Unfortunately the weather is not cooperating enough to get out in the morning for an early run yet, so it was back on the treadmill. I was on it for an hour today, might be a record for me. The weather is looking good for the rest of the week though, so hopefully there will be plenty of melting and I’ll be able to get out on the weekend.
Weight: 167.5
This is week 9 of the Performance Improvement Guarantee program and I’m definitely seeing steady gains. These interval sessions are killing me though. I really think that when I did my last test to set the CP30 (Critical Power over 30 minutes) for these past couple of weeks I didn’t have the trainer calibrated right. Today again I wasn’t able to complete the intervals, so it will be interesting to see next week how I do on the test. This week I was supposed to hold 108% of my CP30 score for 10 minutes, I can do it for a bout 5 minutes, at that point I rest for 15 seconds and then go again for another minute until the interval is over. I know my legs are getting stronger because I can see the results in the Tempo ride and the Endurance ride. I’ve also loaded all the data into TrainingPeaks software so I can also see the steady improvement there as well.
On a side note my weight was way up this morning. I know that it will drop back down in the next day or so, but it certainly is interesting to see the effects of eating out. Last night we went to the 99 and I had the Buffalo wings and the Turkey tips, the salt content must be through the roof on that stuff. This is why I weight myself every day, I like to know the effects different foods have on my body weight and eating out seems to have a huge impact.
Weight: 171
Good morning in the pool. It felt a little short, but after the long ride yesterday that was ok. The pace was a little slower than normal because Mr. Speed was not in the other lane today. Although a young college grad did show up and put a hurting on most of us anyway. I can’t remember where they said she swam, but she was pretty fast and tough to keep up with.
500 – warmup
500 – 10×50
500 – 5×100 pull
300 – free
300 – 4×75 – stroke
300 – free
300 – 4×75 – stroke
300 – free
300 – kick
300 – cooldown
200 – under/overs
Total: 3500 yards
Weight: 167.5
The rides are starting to get long for the sunday endurance ride on the CompuTrainer. Today was 2.5 hours. I felt pretty good and was able to hold 195 watts for the ride average 18.5 mph. My heart rate stayed mostly in the 140s except for the hill when it went to the 150s. Julie was on the fluid trainer doing the Spinnervals video for Lake Placid at the same time. Coach Troy is definitely riding faster than me at this point, I’m hoping by the time we are back out on the road I can average 19 or better for the ride.
Weight: 166.8
Finally made it back outside for a run. It wasn’t a very long one, but it was nice to get out there. I did have a little problem with my Garmin watch. I started it like I normally do and thought it acquired the satellites, it didn’t. A mile into the run I was waiting for the watch to beep, I look down and there is no distance! So I stopped and fixed the GPS and now I have two recordings for the run. The first is just my heart rate over time, I could use that on the treadmill. The next recording is the next 5 miles. I felt pretty good and did negative splits from 8 min/miles down to 7:30 min/miles over those 5 miles.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/67848559
Weight: 167.4
It was a good morning in the pool today, everyone was in pretty early and ready to go. I think today was the first time that I actually finished the same amount of yards as everyone else kicking. Most of the time I get in about half of what everyone else is doing for kick, part of that is because they all have flippers on. I did most of the leading today in my lane, the pulls were tough, I didn’t slow anyone down in my lane, but keeping up with the lead guy in the next lane wasn’t going so well! Maybe I need to get paddles like everyone else for pulling?
500 warmup
500 4×125 pull
300 4×75 kick
500 25,50,75,100,100,75,50,25
600 3×200 pull
500 25,60,75,100,100,75,50,25
600 3×200 pull
200 cooldown (under/overs)
Total: 3700 yards
Weight: 167
Looking back over the last few weeks and months of training I am beginning to see a slow but steady increase in the wattage I’m able to hold, especially for longer periods of time. In the last 6 weeks I’ve climbed from 198 to 223 watts for a 60 minute effort. Hopefully the trend continues!
This morning I was back on the CompuTrainer for the Thursday morning Tempo ride. I was supposed to hold an average of 186 watts for the first 15 minutes and then 224 for the next 45 minutes. I warmed up the trainer like I normally do and calibrated. Started the ride and was averaging about 190 for the first 5 or 6 minutes and felt good. So I picked up the pace a little and was sitting at 202 average watts for the first 15 minutes. Usually they have you reset and do the next 45 minutes, but I just keep going and pick up the effort. The next 45 minutes are supposed to be at an average of 224 watts. I finished the hour long ride at just under that, 223 watts. The immediate wattage reading flunctuates quite a bit, probably because my pedal stroke is not very smooth, but I felt like I could keep it between 230-240 without having to kill myself.
Weight: 166.4
Yup, had to do it today. The sidewalks and roads were just too dangerous to go out running so I had to use the treadmill. Went down to the Danvers Y and ran for 45 minutes on it before it inexplicably stopped. I took that as a sign I should stop and that was it for today. Hopefully at some point this weekend I will be able to get back outside for a run.
Weight: 167
The title of this post should really be something like “A man has got to know his limitations” – Clint Eastwood. It was another tough session on the CompuTrainer. The performance improvement program had me increase the load this week on the intervals. The peaks are now 16 watts over what I tested at and it was a similar ride to the one I had a couple of weeks ago. I managed to keep pace through the first 10 minutes, but could only get 5 minutes into the second interval before I started to break down. I managed to keep pedaling for another minute before I had to stop. That is one of the frustrating things about the coaching software and the load based training. The trainer is continually trying to keep the load constant so if you don’t keep the cadence up it just gets really hard to pedal. If you stop and start again then you have a chance to get the cadence back up before. Once I failed I did a similar thing to a couple weeks ago. I would rest 30 seconds and then hit it hard for 1 minute and rest again. The last interval was even worse and I only managed 3 minutes before having to resort to my shorter intervals.
I haven’t looked at what the program has in store for next week. Maybe I will do this one again until I can finish it. I don’t much like failing, but they say that this is where the real gains are made, when you are pushing the limits. My heart rate was up to 170 again, so I guess I was pushing the limits.
Weight: 167.6
I’ve never seen so few people at the pool as this morning. Usually there is at least three or four per the two lanes that we use. Today there were three total for the first half hour! After the normal warmup, pull, kick we started doing 100 pull on 1:30 and that was giving me about 5 seconds rest. We made it through eight of them and Karen decided that was enough and by that time some other people showed up. Ended up doing another 1200. A little bit shorter than normal, but not too bad.
700 warmup
500 pull
200 kick
800 – 100×8 on 1:30 pull
600 – 150×2 75×4
600 – 150×2 75×4
Total: 3400
Weight: 168