Transition Run Vs. Brick

Thought this was a great article.  I'm always wondering how much is too much and how little is too little as far as bike-run bricks go.  Speaking of which, Matt and I did a short bike-run brick last night.  We had a 1.5 hr bike hill workout followed by a 30 min run.  The bike was uneventful besides the hills and the wind.  Those made for an excellently slow pace, BOO!  The run was good though.  We headed down to the towpath and got in 3.5 miles.  The legs felt really strong and for the first time in my life Matt was telling me to slow down.  Unfortunately it wasn't because I was going to fast for him, but because I wasn't hitting the paces we want to be at for REV3.

Tonight's workout: long swim.

 

Monday Swimday

Monday evening we had a long swim workout.  W/U: 4x250 (F, K, P, F); Main: 1950 ladder (300, 275, 250, etc.); C/D: 200 easy.  All-in-all it went really well and I felt pretty strong (endurance wise).  I was trying a different "method" of swimming this time based on some constructive criticism Matt had provided during our previous swim workout.

Typically during a "hard effort" swim I liken it to running and try and get a faster turnover (much like sprinting).  Matt said as he watched me swim, my stroke count increased from 15-17 strokes to 25-30 on the hard effort.  This is NOT good and explains why I feel like I am putting so much more effort into it and not going any faster.  The swim instructor Leah Nyikes from the swim clinics we have gone to said that a good swimmer should only get 12-15 strokes in a 25 meter pool.  That means they are properly using the gliding portion of the swim to their advantage.  During my hard effort I am thinking that: 1) my form falls apart since I am focusing on my speed and not my form, 2) I am over-compensating for speed by trying to get in more strokes thinking that the more strokes I have the faster I will go, and 3) I am throwing away any advantage in my glide by having so many strokes.  Therefore, I need to find a balance between stroke count, gliding, and speed.  Matt suggested that instead of increasing stroke count I try to "pull harder" and then find the happy place where the advantage my glide begins to diminish and use that as a judge of when to take my next stroke.

Overall, it seemed to work well.  I didn't necessarily feel faster, but I didn't feel like I was overexerting myself and wasting energy like I usually do.  So, I think this is a good thing.  I guess I don't really know the right way how to swim faster.  I know the proper form, I know the proper timing, but I also only know how to go one speed.  Any advice from the swimmers out there?  Does speed come from the pull or does it come from an increased stroke "cadence" type deal?  

I would like to improve in the pool, but I do also agree with alot of other people out there who feel that spending excessive amounts of time in the pool for only a 2-3 minute gain is not really the best time spent in Ironman training.  I get it for shorter distance tri's, but how necessary is it for longer distances?  It's probably not that important in the grand scheme of things.  I mean really what is 2-3 minutes in a 14 hour race?

In an unrelated topic, Matt bought me a new bike helmet!  Unfortunately, its not an aero helmet.  It's just a plain Jane helmet, BUT it doesn't fall over my eyes when I hit a bump!  It actually fits my head!!!  Somehow my head shrunk from last year and my old helmet no longer fits me properly.  I am excited to try the new one out tonight!  Someday I would like to get an aero helmet and an actual tri-bike, but right now I don't feel I am fast enough to get any benefit out of them.  My personal pet peeve is when I see triathletes all decked out in their fancy gear, and they end up being one of the slower triathletes.  I do enjoy passing them though!  But, I don't really get it.  At that point it seems like it's more about the looks than about the actual sport.  I figure when I can consistently come in the top 10% of females at races then I probably deserve to get myself some snazzy gear.  OR if I become independently wealthy then I will get the gear too ;)  Until then, I'll stick with my Trek road bike, stock wheels, and my Bontrager helmet.

Happy Training!

A Century Ride Filled with Lions, Tigers, and Buffalo....OH MY!!!

This weekend Matt and I knew we had a lot on our plates.  We had to try and fit in a triathlon (coaching, not racing), a team picnic, Matt's landscaping accounts, our regular training, and the yearly trip to Brecksville Home Days for gyros and elephant ears.  On the training schedule we had a 2100m swim followed by an hour run (Friday), a 2 hr bike followed by a 30 min run (Sat), and a 4 hr bike (Sun).  Matt wanted to head up to Sandusky this weekend to ride the REV3 course, so we decided to nix the workout on Friday so we could head up to the cottage in Sandusky after work and trade in the two bike workouts for one Century (+) ride Saturday morning.  I didn't feel too bad about nixing the workout on Friday because I had done a make up 1.5 hr run on Thursday and wasn't feeling great afterwards.  Plus, I was very excited to finally be doing a century ride as I feel we are way behind on our biking for REV3 in September.

So, after work we cleaned up the house, packed our bags, ate some dinner, loaded the bikes up, got the pups packed up and were off to Sandusky.  We got to the cottage around 9 pm and pretty much went straight to bed after unpacking.  The goal was to be out the door and on the bikes by 6:30 the next morning.  Having the dogs with us, we never sleep very well at the cottage.  Frank likes to make a game out of seeing how many times he can jump into and out of the bed all night.  I think Friday night he broke his previous record...even Sophie got irritated with him and bailed to sleep on the floor.  Needless to say we were both up by 5 am although it seemed to take us forever to get things ready.  We kept checking and double checking to make sure we had everything we needed as we knew this would be an all day excursion:

• Bikes - check
• Helmets - check
• Tires pumped - check
• Spare tubes - check
• Speedfill bottles and Infinite - check
• Nutrition - check
• Emergency $ - check
• Sunscreen - check
• Butt Butter - check
• Cell phone - check
• Course Directions - check

By 7:20 we were finally on our way out the door (an hour behind schedule is probably pretty good for us).  It immediately became apparent that there would be many lessons learned on this first century ride adventure (the plan being to do the full ironman REV3 course).  Here is a list of our top 10 lessons learned:

• Lesson 1:  If the sun seems really bright, it's probably is!  At mile 5 we came to our first stop light. I looked up and though, "Hmmmm, the sun seems really bright today."  Then I turned to Matt and said, "What is wrong with this picture (pointing to my face)".  Yeah, I forgot my sunglasses.  AWESOME!  Options: turn back and go get them (not high on the list of things we wanted to do), ride naked (not really an option as I am a freak about my eyes and their safety), or buy a pair at the gas station.  Thank goodness we packed some emergency $ and that there was a gas station right there.  This would be our first purchase of the day!  And I am now the proud owner of three pairs of bike glasses (from this year alone) as apparently I am very good at loosing them and/or forgetting them.
• Lesson 2: Following directions sucks!  Apparently the directions Matt printed out were not the best.  He had turn by turn directions from Map My Ride and it was calling out roads that didn't even exist.  Needless to say, shortly after mile 5 we were headed off in the wrong direction and didn't get back on the actual REV3 course until mile 20 or so.  This meant we would actually be doing parts of the course three times instead of just two....excellent!  I guess it was the scenic route =)  Thankfully it didn't add any extra mileage on for the day.  We pretty much threw out the turn by turn directions and just followed the map Matt brought along from here on out.  
• Lesson 3: If you apply sunscreen and wear a tri top there will be NO SUN!  I have to admit that I suck at putting on sunscreen and am usually the one crying after my workouts/races that I am burnt.  Today, however, I came prepared!  I had packed my TNT tri tank thinking I would appreciate the added breeze on my arms after 100 miles in the sun all day.  I lathered up in the sunscreen making sure to hit even the back of my neck and ears.  Well, I think the sun was out for the first 2-3 minutes of the ride and then it was overcast for the rest of the day (at least until mile 100).  I guess I can't complain though because it was really perfect weather for a century ride.  I was actually cold whenever we stopped to look at directions.  I thought for sure we would be stopping to refill water bottles, but I didn't even finish off the Speedfill bottle, which I attribute to the weather.  I don't think I was ever really sweating that much.  
• Lesson 4: If there are no hills you can be sure there will be wind!  I guess if it's not one thing it's another.  All of our rides to date have been in the metroparks on very hilly terrain.  I'm not talking small hills either, I'm talking Big Birtha sized hills that keep going and going, and then go some more.  I was looking forward to riding the REV3 course because I knew it would be relatively flat.  There were a few rollers and false flats, but they were mere hiccups in the road compared to what we are used to.  So, I guess we traded in the hills for the wind!  There was such a strong headwind coming from the southwest that we were riding 14 mph on the flats at some locations.  Since we were riding mostly cornfields I'm hoping the corn will be tall enough to block some of the wind come race day.  There were parts of the course I where was even white knuckling it because I was being blown all over the place.  At the end of the day though, I think I would trade in the hills for the wind any day.  
• Lesson 5: Matt has the attention span of a gnat!  So, we were riding along River Road and we reach the end of it were there was a little farm to the right.  There were two big bison laying in the field so I called to Matt who wasn't too far ahead of me to take a  look at the bison.  BAD IDEA!  As soon as Matt saw the bison, he slammed on he breaks, not warning me that he was stopping to look at the bison.  I was not expecting the immediate halt and I almost ate Smurf for breakfast!  Seriously!!!!  WARN A SISTA' WHEN YOU ARE STOPPING TO GAWK AT THE GIANT COWS!!!!!  
• Lesson 6: Speedfill Bottles are awesome!    This was the first time Matt and I had used our new speedfill bottles and we weren't sure if we'd like them or not.  LOVE THEM!  I can't say enough about them!  No mess, no sticky Infinite all over your hands, no struggling to get the water bottle back in its cage, easy sipping, and best of all (especially for me) you can't "chug", you can only "sip" which means no heavy bloated stomach off the bike!
• Lesson 7: Matt's Century Cookies are awesome! Before we headed up to the cottage on Friday, Matt made a batch of his "nutritious" cookies so we could take them on our ride.  I have to admit, they are really good and very filling (without sitting heavy) on the bike.  Besides these I filled up on Gu Chomps, PowerBar Gummies, and Infinite.  We did stop for a quick lunch at Subway on the second loop, so I am trying to figure out what type of sandwich I can pack on the bike or in my Special Needs Bag for REV3.  Subway really did hit the spot, but I knew I wasn't running afterwards.  
• Lesson 8: County Road 113 rocks and Frailey Road sucks!   CR113 is an awesome 13 mile stretch that is very flat and very fast (if the wind cooperates).  There are a few false flats along the way, but we were able to maintain speeds of 18-22 mph along this stretch.  I think we can make up some good time here.  On the other hand Frailey Road sucks.  Its only a few miles, but its on a chip and seal road and its on a slight incline the whole way.  It also happened to be in the wind the entire way for us as well.  Think I will definitely be losing time on this road.  
• Lesson 9: Don't stop when being chased by a dog!  At around mile 80 on CR 113 this pit bull mix comes out of nowhere and starts chasing us.  I have never experienced this before in my life so I really didn't know what to do.  Matt immediately yelled out DON'T STOP!  However, there was oncoming traffic and the dog was to the side of us in the path of the cars.  I didn't want it to get hit, but at the same time I didn't want to get eaten.  This thing was fierce....gorgeous dog, but FIERCE!!!  It maintained the pace we were going for about a mile before it finally let up.  I'm sure it was a comical scene, as drivers stopped on a side road were pointing and laughing.  It really got my heart-rate going though!  
• Lesson 10: Century rides are best when done with a friend!  I'm so thankful I have Matt to train with.  This was quite an adventure and accomplishment for us being our first century.  We didn't really know what to expect or how we would feel and it was awesome to have someone to keep pushing you along or to say hey its ok to take a break when you really needed to.  We had a lot of laughs along the way and created many new memories.  And we both gained the confidence we were lacking in the bike portion of being able to complete REV3 come September.  In Matt's words an ironman now "seems very feasible".  I hope he is right!  

Matt has all the pictures from this weekend so be sure to check out his blog for the pics and to get his scoop on our first century ride.  All said and done it was an excellent experience.  At the end of the day my Timex said 118 miles at 17 mph overall pace (including stops for traffic lights, etc.), Matt's Garmin said 112 miles with 16 mph overall pace.  He checked on map my ride and it seems that his watch had the correct mileage.  Not sure what happened there, but none the less we accomplished our goal.  I didn't feel horrible immediately afterwards.  I think the soreness and tiredness hit me on Sunday evening.  One thing I did note immediately after getting off the bike was that I felt "fat".  I looked at my Timex and it said I had burned almost 9,000 calories during the ride.  9,000 CALORIES!!!!  How can I feel fat?!?!?!  But honestly I did, so I don't know if that's a bad sign that I ate too much or what.  I want to make sure that I am getting enough nutrition on the bike for the run, but not too much that I will be sick on the run.  I'm glad to be working out all these kinks now!  

Finally, to top off the weekend we did make it to Brecksville Home Days Sunday evening.  Matt and I got our gyros, lemonade, and split an Elephant Ear.  Sophie even got to come along with us for her first fair experience!  I think she was a little overwhelmed, but she did good!  She even got some gyro too ;)  

Tonight's workout: swim and run.    

Keep on keepin' on!!!!

 

Ironman Blues

So, I think I need to start documenting this maiden Ironman voyage for a couple of reasons.  First, I have gone through every possible emotion along this journey, sometimes all in one day (or one workout), and have probably even invented some new emotions along the way.  Being in the research field I am interested in the trends between workouts, food habits, work, etc. and how this all affects my emotions and performance that day.  Secondly, I seem to have hit a wall lately, both mentally and physically.  The closer Rev3 gets, the more my mind starts telling me that I am in way over my head and there is no physical way I can finish this race.  The unfortunate thing is that my body is starting to listen to my mind.

To summarize my adventure so far:

• Matt and I had a brilliant idea of doing Rev3 Sandusky (full) this year.  Mind you this is my second year in the sport of triathlon, but I am used to diving head first into things and going all out.  Forget easing into the sport. My second tri ever was the Steelhead HIM, this after a local sprint tri where I thought I was going to drown.  
•  Matt put together an IM training plan based on the beginner triathlete website training plans.  We used the HIM version for Steelhead last year and found it to be swim and bike heavy.  The run was lacking and we both paid the price during the race.  Lesson learned....increase the running ante.  
• IM training officially began on March 14th, 2011.  We had been training for the Cleveland Marathon prior to this, so jumping into the IM training didn't seem so bad...we just added the bike or run to whatever marathon training we had for that day.  
• Cleveland Marathon came and went.  I got a 27 minute PR which I was not expecting and managed to feel great after the marathon (not typical).  This was due to Matt's new "run a mile walk a minute" technique that we had been practicing on all of our training runs longer than 13 miles.  I have to say I doubted it at first, but came to respect it through the obvious improvement in performance.  
• IM training continued.  Our plan seems to be VERY swim heavy (like 4 days a week).  Biking is next on the list, though I feel like we are on our bikes every day, the distances don't seem to be long enough for IM training.  The longest we have gone to date is 3 hours (50 miles).  Most everyone I  know who is doing Rev3 or Wisconsin IM (same day) has already done at least one century ride if not more.  And once again this plan sucks as far as running goes.  It is pretty much one long run a week and by "long" I mean 1 to 1.5 hour run.....hardly what I would call enough for IM training (or even marathon training for that matter).
• To date, I can tell the my endurance is outstanding.  It's probably the best its ever been, but along with that I feel like I am super slow this year.  I forced myself to learn bilateral breathing this year thinking it would make a huge improvement in my swim...wrong.  In a recent sprint tri I only  improved my swim time by 1 min and I was only 1-2 min faster than people who were doing the backstroke.....suck fest!  
• My bike is my worst enemy this year.  At Steelhead I maintained an 18+ mph pace to finish the bike in 3 hours (decent for my second tri ever).  This year I can't seem to get out of the 16's.  Granted everywhere we ride there are hills, hills, and more hills.  I HATE HILLS!  But still I feel like I am not getting any better and I feel like I am way behind where I should be at this far along in the game.  
• Running is my only saving grace, but I'm not really fast at that either.  
• It's really hard to train with someone ( Matt) who pretty much feels no pain.  Even if Matt didn't train for an entire year, if he wanted to go out an run a 6 min pace for 5 miles, that would be a joke to him.  He is blessed with a gift, which in my opinion is not an athletic talent, but a talent to ignore any pain that his body feels and continue to push harder.  Me, I'm a complainer.  I don't like pain.  I like the aftermath and the victory after putting myself through pain, but I don't like the pain itself and my mind will make my body quit before my body is actually ready to quit.  So, really every workout I put more and more pressure on myself and make myself feel like a looser because I am always a mile behind Matt during the bike and 10 laps behind him in the pool.  The only breath of fresh air I have is running because Matt is not doing the long runs with me because of his achilles.  That is the only time I don't have that added "you suck" pressure staring me in the face.  Which brings me to another point that I hate training with people.  I know what the benefits of training with others can be, but because I put so much pressure on myself to be "as good as everyone else" I end up making myself sick and am too scared and intimidated to commit to training with friends or a group (like CTC).
• Over the course of this training I have never been so hungry, so tired, or so irritable!  Seriously, I don't know how people make it through IM training, especially if they are training with a significant other.  Matt had told me that it's really hard to be in a relationship where one person does IM and the other is not into triathlon at all...being that they never see each other due to the intense time commitment of IM training.  Really, I think it's much harder being in a relationship where both people are training for IM....especially when they train together.  Look out when I am having  a bad workout or when my blood sugar drops or I just feel plain old tired, 'cuz guess who's gonna be on the receiving end when the bomb goes off?!?!?!  The only person I am with 24/7!  It's great having someone to motivate you and keep you on track, but it also sucks when you are not in the mood to be motivated.  
• Matt keeps telling me that he wants to complete this IM together; meaning swim, bike (without drafting), run, and cross the finish line together.  From what I remember, during the HIM (which we competed on our own) I was fine through the swim and the bike, but on the run I was almost in tears at one point because I wanted Matt by my side to push me through the tough middle miles.  So, yeah maybe it would be good to have him there when I need him, but based on how our workouts have been going I get too easily distracted when he is with me and lose focus of my goals.  In this case the distraction is not a good thing....it's not a distraction like completely forgetting you are on mile 20 of 26, but a distraction like "hey, why is he a mile ahead of me on the bike" or "hey, why is he not breathing as hard as me on this run"....pretty much its me thinking that this is so much easier for him than it is for me and I literally get angry by that.  Which leads to me wasting energy on being angry and forgetting the love and the fun of the sport.  So, not sure that I am sold on the idea of doing this together.  I just don't want to regret not doing it together.  Maybe I just need anger management classes ;)

My final thought is based on my workout from yesterday.  We had a swim in the morning and a run in the evening.  The swim was 2x75 warm up, 3x600 (RPE 4, RPE 8, RPE 4), and 150 cool down.  The run was 1.5 hours easy consistent pace.  Pretty much every time I swim I get discouraged now.  Mainly because I thought I would improve this year and I haven't.  But also because Matt and I start every swim at the same time and somehow he always ends up 10 laps ahead of me.  This workout just reinforced the suck factor.  It went from an "easy" 600 meters to "hard" 600 meters and back to "easy."  Matt said the hard set should be similar to what my sprint swim leg felt like.  So in swimming my hard set I came to the realization that my arms are moving faster, I'm working much harder, but I'm not going ANY faster than when I am swimming easy.  WTF?!?!?!?  So what is the point of swimming harder if I am just wasting energy and not moving any faster.  Swimming is so frickin' frustrating and I don't know how to make it any better.  I have the "form" down based on the swim clinics that I have gone to.  I worked really hard on bilateral breathing this year. And still I just plain suck. Then, after work we went for our run.  Matt ran the first 20 min with me then turned around.  Honestly I like running by myself better.  I can zone out and just relax and go my pace without worrying about what the person next to me is doing.  I felt really good on this run.  It was only a 1.5 hour easy run, but with this training plan it has been about a week since our last run (feels more like a year), so I didn't know if I would still have the 10 or so miles in me.  I started to stiffen up at about mile 5, but no biggie, I haven't been stretching like I should be.  After the run I made sure not to drink or eat anything for 30 minutes or so....I always end up sick for the rest of the day if I do.  However inevitably I ended up sick anyways.  About an hour and a half after the run, I literally felt like I had gotten hit by a Mack truck.  My neck and shoulder hurt so bad that the pain was giving me a headache.  My legs froze up and hurt to move.  I felt dizzy and nauseous and was freezing cold.  All I could do was lay on the couch and try to fall asleep to forget about the pain.  All this from a stupid "easy" 10 mile run which felt fine while I was running.

And so with all that said I think to myself, "how am I ever going to finish an Ironman".  Will the training ever get better?  Will I ever feel like I am good or "good enough" at this sport?  Am I good enough to call myself I triathlete, or am I just a triathlete's wife?

So, hopefully this journal (if I keep up with it) will shed some light on the good days when I am in need of a pick me up.  I am hoping to look back on it after the Ironman and laugh at myself for not believing I could do it.  "I hope!"