The Official Guide to Rating Your Workouts and Races

Some of you who read my blog may be perplexed when I say things like, "I suck," or "my workout was pathetic."  Late last week I was thinking about how I rate myself, and what the full scale would look like so that I could just show it to others.  At first, I came up with this:

I posted it to Facebook, and got some comments, mostly from a guy named Sean, and we came up with some more refinements, and this is what we ended up with:

 

I really like this scale, because 0 corresponds to PATHETIC, and 10 corresponds to MASSIVE PR.  So now you know that when I say my performance was pathetic, that I can't really imagine doing any worse.  If I just sucked, well, it wasn't even OK, but it could have been even worse!

In my day to day training, my intent when executing a workout is to hit at least WELL.  WELL means I feel rested, not too much accumulated fatigue, and I can execute to specs for my current fitness level.  WELL is a 6 on the scale, and even though it's in the middle of the scale, it doesn't mean it's "average."  It's just that I have high standards, and do not adhere to scales where the middle is average.  To me, middle/average would be just OK.  Like I was able to do the workout, maybe I was tired going in, maybe I knew I was underfueled--typically an OK workout/race for me is one where I go in knowing it won't be a spectacular performance, I will get it done, I won't experience a setback by doing it, and I will be all right with my performance.

By comparison, I COULD DO BETTER, would mean that I felt better than on a day where I might just be able to do OK, was expecting to do NOT BAD or even WELL, but I just couldn't cut it.  Maybe I just didn't have my mental mojo dialed in.

Funny thing is that since I came up with this scale, I've been incorporating it into my workout notes.  I think this could serve as a subjective rating scale for Training Peaks!

This scale is pretty much how I think when I'm asked to do a self evaluation at work, and it always perplexes my manager, because to me, doing what I'm capable of doing and doing it well qualifies as WELL, and so on the scale of 1-5, I call that "3."  But I have learned that I should consider where I think I stand compared to others, and I am typically told I'm a 4 or a 5.  That's nice for work, but if every day in training I think I'm at the top of my scale, then what would motivate me to improve?  Nothing.  So I will stick with my 0-10 scale, where 6 is "meeting expectations," more than 6 is fucking fantastic, and less than 6 is not my best work!

Second Indoor Tri--Another Win, but I Still Suck

Yesterday was the second of the 3 indoor tri series races, in Glen Ellyn.  For the 3 days prior, I wasn't feeling right.  Not just my sleep being off kilter (which it still is, but getting better), but I was feeling quite fatigued.  Some of you reading are thinking, "Well, that's what you get for training like a Crackhead" (oh and speaking of crackheads, a famous one just passed away), and that's a true statement, but this is the time of year when I typically catch my annual virus.

I learned another lesson in scheduling my training this past week and that it's tough to cram 11.5 hours of SBR (heavy on the B and R) plus heavy duty strength training into 5 weekdays.  I figured I might pay for it, and on Friday, I curled up in bed with my laptop, as sitting up was just too much effort, even though I swam and ran first thing in the day.

I took my temperature, and it was a normal 97.1, so no fever.  Also no cough, no post-nasal drip, just more than the usual fatigue, and I did feel a little short on breath and that my heart rate just did not want to go anyplace.  No muscle aches, so probably not the flu, no swollen lymph nodes in my throat or neck, so I concluded just some virus plus stupid training tricks.

Side note: there have been a few times when I've felt like this that I've gone to the doctor, and they just about laugh at me.  "Oh--so you're a little tired?"  I've even had them check my lungs, and had her tell me they are just fine, all clear, but I can tell when I'm the least bit "off."

Anyway, on Saturday, I still felt a bit dizzy, but couldn't tell whether it was real or if it was just because I'd lazed around all day Friday and gotten a good night's sleep.  I wasn't sure about getting in my 2:15 ride, but I had to get at it because I'd planned on going TV shopping (I haven't bought a new one in I hate to say it over 20 years, but the old one still works fine and will get moved upstairs now) in the afternoon with my brother Mike.  I decided that I should not try and push it on the bike, but I truly hate so-called "spinning."  It is better for me to just skip a ride than deal with the mental anguish of just ambling.  Seriously!  I can do that for maybe 30 minutes tops.

So I got on the bike, and ambled in the SCR for 30 minutes, and it felt fine, I had good RPM's (in the 100's) and speed (18.5mph), so I switched into the BCR, worked my average mph up to 19, then I went over 20 the next 30 minutes and ended up at 21.2mph for 2:20, not bad for feeling maybe sickly.  I hurried up and showered so I could get to Mike's so we could get to eating lunch!

We ate at Buffalo Wild Wings, and I had a big Leine's, and that was good, but it hit me like I hadn't had a drink in years.  Still, it took the edge off, which helps when I go brick and mortar shopping, because I really don't like doing it.  I'd measured and done some research on TV's for what I needed, and Mike showed me all the ones in his house, which was helpful, and we headed to Sam's to buy.

Despite the fact that I've worked in high tech for like forever, I am typically behind on acquiring technology for myself.  I still don't use a smartphone, I was slow to adopt CD's way back when, and well, the TV thing.  So it was fun to get this done (I got a 42" LCD to be mounted on the wall downstairs where my treadmill and bike trainer are), and now I just need to get my guy to come over and mount the thing.

After I stopped briefly at Mike's to drop him off, I realized I was pretty tired, and went home with the intent to get my grocery shopping done, but truly I was too tired to do it.  So I layed on the couch and read, maybe I napped a bit, and got to sleep early.

Yesterday I woke up after a solid 8 hours of sleep, and felt better than the day before, so I figured it was a go to race.  I even had some adrenaline going, and was excited to see what I was going to be able to do.  But I had a sneaking suspicion that running was not going to be fun.  It's no big deal for me to go hard on a bike with a virus, and even swimming wasn't that bad on Friday, but running not so much.  Still, I warmed up 15' on the treadmill and then 20' on the bike at home, packed up and headed to the race site.

I ran another 5' on the track and biked 10', but only had time for 200 yds. swim warmup and then we were off.  The pool wasn't cold enough for my liking, but I didn't want to push it too much since I knew I was battling something.  I swam 500 yds. in 10 minutes.  Crappy, but no worse than last week, so whatever.

Onto the bike.  My goal was 7.25 miles in 20', and I made 7.2, so that was good.  That was my best ever in these races.  As usual, when I finished, I laid on the floor for about 30 seconds to catch my breath.  I felt pretty wasted, and knew the run was going to suck.

I didn't bother looking at my watch while running, because I didn't want to get depressed.  I managed 8:47 pace, a bit faster than 2 weeks ago, but nowhere near what I am capable of (8:15 would be more like it).  Still, I shouldn't complain, right?  I worked harder on the bike than 2 weeks ago, still ran a bit faster than 2 weeks ago, still handily won my AG and placed decently overall, it was my best score EVER in these races over the last 5 years, so what the fuck am I pissed off for?  Because I need to get on my running.  This is what 2 years of not running fast did to me.  But I think I can get it back in the next few months.  Maybe it's just my top-end speed that is off, though, as I've had some good long runs and ran decent paces for my 55th birthday week festival, so maybe there's hope for me!

But hope is not going to make me faster, so it's nose to the grindstone this week.  While I feel like I've purged the virus from my system (but it's replaced today by a hangover achieved by just 3 beers after I puked my guts out right after I finished racing yesterday!), I will need to train cautiously today and maybe not do 3 hours!  We will see what I can manage on Wednesday when I do my first formal track session.

Smells like a Breakthrough Workout to Me

I woke up this morning a little earlier than I would have liked, but still got 7.5 hours of sleep, which is about enough for me lately. Muscularly, I felt great, which is awesome considering I put in about 11 hours Monday-Friday, and 10 is the threshold where I start to feel generally tired. But I had a slight headache, and it didn't look like it would get warm enough for me to ride outside until later than I wanted to go (and need to wear a lot of clothes), so I decided to get on the trainer.

I just wasn't looking forward to 3 hours on the trainer, but knew I'd probably get it done anyway. All winter long, I've been watching Ironman races while on the trainer, but today I pulled out an old TDF. I hope that my memory would be correct in that it's better to watch people biking the entire time than the other color crap that is on most of the Ironman coverage.

My original workout called for a 1 hour warmup and then 1:30 of some intervals, which meant I'd need another 1/2 hour of something, and while doing the first hour, I thought about where I wanted to put that extra 1/2 hour. I decided up front, so I'd end the ride on the hard stuff.

Pretty much as soon as I started riding, Mr. Headache left me, and my legs felt pretty darn good. But of course, you can't judge how you feel when you are riding easy. I took a short break at 40' in to do 50 pushups, 50 crunches and 15 pullups so I wouldn't forget to do them later. I decided my extra 1/2 hour would be at 80-85% most of the time. Well, that felt pretty good, too, so then I got to thinking how the original main set would feel and could I do it? Turns out, oh yeah! Here's the full workout I did:

WU: 60' @ 65-70%, 2x(12'@80-85%,3' Easy)
MS: 3 x (18' @ 85-90%, 6' @ FT, 1' @ 105%, 5' Easy)

I ended up with a TSS of 187, which ain't bad considering the first hour was fucking easy.

Next, it was time to run. Last week, I was Ms. Bonk on the run, but it was my own fault. Today I made sure to take in sufficient calories while on the bike that I should be OK. I ran outside, and as soon as I took off (after about a 5' transition), I was like fuck, my legs feel awesome! I was running uphill into a headwind and feeling great! So of course I wondered how long that would last.

I kept running into the wind so I'd have it at my back on the way home, and I never did experience what I like to call "brick suck." You know what I mean--that point in a brick run where you just feel like shit. I thought it would happen today especially since I had ended the ride going pretty hard, but no! I also noticed that I felt very light on my feet which tells me I'm just about at perfect race weight (maybe 111 now which is just fine). I negative split the run by a good amount (which was what I was supposed to do).

I'm sitting here thinking that today showed me several things:

1. I have absorbed a lot of the intense stuff I was doing over the 8-week period where I was doing those 4 sprint races
2. I have ramped up my volume (I'll hit almost 16 hours this week) safely
3. It was a good idea to drop a few pounds
4. I must be taking good care of myself to feel this good

I feel really ready to bust out a solid 60+ mile ride as soon as it's warm enough, hopefully next weekend. And that is when the real fun begins--next week I will also move my long run to Thursday morning (before work--so I'm a little zombie-ish for a few hours afterwards) so that I can get in 2 long rides on the weekend. I should hit almost 17 hours next week, which means, guess what? I'm in an Ironman build, only this one is for Triple T.

I'm optimistic that I will have a good long run tomorrow, too, and since I have no schedule constraints tomorrow, I might just wait until it's warm enough for me so I can avoid the treadmill.

I am always grateful for a workout like today, because much of the time I feel like I suck, and then something like this happens and I think maybe not.

And now I must try and nap before an appointment in a few hours. Happy Saturday!

Ironman Deluge Brief Race Report

Actually, I came up with a number of names for the race while out there yesterday:

• Ironman pee pee socks
• Ironman deluge
• Ironman what the fucking hell
• Ironman Beat the Dead Guy (more on that later)

I did not have a good day, but I didn't have a bad day. 15 hours and a minute or so (which I could have saved had I not stopped to pick up my special needs bags before finishing). I think the rain got to me, I think I didn't have enough hill riding under my belt, and I think some of the cumulative stress of the last 9 months managed to stay with me.

I knew it was going to be a rainy day, but I managed to put my wetsuit on in the beach house next to the lake before it started coming down, so that was a good thing. I lined up way in the back so I could wait for the washing machine to pass, and at some point while swimming, I figured out it was raining. It didn't seem to add too much chop to the lake, though, so that was a good thing. Although I thought I was swimming well, I guess not. I just can't figure out this swim! I can do 2.4 miles in a pool in 1:15, so what's up with 1:25? Oh well, get out and get on with the bike.

I met, or should I say he spotted me, Swordfish, on Saturday, and he gave me a great tip that I used--lube up my feet with Vaseline to avoid water blisters. Also, I completely changed my mind about my race day outfit due to the rain, and my theme for the day was "Appreciating Dryness." So I didn't put my Ironman Canada bike jersey on until after I got out of the swim. That was a nice touch. At this point, knowing it was going to be a long, wet day, I didn't see the point in rushing too much.

As soon as I got out of the changing tent, it started pouring like a mofo. I had wondered what it would be like wearing an aero helmet in the rain, but it turned out to be a wise decision, just because it kept my head relatively dry. Also, it encourage me to stay aero and tucked. I had put a rain jacket over my jersey, and it worked pretty well all day to keep me relatively dry underneath. In looking at the weather almanac for yesterday, apparently it stayed right around 60-65 all day. Generally that's pretty comfortable on the bike, but for me with the rain, I was a bit chilled.

Last year, I bombed down (relatively) the descent into Keene, but I was too timid with the rain this time so I held back to maybe 25MPH. I just didn't feel safe going any faster, and I know that cost me some time on the ride, but whatever. I felt like I climbed pretty well, and while I didn't watch my watts like a hawk, I could pretty much tell where I was.

What sucked was that my hands got all wrinkly like I had been taking a bath all day, and then my forearms weren't all that great with the rain jacket on the aerobars. Again, oh well, too bad, keep going. I don't think I have ever felt so miserable in an Ironman--I mean, knowing I could finish but just not wanting to. I wanted to bag it so many times.

While riding, every time I would drink my Infinit or water, within seconds I would need to pee. Since it was raining so hard, no worries, I just kept peeing on the bike. I lost count after about 15 times--I swear it was at least 5 times an hour! I don't know whether this means I didn't need to drink so much or it was a sign of slight hypothermia or what. At Ironman Brazil in 2006, I peed on the bike 7 times and I thought that was a lot! Other athletes reported the same experience, so it seems that the cooler temperatures contributed.

One of the things that kept my spirits up was telling volunteers that I hadn't planned on a 140.6 mile swim today! I caught one guy on his bike standing up and as I passed, I asked him if he was peeing, and I said, "Nice work!"

On the second lap of the bike, I had decided I'd dump some of my Dad's ashes at the top of the biggest climb next to Whiteface mountain. I had brought them with me in a crack baggie, and this was the only time I stopped my bike all day. I told him I wished him a beautiful view from there!

Bike time 7:34 and change. Pretty crappy for me. But I felt steady and strong all day, and just suffered for the conditions. Still, I felt pretty much like a poseur--I mean I should have been able to do better than that.

My nutrition was spot on, and I didn't feel calorie depleted or bloated or anything like that, and when I got into T2, of course, I was very happy to get off my bike, and told a bunch of people on the way in, "FREE BIKE!" The volunteers are awesome, and so are the spectators, and as suck ass as I felt, I still wanted to smile as much as possible and thank everyone.

In T2, I opted to just leave my bike shorts on even though I packed a clean pair of running shorts. Why? Because I figured I would keep peeing on myself. I lubed my feet again with Vaseline and put on fresh socks (I should have told the volunteer to throw the bike socks away!), my Fuel Belt and a running hat, and just as I was about to get up and go, we could hear the rain pick up to a heavy downpour. Great!

My legs didn't feel too bad exiting T2, but my back was really tight. This is where I think I needed the hill riding--not so much for climbing ability, which I have since I'm so small, but to get used to holding that position while climbing. Also, I think I was hunching my shoulders while on the bike to keep my neck dry. Not a good thing!

Anyway, nobody is going very fast in an Ironman marathon, including me. I just decided at this point that I wasn't looking at my watch, because it was going to be what it was going to be. The streets were wet, wet, wet, and my peeing odyssey continued. I used up almost all of my Ultra Violence, and supplemented with Gatorade, water and chicken broth (broth was to ensure I kept getting enough sodium). Nutrition-wise, I was doing well, although at Mile 14 I had to stop and actually use a porta-potty to take a well-earned dump. That had been keeping me feeling full, and I took a nice, full, emptying pee in there, too, but as soon as I began drinking again, the peeing began again in full force.

The road camber bothered me, just as it did last year, but I think I made a mistake in wearing my ultra lightweight running shoes. On the one hand, they were good because they didn't hold too much water; on the other, my feet took a beating. Oh well!

There were a few times during the marathon that I felt almost really cold once the sun went down, and that alone kept me moving just to get someplace warm! On the little out and back before the finish line, I decided to grab my special needs bags, because I had some good stuff in there that I wanted back, and didn't want to walk another 2 miles or try and get Shelley (who graciously was getting my bike and bags out of transition) to get them later. Unfortunately, there were no volunteers manning the bags at this point, so I had to just find them myself, and when I realized I might finish in 15:00 or slightly less, I was pissed that I wouldn't because of this, and I just thought fuck it. At this point, I've had a tough race as it is, and worrying about 1 or 2 minutes just wasn't worth it!

Once I got to the oval, there were so many people lining it who gave me so much energy that I just ran and ran and slapped as many hands as I could, and I heard my name, and it was all over! After getting my hat, medal and t-shirt, I had a finishing photo taken, and I just left the damn rain jacket on, because it went all the way with me!

On the run, I also carried some of my Dad's ashes with me, and if it wasn't for that, I'm sure I would have just quit. I kept thinking he would tell me that I was the one that had signed up for this and so it was up to me to finish, and so I did. I emptied the bag of ashes in the transition area in the hope that they will bring me good luck next year when I return to face the same course!

They allowed athletes to register on Saturday, and while I had been thinking I would do Ironman Wisconsin in 2009, Shelly convinced me to go with IMLP, and hopefully, we'll get the same great house to stay in. As I write this, I hear the race is sold out for 2009 between athletes re-upping, volunteers onsite getting preferred registration, and all others onsite, so there is no online registration.

This was one of my toughest finishes ever, and while I'm not proud of my time, I'm proud that I finished it, and gosh, I should be in good shape for NothingMan in 7 weeks!

I am happy that my Dad got to do the race with me. He never saw me do an Ironman, and when I first started doing it, he didn't understand why I did it, but in about 2 years, he figured it out. No matter how bad I felt yesterday, it couldn't compare to the suffering he went through in his last week of life--maybe I actually wanted myself to suffer yesterday--who knows? But this I do know--every time I do one of these I learn something new about myself and acquire new skills, and this one is no different. Other than getting through it in the rain, I'm not checking in yet on just all what I learned about myself--that will take a few weeks.

Now it's time for some beer and more food! Thanks everyone who was watching and rooting for me out there. I feel badly I made you wait so long for me to finish--I'll try harder next time, I promise!