Catching up

After the 10K on Saturday, I was ahead on the run training, but I still needed to get some biking and swimming in. Sunday, we took the kids to Lake of the Woods for a bit and I decided to bring my bike in the van so that I could go on a ride afterwards. My plan called for 97 minutes of riding, so I decided to head roughly south, a ways past our house, and then double back. The SW corner of our subdivision is at the intersection of county roads 700 E and 1400 N (aka Rising and Windsor), so at every intersection I could tell how many miles away I was.

The day was perfect for riding, not too warm, and with only a light breeze. I biked past the corn and soybean fields, seeing the occasional car, cyclist, and one runner, but for the most part being on my own. I ended up riding past the same place where I had seen the cows on my long run in April, and they were out in full force, but I once again didn't have a chance to get a good picture.

I estimated that I'd need to turn around about 6.5 miles south of my subdivision, but decided to go the full 7 miles to 700 N. I figured I was feeling an occasional light breeze so the return trip would be with the wind, so I should go faster. As soon as I turned around, I realized I was wrong, and I was heading into the wind. And the road started sloping uphill to boot! Granted, the climb was very gradual, and the wind was fairly light, but I had already biked one hour and was feeling tired, both from the ride and from the 10K, so I ended up slowing down quite a bit. I also had finished all my water, so around mile 20, I felt like I was ready to quit, but short of asking Lenore to wake up the kids, pack them into the van, and come to rescue me, there wasn't much of an option other than trudging home. I finally arrived home nearly two hours after having started, thirsty and exhausted.

The good news was that I covered 27 miles, which is longer than the Olympic bike distance. The bad news was that I felt like I could hardly walk, let alone run a 10K. I'm definitely going to need some brick practice in the future!

I decided to skip the last swim of the week, convincing myself that I exceeded the total number of training minutes in my plan anyway. This, of course, ignores the fact that I exceeded it mainly on the run, which is currently my strongest discipline, and was heavily behind on the swim, which is my weakest. But I also think my body really needed the rest.

I got back in the saddle on Tuesday; this time, the wind was from the NE, and since going east means heading into the city, I opted to go north instead. My muscles were tired and it was a little slow going, but I made it to the north end of Rising, where it dead-ends into Bloomington road. From there, you can cut east for a short stretch and continue north on Lindsey Rd., which was surprisingly hilly. I made it to the top of a rise and reached my planned 35-minute turnaround time, so I headed home. The way back was much faster, with the wind at my back. Turns out that I also was losing some non-trivial elevation; I discovered later that my ride out was pretty much uphill the whole way, and ended over 100ft higher than it started! Upon further research, it turned out that I was just shy of reaching the highest point in all of Champaign county. I'll have to investigate more closely next time.

With the speedy return, I was home quickly and had to add an extra mile around the subdivision to make my goal of 64 minutes (actually ended up being 68). This ride felt much easier, in part because it was shorter and in part because I managed correctly to make it harder on the way out than back. Did not see any cows, but did pass some horses and a donkey.

Tuesday night, I wanted to fit in a quick swim, so I dashed off to the ARC right after singing the kids a lullaby. I was in the pool by 8:30, but turns out that when they say that the pool closes at 9, they really kick you out by 8:45, so I only managed to get 400 meters in, doing 100 meter repeats with 12 breaths in between. On the plus side, I didn't have too much trouble with breathing on this set, so I'm hoping I can transition to week 2 of 0 to 1650 soon.

Wednesday was our speed work session. The instructions for the day were 5 repeats of 200 "hard" + 400 "pace" on 2 minutes rest, followed by 5 repeats of 400 "pace" + 200 "hard", with a 4-minute rest between the two sets. The other guidance I was given was that "hard" for me should be 62 seconds per 200m, and "pace" was around 2:40 for the 400. I didn't take this guidance to heart, however, and interpreted "hard" as "all out," and "pace" as "pretty hard." My first 200 was finished in 46 seconds, followed by about 2:00 for the following 400, after which I felt like I was going to die! In retrospect, it was probably a bad sign that I passed a few other runners on the 200 stretch.

I spent the next little while trying to find the right pace, and was getting it pretty close by the end of the first set, settling in at the back of the pack. The second set was easier because you got to rest after the 200m sprint, rather than having to run another 400m. I only got my splits at the 200 and 600 points, but I think I was running the 400's a little faster and the 200's a little slower than target, but at least my total time was close to the mark.

By the way, I love how RunKeeper makes it look like I was running some killer hill repeats by stretching out the scale of the elevation graph here!

Thursday was a rest day. I was pretty tired, though my DOMS seems to have peaked last night/this morning, so maybe I should have done some recovery activity. I did notice that Thursday morning I weighed nearly 3 lbs (!) lighter than Wednesday, despite drinking copious amounts of water.

Today I went swimming. The ambitious plan was to wake up early and get to the pool; in reality, I only managed to wake up early-ish, with not enough time to get in a full workout before the end of the morning pool hours at 7:45 (that is if they even let me stay until 7:45!). I "pivoted" and went into the office early instead, and stopped at the pool on my way home. Simple workout, 4x100 followed by 8x50. (Probably should have stuck to the 6x50 of the 0 to 1650 plan, since I ended up being 2 minutes late coming home.) This time, the 12 breaths of rest after each 100 felt like plenty, so I think I'm ready for week 2.

Plan for the weekend: Sat AM: run with Lenore and twins, Sun AM: long bike ride, Sun PM: swim. Seems doable.

Home "alone", part 2

... and we're back! When we last left our heroes, they just completed a 40-minute jog with the POD. The initial plan for Sunday was to try the bike trailer mode of the POD, but due to an error on my part, Tora's helmet had not yet arrived. The backup plan was to try out a strength workout using the GAIN Fitness app, but that also had to be scrapped when I woke up Sunday morning with a bad case of food poisoning.  So instead I spent the day feeling trying to remain horizontal while feeling miserable.

By Monday I was feeling much better. I also lucked out with our babysitter; she came to watch the twins while I went to work for a prelim exam and was able to stay a bit later, so I got in a quick swim at the pool. I noticed myself making progress; I was able to get through an entire 50m length without feeling terribly winded. I also spent some time doing some measurements: I was taking 90 to 120 seconds per a 50m pool length, and about 75 strokes. So definitely lots of room for improvement!

Tuesday morning the kids went to daycare and I went to the gym. I decided it was time to try out the GAIN Fitness app. It's kind of neat: you give it some goals about what you are aiming to do, such as build muscle or just improve health, how long you want to work out, what area you want to focus on, and what equipment you have available. It then creates a set of exercises for you and guides you through them. For each exercise, you get a picture and some tips; you can also switch among several (roughly) equivalent exercises, based on your preference. It can also upload a report to RunKeeper about your workout.

Overall, I like the ability to design a tailored workout for your particular circumstance (especially as I travel and have to exercise in various hotel gyms). The functionality has a few rough corners; if you look at the report, it seems to follow a template that isn't appropriate for all exercises and it also includes some exercises that I skipped. Also, during the warm-up and cool-down exercises, it assumes that you are able to instantaneously switch between them as it measures out 30-second intervals; I guess with practice, that may be the case. It's not a replacement for a personal trainer, but it seems to provide good guidance for someone like me, who's just beginning some strength training and needs flexibility in the workouts.

Finally, Tuesday afternoon, we went for a bike ride. The kids' helmets had both arrived and I got them adjusted as best I could. (The instructions kept saying things like "put the helmet on your head ...", which would have been much simpler than putting the helmet on a squirmy toddler, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't fit.) Tora for some reason didn't like the helmet too much, though Tavi was pretty happy; I think he just saw it as another cool hat.

I finally wrangled them both into the trailer and into the helmets and we were ready to go.

We went slowly out of the subdivision and then got out onto the country road... where the wind hit. The trailer has a terrible wind profile, so I ended up going very slowly in a low gear. The handling of the bike is also noticeably different; every once in a while, the wind shifts or the slope changes and then the pull from the back changes, sometimes even to a brief push. But we were in no rush, and once again, this training should help me go faster in a race sans trailer.

My plan was to go for about a 50-minute ride, as prescribed by my training schedule, but after about 20 minutes, Tora started crying. I don't know if she was tired, hot, hungry, or just cranky. Unfortunately, there was nothing much I could do other than turn around and bike home, which took another 15 minutes or so. Next time I will try going when it's not as hot out and/or bring something for the kids to drink to see if they tolerate it better.

Swim bike run!

After taking a break last week, this week is week one of triathlon training! My overall plan is borrowed from here, though I think I will be making some adjustments. The overall strategy is: 3x swim, 2x run, and 2x bike per week, increasing overall volume by 10% each week, with a rest week once a month. This needs to be rounded out with 2x per week strength training, for an ambitious total of 9 workouts a week. I actually wrote a python program to try to come up with an optimal schedule, but in retrospect, I might just play things by ear, at least for a couple of weeks to try to figure out how fast I recover from various workouts.

This week will be a bit below par; I spent Monday and Tuesday in DC, and although I had some plans for how to fit a workout or two into that trip, having my arrival delayed by 19 hours due to bad weather in O'Hare threw a wrench into those plans. And tomorrow morning, Lenore goes away on a 5-day vacation in Florida, leaving me to watch the kids, which will limit my exercise options. I did order a Baby Jogger Pod for the twins, which should hopefully allow me to go for a jog and a bike ride while she's gone, but I can't go to the gym or the pool.

Night Swimming

For some reason I thought that swimming is best to do first thing in the morning, and in fact my plan on Tuesday was to go for a swim in DC, but I overslept, compensating for a long night the night before. So instead I went to the ARC pool after putting the kids to bed, and that actually worked out pretty well. The pool was fairly empty, and it was actually kind of fun swimming in the dark.

The swim itself was very frustrating; I felt like I was mostly thrashing in the water. I was having a lot of trouble with breathing and also with maintaining form. The 50m length also took a lot of getting used to; I'd swim swim swim, look ahead, and see that I wasn't even halfway across! Most of the time I couldn't make it across without stopping (the pool is shallow the whole way), or at least taking a few breast strokes to catch my breath. The one time I did make it was pretty exciting.

I went for another swim tonight and I felt like I was making progress. I started out slowly, but after a couple of laps, I was able to make it across the pool without stopping more often than not. I also experimented with breathing every third stroke, and that actually helped quite a bit. Initially I'd only manage about half the pool length before switching to breathing every other stroke, but eventually I managed to do it for a whole length, unless I happened to gulp down some water on an inhale (which definitely happens more often on my left side, since in the past I've tried breathing on the right only).

I'm hoping that this experience will be similar to the Couch-to-5K plan, where initially even a really short jog would feel nearly impossible, but after a few weeks of concerted effort, things became much easier. And I figure worst case, I can always break down and do breast or back stroke in the triathlon.

Speedwork

The Second Wind running club is organizing speedwork sessions on Wednesday nights so I decided to join them. The meeting was at the Urbana High School track, which I believe was my first time running on a track since... probably grade 6 or so. The workout plan was:

2x1600m, 5m rest

2x800m, 3m rest

2x400m, 2m rest

The organizer had helpfully come up with a list of times that we should aim for in each interval, given our last 5K performance. Based on that, my mile was supposed to be between 10:45 (if you use the second half 5K split from the 10K race) and 12:00 (if you use my last actual 5K race).  When we started off our first 1600m interval, I tried to keep up with the people towards the back of the pack. As I finished my first lap, my quarter-mile split was 2:12! I pushed through and made it three more laps, feeling very much like I was going to die, and finished with an 8:55 time. After that, I realized that I best give up on trying to keep up with everyone and slow down in an attempt to survive. My second mile interval was 9:30; it still felt like a very hard pace, but at least I wasn't quite so ready to collapse afterwards. Here were all of my times:

1600: 8:55, 9:30

800: 4:40, 4:35

400: 2:01, 2:01

I was really hoping to get under 2 minutes on that last 400m, but it wasn't in the cards. This left me wondering whether (a) I am capable of running a much faster 5K (my interval times were in line with a 26-27 finish) or (b) I was pushing myself way too hard on these intervals. I'm guessing (b), but next Wednesday they're planning a 5K fun run, so I guess I'll find out.

Biking

When I got home Wednesday night, I was barely able to move. I just managed to grab dinner before passing out. When I woke up the this morning, however, I felt OK enough to try a bike ride. I even found the bike shorts I wore on my honeymoon in Norway; fortunately, I was able to fit into them again! I hadn't charged my phone so I wasn't able to get any data about the ride, but my estimate was that I rode about 11.5 miles in 45 minutes. There was hardly any wind and the ride was a comfortable constant effort. The Tifosi sunglasses worked out really well for biking, providing a wide shielded field of vision.

Rest

Tomorrow will be a much welcomed day of rest, other than chasing after two twins. This was a pretty intense sequence, and I think I'd like to space things out just a little bit more in future weeks. But I'm getting a lot more confidence that at the end of week 16 I'll be able to complete the triathlon. Wish me luck! 

Back in the saddle

Tuesday was Bike to Work Day in Champaign-Urbana and I decided it was a good opportunity to start my cycling season. Monday night I dusted off my bike (untouched since last summer), pumped up the tires, and located my helmet in the garage (never an easy task), so that everything was set to go Tuesday morning. I left the house just after 7am and headed towards Savoy. It's a little out of the way, but this way I got to avoid the dangerously narrow freeway overpasses.

Very quickly, my muscles started complaining about being used in an unfamiliar way, so I had to use my granny gear when heading up a grade, but for the most part I was having a great time. I stopped by a bike station and picked up a free T-shirt, water bottle, and a sticker, and continued on my way. They did not have the promised coffee, so I was glad I had fueled up at home. I ended up using bike lanes or bike paths for most of the ride, except on campus things get confusing as bike paths are not very well labeled and end abruptly. At one point, I was dumped onto a one-way street facing the wrong way, so I ended up just riding on the sidewalk.

I finally arrived at my office just before 8 and ended up being a couple of minutes late to my (last!) lecture. After the lecture, I walked up the stairs to my office very slowly, as my legs seemed not to have much energy left in them. Somehow, by the end of the summer, I'm going to have to run a 10K after a bike ride 2.5 times as long (not to mention a long swim, too). No problem!

Just after 4pm, a rainstorm started rolling through campus. Lenore emailed me and offered to come rescue me in the minivan, so I checked the weather radar, and it looked like the storm would pass in a short while. Just after I told her not to worry about me, the tornado siren started going off. Everyone in the office filed down to the basement, except for a few students who were standing outside peering at what looked like a funnel cloud in the distance. I think they eventually came to their senses and went inside; I myself tried to watch the storm on our new building webcam, but could only see rain. Lenore emailed me that she was hiding in our basement at home with the dogs and the twins.

Fortunately, the tornado warning expired at 4:45 and the weather cleared up nicely. My ride home ended up being sunny and pleasant for most of the ride, except in the beginning, when my seat was super-wet. The last few miles were biking on mostly open roads into a strong headwind, so my average heart rate for that part was about 10bpm higher than on the outbound trip and I was hot and out of breath when I arrived home. But overall, I think I can declare my commuting experiment a success. The only major downside is that it takes about a half-hour longer than driving, but I think in the summer, I should be able to find the time to do this again.

I've also started dreaming of buying a new bike to replace my 10+ old bottom-of-the-line hybrid. Last summer, I was very close to buying a CAAD10 5 105, but eventually I decided that I couldn't fit it into my budget. It was a good thing, too, since I only made it out bicycling a half-dozen times the whole summer. This summer, I was planning to do a bit of a splurge to get a tenure gift for myself, and a nice road bike may be just the thing. To make sure that I don't end up with something I don't use, I've decided to make my budget equal to the number of minutes I have spent bicycling. I figure this way, by the time I have banked enough minutes for a new bike, I will have established a pretty regular cycling pattern that the money will be well spent. And it might even encourage me to bike to work more often, which is almost certainly a good thing.