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Ironman Lake Placid

Intervals are getting better

Getting better, but not quite there yet. Last week when I did this workout I was only able to get through 3 of the intervals before falling apart. This week I managed to make it halfway into the 5th interval before my legs just gave out. I rested for 30 seconds and then finished out the interval. The last interval I had to rest twice as you can seee in the chart. My legs just didn’t have the strength to keep going, of course my heart was up to 166 so maybe that had something to do with it too! Each of the interals was 6 minutes long with a 3 minute rest.

I definitely enjoy doing these even though they hurt. I have to believe that all this will pay off when I finally get outside. I may keep doing these workouts even after the weather gets nice just because they force me to work hard, harder than I can probably push myself outside on the bike. When I get outside I find it far to easy to just coast down a hill 🙂

Coaching Software Chart
Week 12 Session 1 Results

Weight: 166.6

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Monday morning swim

Another good workout in the pool this morning. The over all workout was a little bit shorter than usual in total yardage but we were definitely pushing harder. I was leading in my lane so I didn’t get to draft and that made it a little tougher, but I would rather lead if I am fast enough.

600 warmup
400 pull
200 kick
800 – 4 x 125 free 75 stroke
200 kick
200 pull
400 – 4 x 75 stroke 25 free
400 – 8 x 25 easy 25 fast
Total: 3200 yards

Weight: 168

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

The Longest Ride

Another long Sunday ride, up to 3 hours now. It’s a long time to be riding on the CompuTrainer, but at least I have the TV to entertain me, and my riding friend Julie. I’m not sure who is more entertaining. There was also my 4 year old son who made an appearance for about 45 minutes of the ride. He road laps around the garage on his bike, made us look slow. I was just shy of 53 miles in my 3 hours today. My legs felt pretty good, but I will have to start eating some real food as the hours start to build. Gels and Perpetuem can only do so much or maybe I will experiment with upping the amount of Perpetuem per bottle.

Weight: 167.2

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Friday motivation

The good thing about swimming with a group is that they push you. This morning I was ready to just mail in a few thousand yards and call it a day. I woke up feeling tired and sore, yesterday taking a lot out of me for those intervals I could still feel it in my legs. Heading into the pool there wasn’t many people there to start and I was thinking this could be good, nice relaxing swim. That all ended quickly as I saw a blur go by in the water, great, the fast swimmers were here. I used to consider myself a pretty good swimmer until I started swimming with this group. This morning I had trouble keeping up with a guy doing the backstroke, pretty sad. But hey, it motivated me to swim hard and if they weren’t there I would have just relaxed and swam easy.

700 warmup
300 pull
200 kick
800 1×200, 2×100, 4×50, 8×25 free
800 1×200, 2×100, 4×50, 8×25 stroke
800 1×200, 2×100, 4×50, 8×25 free
300 cooldown
Total: 3900 yards

Weight: 166.75

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Long Interval Session

This morning I did some long intervals on the CompuTrainer. Well, really just two intervals but they were twenty mintues long and at 90% of my CP30 score. It was definitely a tough workout and you can see from the chart below that my heart rate was really up there for the last half of the second interval. Overall my heart average was 151 but it maxed out at 168.  The last five minutes were just really hard, started playing mind games with the numbers to get through it. Glad it is over, looking forward to the leisurely three hour ride on Sunday.
CompuTrainer Coaching Software
CompuTrainer Results

Weight: 166.6

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Treadmill again

Another day on the treadmill, nothing really exciting to report. I spent an hour on it and did about 7.4 miles. My heart rate stayed around 145 for the run. One interesting thing I noticed was that when I walk to cool down my heart rate drops to about 105. That is about 15bpm less than it used to be when I would stop and walk after a run.

Weight: 166.5

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

CompuTrainer Week 11 Session 1

After my recent CP30 testing I figured that the new interval sessions would be great. Everything was calibrated correctly, I should be able to power through these workouts, no more failing in the middle of the tough intervals. Well, good news and bad news. Bad news, I only made it through three of the 6 intervals before my legs just gave out. The good news, I finally figured out what my problem might be! After the workout I was analyzing the data and I happend to notice that it said my weight was 170, close enough right? Well, on the 3D software I have been putting in my weight plus the bike weight which comes in at 200. So I have been doing my interval training with 30 less lbs, which means I had to increase my effort in order to get to the same power numbers.  So to be consist I will change the weight to 200 for thursdays interval session and see how that goes. Hopefully the new RacerOne software will be more clear about rider weight and bike weight.

Weight: 167.6

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Monday swim workout

Had a good swim workout this morning. Usually the first time through the main set I do well and then I just fall apart and can never seem to catch my breath. Today, though, was different and I felt stronger at the end. Maybe my swimming is getting better, I hope so. I did do some of the other strokes today where normally I just swim free. I really need to work on those more.

500 warmup
400 pull
200 kick
400 pull
200 free
400 4×100
200 4×50
400 pull
200 free
400 4×100
200 4×50
400 16×25
100 4×25 underwaters

Total: 4000 yards

Weight: 169

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

CP30

This morning I did my 3rd Critical Power test. If you have been following my blog you know that I have been wondering if I had calibrated the CompuTrainer correctly and my score was artifically high. Well, this morning I warmed up for the 30 minutes and calibrated 10 minutes into the ride. The results were that I improved on my CP30 score by 5 watts. I’m now at 253 watts for 30 minutes  was kind of worried about this one, because I thought I didn’t calibrate last time and that score was artifically high. Looks like that may have been the case, but not by much. I was able to improve on my last score by 5 watts. So now my CP30 score is 253. So it is possible that my last score was a little bit high but it seems like maybe not that far off.

The Ironman training program that my training group is following calls for a 2 hour and 45 minute ride, so I still have a little riding to do. When my riding partner shows up today though, she is going on the CompuTrainer for the first time. We will see how she does on the Lake Placid Ironman course. I’m going to just spin since my legs are kind of hurting from the test.

Weight: 168.4

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Good swim workout

Had a good swim workout today. I was in early and got in a few extra yards during the warmup and managed to keep up for the pull. I liked the workout today because the distances were a little shorter than we do some other times so it was kind of like sprinting and I think we had a little more rest in between. As usual the workout is below.

700 – warmup
400 – pull
200 – kick
500 – 4 x 125
400 – 4 x 100
200 – 4 x 50
500 – 4 x 125
400 – 4 x 100
200 – 4 x 50
Total: 3500 yards

Weight: 168.5