Category: Running

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Cycling Running Swimming Triathlon

CP30 Watts up but Weight loss slows

It’s been a tough week on the weight loss front. It doesn’t help having ice cream cake, birthday parties with cake and ice cream and not too mention the junk food around when friends come over. I’m going to have to get a little bit more focused in the next couple of weeks to get down to my goal.

Swimming

I had a good swim session this morning, well, at least I thought it was good. I managed to go under 1:20 on the 100s again. I did have more rest for each one, but it was good to know that I can actually swim that fast. I need to start pushing myself more like that. The first 200s were tough though. We were supposed to do them descending, but I’m pretty sure my second was slower than the first.

Cycling

I had a good day on the CompuTrainer Saturday morning when doing my Critical Power test for 30 minutes. I was able to hold 257 Watts for 30 minutes. I started out around 250 and actually built up to 257 by the end of the 30 minutes. I don’t like to start too hard and then fade. The bad news is that my Tuesday workouts are going to be insanely hard. The 6 minute intervals will now be at 278, that is going to be pretty tough to hold for 6 minutes, 6 times! That’s a 108% of my CP30 score.

Running

I managed to get in two days of running this week. Wednesday morning was outside and I felt pretty good on the 7 mile run. Comfortably held a 7:30 pace doing negative splits. Last mile came in just under 7 minutes. Then on Sunday it was so cold I headed indoors and jumped on the Treadmill. Ran for an hour and made sure to do negative splits there as well.

Weight: 159.5

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Cycling Running Swimming

The training update

After being sick the previous week, this past week has been much better.

At the Pool

Starting to do more kicking at the pool. Last Friday I managed to go over 4000 yards for the first time this year. In large part that was due to a lot of kicking at the end. Fred said we were going to do 5 x 100s. That is probably the most consecutive kicking I have ever done. It took everything I had just to keep from getting lapped. I’m going to have to ask for tips on some of the kicking drills rather than just using the kick board all the time. The dolphin kick looks pretty cool.

On the road

This past week Heidi finally showed up to run on Wednesday morning. It’s good when she shows up because she pushes me, at least early on in the run. She tends to start at a much faster pace than I normally would. I usually go out just a little over 8 minute miles and then bring it down. I think we did our first mile at 7:45 and went down from there. For the 7 miles I felt pretty good holding the 7:25 average.

On the trainer

Last week was the final week of the 4 week build. The Tuesday and Thursday rides were pretty tough. Sometimes I wonder if it is harder mentally or physically. The 6×6 minutes on Tuesday are definitely a physical challenge as I’m at 108% of FTP. The Thursday 2 x 20 minutes are just a mental grind.

The weight is still coming off, but more slowly. Partly because I’ve been eating a little more and we hit the Texas Roadhouse for my sons birthday. The “Peanut Place” is his favorite place. It’s one of mine too, but I know I’m going to gain a few pounds just from the salt content.

Weight: 160

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Running

IT Band healing

Well, I went out for a run yesterday and for the second time I have had no pain while running. I haven’t been running as much, just 5 miles a week, but I have been on the bike 4 times a week. I have also been doing a lot of stretching and using the Foam Roller.

Yesterday I did the same 5 mile loop that I had done the previous Wednesday and was about 1 minute faster overall. For the last 3 miles I was able to hold right around 7 minute mile pace. I think I will go another week and see how it is and then add another day of running.

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Cycling Running Swimming Triathlon

Damn that Java Updater!!!!

Time for the weekly update. This morning was NOT a good morning. Well, it was an good morning for the workout, but I’m pissed because I lost all my data from the CompuTrainer workout. I was using the Coaching Software this morning, the software that was written in the 80s or maybe earlier! Anyway, I was 80 minutes into the workout and the Java updater popped up. Of course the Coaching Software can’t handle that and crashed. The entire ride was lost. You would think that they data would be saved out to the drive so in the event of a crash you could at least have the data that was recorded so far. Nope, not with CompuTrainer software.

Racermate, Inc, the company that developed the CompuTrainer and the software has been promising new software for over a year now. Last year at this time, it was “New Software coming Fall 2010”, well, here we are a year later. Still no software! They suck, to put it kindly.

As for the past week of workouts, I hit the pool for the first time this fall at the ANA Y. Had some really good workouts and could really feel the lack of swimming, or structured swimming anyway.

On Wednesday I did get on the treadmill before the swim for a few miles. It felt pretty good to be able to run 2 miles with absolutely no pain at all from the IT Band. I was kind of expecting to feel something after the first mile, but nothing and just kept on going up to 2 miles before heading to the pool. Hoping to go further this week.

On the cycling side I started up the CompuTrainer PIG program again. While I was hoping to use the new Racermate One software, I guess that isn’t going to happen. This year I do a 10 minute warm up and calibrate before I even start my workouts to make sure the power is accurate. The workouts have been good so far, and I felt like I was working pretty hard this morning before the crash. Wish I had the data to be able to compare to last week!!!!!!

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Cycling Running Swimming Triathlon

No Power

No, I’m not talking about the Powermeter on my bike or the CompuTrainer. This weekend the Northeast was hit by a Nor’easter. This storm took down a lot of trees and power along with them. The heavy wet snow combined with the trees still having leaves on them had the trees snapping and falling all over the place. That left me spending most of my Sunday getting the generator running and no riding on the trainer. We are now heading towards 48 hours without power.

I did manage to get in a few swims this past week at the pool and I felt pretty good on my run Wednesday morning. Hardly felt the IT Band at all. Still looking for the new CompuTrainer software but haven’t heard a word from the company.  Looks like another long winter of battling the old software. I did ride it a few times this past week before we lost power.

This coming week I will be heading back to the pool at the ANA Ymca. Actually, I was there this morning. Tough workout, and I need to get back in swimming shape. All of these short swims at the pond has not helped my swimming. Hopefully the power comes back on for the CompuTrainer, or I will be running the generator early to get my time in on it.

Categories
Cycling Running Swimming

58 degrees and going down…

Time for the weekly training update. I’ve managed to get out and run a couple of times this week. Not very far, just the 5K loop around the Danvers Y. The good news is the IT Band is not killing me so I can run pretty good. The bad news is that I can still feel it a little bit. I know that it is there and not quite ready to push the mileage yet.

This week was also the first week of the CompuTrainer. Yup, back at it and guess what!? Still no Racermate One software. Not a big surprise really, reading the forum you can tell they have absolutely no idea how to design/develop/distribute software. It’s a good thing they don’t have competition on the hardware side or they would be out of business all together. To start out this week I did a couple of the 3D videos. Soon though I will get setup with the performance improvement program that they have and start using the coaching software as well. It feels good to be riding more than once a week again.

Only made it to the pond once this week. This morning and it was 58 degrees, but I think it is colder. I can’t remember feeling that cold doing a full 1.25 mile crossing in a wetsuit. It’s almost time to head back to the ANA Y pool. I did hit the Danvers Y pool this week for a short swim after a run and some lifting.

Speaking of lifting, my legs are feeling stronger since I started lifting again. I’ve been focusing mainly on my legs to try and build some strength back up. Also thinking about doing some P90x, have never tried it but I hear a lot of good things, so I might give it a go.