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.