Sunday, February 14, 2010

I Guess it's a Double Today

As you might imagine, time available for blogging has been limited compared to 6 months ago and prior. So since I'm not yet doing 5+ hour workouts on a Sunday, I have a bit of time, so you get a twofer today.

Once again, I think I got the nutrition right on my Friday long swim, which ended up being 8,000 yards. I had an English muffin w/jam, 2 cups of coffee and 200 calories of Ultrafuel right after I woke up, and was in the pool swimming within :50. I think that's a new record!

I took 2.5 hours worth of Infinit with me, and I finished about all of it. Here is the workout I did (keep in mind I make these up from week to week):
1000 free (a warmup of sorts)
2000 pull
1000 free a bit faster than during warmup
500 kick to give my face a break from the goggles, but kicked peppily
1500 pull w/paddles (see I like to get progressively harder as I go just like when I do long runs)
10x200 with 15" rest as 100 fast, 25 back mod, 25 free mod, 25 back mod, 25 free mod

I ended up doing 8,000 because I had time! And I was swimming well. I had time to stretch a bit in the sauna and then headed home to start my workday. I immediately drank Endurox R4 and made 2 servings of oatmeal (cinnamon spice, yum!). About an hour and half later, it was time for some fruit, then I ate a normal lunch and a salad and pasta w/chicken liver-tomato sauce (sounds gross, but it's really good--I LOVE chicken livers so I get a good dose of protein and since I don't eat much fat I get that, too).

I felt "normal" around 4PM. No chance for me to nap since I had a busy workday.

Yesterday morning I awoke feeling pretty good and not even thinking I'd need supplemental caffeine for my workout (beyond my usual 2 cups of coffee). I did 2:15 on the trainer, overall at 81% of FTP (although I felt pathetic as I should have been able to manage more, oh well), then went and ran :25 and walked at 4MPH at 3% incline for :15. Still a decent workout.

I ate a small baguette last night, which is unusual for me since I'm not a big bread eater. But it was good, and that plus some rice with dinner and I broke down at the grocery store and got some orange slices (candy) to supplement and felt I had taken in a good amount of carbs.

This morning I had a Power Bar with the coffee, then I drank a can of Coke while doing my warmup for the race, an hour's worth of Infinit plus 32 oz. of Gatorade during the race and my post-race running, chowed down at the race, and since then I've had a mango and a beer, but am growing rather hungry again.

I am still finding it tough to get all the calories in that I need, only because of the sheer time I am training plus sleeping plus work do the math, I just don't have time to eat so much! But I am working on how to change that, and good thing is that my appetite usually picks up as it gets warmer. I know that's backwards of most people, but it is how it is for me.

I worked on my training schedule for the next 3 weeks and think I can still do it ;) But fast approaching is the craziness that I am not sure I can manage, but we shall see. As long as I'm cool with this being THE ONE THING that I am doing, it is working. It was good to see some familiar faces at the small race today, and once I'm back to riding outdoors there will be more of that.

Well, I need to go and eat some more now, so that's it for today!

100th Triathlon

Today was my 100th triathlon, the second in the series of 3 indoor sprints.

My wave started at 8AM, so I got to the club at 6:30 to do a good warmup, but DOH! It didn't open until 7AM, so I drove back home (um...sped), got on my bike for 10', got back in the car, got there and managed to do a 15' run warmup and another 10' on the Precor bike. I only had time for 200 yards of swim warmup, but whatever...I had hoped to do 500-600 yards.

Swim was nice, I just swam strong and relaxed. I did do 1 more lap than 2 weeks ago, but it's still not my best swimming, as I need like 800-2,000 yards to warm up nowadays! Still, I wasn't feeling much lactic acid accumulation, got out, showered briefly and suited up for the bike.

There were a number of people behind me yelling at me while I was biking, and I only recognized one voice. Turns out there were others that I know, but once they realized I was hard at it, they left me to my effort where I pretty much tuned everything out. I hit the first mile first in my wave and was close to the front the entire time. I would say that maybe 15% of the time I had my eyes closed. It was cool to be able to do that, you know? I mean, I didn't have to watch where I was going, and I could just really focus on the effort. I went .1 mile farther than 2 weeks ago.

Got off the bike and laid on the floor for maybe 20 seconds, and then headed upstairs to run. I didn't feel I had an adequate run warmup, but too bad, it was go time. I took it out hard but not too fast. I always get a kick out of how so many people go off like rabbits and many of them come right back to me after a few laps.

I felt pretty good running, but not particularly fast, and didn't bother to look at my watch or the race clock just like 2 weeks ago. When I do this, it either makes me feel like I suck or wow this hurts or crap there is a lot of time left, so I just counted my laps.

I was just a hair slower today than 2 weeks ago, and upon finishing, I immediately bent over and felt pukish. I thought I could stop it, but I realized it wasn't happening, so I made my way to the nearest bucket and let fly. It was not very much, but I sure felt better afterwards!

I spent about 1/2 hour chatting with some friends, and then changed and got on the treadmill. I ran for 1:10 and then did some fast incline walking for :15 to round out the day. I got an excellent massage and then chowed down on some pasta and sausage chased with a banana nut muffin, checked the results board (still on top!), showered up and am back at home.

Now I am going to stretch, have a beer or two, watch some Olympics, do laundry, adjust my training schedule, and get workout crap ready for tomorrow.

It was a good showing for me today, and there's one more race to go, but technically I already won the series, but still I hope I was at least in the top 20 females overall today and also want to go faster in 2 weeks.

The bike effort 2 weeks ago made my threshold intervals feel easier, and I am sure that will be the case again this week, which is part of the point of racing, right? Although I do push myself pretty hard in training, a race just brings out more of the pain, which is why I do it--or so I tell myself.

Happy Valentines Day to all the lovers out there!