Week in Review: Ironman Training Week 7

May 13 to May 19
Swim: 5000 yards / 1 hour, 45 minutes
Bike: 34 miles / 1 hour, 45 minutes
Run: 6.24 / 51 minutes
Strength: 1 hour, 45 minutes

Total: 43 minutes / 6 hours, 10 minutes

My mileage was cut down this week because of my short taper (two days off -- Friday and Saturday) and then the cancellation of the Kansas City Triathlon.

Week 8 of my Ironman Training Program is suppose to be a step back week, but instead I'm just going to follow Week 7 again since I basically took my recovery week last week.

Fitness Retest
Every few months I do a max-out test with my strength trainer to see where I am.  I'm pretty weak when it comes to strength, so the fact that I bumped up my bench press by 30 lbs is pretty cool (120 pounds in January to 150 pounds on May 13).  Back in January I could only manage 9 pushups and this time I did 30 with a 25 pound weight on my back.  To be fair, both of those test were after my bench press test.  While not part of the test, I have gone from doing 3/4 of a pull up to 10.  Woot!

We aren't doing any triathlon specific strength training activities and I'm not asking him to.  I just want to make sure my body can handle 140 miles in one day.  I do try to specifically work on core months occasionally.

My body fat has dropped from 13% to 11% with an offsetting increase of muscle mass.  Once again, I'm not focused on losing weight or bulking up.  Frankly, I feel like I don't want to drop my body fat too much or I'll lose my fuel source!!

This Week
As well as redoing week 7, I'm planning to bike to work on Tuesday (basically the only available day I have to bike to work).  This means bike to the gym, swim 2,500 yards, bike to work After 9 hours of recovery sitting in meetings, bike home, and then do a one hour run.  This is usually a 40 mile day, which means I will hit the same distance totals in one day than what I did nearly all last week.

Tryouts for the KC Corporate Challenge Bike Race is Wednesday too!  I'll probably end up doing my normal brick workout at the downtown airport after the tryouts (Note to TKB: I may be late for dinner) I normally meet with my strength trainer on Wednesday's after work, so will have to cancel or reschedule that.  Sorry Sam.

Photo of the Week
Noticed this while letting my wetsuit dry from its soaking

Memoirs of triathlons passed.

"Race" Report: Kansas City Triathlon

This race was to welcome me back to triathlons after spending nearly all of 2012 running focused.  I quickly learned last year that the cross-training aspect of cycling and swimming is important for my running and I do love multi-sport.

I put my money where my mouth is this year with getting my gear up to speed ("speed"... get it?  See what I did there?).  I bought a Felt B12 Time Trial bike, aero helmet, tri suit, and various other "aero" accessories.  I'm quite happy with my setup now but it's time to give it the actual road test. ("road test".. get it?  I did it again)

Once we started getting into the 10 day forecast range, I was checking the Weather Channel app and it had been calling for rain on May 19 every day.  The temps were going to be beautiful but water falling from the sky, not so much.

Leading up to the race, I started my prep.  Along with the air temp and conditions, I checked the water temps daily.  The first check was mid-50s. Yikes. Wetsuit REQUIRED. Since it had been 18 months since I last used my wetsuit, it was time to prep it for the season.  Wetsuits apparently dry out like a sponge.  It's not rock hard and rigid but I'm sure it shrinks.  To prep it for the season, it's good to idea to soak it to keep it from tearing when putting it on the first time.

A good drink and read

Also part of my prep is my pre-race carb-loading

1 pound of whole wheat pasta and some rotisserie smoked chicken.  I use olive oil as dressing as it helps the joints. I had a couple servings each day since Wednesday.

I also cancelled my training for Friday and Saturday to give the body a chance to recover before the race.  I had thought about going for a nice walk Saturday morning to keep the legs fresh but we decided cheering on Lauren at the Go Girl Half Marathon was a better idea.

Lauren, Joe VI, Maddie, and Joe VII

An absolutely beautiful day for a half marathon!  Lauren was running half marathon number 2 for the year!  

After TKB and I got home to take a nice nap (spectating is exhausting!), it was time to prep get packed for the race:

A bit of a mess, but my checklist kept me organized

Weather

On Friday night I posted this on Facebook after checking weather.com for the 487th time that day:

The severe area even looks like a tornado.. NOT GOOD.

Finally after a full day on Saturday, I finished packing up my mess and hit the bed.  Just as I was getting comfortable and almost nodding off to sleep, this thing decided to blare in my ear:

That's fine.  This should be cleared up by the time I'm heading to the race.  A while later, I checked the radar after the thing blew up in my ear again with a thunderstorm WARNING:

Ugh.. OK fine.  That should be well out of the way.

The thunderstorms freaked out the dog, so I gave him and myself a melatonin.  I really didn't get to sleep until about 1am.  That's fine because I got an awesome night of sleep Friday night and took a nice nap Saturday.

Race Day!

Up at 4:30 and took a shower to wake me up.  After my bagel with PB and banana, I headed downstairs to get ready.  The radar looks OK but it's going to be interesting.  

My first pre-race bathroom break at home was pretty succesful:

If my race goes as well as my second pre-race poop, I would be smearing my competition all over the field.  Ick.

We hit the road by 5:05am to start the 45 minute trek to Longview Lake.  One thing I love about triathlons is that about half of the traffic that early on a Sunday morning is a vehicles with bikes on their roof, truck bed, bike rack, or peeking out of the back window.  As those vehicles pass me, I always say "That's OK, I'll get you on the run".

After getting parked, I started prepping the bike.  TKB bought me a Speedfill Aero Bottle for my birthday, so I attached and filled it up in the parking lot then pumped the tires.  

Attaching my bento box with 350 calories of tasty treats for the bike ride.

Around 6:15 we finally arrived at the transition area.  Supposedly the racks were pre-number but it turns out they were just marked by Age Group, which I thought was kind of dumb. Making it somewhat random by allowing people to pick their spots or by number you can evenly space out the placement of bikes so it isn't as crowded when you hit T1.  Whatever, that's fine.  To be fair, even if they are marked by numbers that's generally by age group as well.

Since we were marked by age group, I immediately found Drew and soon found Eric (competing in his first Triathlon!!!)  

Eric and Me suited up.

Stop staring at my.... ab.

BlurryCam hits the 2013 KC Tri

I walked and talked off some nervous energy.  

Note to self: Better prep the bike shoes.  Maybe try leaving them on the bike.

On the ride into the race, the pavement was wet but the clouds were breaking.  It was truly going to be a beautiful sunrise.  By about 6:45, it was pretty evident that break was about to filled with a thunderstorm.  Not good.

At 7am Drew and I walked over to the beach where I got wetsuited up.  By now it started to sprinkle.  As it moved to a rain, we moved over to the refreshment stand that had a "covering" (it was a slotted wood roof).  The Race Director indicated that they were going to delay the race by 15 minutes and make a decision at 7:45am.

Where's Scotty?  I can actually see myself.  If you see the two girls looking away from each other, one in a white hoody and the other in a  grey long sleeve t-shirt, my head is right between them, next to the post.

While Drew and I chatted up a bit, the bike was definitely on my mind.  If they cancelled the swim, I really didn't want to chance wrecking my bike on wet pavement.  That 30 minutes really started to wear on the nerves and the race mindset had lost its edge.

About 7:40am we noticed the lifeguards headed towards their equipment on the beach.  Was the race on?  Quickly it was realized they weren't headed out but, instead, packing up.  At 7:45 the RD came over the PA system and announced the race was cancelled.  

wah wah

As much as it sucked for the race to be cancelled, especially for folks like Eric doing their first triathlon, it was the right decision.  Safety is the number one concern.  They would have delayed the race for two hours for the roads to be in a condition I would have been OK to race on.

Back to the transition area where it was apparent that 20 - 25% of the participants had already made the decision and packed up. 

My transition was soaked.  EVERYTHING was soaked.  I had my cell phone in my race belt and fortunately it was still working.  I decided to go ahead and take off my wetsuit but in hindsight I should have waited until I got the truck as I then got soaked on the walk back.

On the way out, I caught up with Tucker and we all walked the triathlons equivalent as the "Walk of Shame".  

By the time we got home it had started to lighten up but I was exhausted.  Standing around, putting on the wetsuit, taking off the wetsuit, driving that long haul, and managing the nerves were pretty exhausting.  I ended up passing out for a couple hours.

Overall

I'm totally good with the call to cancel the race.  I wouldn't have wanted to do a bike and they were the only ones to keep me from doing it.  People were debating about how to handle the situation while in the staging area.  Should they offer a refund?  I wouldn't expect that because it's not like the organizers made any additional money by canceling the race.  If they didn't put a date on the medals, maybe they can save money by not making any next year.  In that case, they could offer discounts equivalent to that for next year.

In a bit of resolve, the competing triathlon in Lawrence, KS (Kansas 5150) had to adjust their race as well.  While they didn't cancel it, the changed it to a bike/run.  They had other implications to canceling the race as they are a qualifier for the 5150 Championships. The rain we were dealing with had already passed them.

I'm a bit disappointed to not get the new bike out in a race situation.  It looks like my first race I'm going to use my time trial bike is in an actual time trial race for KC Corporate Challenge.

I think the most frustrating part is the missed training opportunity.  I skipped two days of training to rest up and then missed out on today.  Yes, I could have gotten home and gone for a bike ride and/or run.  I did actually go for a 40 minute run in the afternoon, but not the same.  This coming week is suppose to be a cutback week in my training, so I'm going to plan on doing week 7 again for week 8 since I ended up cutting back so much.

The Proof

I see a future triathlete in that baby stroller... checking out my bike porn.

Look at that beautiful blue sky... or is it dark clouds?

Strippin'

Race Preview: Kansas City Triathlon!

Kansas City Triathlon  Olympic

My first triathlon of 2013 is almost here!  I did this back in 2011 as my very first triathlon. I don't think I ever hesitated in registering for it this year because I was anxious to get back into multi-sport after a full year dedicated to running.  I also didn't expect that winter would hold on so tight that the decision to wear a wetsuit is a no brainer.  Seriously, it was snowing two weeks ago.

The only decision this year is to either do the Kansas 5150 or the Kansas City Triathlon   It took longer than I would expect for KC Tri to open up registration as there was a question to whether it would even be held since the website was still listing last year's registration link while it was January this year.

I'm hoping that proves to be a good thing.  I'm hoping all those super competitive triathlete types had signed up for the Kansas 5150 in Lawrence so I get a chance at a decent spot in the ranking.  Either way, I still don't expect any podium spots.

The race will take place on the last day of week 7 of my Ironman Training program.  I've completed all workouts on the plan up until this week as I'm going to take the rest of the week off but maybe an easy short run tomorrow AM.  Last night I got an awesome brick workout in that boosted my confidence for this weekends race.  After a hard 16 miles on the bike and then a hard 2 miles, I really felt like I could manage the transition.  I'm just going to hold out hope for the swim.

So here are my goals:

Swim: 1,500 Meters - 25 Minutes.  I did nearly 30 minutes in 2011 but I feel my swim has improved a lot this year.

Bike: 26 Miles - 1 hour, 18 minutes or 20 mph.  The hills will be brutal but if the wind is calm, I think I can manage this.  Hydration and nutrition will be key here.  I averaged 17.5 mph with Drew on Saturday for three laps while on my road bike and in wind.  I'm hoping 20 mph for two laps on my tri bike.  It's hard to compare this to 2011 19.2 mph pace because that was a different course with less hills (but more turns).  It was also a shorter course in 2011.

Run: 10k - 48 Minutes or 7:45 pace.  In 2011, I did this with an 8:55 pace so I'm definitely expecting a boost.  This will all be about managing my nutrition and getting settled into my pace on the bike.

So I'm looking at a 12 minute improvement of 2 hours and 34 minutes over 2011 even considering a longer bike course this year.

Ironman Training Week 6 - LOTS OF BIKIN'

May 6 to May 12
Swim: 5,00 yards / 1 hour, 44 minutes

Bike: 73 miles / 4 hours, 5 minutes

Run: 23 miles / 3 hours, 15 minutes

Strength: 2 Sessions / 2 hours

COMMUTE: 30 miles / 1 hour, 45 minutes

Totals: 129 miles / 12 hours, 50 minutes

This was a MASSIVE training week!  I really wouldn't anticipate seeing these numbers for about 2 or 3 months.  The big reason it's big is because I rode my bike to work on Tuesday.  That was an huge training day in itself.  I rode to the gym, swam 2,500 yards, continued my bike ride to work (total of 14 miles), then rode my bike home (16 miles.. took the longer route).  After dinner, I took off for the Line Creek Trail and met TKB after her run, which was an hour for me (7.35 miles).  It was a 39 mile day!

My car for Tuesday -- Prepped and ready to go on Monday night.

The amazing thing was thing about this week is it has been a horrible week for me at work.  I logged over 60 hours at the day job.  While I'm happy I prioritized my training, this can't (and won't) continue like this or TKB will divort me.  I definitely love her for allowing me to be cranky this week due to work and because of the emotional drain those kind of miles put on the body.

Time Trial Thursday

On Thursday I took my tri bike to the downtown airport where there is a 4 mile-ish loop.  My goal being was to practice doing time trials to get comfortable with the idea of pushing myself to the limits on the bike.  I'm signed up for the Corporate Challenge Time Trial on May 29th at the Kansas Speedway (Come out to watch!!!!!)  I did a warm-up ride, then kicked it up for a loop, then a recovery lap, and repeat.  I did three time trial loops.  The wind at the airport was pretty brutal as it seems to always be a headwind.

I emailed the coordinator for the Corporate Challenge Time Trial about it.  He mentioned that wind is your training friend.  Hmp... maybe frenemy.

Long Ride at Longview Lake

I finally met up with Drew from Twitter this past weekend and we did 3 laps of the KC Tri Bike course! Drew even did one more lap after I cut out.  This was very much an eye opener.  In 2013, I have completed 41 bike rides for 682 miles.  Seven of those rides (accounting for 137 miles) were on the road with the rest being indoors.  The hills on the KC Tri bike course were nasty.  While I recorded 1,500 of elevation gain, most of that came in BIG chunks.  I was spent pretty quickly.  My hope is that I killed my legs after this massive training week, which included my time trial practice 36 hours before Drew and I did the 38 miles.  This is my blog and I can continue to make up as many excuses as possible but I'll stop.... for now.

Photo of the Week

OK.. more like a screenshot of Sunday morning's twitter feed.

Convo with Paul (from Twitter... who has also started a new blog!)

Um.. yeah.  I really don't think my pre-run hydration caused this but it might have kept it from hurting that much.  I was at the furthest point away from home and uneven pavement on the sidewalk tripped me up.  I managed to catch myself and roll into the grass.  I had to look like a tumbleweed of arms and legs to all the cars at the stop light about 40 feet away.  Fortunately I was able to complete my run but with a slightly smaller ego.

Running In Harmony: Half Marathon Training & Ironman Training

This blog post is part of a series of posts associated with the Hospital Hill Run Blog Team.  For more information, see my original post.  To see all blog posts, review those that are tagged as "Hospital Hill Blog Team".  To register for the Hospital Hill Run, check out their website!

If you've been following along for a few weeks, you know that I've been ramping up my swim and bike training as part of my triathlon season, specifically my ironman training.  So how am I training for Hospital Hill at the same time?  Well, let's find out.

A few years ago I did my first half ironman race.  I followed my half ironman plan almost to a "T" from June to the end of August.  The only days I skipped were for races that I had scheduled.  My training plan was similar to my ironman plan in the fact that it is heart rate based.  As you know I'm a huge fan of heart rate based training.  As I continued my training of swim and bike, I saw some improvements in my running.  That August I ran in the Head For The Cure 5k and amazed myself with a 20:02 5k time. I was stunned with the time but a little mad at myself for not click off those extra 3 seconds to go sub-20.

With that I had understood why heart rate based training and cross training is so great.  You get to see benefits in one sport without having to devote 100% of your time on that sport.

Basically what this comes down to is I'm concentrating my training on my ironman training plan but I will likely forgo the heart rate based training for some hill workouts but trying to stick to the timeframes.

The Current Plan
Here is a breakdown of my training week:

Monday:  Strength Training
This is actually the rest day but I do strength training two days a week, so Monday is one of those days.  Until I really start wearing down for want of a full rest day, I'm going to keep this scheduled on Mondays.

Tuesday AM: Swim
Swim workouts will range from 2,500 yards to 3,500 yards throughout the 30 weeks.  These aren't just straight swims but have drills/intervals planned.

Tuesday PM: Run
These are Zone 2 (Aerobic) workouts but will eventually turn into fartlek-style runs with some Z4 (anaerobic) runs near the end.

Wednesday AM: Bike/Run Brick
These are brick workouts where I start out on my bike and then immediately transition into a run.  I plan to do these before work but in the heaviest volume weeks this is a 1.5 hour workout.  I've gotten up at 3:00am to get a 30 mile bike ride in before work, so this is still manageable!

Wednesday PM: Getting rid of the girly man.... Strength Training!

Thursday AM: Swim
Back to the pool.

Thursday PM: Bike
Not a straight cycle session.  I will probably do these on the trainer because they usually require some level of consistent cycling.  Currently I'm doing 100+ RPM Spins but they will soon transition to intervals.

Friday: Run
Eventually this will also include a swim but leading up to Hospital Hill, this will just be a run.

Saturday: Long Bike
Z2 long bike ride.  Right now these are under two hours but during the peak of this training plan this will be a 6 hour training ride!!  THEN FOLLOWED BY A 1 HOUR RUN! ACK.

Sunday: Long Run

Adjustments for Hospital Hill
I'm still debating on this but I will likely be adjusting my run workouts.  I will probably leave my Friday run as a straight aerobic workout but my Tuesday run will probably become technical in nature.  It will either be the hill work or intervals.  I also like to get runs in at race pace and I've already been doing that with my Wednesday run that follows the bike session.

Thanks for reading!

Feel free to stop by and ask questions in the comments or hop over to Twitter to chat me there!  You can find me as @ScottyTris.

Ironman Training Week 5

Swim: 5000 yards / 1 hour, 41 minutes
Bike: 44 miles / 2 hours, 32 minutes
Run: 18 miles / 2 hours, 22 minutes
Strength: 1 session / 60 minutes

My miles and times were less than prescribed.  Monday night I had a meeting, so couldn't do my strength training session (which actually gave me my first full day off in about a month).  My weekend run was replaced with a 5k.  I decided this year that I wouldn't make up my weekend training because I was doing a race.  I decided, instead, to limit my races so it wouldn't be that big of an issue.

I had been trying to schedule a weekend ride on the KC Triathlon bike course with Drew from twitter but the weather steered us away.

I will be working on my Corporate Challenge 5k race report but a quick review is I did not make my sub-20 goal.  I'm going to get that goal sometime!  My next chance will probably be at Head For The Cure 5k.  There has been rumblings of doing the Amy Thompson run in which there is an 8k and 5k, so maybe I'll do the 5k.  We'll see.

I have two posts that I need to get published, so hopefully I'll push those out this week.

Training this week will continue to push the distances but still nothing I haven't seen before.  I'm hoping to do a trial time trial race at the downtown airport on Thursday after work.  Once again, it's dependent on this stupid weather we are having.  It should be warm enough but it might be a bit too wet.  If anyone is interested in joining, let me know.  I've been trying to get some folks together at work to play along as well.

Week in Review: Ironman Training Week 4

April 22 - 28

Swim: 4,900 yards / 1 hour, 47 minutes
Bike: 44.49 miles / 2 hours, 30 minutes
Run: 15.33 miles / 1 hour, 56 minutes
Strength: 2 sessions / 2 hours

Total: 62.6 miles / 8 hours, 22 minutes

This was a recovery week, which was great because it was race week for the first race of the season!!  I started kicking up the pace on a couple of my runs in preparation for Sunday's Trolley Run.  As I mentioned in the race report, I'm going to plan to speed up one or two sessions a week to give me some speedwork.

This being my first race also marks the first of 6 races in the next 6 weeks.  Completing out the weekly training plan will be difficult but I'll do what I can and skip what I must.  I'm not planning to make up for lost time due to races.

Upcoming
Coming up this week is the Corporate Challenge 5k, which I am going to gun for sub-20.  My personal best is 20:02.  I'm trying to temper my expectations because, unlike Trolley Run, there is a hill on this course PLUS it's not all downhill. I figured if
I didn't have a goal to focus on, then what's the point?

Photo of the Week

I found this street sign rather interesting as we were walking towards our dinner on Saturday.  10 hour parking but that is on enforced during an 11 hour time span?