Author: Zane Zeeh

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Long CompuTrainer Ride

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

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Outside Run

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

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Good Friday Swim

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

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Steady Improvement

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

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

The Dreadmill

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

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Happy Birthday JP!

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

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Superbowl hangover?

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

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Last 12 Miles of Lake Placid

I did my endurance ride this morning on the CompuTrainer and started the Lake Placid real course video in Keene, so about a 41.5 mile ride. It was the first time that I did the last 12 miles where the three bears are. The CompuTrainer said that the grade was between 2% and 6%. I think most of the time it was between 2-3%. I actually think the beginning of the course is harder than the ending, but I haven’t riden the actual course yet so I don’t know. My only reference is the CompuTrainer real course video. The reason I think it is easier is because while it is a hill, you tend to stay in the same gearing and spin. The hills or hill really is just very long and not extremely steep. I did ride the entire time in the big chainring, I will be curious to see if that is possible on the real course.

Weight: 167

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Lap Swim

Today was one of the easier swims. As I’ve said in the past it seems like friday is a lazy day at the pool. I did our standard warmup, pull, kick and was thinking are we ever going to start the main set today or am I just going to do laps. The first time through the main set we did free, so that was a pretty good workout. The next set they did stroke though, and since I just do free it was a bit easier for me. Maybe after Ironman I will start to become more proficient in the other strokes, but for now I’m sticking with free.

700 warmup
500 pull
200 kick
800 1×200 2×100 4×50 8×25
800 1×200 2×100 4×50 8×25
450 pull
500 cooldown
Total: 3950

Weight: 169

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Snow day

I didn’t make it out to run yesterday. The weather has not been very cooperative on my run days so far it is either zero out or snowing. Starting on Tuesday it pretty much snowed right through yesterday afternoon. I wouldn’t mind so much going out for a run in the snow, but I’m a littl leary of being hit by a car or snow plow. The only working out I ended up doing was snow blowing, shoveling and carrying wood from the wood pile over to my back deck. I think I did that for the majority of the day!

This morning I did get my workout in and it was a pretty good one. Spent an hour on the CompuTrainer using the 3D software. I road the Ironman Kona course, because it allows you to stay in one gear for longer periods of time as the grade changes or more gradual. It was good for the Tempo ride that I needed to do. I was able to keep a nice steady cadence. My average heart rate was 151 and never went over 160. After doing that for an hour I reset the course and then do a 15 minute cool down. I keep track of all my running and biking data in Training Peaks software. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to include the cooldown performance in with the other data or not. At this point I have just been putting everything in.

Weight: 168.8