I had to watch the kids last night so I couldn't make it to the SWRC speedwork session. I opted to do the planned workout on the treadmill instead. (It had been sitting neglected for too long!)
Workout:
1/2 mile warm-up (5mph / 12:00/mi)
1/4 mile hard (7.3mph / 8:13/mi)
2x1/2 mile hard-ish (7mph / 8:34/mi)
1/4 mile hard (7.3mph / 8:13/mi)
2x1 mile tempo (6.4mph / 9:22/mi)
~1/4 mile cooldown (5mph / 12:00/mi)
Total: 4.19mi, 40:00 min
Lenore said that she came home and it sounded like an elephant was running upstairs. I think at some point we'll need to move the treadmill into the basement to avoid this, but we might need to put carpet down there first.
Boring as it is, I found using the treadmill easier for the intervals than the track, probably because you don't get to set your pace, so you don't end up starting too fast, or worrying how far to push yourself. Hopefully it's good practice to help pace myself for actual road runs.
It also felt good to get a workout in; hadn't done anything since last Friday. Only 10 days left until the Chicago Tri! I still want to get a couple of brick workouts in, but I also want to make sure to take it easy next week to rest up those muscles. I wanted to bike this morning, but ended up waking up too late and the forecast calls for scattered thunderstorms.
Showing posts with label speedwork. Show all posts
Showing posts with label speedwork. Show all posts
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Friday, June 8, 2012
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.
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.
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.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
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!
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