile before the next climb started. As long as I kept looking down just at the 2 feet of road in front of me I really didn't notice the uphill grade too much, and my cadence was perfect, so I just kept going.

Up the next hill, and then I got another brief downhill in preparation for the 1 mile hill. The 1-mile hill, which is the stretch of road between Clarendon Hills Road and Cass Avenue is a killer no matter when you run it (provided you charge it), and it's especially heinous when it comes 9 miles into a 12 mile run. Yesterday I ran up the fucker in about 8:20. Today would not be so fast! But, I managed 9:22 up it, and I was pretty happy with that. I wanted to bail and walk several times, but told myself no, today I am tough and will not give in, even though this is not a race.

After that, it's mostly flat for the last 2 miles home, but I always slow down on the mile after the 1 mile hill because I am trying to recover. That was my slowest mile of the day, 9:43! Crap, that is slow! But it is what it is, and I figured I'd pick it up on the last mile, and I did.

So 12 miles in 1:47, and my average HR was only 119, which is like Zone 2 (out of 5), or pretty damn easy. Not bad, and this made me feel like I should go and run an open 1/2 mary just to see what I can do actually racing the damn thing. It's totally cool to see improvements to your running in the back end of a long training season. Every fall as I back off somewhat on the training hours, I am surprised to see my running speed improve a little more since the prior year, but then I keep thinking maybe this is it, maybe I'm done getting faster. But I'm seeing some nice improvements to my running right now, so it looks like fall/winter will be another opportunity to see more improvements as long as I stay injury-free. Triathlon running is all about biking smart and running tough. It's easy to ride a bike fast, but it's not easy to ride a bike fast and THEN run at a good clip, but I feel pretty good about both sports right now. And I STILL don't consider myself a runner :) But hey, if I can do better at Goofy Challenge in 2007, that is really all I am looking for in the short term. And oh yeah, kicking butt at Miami Man would be a nice touch, too.

Now if I can just get through that ride on Saturday, this will go down as one helluva training week!

Another Fantastic Workout

But first, some pictures. That's me in the first photo, and my friend and 2007 Triple T teammate, Cindy in the second. Are we ripped or what? I am so motivated to train hard and improve with sheer hard work between now and next May, although I will take a small break after Miami Man in November.

Today I swam 2650 before I started work, and the swim went well. Then I did :30 of abs/core, and it was nice to do them again, since I skipped it last week. And the grand finale was another run workout with 5K intervals. I don't think I've talked about these, but I've been doing them for 5 weeks now, since I officially declared no more Ironman races in 2006. But my intention is to keep solid 1/2 Ironman fitness all around, and in actuality, I think I could reel off a decent Ironman if I really wanted to. But for right now, it's a lot more fun to become a bike monster (and I really think I'm on my way), and what the hell, perk up my running. I saw nice improvements in my running from last winter's run focus and Goofy Challenge, and I have a golden opportunity to build on that now when I am running a little less, but with a little more speed for a few months. Probably in mid-September I will pick up the run volume more, to be better prepared for Miami Man, and then do a build for Goofy Challenge '07.

Anyway, here's the workout:

WU: 10' Easy, 6 x Strides, 5' Steady with excellent form MS: 6', 8', 8', 6', 4' @ 5k pace with 1' Steady between each. CD; 10' Steady

This is week 5 of a number of variations on this theme. The first time I got the workout, the main set was 2/4/6/8/6/4/2, and I about died doing it. The next week (4 days before Racine 1/2 Ironman), the intervals were 4/6/10/6/4, and I was running 8:15-8:20 on the intervals. The following week was 4/6/10/6/4 again, and I smartly did the workout at a flat area, but it was 95 outside, and I wasn't too sure of my pace, but it probably was more like 8:25-8:30. Last week was 4/6/10/6/4 again, only I did it on an indoor track (BLESSED COOLNESS), and presto, I was running 8:00/mile!

For today's variation, it was "only" 80 outside, and I felt like I could handle doing the workout on my rolling hill route from home. I know where the mile marks are and I am also pretty familiar with 1/4 and 1/2 mile marks, so I should be able to calculate my approximate pace. I was pretty happy that I nailed 8:00/mile outside in the hills today! I am not saying it wasn't tough--there is this one mile that is just rollers going up and it sucks and it's part of a 5- and 10-mile race here every May (that I have never done but should sometime) that racers who do it absolutely hate because it is pretty damn hard. Well I did that entire mile in maybe 8:20, which included my 8' at 5K pace, and that was my slowest interval.

Not bad considering the workout I did yesterday and that it was my third workout of the day. I think eating pasta last night helped, and I am doing it again tonight since I need to run 1:45 in the morning tomorrow.

This is one workout where I am not smiling so much when I am doing the 5K intervals, but I sure smile when I'm finished! I love the intensity level that I am able to train at now, and each new challenge my coach throws at me is exciting, especially since I track my workouts so carefully and can see my progress in just a few weeks' time.

Maybe, just maybe, there's a sub-8:00/mile pace in me for a 5K in 2007. Wouldn't that just be the shits? Whatever, as long as I keep seeing improvements, I'm one happy camper.

What a Difference 20 Degrees Makes!

....and I suppose a lot of biking lately.

Today I did a brick workout, and I have to say it just felt totally awesome. Of course, it included my usual interval ride:

WU: 15' Easy, include 3-4 x 30" spinups. MS: 8 x 30/30's, then 3 x 8' (2') @ best effort (benchmark previous sessions), 5' Easy, then go into 85-90% for all but the last 5-10' of the ride. CD: 5' Easy

followed by a :30 brick run.

Last week I did the same bike workout, only the temperature was 100F. My NP's (Normalized Power) readings for the (3) 8' intervals were 175, 171 and 175. In addition to it being stinking hot, I think I wasn't quite recovered from a 106-mile ride 2 days' prior. At any rate, you just have to accept what you are able to put out on any given day.

Today when I did the workout, the temperature was only 80F, my most recent longest ride was 112 miles on Saturday on the IMWI course, I only rode 2:20 on Sunday, and yesterday was a relative rest day (I only swam 3,800 yards). Today's NP's for the (3) 8' intervals: 198, 205 and 197! HO-LEE-CRAP! I double-checked that my SRM calibration was good (I calibrated it before I started the ride and checked the value when I finished), and it was, so these are real numbers! I had thought I was on the upswing, FT-wise, since I'd been seeing numbers in the low- to mid-180's. I put in about 240 miles of biking last week, so it was really nice today to see a fitness pop, although today's boost should in theory be related to work I did about 2 weeks' prior. Whatever, I'll take it. I'm hopeful that after this mega-cycling phase that my FT will test out around 183-185. OK so that's only a 3-4.5% improvement, but it's significant. Not bad considering all the racing I just got done with.

My quads were screaming at me while I did the ride when I initially fired up the hard stuff. I mean they HURT. But it was a good pain, you know? Reminded me that I've been hitting it hard, and it's been a long time since my legs have actually HURT like that instead of just being fatigued. I must be doing something right :) I remember thinking dang my legs hurt, and pretty badly, but I have an objective for today and other than my legs I feel pretty damn good, so let's see what we can do today.

Since my run would be pretty flat, I really wasn't worried about how my quads would feel once I started running. Actually, I felt really, really good on the run. I just kept my stride short and quick, and was smiling the entire time. Heck, what's not to smile about when you only have to run for :30? As always, I didn't feel too fast when I started out (and I have to run up a bit of a hill right out my door), but stride felt good, I felt really light on my feet, and I was all tingly thinking about how much power I had just put out on the bike. Plus absolutely gorgeous weather. And yet, I was thinking that this wasn't a race, that I could go even faster! Of course I negative split the run, as is customary for me, and all I could think when I finished was DAMN AM I STRONG OR WHAT? I average 8:30/mile (which is a little slower than 5K pace for me).

See I put in 19.95 hours of training last week (why I couldn't manage another 3 minutes to get to an even 20 I will never know, except I will say that once I stopped biking on Sunday I was trashola for the day), I have a slightly swollen, rather itchy right inner thigh from a bee sting on Saturday (received while beginning the second ascent of Old Sauk Pass on the IMWI course), and I felt like I was struggling last week during the heat wave. But I pressed on, got the training done (even cutting out strength training and a little bit of biking to ensure I didn't totally fry myself), and look what I got for my efforts today?

Sometimes it's just about a great workout. I can't even count all the great to oustanding workouts I've completed over the years. Races are few and far between, and I've been blessed with a number of good to great ones there, too. It is all about relentless hard work and attention to detail, and a coach I believe in to ensure that I recover from my "crazy train" episodes, like the one I'm on now.

I will not be on my bike again until Saturday, when I will attempt to ride 180 miles in 13 hours (with lots of climbing). They will be timing us and there are cutoffs to continue on a certain distance. I will be on my road bike, sans SRM, sans bike computer. It's another opportunity for me to put my fitness to a test and keep myself motivated. I know what the right power feels like, and hopefully I can dial it in and keep myself rolling all day. I fully expect this ride to ring my bell--most likely it will be rung louder than an Ironman race. What fun!

I have to mention 2 of my friends here:

• Cindy ROCKS. She did 5:51 at Steelhead. She is such a sandbagger. We are going to make one helluva team at Triple T next year. I am surely motivated to keep training hard. Everything I am doing now is money in the bank towards that race.
• Pattie also ROCKS. We rode the IMWI course together on Saturday, and she looked fresh and strong all day. And then she goes home to 2 young daughters! She is going to do really well at IMWI.

Enjoy the journey!