So yesterday I did the same bike workout as on Tuesday. When I did it on Tuesday, I thought I executed pretty well, but the challenge yesterday was that I'd done the track workout on Wednesday. Plus, I had dinner with a friend Wednesday night, and she and I split a bottle of wine, and I'm such a lightweight I had a slight hangover. I guess wine after a track workout isn't the best idea!
Anyway, I knew I'd have to have supplemental caffeine for the workout, and I wavered between Coke and Ultra Violence and decided on Coke. In retrospect, I should have gone with the Ultra Violence, but whatever.
As soon as I started the warmup, I could feel my legs were a little fatigued, but at least I hadn't lifted weights or shoveled snow! When I began the first FT interval, though, I wasn't feeling like I had much power, or at least not as much as on Tuesday. But I pressed on, and as it turns out, I did slightly better than on Tuesday! I was so happy with myself that after I got through another couple of meetings at work, I decided to polish off my strength training for the week by doing legs and back.
Let's just say my muscles weren't all that happy to be subject to the weights, but I got through things pretty well--it only took 34' to do 5 exercises for my lats/traps and 6 legs (3 sets of 20 reps). I was highly motivated, too, by the fact that starting next week, the strength workouts will get a little easier (yeah, right!) as I move into max power phase.
While I was doing the back stuff, I noticed that I was able to twist pretty freely to both sides! And despite putting the hurt to myself, I actually felt better after lifting than before I started! I laugh at various triathlon training regimens that tell you not to bother with strength training. While that may be good advice for someone in their 20's, I think that from your 30's and beyond, you will benefit from it (or some sort of functional training) and should do it in order to protect yourself from things that can happen as part of daily life. While we can and do get injured from sports, most serious injuries that us recreational athletes experience are from other causes. I guess I should give a big shout out to my buddy Louis for espousing functional fitness along with organizations like Crossfit. In the spring through fall, I garden quite a bit, and do a lot of bending, twisting and squatting, and trust me, swimming, biking and running do not fully prepare your muscles for that! Oh yeah, and don't forget the stretching and massage!
I stretch for 30' last night, and this morning I feel pretty darn good. Of course, I won't know the condition of my legs until I run in the middle of the day. But it will be an easy run.
I stalked all my competition for this Sunday's indoor triathlon, and I have one confirmed possible competitor and one unknown---the other 6 in my AG should be no problem. But we will see, as anything can happen, right? I need to get my long bike workout done early tomorrow so I can get some quality recovery before I go on Sunday. I'm sure it will be interesting, and it will be fun to reconnect with other athletes for a day. Even though it's just a silly little indoor race, they have become quite competitive, and a couple of local pros show up and we get free massages afterwards, so what could be more fun on a winter day?
Finally, thanks to Jamie for pointing out that I have a fan on Flickr. Cracks me up! I did not know I was a MILF!
Have a great weekend, and catch you after my first official race of 2009!
Friday, January 23, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Wednesday at the Track
I had to wait until 1:30PM to begin my track workout yesterday, as I'd had a few meetings stacked up that I couldn't move. Even though I was hungry, it would be suicidal to eat much before a track workout, but about an hour and a half before, I made a half sandwich of cashew butter and fig jam (yum!), and then while in the meeting just before I left, I drank some Ultra Violence, as I was feeling a little peaked from a few glasses of wine the night before.
When I started, my legs didn't feel bad--I just felt tired. I did the 10' warmup on the treadmill and then 10' of strides on the track, and then the fun began. There were up to 5 people walking on the track at any given time while I was there. Sometimes I just want to mow them down, especially when they are walking two abreast--but instead, I just had fun buzzing them, and I'm sure they could hear me breathing and feel a nice breeze as I whizzed by. At one point, a huge man was entering the track going the wrong way as I was about to round a corner, and I just yelled at him, "HEADS UP!!!" so he would look up and get out of my way.
After the warmup, I did the first little piece of the workout, which is 3x(1' @5K pace, 30" easy), and I hit my watch, and had no clue how fast I was running. Then I started in on the main set, which is 3x(6' @10K pace, 2' @5K pace, 2' walking recovery). Even though I was caffeined up, I still felt tired, so I purposely tried to hold myself back, and figured whatever I could do on the day was just fine.
On the first repeat (remember, I'm fucking slow here), I ran a mile in the 8' total (which is right around my 5K pace or at least I think it is), and that means I was probably going too fast on the 10K piece. So on the second repetition, I tried to slow myself down, and ended up running another full mile. I was like WTF how is that happening? On the third repetition, I came in just a hair under a mile.
It wasn't until this morning that I calculated how fast I was running on the initial 5K warmup and then the pace I was running for the 10K and 5K pieces of the main set. Looks like I'm back to where I was 2 years ago when I felt like I was in really excellent shape after having trained for and run Goofy Challenge, or maybe even a little faster .
Maybe there's hope for me after all...maybe my little forced break due to the back injury was a good thing...
At any rate, none of it means jack shit unless I can pull off something good this Sunday. But, I know that I will be going into the little race having knocked out a solid training week (unlike some of the participants), so this first one will just be a "let's see what happens." Not that I'm competitive or anything...I guess I had better go stalk the other women in my age group and see what I'm up against. That's always fun!
When I started, my legs didn't feel bad--I just felt tired. I did the 10' warmup on the treadmill and then 10' of strides on the track, and then the fun began. There were up to 5 people walking on the track at any given time while I was there. Sometimes I just want to mow them down, especially when they are walking two abreast--but instead, I just had fun buzzing them, and I'm sure they could hear me breathing and feel a nice breeze as I whizzed by. At one point, a huge man was entering the track going the wrong way as I was about to round a corner, and I just yelled at him, "HEADS UP!!!" so he would look up and get out of my way.
After the warmup, I did the first little piece of the workout, which is 3x(1' @5K pace, 30" easy), and I hit my watch, and had no clue how fast I was running. Then I started in on the main set, which is 3x(6' @10K pace, 2' @5K pace, 2' walking recovery). Even though I was caffeined up, I still felt tired, so I purposely tried to hold myself back, and figured whatever I could do on the day was just fine.
On the first repeat (remember, I'm fucking slow here), I ran a mile in the 8' total (which is right around my 5K pace or at least I think it is), and that means I was probably going too fast on the 10K piece. So on the second repetition, I tried to slow myself down, and ended up running another full mile. I was like WTF how is that happening? On the third repetition, I came in just a hair under a mile.
It wasn't until this morning that I calculated how fast I was running on the initial 5K warmup and then the pace I was running for the 10K and 5K pieces of the main set. Looks like I'm back to where I was 2 years ago when I felt like I was in really excellent shape after having trained for and run Goofy Challenge, or maybe even a little faster .
Maybe there's hope for me after all...maybe my little forced break due to the back injury was a good thing...
At any rate, none of it means jack shit unless I can pull off something good this Sunday. But, I know that I will be going into the little race having knocked out a solid training week (unlike some of the participants), so this first one will just be a "let's see what happens." Not that I'm competitive or anything...I guess I had better go stalk the other women in my age group and see what I'm up against. That's always fun!
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Happy Hump Day!
The week goes pretty well so far. It hasn't snowed much at all for several days, and it's not expected to snow again until next week. So getting a break from shoveling is good.
Monday was a nice day off--I did all three workouts (:30 swim, :45 run and 1:05 strength), took a short nap and got a haircut. Just before I left for my haircut, my new ottoman arrived. A friend had suggested that I needed one in the living room, and about a week ago, I sat quietly and thought if I could have anything I wanted, what would it be? And I thought silver leather. Lo and behold, the Internets have anything you want, and I found it and ordered it. I was happy when I opened up the box and discovered it doesn't weigh too much and I can carry it and move it around easily. So of course, the first thing I did was put it in the living room to see how it looks. Awesome! And next I tested out its strength--not so much for my feet, but it looked to be good for incorporating into my stretching routine. Actually, I can turn it on its side and lay on my back and get the best spine stretch you can imagine! Of course, I need to be careful not to slide off of it ;) Let's just say I also noticed the height of the thing might make it come in handy in "other" situations...sometimes a small platform can be useful, you know?
Yesterday, I executed my bike workout:
WU: 15' wup, 3' spinups
MS: 3 x 2' (1') @ 105%, 2' Easy,
4 x (6' @ FT then 1' @ 105-110%, 2' Easy), 1' Easy,
10 x 30/30'
CD: 3' Easy
pretty damn well. Funny how I have so much power when I haven't lifted right before riding and haven't shoveled snow in several days! But I can do better, and I get the opportunity again tomorrow to do the same workout, so I'll see if I can hit a higher TSS number.
I finished up the abs/core piece of my workout in the afternoon yesterday, and after work I got an awesome massage. I'd say my back/hips are at 99% now, as one of the things I was able to do yesterday is my twisting medicine ball/stability ball oblique exercise (that I made up and that is included in my abs/core routine on the sidebar) without feeling any restriction in my obliques! Yee-haw!
After my massage, I finished sewing a pair of tiger-striped flannel pants (I've got 3 more pairs almost finished--blue tiger-stripes, red, orange and yellow flaming skulls and tiny red lobsters on a white background), cleaned up a bit, ate some dinner and then spent some quality time with a friend to cap off 2 excellent days to begin my week.
Today, I've already swum 2500 yards, and I have a track workout to do in a few hours, and then I'm making dinner for a friend that I haven't seen in months...usually I go over to her house, but I'm having her here so she can see what's happened to my place, and we will talk and catch up and eat some good foods and drink some wine.
I am still working on shuffling workouts for the next 2 days because I want to be somewhat rested for the little indoor triathlon on Sunday. It should be interesting...I feel ready for a really hard effort, but I also dread it. Those short, hard things can be really rough, but it will also be fun and nice since this one is maybe 3 miles from home, and my wave goes off at 8:30AM. So I can get up, get it done, run for about 1:30 afterwards, and it will just be noon, and I can catch a nap and just lay around the rest of the day!
I love my new ottoman and decided to make a little art out of it today. Or is it art? Just some objects that I thought would look neat on it:
Monday was a nice day off--I did all three workouts (:30 swim, :45 run and 1:05 strength), took a short nap and got a haircut. Just before I left for my haircut, my new ottoman arrived. A friend had suggested that I needed one in the living room, and about a week ago, I sat quietly and thought if I could have anything I wanted, what would it be? And I thought silver leather. Lo and behold, the Internets have anything you want, and I found it and ordered it. I was happy when I opened up the box and discovered it doesn't weigh too much and I can carry it and move it around easily. So of course, the first thing I did was put it in the living room to see how it looks. Awesome! And next I tested out its strength--not so much for my feet, but it looked to be good for incorporating into my stretching routine. Actually, I can turn it on its side and lay on my back and get the best spine stretch you can imagine! Of course, I need to be careful not to slide off of it ;) Let's just say I also noticed the height of the thing might make it come in handy in "other" situations...sometimes a small platform can be useful, you know?
Yesterday, I executed my bike workout:
WU: 15' wup, 3' spinups
MS: 3 x 2' (1') @ 105%, 2' Easy,
4 x (6' @ FT then 1' @ 105-110%, 2' Easy), 1' Easy,
10 x 30/30'
CD: 3' Easy
pretty damn well. Funny how I have so much power when I haven't lifted right before riding and haven't shoveled snow in several days! But I can do better, and I get the opportunity again tomorrow to do the same workout, so I'll see if I can hit a higher TSS number.
I finished up the abs/core piece of my workout in the afternoon yesterday, and after work I got an awesome massage. I'd say my back/hips are at 99% now, as one of the things I was able to do yesterday is my twisting medicine ball/stability ball oblique exercise (that I made up and that is included in my abs/core routine on the sidebar) without feeling any restriction in my obliques! Yee-haw!
After my massage, I finished sewing a pair of tiger-striped flannel pants (I've got 3 more pairs almost finished--blue tiger-stripes, red, orange and yellow flaming skulls and tiny red lobsters on a white background), cleaned up a bit, ate some dinner and then spent some quality time with a friend to cap off 2 excellent days to begin my week.
Today, I've already swum 2500 yards, and I have a track workout to do in a few hours, and then I'm making dinner for a friend that I haven't seen in months...usually I go over to her house, but I'm having her here so she can see what's happened to my place, and we will talk and catch up and eat some good foods and drink some wine.
I am still working on shuffling workouts for the next 2 days because I want to be somewhat rested for the little indoor triathlon on Sunday. It should be interesting...I feel ready for a really hard effort, but I also dread it. Those short, hard things can be really rough, but it will also be fun and nice since this one is maybe 3 miles from home, and my wave goes off at 8:30AM. So I can get up, get it done, run for about 1:30 afterwards, and it will just be noon, and I can catch a nap and just lay around the rest of the day!
I love my new ottoman and decided to make a little art out of it today. Or is it art? Just some objects that I thought would look neat on it:
Monday, January 19, 2009
Weekly Workout Totals 01/12-2009-01/18/2009
I had a pretty good training week, but I was really worn out by Friday, from a combination of upping my lifting to 3 sets of 20 reps and shoveling snow. I have a snowblower, but sometimes I don't feel like waking my neighbors up at 5:30AM or I'm just clearing an inch or two, and so I'll just use a shovel. I didn't add this into my strength training totals, but I'm pretty sure I did at least 3 hours of it. This week, however, I am committed to not shoveling as I am racing this weekend and have a pretty busy schedule all week long, so I'm going to try and conserve energy wherever I can.
On Friday just before noon, I decided to make up for my shortened Wednesday swim, which would push the workout to 3400 yards. No big deal, right? Except that I had lifted bis, tris and chest in the morning, then shoveled a little snow beforehand (about 1.5"), and the workout included 2200 yards of pulling! My little stick arms were hurting during the workout, but that's OK. Still, it was just one of those days where I compulsively needed to ensure I got in all the swimming I was supposed to do for the week.
After I finished swimming, I made my little Fortress of Solitude (see previous post) in my front yard, and then went inside, ate a quick lunch and all of a sudden, felt pretty exhausted. I thought I would just do a short little lay down, but I fell asleep and napped for an hour! Even still, I fell asleep early in the evening.
For Saturday's brick workout, I decided to add some more calories while I was on the bike to see whether my treadmill brick run issues were really bonkiness or something else. My legs were a little sore while biking, but that's because my hips are just starting to come around and work properly since my back is healing up. I did pretty well with my bike workout, adding 15' to it because I cheesed out on Thursday because I was so tired.
When I got to the Y, I was pretty pigged out from the bike workout, and I got on the treadmill, and within maybe 5 minutes I was feeling a little light-headed. I figured out why, though--it's not a bonk--it's because my family room is about 60 degrees, which is awesome for trainer riding (I still have a fan pointed right at me), but my guess is the Y is kept nearer to 70, or something at least 5 degrees warmer than where I bike at home. I had had plenty of calories in me, so I knew I wasn't bonking--I was becoming hyperthermic! As usual, I chuckled a little at the things my body does and how sensitive it is to temperature and nutritional changes.
I went to run my last 5' on the indoor track, and since it was just 5', I fired up the afterburners and ended up running well below my 5K pace! It was fun, too, because I was woozy from having been overheated and now running in a cooler area. I walked one lap around the track when I was finished.
Yesterday, I started my long run (1:40) at 8:30AM, and my legs were pretty toasty from Saturday's workout (and a little more shoveling before I left, damn!), but getting on the treadmill right away does not cause me to become hyperthermic. I wanted to avoid additional caffeine besides my usual morning coffee, but because I had been pushing it this week, I took a can of Coke with me, and ended up drinking that during my first hour.
The run went really well, in fact, my running is coming along nicely. It now feels bad (i.e., too slow) to run in Zone 1 and Zone 2 on the treadmill. Zone 3 feels like a good pace, and Zone 4 is becoming not so hard. But, as always, we will test out the system this Sunday in the first indoor triathlon.
My back is still about 98%, and with the intensity I put in last week, especially the extra hard strength training (last week and this week are my most difficult strength weeks in a season), it didn't get too much better than at the beginning of the week, but what's interesting is that now I am feeling genuine pain in areas that tells me that the larger complex of all the back muscles is pretty well healed, leaving all the slacker muscles that haven't been working at full capacity to bitch and moan at me! And I love it! I'm feeling my piriformis and TFL really kicking in and getting angry, and instead of my QL's making the fascia over the tops of my glutes feel all gnarly, I am feeling them right up against my spine being the usual motherfuckers they are! See, sometimes pain is a sign of healing, and it sure is in my case right now!
Today I have a day off from work (YEAH!!!), and I've got a jam-packed day planned, including 3 workouts (swim, run, lift), some sewing, maybe a mini-odyssey (Target, fabric store and hardware store), maybe a nap, and a haircut (just a trim as it's growing out to where it was before the shaving incident in November).
I'm laughing because I'm letting my house get a little messy again, in terms of crap all over the place, but it's because I started on another mini-purge--I went through all my shoes (I have way too many) and am giving a bunch away that no longer fit since I bought them before I was running and my feet got a little bigger, and I lined up several more sewing projects, but it's all good.
Anyway, here's what happened:
On Friday just before noon, I decided to make up for my shortened Wednesday swim, which would push the workout to 3400 yards. No big deal, right? Except that I had lifted bis, tris and chest in the morning, then shoveled a little snow beforehand (about 1.5"), and the workout included 2200 yards of pulling! My little stick arms were hurting during the workout, but that's OK. Still, it was just one of those days where I compulsively needed to ensure I got in all the swimming I was supposed to do for the week.
After I finished swimming, I made my little Fortress of Solitude (see previous post) in my front yard, and then went inside, ate a quick lunch and all of a sudden, felt pretty exhausted. I thought I would just do a short little lay down, but I fell asleep and napped for an hour! Even still, I fell asleep early in the evening.
For Saturday's brick workout, I decided to add some more calories while I was on the bike to see whether my treadmill brick run issues were really bonkiness or something else. My legs were a little sore while biking, but that's because my hips are just starting to come around and work properly since my back is healing up. I did pretty well with my bike workout, adding 15' to it because I cheesed out on Thursday because I was so tired.
When I got to the Y, I was pretty pigged out from the bike workout, and I got on the treadmill, and within maybe 5 minutes I was feeling a little light-headed. I figured out why, though--it's not a bonk--it's because my family room is about 60 degrees, which is awesome for trainer riding (I still have a fan pointed right at me), but my guess is the Y is kept nearer to 70, or something at least 5 degrees warmer than where I bike at home. I had had plenty of calories in me, so I knew I wasn't bonking--I was becoming hyperthermic! As usual, I chuckled a little at the things my body does and how sensitive it is to temperature and nutritional changes.
I went to run my last 5' on the indoor track, and since it was just 5', I fired up the afterburners and ended up running well below my 5K pace! It was fun, too, because I was woozy from having been overheated and now running in a cooler area. I walked one lap around the track when I was finished.
Yesterday, I started my long run (1:40) at 8:30AM, and my legs were pretty toasty from Saturday's workout (and a little more shoveling before I left, damn!), but getting on the treadmill right away does not cause me to become hyperthermic. I wanted to avoid additional caffeine besides my usual morning coffee, but because I had been pushing it this week, I took a can of Coke with me, and ended up drinking that during my first hour.
The run went really well, in fact, my running is coming along nicely. It now feels bad (i.e., too slow) to run in Zone 1 and Zone 2 on the treadmill. Zone 3 feels like a good pace, and Zone 4 is becoming not so hard. But, as always, we will test out the system this Sunday in the first indoor triathlon.
My back is still about 98%, and with the intensity I put in last week, especially the extra hard strength training (last week and this week are my most difficult strength weeks in a season), it didn't get too much better than at the beginning of the week, but what's interesting is that now I am feeling genuine pain in areas that tells me that the larger complex of all the back muscles is pretty well healed, leaving all the slacker muscles that haven't been working at full capacity to bitch and moan at me! And I love it! I'm feeling my piriformis and TFL really kicking in and getting angry, and instead of my QL's making the fascia over the tops of my glutes feel all gnarly, I am feeling them right up against my spine being the usual motherfuckers they are! See, sometimes pain is a sign of healing, and it sure is in my case right now!
Today I have a day off from work (YEAH!!!), and I've got a jam-packed day planned, including 3 workouts (swim, run, lift), some sewing, maybe a mini-odyssey (Target, fabric store and hardware store), maybe a nap, and a haircut (just a trim as it's growing out to where it was before the shaving incident in November).
I'm laughing because I'm letting my house get a little messy again, in terms of crap all over the place, but it's because I started on another mini-purge--I went through all my shoes (I have way too many) and am giving a bunch away that no longer fit since I bought them before I was running and my feet got a little bigger, and I lined up several more sewing projects, but it's all good.
Anyway, here's what happened:
| Weekly Workout Totals | 01/12/2009-01/18/2009 This week's totals are sponsored by racing, which I officially begin this week! |
| Swim: | 8400 yards (4.77 miles) in 2.88 hours; 22% of weekly workout time; approx. 1009 calories burned Canadian: 7680.96 meters |
| Bike: | Approx. 83.55 miles in 4.58 hours; 35% of weekly workout time; approx. 2510 calories burned; Total TSS=279 Canadian: 134.46 kilometers |
| Run: | Approx. 25.6 miles in 3.96 hours; 30% of weekly workout time; approx. 1797 calories burned Canadian: 41.2 kilometers |
| Strength: | 1.78 hours; 13% of weekly workout time; approx. 445 calories burned |
| All Sports: | Approx. 113.92 miles in 13.2 hours; approx. 5761 calories burned Canadian: 1 kilometers |
| Sleep: | 7.14 hours avg./night |
| Stretching: | 2.77 hours. Massage: 1 hours |
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