Thursday, February 02, 2012

Cautiously Amped

I think it's taken a few weeks to come down from my high volume mid-December to early January training, and I feel settled, rested, and fucking awesome.

Yesterday I did my first official track workout--5K and 10K pace intervals.  I was bummed after my dismal, pathetic run in the indoor tri last Sunday, but I felt ready for this.  My schedule (stupid coach!) didn't have me doing track work until 2 weeks later.  I've been barely training for the last 3 weeks (about 12, 14 and 13.5 hours), which was most definitely called for, but come on, I can only go low for so long. 




Ludacris: How Low (Official Video) from DTP TV on Vimeo.

I was hitting sub-8's on the 5K intervals, and right around 8's for 10K, which is the fastest I've gone in a few years.  And they didn't feel that bad (although I was grimacing and cussing on my last laps of each repeat), so fingers crossed, I will go faster.  We will see on Sunday when I slam some serious tempo work into my long run.  While I felt predictably beat up yesterday (I did a hard 2200 swim right after the run), I feel absolutely awesome today.

My swim experiment with daily (whenever I'm swimming, that is) paddles and pull buoy seems to be working.  I am able to swim really fast (for me) with them, and it is showing in my non-toy swimming speed during warmups, and while I still swam my usual pace on Sunday, it was solid, really not much effort.  The experiment is teaching me to be OK with a higher heart rate while swimming, which is tough for me being so bradycardic.

Biking is also coming along in a huge way.  Racing on Sunday again reminded me of just how hard I can go, and that is showing up in my workouts this week.  I did laugh during the race on Sunday, since I could see my heart rate on the bike, and it was good 'n high for me (high 130's), but my sense of it was "it's just a number."  That's why I no longer use a heart rate monitor--at some point, I would become concerned over seeing the high numbers.  Fuck that noise.

Now comes the really fun part. Last year, while I was "resting," (and I do mean that figuratively, since WTF 780 hours is not exactly slacking), I decided I needed to move heavier weight in my strength sessions.  I had experience with the heavy stuff, but it can be dicey mixing high volume triathlon training with heavy lifting sessions.  So last year was perfect for going a little bigger. While I did my really long stuff in December/early January, I had to back off the weights, because that is just what you do if you are going to pile on the endurance training.  But now, I am back on them, and this week I am noticing that I might be able to dump on even more weight very soon!

I suppose my evolution as a triathlete, which has occurred over only 11 years, at an advanced age, is probably right on schedule, in terms of being able to truly handle the high volume, and now, possibly also much heavier weights.  Plus a good dose of high intensity work! Is that cool or what?

Hence the title of this post. Whenever I feel like this, I have a bit of a sense of foreboding that things may come crashing down on me at any minute.  But I am being very watchful of how my muscles feel, and they seem fine.  My only concern is the inability to sleep for more than 7-8 hours a night.  This may be due to the lessened volume, underestimating my metabolism (which, of course, was seriously jacked up a month ago), my recurring winter darkness confusion (this has happened to me before I began training so much), my age or hormonal factors (but come on, I am done with that shit I thought) or some other factor.  I do sleep quite well for the first 7 hours, and if I can't fall back asleep, I force myself to stay in bed for at least another hour.  I am not yet at a point where I feel like I should see my physician, although I did ask her to write me another scrip for sleeping pills, and she asked whether I was OK, extra stressed, etc., and I said NO. So unless something else rears its ugly head, I have to just roll with it.  If any of my three blog readers have ideas about this, please pass them along.

Monday, January 30, 2012

First official triathlon of 2012

I've done the MITCS series 5 or 6 times, and have won the series of 3 or 4 races (there were 4 up until a few years ago; now there are only 3 races spaced 2 weeks apart) 4 times, the last time being in 2010. I didn't have expectations going in here yesterday, seeing as how I've not been doing much of any speed training for running, only a few weeks on the bike, and really only a few weeks on the swim.  I just hoped to not suck too much!

I warmed up at home first on the treadmill, then on my bike, drank a Coke on the way to the venue, and when I was exiting I355 and waiting at a stoplight to turn onto Roosevelt Road, I saw a pair of coyotes on the hill supporting the tollway.  They looked to be in good health, with a nice, bushy winter coat.  I watched one then the other capture and eat some sort of small rodent, using the pouncing method.  I was so glad I got to see that!  It makes me sad that many people think ill of coyotes, but I applaud the fact that they have become at home in the suburban ecosystem, and I can only guess that they are doing a good job in keeping the mouse/vole/miscellaneous rodent population under control.  Some people are concerned about their dogs and cats, but cats should be indoors (to limit impact on songbird population), and as to small dogs, well we are only renting our land from the wild animals, who have every right to seek out their prey. The more wild animals I encounter near where I live, the happier I am! With the exception of deer--not a big fan of them coming into my yard and eating my flowers, but there aren't too many near me.  Still, if I lived in an area with a lot of deer, I would just have to accept it.

When I got to the race venue, I had just enough time to do a quick warmup--5' on the track, then 10' on the stationary bike.  This year they have Life Fitness bikes, and I've used them a few times at my Y and they seem to be geared more or less like a real bike.  I say that based on the fact that I can hit the same speed on it as I do on my real bikes with about the same effort.  I made a note of the saddle height, back to the locker room to put on my swim stuff, and got to the pool deck with just enough time to get in a 250 warmup.

The pool was nice and cold, and a few people commented it was TOO cold.  Not for me!  My Y's pool is usually 84-85, so this one seemed around 81, which was fine by me.  Unfortunately, I got the gutter lane, but it wasn't too bad.

It was funny to me that even though I'd warmed up everything, that I still had some race jitters in me!  Ah, my old friend! When the horn went off, I took off in my usual long distance pace, and felt pretty good.  The woman sharing my lane was a decent swimmer, and we were neck and neck for maybe 150, and then I pulled ahead of her.

Even though I've started doing a lot of hard intervals in the pool (starting 1/1), I still am not a fast swimmer or sprinter.  I managed 525 yards in 10', but know I can get to 550 or maybe 575.  On a good note, at least I have not slowed down in 5 years!

Onto the bike, where I thought, based on my 10' test, that I'd do pretty well. I was in a wave with a bunch of old farts like myself, but hoped someone would challenge me, not that you can actually challenge someone on a stationary bike!  I went relatively easy for the first mile, then changed to intervals of .5 mile hard/.25 mile easier.  I managed 6.93 miles in 20', and my goal for the next race is 7.25, which I think is very doable.  I expected to see high bike totals for everyone based on how the bikes are geared, so even though this was the best I've ever biked in terms of distance, it is almost apples and oranges, but still I know I worked really hard, and as is typical for me, when the bike was over, I dropped down to lay on the floor for a few seconds.

My hamstrings hurt a little from the god awful saddles on those bikes, but I walked it off and got ready to run. Everyone in the wave ushered me to the head of the line, even though I don't consider myself a good runner at all.  We took off, and there was one girl much younger than me that seemed to be running a good pace, so I stayed just off her shoulder for much of the time.  Looking back, I held back too much, and the pace was TOO comfortable, although I ran the most distance in the wave, but my pace was a craptastic, pathetic 8:50.  I will fix that, though, and would expect to get down to 8:15 or even 8:00.

Still, as crappy as I ran, there was only one other woman in my old lady age group, and I crushed her.  But when I was looking at the posted results, I would have placed 2nd or first in many of the lower age groups. Biking IS my strength!

Now the good thing about all of this is that I worked out for 3.5 hours on Saturday, so it's not like I was rested up or anything.  But I'm looking at my training schedule, and it appears it's time for Wednesdays to become track workouts.  I was going to wait 2 more weeks to begin that, but fuck it, I'm all recovered from all the November-December volume festival, and know I'm ready for serious track work, as I've been doing a little of it here and there.  Again, I was shocked at how slowly I'd run, but only because I wussed out and hung with someone else instead of pushing myself.

After the race, they had both acupuncture AND massage, and I was in heaven!  I got a little massage first, and then got some basic acupuncture, and I have to say, I feel pretty good this morning!  I hung out to cheer on some friends, made a new one, and then they brought out the sandwiches (I was finished at 9:30 but was hungry go figure!), so I had a couple of those.  I needed to kill some time anyway waiting for my bike shop to open so I could get my other shoes shimmed up.

So I went to The Bike Shop and hung out and chatted, and it turns out they are getting a shipment of the new shoes I really want--the Sidi T2, pictured above.  I don't really NEED new bike shoes, but I've learned now to periodically check Sidi and Castelli for cool new designs, and I really like the silver shoes (they're sparkly!), and I don't really need any other gear this year, so what the hell.  I will pick them up in 2 weeks after I've done my second indoor sprint that I better go faster at and win my AG again!



By the way, I wore my magic running shoes (shown above), and I definitely had the best looking shoes!  I did see a girl with the new Asics Gel Noosa Tri shoes, but the New Balance rainbows are cooler looking.  Sadly, I can't find them anymore, and don't think NB is making this color any longer.  I hope they do something similar next year.  These are the best shoes ever!

On another note, I am not sleeping enough.  I may just be in "confused winter mode," which has happened to me before with all the darkness, and my sleep schedule gets way off kilter.  I am going to ask my doctor for a refill on sleeping pills, because OTC just isn't doing it. Last time I did that, pretty much as soon as I got the prescription, I began sleeping well again.

I was just so happy to race again yesterday!  The adrenaline coursing through my veins, holding off the urge to hyperventilate during the swim, pouring it on during the bike, the sensation of wanting to puke while running, thanking all the volunteers, reconnecting with tri peeps.  I think I was smiling ear to ear the entire time except when I felt like puking.  Ah, racing---whenever I talk to someone who works out a lot (swim, bike and/or run) but doesn't race, I just don't get it.  I don't do it so I can beat other people (well most of the time anyway), but just so I can see how I perform under pressure and enjoy doing it with others.  The word compete comes from the Latin verb competere, which means to seek together.  Even us introverts can enjoy doing a solo sport in the presence of others!

And so, it's officially ON!  I feel healthy, strong, and ready to work my ass off (and on, as I've been doing lots of squats) and see just what I can accomplish this year!