Tag: Bike

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Ironman Lake Placid

Two days of sun in a row!!!

Set the alarm a little bit later this morning and did a medium effort ride on the CompuTrainer. Tried to keep my heart rate between 145-155 and my cadence above 90 for the entire ride. It was a good ride to loosen up the legs again after the long run on Wednesday. I may switch my days up a little and bike on Friday and swim and run easy on Thursday. It’s good to be on the bike, but my legs are too beat up to go all out after going all out on Tuesday and following it with a long run on Wednesday. Maybe my long runs will get better and I will be able to push myself more on Thursday, will have to wait and see.

Looking forward to my first swim and run from the pond in the morning. It’s seems like this day was never going to come!

Weight: 162.4

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Ironman Lake Placid

60 Days….

As I’m writing this the little count down clock in the corner of my computer screen tells me that there is 60 days and 20 hours to go before the start of Ironman Lake Placid. I feel like my training so far has gone pretty well for the time that I have. Looking at the training plan that our Tri group is working from it has us training up to 13 and 14 hours at this point and going to as much as 20. Unfortunately I just don’t have that kind of time so I will have to get by with the time that I do have. Last week we were supposed to hit 16 hours, I managed a solid 11 hours.

Looking at the individual sports and breaking down the time, I usually fall far short when it comes to the swimming portion of the training program, should be at 3 hours and I’m closer to 1.5 hours. I’m not really concerned about the swim though.

Next up is the bike, currently I’m riding 3 days a week, two days on the trainer and the long weekend ride. It would be nice to get 1 of those training rides outside, but the weather is just not cooperating and I’m not riding in the rain for the fun of it. Last weekend I managed 81 miles in 4.5 hours on the long ride and felt like I could keep going so that was good. This weekend depending on the time I may try to push it to 90 miles in 5 hours. My Tuesday morning CompuTrainer ride, yup the one I did this morning, I feel like is my most important ride. It is the ride where I really push and keep the tempo high for an hour long session followed by a cooldown. This ride makes the long weekend ride feel easier or at least I feel like my heart isn’t working as hard to maintain our endurance ride pace.

Running is probably my weakest point right now. I do manage to get in my long run on Wednesday mornings, doing 12 miles. I only run 5 or 7 miles on Monday or Friday with my swimming so at most I’m only getting in 26 miles a week. With the weather getting warmer I’m hoping to be able to get to the pond early and have enough time to run afterward that I can get in maybe 8 miles on monday and friday. Maybe the weather will cooperate and this friday will be the first!

I’ve been asked quite a few times what my goals are for the Ironman and I’ve avoided answering them specifically because I didn’t have an idea of what was realistic. As we get closer though I’m starting to get a good feeling for what I will be capable of and I believe it will be under 12 hours. After Patriot and the training weekend at Lake Placid I will definitely know if that is realistic, but at this point I think it is. We will see a month from now if I revise that number up or down 🙂

Weight: 163

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Sunday long ride

Well, it wasn’t quite raining today, but it wanted to! It was really kind of a miserable day for a ride as the temperature was 48 degrees and only made it to 51. I felt comfortable the entire ride, but never really felt like I could get my legs loose and comfortable. Just one of those days I guess. The ride went up into NH like it did a couple of weeks ago, but on the way home I went a different direction to add a few more miles and get 81 in for the ride.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/87361627

Nutrition for the ride:
4 bottles of Ironman Perform
1 Honey Stinger
1 Hammer Bar
1 Saltstick cap
1 EFS Liquid SHot 5oz

Per Hour Totals
Calories: 366
Sodium: 340
Potassium: 125
Chloride: 211
Magnesium: 29
Calcium: 38

Weight: 165

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Ironman Lake Placid

Yes, it is still raining

Not much too report today. Did a 1 hour 15 minute ride on the CompuTrainer this morning. It was a recovery ride to recover from the hard ride on tuesday and long run yesterday. The goal was to keep my heart rate under 140 for the entire ride and keep the candence at 90. Really it was just about trying to spin some of the tired/soreness from my legs.

Weight: 164

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Rain and more Rain

Looks like it is going to rain all week. I had hoped to start going outside for a few of my rides during the week in the morning, but the weather is just not cooperating. Headed down to the garage again this morning and did a Tempo ride on the CompuTrainer. Pretty much had the Metal Man pace me, except for the fact that I wanted to beat him so pushed a little harder than I probably was supposed to be felt pretty good at the end. The best part of the ride today was that I felt like I kept a good cadence, I was up around 93-94 rpms for the entire ride. Heart rate was pretty high for the last half hour, right around 158-160.

Tempo Ride

Weight: 163.5

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Swim and a long ride today

Started out the morning at the Andover pool. Mike K. showed up and proceeded to kick my butt up and down the pool. Would think I never learned how to swim the way he just pulls away from me.

Swim workout:
500 swim
500 pull
100 swim
300 pull
—- main set twice —
375 3×125 – free
225 3×75 – free
150 6×50 – free build
Total: 3500 yards

This afternoon I went out before I had to go pick up Mackenzie from school for my long ride of the week. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to make 4 hours but I figured 3 would be good. I head out to Gloucester, used to do this ride quite a bit and like riding in Gloucester. I wish I had more time to ride up into Rockport as well. So, made it down to Gloucester harbor averaging 18.3 for the first 24 miles, was pretty happy with that. When I started out I figured I would average around that for the whole ride. Started heading back and was feeling pretty good. Looked down and noticed I was at 19mph at the 40 mile point. So I picked it up a little more and did the last 15 miles and ended up at 19.2 for the ride. Felt very good through out the ride.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/85362877

Nutrition: Today I tried out Ironman Perform, since that is what they are using at the Ironman. I like the taste of it, not too sweet. I think I will try it again.
3 bottles of Ironman Perform
1 Honey Stinger bar (First time having one on a ride, thought it was pretty good)
2 Powerbar Gels
2 – Salt Tabs by Saltstick

Weight: 165

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Tuesday Tempo Ride

Started out the morning thinking I was going to use the coaching software and let it determine the power and intervals. Then Mackenzie walked into the garage at 5:15am upset about a Mosquito in her room 10 minutes into the ride. So I got a good warmup in!!

After getting Mackenzie back to bed, I decided to skip the coaching software and do a Tempo ride on the Kona course. So for an hour ride I held just over 230 watts with an average heart rate of 150. Turned out to be a good workout and I followed it with a 15 minute cooldown of the same course at about 150 watts or so.

Tempo Ride

Nutrition:
Ride – One bottle of gatorade
Post ride – Glass of milk with a serving of Hammer Recoverite and Hammer Whey Protein. Followed a little later by breakfast, 4 eggs, bagel and two more gatorade.

Weight: 162.6

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Boxford, Georgetown, Newbury, Newburyport….

Long ride today that took us through many towns and into another state. All the way up to Kingston,NH and back. 77 miles in all for me today. It was a very good ride, my legs felt good the entire time and felt like I could have gone further. With last few miles home I was able to get up to an average of 18 mph. While that isn’t going to break any records it is a pretty good time for me for that distance.

Nutrition on the ride:
4 – 24 oz bottles of EFS (1st Endurance)
1 – 5 oz EFS Liquid Shot
Calories: 1168
Sodium: 2800 mg
Potassium: 1570 mg
Magnesium: 1320 mg
Chloride: 4200 mg
Calcium: 950 mg

I think I was a little light on the calories for the ride. I’ve ordered some different types of bars to experiment with eating them and seeing what works. The big increase in Electrolytes has definitely helped my legs, after 3 hours today there was no pain or cramping. Also noticed that my weight was the same after the ride as before so it would seem I did pretty good staying hydrated. Can definitely see the need to get some solid food down though.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/84389662

Weight: 165

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

Recovery day

After the 12 mile run yesterday and the CompuTrainer ride the day before my legs were feeling a bit heavy and tired so I made today a recovery day. I tried to work on keeping my cadence up and also my Spinscan numbers to keep my pedal stroke more efficient. I did ride for 1 hour and 15 minutes, but kept my heart rate under 140 and averaged 128 for the ride. Cadence was 91 for the ride, right around where I want to be. At least that seems to be the cadence where I feel most efficient right now.

Weight: 165

Categories
Ironman Lake Placid

CompuTrainer – IM Kona ride

Woke up a little late this morning so I changed the plan from doing the intervals that I normally do to just riding the IM Kona bike course. I managed to hold 200 watts for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Felt better than I expected at the end, my legs were still a little sore from the yard work this weekend and the fast pace bike ride, but by the end of the ride they didn’t bother me at all.

I’m going to start to jot down nutritional intake here on the blog for the longer rides. I’ve been making adjustments to my nutrition and feeling better on the rides, but I think a more detailed account of how much I’ve actually taken in calories and electrolytes will help dial in what I’m going to need for race day. I’ve come to realize that I need a lot more electrolytes than I have been getting because even though I have been drinking a lot on the bike my legs had been hurting after about 3 hours. I would have attributed this to fitness level except that the efforts were not extremely hard and after 3 long rides like that my fitness level should have improved. The last couple of long rides have been better though I’ve added a SaltStick to the bike and that has definitely helped.

Weight: 163.2