Keeping it Going

I know it's only Friday, but I've had a great training week so far, as I get close to normal run volume for my Goofy prep and normal bike volume with an eye towards Ultraman (which means I will be doing a tad more biking that I normally would this time of year).

After my struggling through a long run on Sunday, I fixed a great dinner and got a good night's sleep and figured I'd start the week on a good note, which I did. Monday's swim was 2900 yards, and I felt pretty good in the water, after doing my now usual 20' of pushups, chinups, bridges, assorted abs and stuff. A short 45' run in the afternoon was good--I am still getting my hill legs back, so considering I have to run uphill right from home, I started off slow, but as I kept going I picked up speed and felt great.

On Tuesday I had to bike for 1:30, and got on the trainer and felt like I had my biking legs back! And this was great considering I'd lifted early in the morning.

Wednesday was a short but hard swim, and I'm sure my tongue was hanging out at the wall in between fast 100's and 50's, but it felt good. Later in the day I ran on the treadmill because it was raining, but I nailed a tempo run that felt pretty darn good. Oh yeah, I did my 20' of stuff before I swam, too.

Thursday was another 1:30 trainer ride and finish up my strength training for the week. I wasn't as strong on the bike as on Tuesday, but I am adjusting to 1:30 rides and also trying to put up the watts, so I am not concerned.

Today I swam 7,000 yards for the first time ever! I had 6500 on my plan, but I got in the pool by 6AM so figured I had time for 7,000 so why not? I am always working on my stroke mechanics, and today was no exception. 7,000 gives you a lot of time for that! I did it as 1000 free, 2500 pull, 500 kick (to rest my arms a bit), 5x500 fast with 30" rest, then 300 back and 200 kick. I have written workouts for these long swims, but I am also open to just going with the flow, and that's what my flow told me to do today. I only started to feel tired during the last 500 in the 5x500, and that was no big surprise. I did polish off all 20 oz. of Gatorade during the swim, and I need to be on that since I will need to take in calories during the Ultraman swim.

7,000 yards is not a lot for a lifetime swimmer, I know that. And technically, I don't have to be doing this much all at once this early in my Ultraman prep, but the way I'm doing the swim thing is 2 shorter swims on Monday and Wednesday (2500-3500 yards), Friday is the big, long swim, and then Sunday (through March) is 1000-1500 after my long run just for some extra time in the pool and to recover from the run. Ideally, I'd swim 4-5,000 three times a week and then a longer swim, but I just don't have time, and oh, hey, I also need to train for a 52.4 mile run and then there's like, what, 260 miles of biking in Ultraman? So I need to allocate my time carefully, and I think I am getting in enough swimming. As they say on the Ultraman website, there are many ways to train for this beast, and not everyone will need to train the same way. Since I am going in just to finish, I want to be confident in my ability to swim 10K strongly and still have energy left to bike 90 miles the same day. And then bike 170 miles the next day and run 52.4 miles the third day. Lucky for me, I was already swimming a good amount during the summer, and instead of dropping down to some paltry amount like 8,000 yards a week, which is what I would normally do this time of year, I just kept up my yardage and then some. I was already used to 3-mile swims, although I can say those are not that big a deal anymore. So my plan is to stay at about 7,000-7,500 for that long swim between now and March 1, and then, with that base, build up to the 11,000 yard swim. I have also needed to find out how much I can swim on Friday morning and still not be too tired to run later in the day and it looks like that number is 7,000 yards. Although odds are 7,500 won't be too bad, either.

Oh yeah, I keep changing around my training here and there because it's an iterative, learning process. I registered for the Midwest Indoor Triathlon Series again, only there are only 3 races this time. I thought (because I am date dyslexic at times) that the first one was only 2 weeks after Goofy so I wouldn't do it, but then after looking at my spreadsheet like 10 times, I realized that it's actually 3 weeks after Goofy, which means I can do all 3 races! I'm actually glad it's only 3 and not 4, which means I will only totally trash myself 3 times over 6 weeks. Although once I am done with those (and on race days I will do the warmups and race and then finish out a long run afterwards), my training just gets, well, scary, but I am not going to worry about it now!

Also today around 12:30 I went and ran for 50', and it was a beautiful, sunny day and 52! We are just having our best weather ever for November, and I am (as are all other area runners) capitalizing on it. I went out with a lightweight long sleeved shirt on, but took it off after about a mile. I ended up doing one of my fastest runs in a few months! Since I nailed my tempo run on Wednesday and today went so well, it appears I have recovered from my last bout of run focus, and maybe even picked up a teensy bit of speed from it! This is just as I hoped! I'm not expecting to set any PR's at Goofy--I just want to be able to come out of it and recover fast and keep up my training momentum.

And to me, this is the name of the game. Getting my body used to this so that as I go longer and longer, I am still able to recover pretty quickly and move on. I was pretty amazed at how well I performed during ROTPM considering it was just 5 weeks after my best ever IM performance. And then I did some massive run training for North Face, and even though I pulled out at 35 miles (and in retrospect, it was due to guess what? SHOE LACES TOO FUCKING TIGHT!! And putting extra pressure on the tibialis anterior tendon which is all fixed up now), hey, it was still 35 miles, and I've come back pretty well from that. So I will want to be able to do the same after Goofy Challenge. But heck, Goofy will be all about fun and I am not worried about it at all. After all, it's just a marathon!

If I'm able to execute on all my other planned training for the week, I'll end up at about 17 1/4 hours for the week, not bad at all. If you had asked me a year ago whether I'd be training this much now, I would have said NO WAY! Just goes to show you how things change.

As to my ability to eat enough calories to keep with all of this, well let's just say my training is a bit ahead of my appetite right now, since it's just so foreign for me to be putting in this much this time of year. And I have come to really like salads with dinner, big ones, and that leaves little room for the rice or other starchy carbs which it seems I need. But I am paying more careful attention to the amount and timing of food, and when all else fails, I just drink another beer--it is carbs, after all. Let's just say I do not have concerns about eating too much. In fact, I have been munching on leftover Halloween candy for what, 2 or 3 weeks now, and it has no impact on me. Actually, sometimes concentrated calories are just what I need because I can't fit any more bulk into my tummy at night. All good, all part of this unique experience that I am putting myself through.

I have ups and downs mentally, and this is almost worse than Ironman training. It is like most of the day I have food, training, stretching, sleeping or other life organization in the back of my mind even as I am doing my regular job. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed, and then I do something like my longest swim ever and I am all stupid happy. I wish I was training with someone else doing the same thing, but I don't know anyone else locally who is as stupid as I am! Sometimes I think I am too old to be doing this, but then I feel so amazingly great I can't believe it and figure I should just continue on. It is a rollercoaster, and I feel like I really need to cut loose, only the big goal is always looming so mostly I don't. I do intend to cut loose next weekend--pretty sad that the only way I can make myself do so is to do a fucking 1/2 Ironman on Saturday so I don't have to do any training on Sunday! But, hey, it works for me, and as long as I keep seeing progress towards the goal, I am basically happy.

Sometimes I don't know why I keep writing all this stuff down, but I guess some people like to read it to know what goes on in the mind of a crazy person who chooses to do this stuff. It would be interesting if someone followed me around with a video camera--I bet they would get some really interesting facial expressions. Like when I lift myself out of the pool after my Friday workout, or when I wake up on Monday morning and think about what I have to get done this week. Ah well...on that note, I must go and stretch now so I can be ready for the weekend's festivities!

Back to our Regularly Scheduled Training

This week I tweaked my Monday/Wednesday pre-swim routine to include standing on one foot a few times, at the suggestion of my bike fitter. So now my routine consists of 30-35 chinups, 60 pushups, 65-70 abs variations, 2 sets of 90" bridges on each side and to center, and standing on one leg. I still want to add jump rope to the mix, but will wait one more week as my legs adjust to running. All this takes about 20', and I've added a few more things to my regular strength routine as well, so somehow I ended up doing almost 2 hours of strength work this week. Oh well, I need it, with all the swimming I'm doing and making myself strong to withstand the amount of training I am throwing at myself.

Running went well this week--on Wednesday, the body decided it was ready for some 5K pace work, even though I was trying to hold back. Oh well! Sometimes you just need to let things happen.

Weather here has been mild for this time of the year, so all my running has been outdoors. Tuesday I biked outdoors on the MTB, since I just couldn't see being inside when it was so nice. Thursday brought some extra stress, so I decided to skip my bike workout, figuring I might make some of it up on Saturday.

Friday morning I did my longest swim workout to date--6200 yards--and it went well. I got in and started swimming and thought it was a good day to swim continuously, which I did for 5,000 yards, and then I kicked 700 and did backstroke for 500 (I'm adding backstroke in here and there just to balance out my over developed pectorals). I'm already ahead of schedule for my Friday long swims, and it got me to thinking about looking at other training I have scheduled for Fridays which is usually a run. Well I'm OK running on the same day as 2-2:15 worth of swimming, but once those swims start taking 2:30 or more, I'm not so sure. So today I once again tweaked the training plan to account for that. I can move those Friday runs to Tuesday or Thursday depending on what else I have going. But I did run on Friday, and it was a good run.

Yesterday I was thinking I'd do 1-1:30 on the bike indoors and then head outside and make up a little for my missed Thursday workout. Instead, I started out by raking leaves for about 1:45, and while I was out there, for some reason I thought I'd see if I could fire up my old Trek road bike which hasn't been ridden since 2006, which is when I got LGL. So I took that bike down from the hooks in the garage, pumped the tires and lo and behold they held air, waited a few minutes, wiped down the frame, lubed it up and got ready to ride.

I thought I'd ride for 2:30-3:00, but ended up around 3:20, maybe 56 miles, but who knows since I had no computer. And I bonked nicely, recalling I hadn't really eaten enough carbs on Friday night. I am still getting used to fueling myself for these really long swims--I know to eat well the night before, but need to get used to eating more the day of, too. Finished up the ride and was plenty tired and bonky, but slammed down some leftover Halloween candy (Juicy Fruits) and guzzled some Gatorade and took off for 1/2 hour run. Oh boy, I felt like I was running through mud, but really didn't do all that bad and did my :30.

Needless to say, I ate a lot yesterday, or so I thought, but in retrospect should have had more. When I woke up this morning, it felt like I had a hangover, but I couldn't have (2 beers), so figured it was just the shock of 4 hours of working out (more like 6 if you count raking leaves). Still, I wanted to go for a 1:30 run today, so luckily I had defizzed a can of Coke for the run, and decided I better slam one down before I started, too.

I went to Waterfall Glen and felt like I was really struggling. So much so that I thought of just bagging the run, but then I thought, hey what if I feel like this in Ultraman am I going to suck it up or what? So I kept going, and was even managing a decent pace, although I stopped every 1/2 mile or so just to stop and stretch and continued on. I managed to get in 10 miles, and I had packed a swim bag, but on the way home I was thinking food seemed like a better idea than a recovery swim. But I went to the Y anyway, and even though I took my sweet time on deck, once I got in and started swimming, it felt great, so I got in 1200 yards, showered and hit the sauna, and went home to have lunch.

I spent the rest of the day just relaxing, and now I've got dinner going (roast chicken w/garlic, lemon and rosemary, cranberry sauce which is done, and steamed asparagus once the chicken is just about ready), and have things ready to go for tomorrow's AM core workout and swim.

The Midwest Indoor Triathlon Series has been announced with official dates. There are only 3 races next year, and the first one is 2 weeks after Goofy Challenge, so unfortunately, I won't be doing that one, but I'll do the other two. It's sad that there are only 3 races, but for me, I guess it's a good thing because on the week of those things I just about thrash myself training, and next year's schedule is worse than ever.

At least once a week, I get to thinking about what I am trying to do in training for Ultraman, and I have this huge sense of fear. Which, I think, is healthy. I look at my training plan and wonder how I will get it all done, but then I put myself back in the moment of today, of now, and enjoy the fact that I still have some time on my hands on the weekend where I can enjoy cooking, reading and spending time with family and friends. When I am training, I have a smile on my face, and I know it because I get a lot of people smiling back at me. As long as that keeps up, I will maintain my motivation!