Category: Triathlon

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Ironman Lake Placid

The Friday Swim

I showed up at the pool a little early today and got in a few laps before the rest of the crew showed up. Not only was I early but it seemed like quite a few people were late. I ended up doing 800 warm up. Friday seems to be a lazy day in the pool. At least it was today as people drifted in and out of the workout and there seemed to be a lot more chatter in between sets. I can’t complain too much, after yesterdays CompuTrainer session I was plenty happy to just go with the flow today.

The workout:
800 warmup
400 pull
400 – 8×50 (The real swimmers do IM order, I just do free for everything)
600 – 12×50
750 – 3×100, 3×75, 3×50, 3×25
600 – 12×50
500 warmdown

Total: 4050

For some of the sets you are supposed to do other strokes, maybe someday I will start doing those, for now I just do free all the time.

Weight: 170

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

CompuTrainer Test Set

This morning was test day for the CompuTrainer P.I.G. program. The last time I did this test I had just setup the trainer and didn’t really understand what I was doing. I was probably paying a little too much attention to the mph value and the Metal Man I was racing and average 209 watts for the 30 minute test. This time I was a more focused and did 248.6 watts for the test with an average heart rate of 159.2. I’m not sure if this was a good thing or bad thing yet, because the next 4-5 weeks training is going to be based off of this new average watts number. I’m happy with the improvement and I don’t expect there to be such a dramatic jump for the next test. I’m definitely looking forward to the warmer weather to see how this all translates to actually riding on the road.

Before the 30 minute test you are supposed to ride progressively up to 90% of your current maximum wattage between the 20-25 minute mark, from there you just spin easy and start the test. Watching my numbers and seeing how my legs felt during the warmup I was thinking I might be able to average 230-235 watts. I was concerned about being able to keep up the effort for the entire 10 mile course or 30 minute ride. As it turned out I was comfortable keeping the pace around 240 and then on the uphills going up to around 270-285 for short periods of time. I did start to fade over the last 3 or 4 minutes though, proably averaged around 230, just couldn’t keep the RPMs up.

Ride stats:
Watts: 248
MPH: 21.5
HR: 159
Cadence: 87
Overall SpinScan: 57 – that needs some work

Weight: 169

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Ten Degrees

Ten Degrees makes a bigger difference than I thought when running outside. On Monday it was 32 degrees and I felt warm running, hands were warm, nothing felt cold. This morning it was 22 degrees at the start of the run. I wore practically the same clothes and felt much colder, wish I had brought my hand warmers. I finally warmed up around 3 miles into the run, but my hands never really warmed up.

Wednesday is generally the day that I do long runs, but since I’m doing the CompuTrainer test tomorrow morning I was trying to keep my legs fresh, so I kept it to 5 miles. My GPS watch had trouble picking up the satellites early so my first split says 9:27 and when I got back to the Y it said 4.75 miles. So I ran another quarter mile to make it an even 5. I think I will let the watch sync up with the satellites a little bit longer next time. Another odd thing about the data from the watch this morning is that it says I burned 200 calories less than I did on Monday for pretty much the same distance.

Here is the Garmin results http://connect.garmin.com/activity/62050802

Weight: 169 (Taken at Y, I generally weigh a little less on that scale than at home)

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Active Recovery Ride

Up early and on the CompuTrainer this morning. Today was an Active Recovery ride, meaning about 60% effort for an hour. Usually tuesday is an interval based training day, but the scheduled called for the recovery ride because the week five re-test is coming up. On Thursday I’ll be doing the same test that I did at the start of the program to see if I’ve improved at all and to use that score for the basis of the next four weeks training.

Average power over the course of the ride was 170 watts and my average heart rate was 119 with a max of 128. Since I knew that I wasn’t going to be exerting a lot of effort for the ride today I tried to focus on my Spinscan numbers. Spinscan is a way to measure the efficiency of your pedal stroke. They say that the average road cyclist is between 70 and 80, mine is usually 60 and today it was 65.

Weight: 171

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Swimming and Hydration

Today was a swim day. Monday and Friday are my swim workouts. According to the Ironman program I need to be swimming two hours a week. That shouldn’t be a problem, as the swim workout usually lasts an hour at the Y. I was feeling dehydrated this morning. If you feel dehyrdated while swimming you must be pretty dehydrated! Wondering what it feels like to be dehydrated while swimming? The first sign is that you slow down considerably. The other sign is that your mouth kind of feels like you have cotton in it while you swim. Anyway, I think I should probably bring a water bottle with me while swimming. I’m sure part of it was from riding the trainer for almost three hours the day before and not following it up with enough water.

Here is the workout from today:
500 warmup
400 pull
300 kick
5×100 15sec    1×200 easy
5×100 15sec    1×200 easy
5×100 15sec   1×200 easy
500 cooldown
3800 yards total

Since I had the day off today I also went out for a run in the afternoon, just 5 miles. Here is a link to the stats 

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/61848919

Weight: 169

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Sunday Ride – Real Course Video Lake Placid

Before I get to the bike training part of the blog today I’ve decided that I’m going to post my weight to the blog daily as part of motivation to lose weight and get ready for the Ironman. Today my weight was 169. My goal is to be in the low 150s for race day. The lower weight will definitely help on the bike course with all the hills.

Now on to the Sunday ride. Sunday is long ride day. At least that is the way that I worked out the days for my Ironman training program. Unfortunately this time of year it means riding indoors on the trainer. I have a CompuTrainer and one of the really cool things about it is that it simulates riding outside and, even better, there are real course videos for some of the most popular Ironman events. Today I road for 2 hours and 45 minutes on the Lake Placid course. I made it 48 miles into the course averaging a little over 17.5 mph. The other great feature of training with a CompuTrainer is that your training is based on Watts. This really allows you to focus on how much work you are doing on uphills, flats, downhills. Knowing how hard you are working is important so that you don’t burn your legs out and really allows you to keep your heart rate in a nice tight range that allows you to ride longer distances comfortably. Today my average Watts for the ride was 192, actually a little more than I was supposed to be doing according the the CompuTrainer Performance Improvement Program (PIG). This week the PIG program has me testing again to setup the bike training for the next 5 weeks. Last time I average 210 Watts for the 30 minute test, hopefully I will be better this time!

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

My first blog post

This is my first blog post. I’ve been thinking about having a blog for a while, but was never really quite sure what I would blog about. I mean what do I have to say that anyone would ever care to read about? Well, this past summer I signed up for an Ironman and I’ve decided to use this blog as running diary of my training. The Ironman I’ve signed up for is Lake Placid. Ironman Lake Placid is going to be held on July 24, 2011. This is my first attempt at an Ironman distance event. Having completed a couple of half-ironman distance races it seems like the next logical step right?

Monday was supposed to be the first official day of training. Really I have been training since September, attempting to build up a base level of fitness to start from. So Monday came, and we had a Blizzard, so no workout. Guess that isn’t such a great way to kick off the start of training!! Monday was supposed to be a swim workout, so I’m not too upset about missing it as the swim is my strongest event at the moment.

Today was another swim day and I met the rest of the Tri Group at the Beverly Y. I got there about 45 minutes before the rest of them and did 3000 yards. The Beverly Y has a great pool, it is so large that there were actually two swim practices going on and there were still lanes open for lap swimming. Once Melinda (swim coach) showed up we did another 1400 or so yards. I learned some new drills today that I hadn’t done before, it was a good workout.