Bringin' the Pain

Last night I led a group of triathletes in a trainer workout at my bike shop, The Bike Shop. Most of the attendees are members of the Elmhurst Triathlon Club, to which I do not belong (I don't belong to a tri club). The way I ended up with this gig is that I know a few of the club members, I attended a workout 2 weeks ago led by Anthony, my wrench, declared it "not that hard," and so Anthony said I could lead the next one.

I don't know if I've ever gone into my pseudo-athletic, pre-triathlon past, but once upon a time, I got back into the cardio thing by attending step classes. Yes, step class! A male colleague suggested I try it out (this was in 1994 at a gym inside my office complex), and at the time, I wasn't in great shape cardiovascularly (I'd been mostly just lifting for about 3 years at the time), and so I agreed to try it out. Well, I guess it brought out my competitiveness, since even though at many sports I'm a complete and total klutz, I was good at this, and not only was I good, I began bringing music, and the instructor asked me to sub in when she couldn't make it.

Step class morphed into this circuit class where you'd spend one minute at a "station," and then immediately move onto the next, keeping this up for about 30-40 minutes at a time. The stations consisted of step hurdles, jump rope, jumping jacks, step class moves, etc., and then this same (male) instructor added an abs class, and I got into that, too. Once again, when the instructor couldn't make it, I would sub in and make stuff up, and usually make it harder. Some attendees would grimace when they saw that I was going to lead a class, as they knew I would give them a run for their money.

When the weather warmed up, I suggested we take the circuit class outdoors, and we did. This let us add fun things like 1' sprints, running jump rope, skipping, etc. I have really fond memories of this class since we looked pretty silly doing this stuff, but all the while we'd see people leaving in their cars to go eat lunch out, many returning with fast food bags in their hands. Also, we got some suntan!

Well, it was an off day for this class once in 1998 when I thought, "I wonder how far it is around this building complex on the running path?" I had never run before, and since I had been doing running jump rope and sprints, I thought I should try and go all the way around. So I did, and it wasn't that bad, so I did it again. That was the start of my running, and well, you know where that went...

So I have a history of mastering something and then trying to step it up to make it more challenging. The same is true with other non-triathlon things that I do. When I learned to sew, I found that the more difficult the garment to make, the more I enjoyed it. I actually love sewing really intricate things with lots of details to them. Same with gardening. It's easy to grow many plants, but for awhile I experimented with stuff that's a little more finicky, but in that case, Mother Nature won and I realized that it's just better (I think) to only try and grow what naturally likes to thrive in my little piece of Earth (and I don't do indoor plants). Same with cooking. I generally cook pretty (to me) simple stuff most weeks, but when I have the time, I really like making something that has all sort of ingredients and steps to it.

OK, so when I was asked to lead the trainer class, I thought I could just lay down one of my usual workouts which would be plenty hard, but yesterday, about an hour before I needed to leave, I made something up that I thought would be good and a little different for me. I train with power, so everything I do is expressed as % of FTP, but others can use % of 40K TT HR or pace.

I got to the shop around 6PM, set up LGL and did some easy warmup myself. I ended up doing about 15' on my own, and then when we officially started, gave everyone 5' to warm up, while I explained the zones we would be using, that I didn't care what gears you used (use whatever gets you to the prescribed effort level), and then we reviewed the workout itself. Anthony had given me a flat box that had held a bike frame, and I wrote the zones on one half and the workout on the other and stood it up against the counter so everyone could see it while we worked out.

Here's the main set of the workout we did:
3xspinups (30" spin, 30" easy)
3x(2' 105-110%, 1' cd)
2' cd
10' 85-90% (tempo)
2'(1'), 3'(1'), 4'(2'), 5'(2') 100% or FTP
3x (60" squat, 45" rest)
2' cd
13x30/30 (30" @ 110%+, 30" easy)
2-5' cd

During the spinups, I asked people to call out their cadence, and we got some pretty amazing numbers. I had called the 105-110% "balls out" level, just because it's easier to say plus, well, that's what you want to do! Everyone got their sweat on pretty quickly, and at one point, a couple who lives in an apartment above the shop came down and made us turn down the music! As they were leaving, I told them they could just come and join us, but I guess they didn't want to.

I was facing everyone so I could see their faces and all the sweat pouring off of them, so I hoped they were getting a good workout. After we finished, several people came up to me and said that it was a good workout, and I was happy because I worried that maybe I wouldn't make it hard enough for some of the folks.

When I downloaded my power data this morning, I had evidence that it was, indeed, an awesome workout. For you power junkies, here's how it panned out. Please note that my FTP on LGL is currently pegged at 205 watts, so you can see on the TSS line that I ran at 89% of FTP for that workout!



If I am asked to lead the workout again, I will gladly do it. I made myself work harder even as I was yelling out intervals and stuff, and it was really fun.

This morning I am going to do my track workout on legs that may protest, but I don't care!

Weekly Workout Totals 02/02/2009-02/08/2009 and Another Race Win!

I'd been reluctant to say anything about the state of my recovery from whatever virus attacked me a little over a week ago because I didn't want to jinx my race yesterday. I was up and down this past week, sleeping a lot, including naps, completing most workouts at less than 100% prescribed intensity, coughing every now and then and feeling mucousy. I held myself back on the hard stuff biking (sort of) and running, and swimming was just there. I completed my strength workouts, but was left completely exhausted after them. Anaerobic stuff is always tough on me when I'm fighting a virus, and it was pretty obvious that if I felt I needed to go to sleep after 30' of lifting that I was still fighting one!

Friday morning I felt pretty good in the pool, and did a short run that left me feeling tired, but I snuck in a nap, slept long and well, and Saturday morning felt pretty good. It was a warm day, and there was just no excuse not to ride a bike outside. But the snow melt combined with all the built up crap on the roads would make for a messy ride, and besides, I thought it would be wise to hold back my intensity, so I decided to ride Clipless Fuck, since I didn't want to do a full road bike cleaning after the ride (I like my bikes clean!).

Well, just heading up the stupid little hill out of my house I was like, whoa, I suck really bad, but then again I was riding into a stiff headwind. I rode west first, just to enjoy the headwind even more, and rode on my usual weekday interval route, and all I could think was I suck, I suck, I suck!!! I didn't feel like my lungs were completely present, and neither were my legs. OK, so I can cut the ride short (my goal was 1:30), right? No. After I turned around and was going like twice as fast with the tailwind on the way back home, it didn't feel so bad, so on one of the hills I like to use for short, hard hill climb intervals, I decided, what the fuck, I'm going up. And as soon as I made the turn to start the climb, I said out loud, "I hate myself!" I mean, who else could I blame for making me do this when I wasn't feeling 100%? I actually did OK on that climb, because the sun was shining, I was slightly sheltered from the wind, and hey, I'm riding outside in February!

When I was almost home, I decided I could knock out another 7.5 miles even though it would mean the last piece would be into the winds. No matter, I finished up, I was filthy, my legs hurt, and I was coughing up a lung. I had to leave my bike shoes outside, and as soon as I went in the house, I had to strip down in the laundry room since I was a filthy mess, but smiling about it! I cleaned off my helmet, grabbed some Endurox, then went and cleaned my bike shoes and finally the bike (not a full cleaning, but enough), and thought that I didn't need to do anything for the rest of the day, which was nice. I laid in bed for about an hour but didn't fall asleep because I had slept so much the night before and napped the day before, but still just laying down was great.

When I woke up yesterday morning, I didn't feel bad, but I didn't feel the usual "oomph" that I feel on a race day. I knew I wasn't 100%, but anything can happen, so I did my usual routine of Ultrafuel, a little stretching, and headed off to race.

As I warmed up on the track and then the bike, I could tell I just wasn't feelin' the love, and even though I had assessed my day's competition and thought there were 1 or 2 women in my age group who could beat me, I just let go and figured I was going to have an off day, so may as well get the show on the road.

My swim was a bit slower than 2 weeks ago, although I think they miscounted laps, but whatever. I could tell that I just couldn't push it in the water, and my stroke didn't feel that great either. Oh well, onto the bike.

I didn't have high expectations for the bike, but biking is my thing, and I just started in and fired up my legs and sucked it up. I guess for me, biking is the sport where I'm really good with pain, and I went faster than 2 weeks ago(6.89 miles in 20 minutes), and cleaned up in my wave (including beating all but 1 man), and when I got off I was light-headed and once again laid on the floor for about a minute, and then walked up the stairs to run.

I was a bit wheezy right away, and I could tell that I just didn't have speed in my legs to run today, and I was suffering right away. This was the first time in maybe 5 years where I felt so bad that I just wanted to stop, but I told myself to HTFU and just do whatever I could. I was totally OK with not winning my age group, but I had done so well on the bike it might be a wash for me anyway. As it turns out, I was just 1/2 lap off from 2 weeks ago, but man that run hurt like a mofo. It wasn't that I couldn't run; it was just I couldn't run fast.

Oh well, I still needed to run for another 1:30, and I didn't want to wait too long in between, so I chatted with a few friends and got on the treadmill, and got it done. My legs didn't really hurt so much as I was only doing a Z1-Z2 run, but it was B-O-R-I-N-G. Still, I knew it wouldn't do me any good to try and run any faster.

Next, I went and watched the elite wave, which included my friend Adam, and also Lauren Jensen, a local pro. Lauren and I chatted in the locker room before she started her wave, asked me about the bikes, and I told her she'd clean up, that these bikes seems a bit easier than in the past 2 years.

Not that I'm competitive or anything, but while everyone was on the bikes, I walked around to see how everyone was doing and what resistance levels they were using, and even though a lot of these people are way faster than me, I knew I'd done a solid effort on the day that would be hard for anyone to beat me in my age group or neighboring age groups ;)

After watching the elite wave, I finally grabbed some pizza and got a short massage (the best part of the race!), and prepared to watch another friend race. In the meantime, I was checking the scores, and it looked like I was going to take my age group and be fairly high again overall, but you never know...it's not over until it's over, right?

I had fun watching my friend race and cheering even though I was pretty wasted, but hell, he had done another race before this one, so what could I complain about? He did really well, too, and then finally it was time to go eat some sushi and have a beer or three.

Before leaving the facility, I had to check once more, and I think I was 6th woman overall, first in my age group, and pretty happy. I'm going to try and hit 7 miles on the bike in 2 weeks, as I should be done with this stinking virus, back on a full week of training for 3 weeks solid, and I really want to have a solid swim, bike and run.

It's going to be nice and warm again today, so I'm going to do a short run outdoors, even though I know my legs are going to protest mightily, but that's OK.

I am pretty happy that at least my biking legs have returned to where they were 2 years ago, and I think I can pick up my swimming, and my running is good except for the glitch of the virus I've had for about 1.5 weeks.

Yesterday was just an awesome day, and even while I was suffering I know I had some sort of stupid grin on my face because, well, this is what I like to do, isn't it?

Happy Monday!

Weekly Workout Totals	02/02/2009-02/08/2009 This week's totals are sponsored by my usual February illness and another race win!
Swim:	7800 yards (4.43 miles) in 2.78 hours; 21% of weekly workout time; approx. 976 calories burned Canadian: 7132.32 meters
Bike:	Approx. 95.48 miles in 5.08 hours; 38% of weekly workout time; approx. 2636 calories burned; Total TSS=315 Canadian: 153.66 kilometers
Run:	Approx. 27.14 miles in 4.23 hours; 32% of weekly workout time; approx. 1918 calories burned Canadian: 43.68 kilometers
Strength:	1.28 hours; 10% of weekly workout time; approx. 320 calories burned
All Sports:	Approx. 127.05 miles in 13.37 hours; approx. 5850 calories burned Canadian: 1.25 kilometers
Sleep:	8.07 hours avg./night
Stretching:	2.95 hours. Massage: 1.25 hours