There is No Easy Way

It's been awhile since I've cussed in a post here. Why? Because I've just been plugging along since May, 2006, not really "training" so much, at least not for an Ironman. For it's only when I am thinking about an impending Ironman that I begin to receive fucking hard workouts from my coach.

Since MiamiMan last November, all I've done is run a lot and try to maintain respectable swim and bike fitness.

Swimming is still not something for me to worry about--at this point, I am not going to get much faster, and building endurance is easy. I had wanted to get some individual swim coaching, but it just hasn't panned out. Oh well, I still gotta work on my biking and running.

I am still more or less in "ease back into hard running" mode. I got in a decent amount of it last week, but am just beginning to feel ready for quality work, i.e., tempo intervals. I don't have much of that scheduled for this week, but I am sure I will start to see them next week.

Now, any of you who follow my blog know that my coach excels in prescribing evil bike workouts, and since I've been with him for a few years, and he knows what I have done and what I might be able to do, he periodically mixes things up. And I really believe he makes up stuff and tries it out on me to see if I will cry, "UNCLE!" Because the key to getting better at biking (or running--swimming is more a technique thing, no?) is to regularly change the stimulus to produce more of a response. When a person first begins training seriously, almost any stimulus will create improvement, but when you've been at it at the level I have for 6 years already, there is no such thing as expecting improvement from an easy/mindless workout.

Let me just say that I think I'm a pretty damn good biker for a 50-year old woman. Hey, I can average 21+mph in a 1/2 Ironman. Would I like to be faster? You betcha. I'm an OK runner now, too, only I need for the stars to align and for me to "just" race a 1/2 marathon to prove it, even though I'm quite comfortable with what I've seen during training runs.

So it's time for me to get back on my biking. I guess what I was doing the past 3 months wasn't hard enough, or at least it wasn't enough to trigger improvements to my FTP. Then again, I didn't expect that to happen, nor did I focus on my biking the past 3 months. Recall that I had a banner summer, where I banged out a lot of miles and progressed beyond where I was after Ironman Brazil. I can't believe I've already put over 1,000 miles in biking since 9/18/2006. HA! Most of that is indoors!

So you know what that means? It's time for WORK. It's time for fucking hard workouts that when I look at them on paper, I go what the fuck? It's time for doing a workout that I've never done for the first time and finding that I either want to cough up a lung, puke or flat out die at some point while I'm doing it.

Today was such a day. Here is the workout I did. Short and sweet, and fucking hard!

WU: 15' wup, 3' spinups
MS: 3 x 1' (1') @ 105%, 2' Easy,
4 x 5' (2') as 4' @ FT then 1' @ 105-110%,
3' Easy,
8 x 30/30's (which I did at >110%)
CD: 5' Easy

For those of you unfamiliar with the terminology, the percentages are as a percent of my FTP, or Functional Threshold Power. 30/30's are supposed to be 30" at VO2 Max power, 30" easy. The last time I formally tested FTP was in August, and it was 186. It's dropped a little bit since then (maybe 180?), but I am still using 186 as my "target" during workouts. Eventually it will get easier (ha ha), and hopefully the number will move back up to where it was and even beyond.

FTP is the wattage you can hold in a 1-hour time trial, but I estimate it by performing a test about every 4-6 weeks (it sucks, trust me) that includes a total of 40 minutes at that power level, so it's "good enough" for a working number. Thing is, doing actual 1-hour time trials is both hard indoors (mentally), and can require some extra recovery time. Besides, when I do the test indoors, I can usually get another 5 watts were I to go ride outside. But that's not possible right now.

Anyway, the entire workout took 1:10 (598 calories burned), and let me just say welcome back to the fucking hard interval workouts! And I mean that in the nicest possible way. Because there is no easy way to get stronger and faster.

It was even more fun today since I did 3 workouts yesterday: a :30 swim, a :50 run and a :51 strength workout that put the hurt to my legs. So my power was a bit off today, but lucky me, I get to do this workout again on Thursday!

Endurance is an easy thing for me to acquire--I have a huge, multi-year base, and it only takes a few weeks of increased volume to get it back. But speed--that's another thing entirely. If you don't practice going fast/hard, you don't get good at it, and it's easy to lose. So that's what the remainder of my winter is about. Hard and fast. Work.

While I was on the trainer today, I thought about buying a web cam and streaming live video of me working out to the web. If anyone is interested, let me know. I'd like to see it myself. What do I look like when I'm clenching my teeth, my lungs are burning, my legs are running on fumes, and that silly power meter is telling me I'm not good enough? And why do I bust out in the biggest smile when I'm done with the workout?