Where Did March Go!?

March went by pretty quickly, which is probably good because of the snow build up that was sitting around from late February and mid-March snow storms.  Like the next person, I'm not a huge fan of running on the treadmill, but I'd rather do that than chance slipping on black ice (I'm not being racist here, that's what it's called... right?)

I missed a scheduled posting for my Hospital Hill Run Blog team, so I will plan to more than make up for it in in April and May.

I did actually take a little more time off from training than I should have because of various reason but I have been hitting it really hard in January and February and so a little extra recovery time in March.  I have also been putting in some extra workouts in with strength training, so my body had been adjusting to that.  In reality, February and March make up my off season.  My ironman training officially starts on Monday... with a rest day.

Story of the Month

Since I neglected my weekly reviews this month, I missed telling the story of a treadmill run earlier this month.  I had planned to run outside and get in a 14-16 miler but with the weather I moved inside.  Instead of taking up a treadmill for that long, I decided to make it a threshold run.  So I set the treadmill for an hour and set the goal of doing 8 miles in an hour.  This is an average pace of 7:30 minutes per mile.  I have only done this once before during a training run (and I did rest about every 3 miles) and I managed that time in a few races last year.  It was going to be a challenge, even with the use of a treadmill.

I started the thing at 8:15 pace and every mile I sped it up by 15 seconds.  The first 5 miles felt great! Heart rate was in check. Once I had completed 7 miles, I had 6:30 left on the clock to finish. I pushed it to 6:30 pace.  Now I was definitely feeling it!  I was excited to see that I could flail my legs over and over on the belt to hit 8 miles.  I was staring down the panel as the seconds clicked to 60 left.  Then suddenly it turned off... the screen... the belt.  It just gave up!!!  After I cooled down on a different treadmill, the thing had physically turned itself off.  As in the power switch was now in the "Off" position.

Scotty: 1, Treadmill: 0

March Totals

Swim: ~8,800 yards (getting faster)

Bike: 157 miles (ALL INDOORS, UGH!)

Run: 68 miles (aided greatly by today's 15 miler)

Strength: 7 sessions

Total: 230 miles

These aren't final because I have one more day of the month which will include a bike ride.  I'm hoping to get my tri bike outside for the first time since my initial pre-purchase test ride.  Tomorrow we have Easter lunch with extended family, so the 90 minute drive to and fro may mean I won't be back in time to take it outside.  We'll see.  

So the summary of March:

Swim

I did not do the Masters Swim course as I had planned during my off season.  I instead am spending that money on strength training sessions.  I feel that I'm getting faster but I'm wearing out faster too.  I'm trying to work on form as much as I can

Bike

These sessions were either a one hour hard spin (20mph minimum) or a two hour ride.  I definitely am seeing improvement, but I have a feeling it's going to plateau soon.  I may start looking at those Sufferfest videos to use as training aides.

Run

Considering all the running I did in 2012, this really took a back seat to my other activities (training or otherwise).  I do feel that I have lost some base in this area but I did test that this week.  I did a real easy 7 miles on Tuesday, then a hard 10 miler Thursday.  During this 10 miler I did manage 8 miles in the first hour (so I DID get it in without the aid of a treadmill while fighting wind and up hills).  That 10 miler finished in 7:36 pace.  For me that is an amazing.  I already mentioned I did 15 miles this morning but I'm feeling much more beat up than I should.

Strength
I signed up for strength training sessions back in January and we've completed nearly 2.5 months at roughy 2 sessions per week.  I can tell it is helping on my running and TKB has commented about physique changes.  I'm not trying to bulk up with this because I definitely need to be able to manage the physical pounding of a 140.6 mile race.

Overall
No real excuses for neglecting the blog.  My web development efforts really kicked up this past month and that's kept me focused mostly.  Trying to get a new company's website launched and then revamping another web site due to a change of business lines makes for a busy month.  It's hard to not be coding when I'm tip-tapity on the laptop.


Photo of the Month

TKB and Lauren ran the Diva Dash 5k last weekend.  I had the privilege of being an athletic supporter at a race for the FIRST TIME EVAH!  So as I went to take a photo of them before the race, this lady stepped right into frame for a photo as well.

Look for a "Athletic Supporter Race Report" soon!