Allons-y!

my training blog my training calendar my training reports
print

May 21

Well I felt pretty good about the job shadow thing today with my pal. I hopefully gave him some things to think about and he has certainly given us some things to think about (mainly how much less we're willing to earn by hiring him on--at least in the short term!) All in all I think it will be a good fit if he chooses to come work for us.

May 20

Run
  • 1h 13m 19s
  • 7.00 miles
  • 10m 28s /Mi

Breakthrough workout! Usually I am fighting to keep my hr down, especially at the end of the workout, but today I found myself having to run 9:xx miles to get my hr to go into zone 2!! Awesome!

I looked at my splits for the last 6 run intervals (basically the 2nd half of the run) and I am proud to say I was running mid-to-upper-9 minute miles for each one! This is great for many reasons:

1) the route I take has hills for the first mile then gently trends "downhill" until you get to Holmes Lake, so anywhere you turn around you're going up a gradual incline and then you finish in the hills. To run 9:40+/- given the route is sweet.

2) Usually by mile 5 I'm starting to go into damage control mode where things are starting to hurt, I'm starting to get tired, and my HR has crept up so I'm fighting to keep it down. Exact opposite--I had to fight to keep it up, even running 10-10:30m/m uphill just to get into upper Z2!

3) Obviously the bike/run brick yesterday was a pretty epic workout in and of itself. 17+mph for 54 miles? Unheard of from this guy. And to follow it up with two 10-ish minute miles was a nice confidence boost. Running 9:30 intervals today, at the end of the long run, in the hills, after yesterday's hard workout=da bomb.

Of the four reports due tomorrow I already have one done. w00t! Oh, AND, I'm bringing along one of my new pals to "shadow" me tomorrow while I go do some inspections and come back to the office and do some office work, to see how he thinks he might do as an appraiser. He and I share a lot of the same character traits and ethics/morals, so my wife and I feel like this will be a good fit. You never know until you know, though! Two of four done (one already sent in--yay for already having comp photos)! One last thing before I go to bed and forget: I have taken a nap every day for the last 3 days, an hour or two each. I think that has really helped expedite my recovery and help me to get through this last week that was pretty high volume and somewhat high intensity (especially Tuesday when I did the time trial). I'm thinking this week I'll skip the TT on Tuesday and do the group ride Wednesday--I haven't been with that crew for several weeks now and I'm anxious to get back after it with them. They're good folks :)

May 19

Bike
  • 3h 07m 06s
  • 54.61 miles
  • 17.51 Mi/hr

Not a bad pace. Curious to see what kind of elevation gain I had. Probably not enough.

1,720 feet, not bad a'tall! Ate a Fig Newton at 10, 20, 35, & 44 miles--ate the last one 'early' because I knew I was going to be going on the Old Cheney Rd hills and didn't want to still have it in my gut when I was gutting out the hills. Drank two bottles of Gatorade and felt like it was almost just right, since it was a little cooler out. That's a far cry from when I rode the IMKS course a couple of weeks ago and was near death when I was finished after having only two bottles. I need to get the straw routed and mounted for my Speedfil, dern it!

Run
  • 20m 49s
  • 2.03 miles
  • 10m 15s /Mi

T-run off the bike. Hot out there!

May 17

Swim
  • 47m 25s
  • 2600.00 yards
  • 01m 49s /100 yards

1000 - 17:46
1:38
1:47
1:48
1:47
1:48
1:49
1:47
1:47
1:51
1:46

1000 - 18:45
1:41
1:44
1:42
1:49
1:47
1:58
2:40
1:50
1:49
1:46

600 - 10:55
1:37
1:58
1:43

3:44
1:53


So the first 1,000 I was in the open area (still lap lanes, but not exclusive to lap swimming). The second 1,000 I was able to get into the lap lane (there were already 2 people in there and both left, then another guy jumped in before I finished my first set). Split lanes with that guy for 1.25 laps and then he got my attention and notified me we were switching to circles since a lady was joining us in the lane. Then a FOURTH person joined us. Now, I know circle swimming can work with like 8 people in a lane, but the ALL have to be at (or near) the same speed. We were not. The third member was way slow, the other guy with me was a tad faster than I was, and the fourth member (another gal) was slower than me. Finally she switched to the open area that I had come from and the guy must've finished his workout because he left, which left me and granny to finish out our sets. I got a HUGE calf cramp which I suspect is when I got that 1:58 split, and I noticed my left patella tendon was hurting, so I swam a few more hundreds and bagged it. I could tell my form was leaving something to be desired, so I figured it was best to just call it a day knowing I needed to not have siezed calves for my ride tonight.

Bike
  • 27m 01s
  • 7.41 miles
  • 16.45 Mi/hr

5 minute warm-up, start @100W, increasing 1 gear every minute
30" SLD each leg w/60" recovery (5x)
50"@200W; 10" spin-up to big ring (10x)
5 minute cool-down, decreasing 1 gear every minute

It's been a pretty "relaxed" week at the appraisal office, more or less. Everyone wanted me to come do the inspection on their properties late this week/early next week so all my due dates got pushed to next week. I have 4 orders due Monday, 2 on Tuesday, and 3 on Wednesday, with possibly 1 due Thurs & Fri. Needless to say I'll be working ahead this weekend to try and stay ahead of the game :-\

May 16

Run
  • 30m 13s
  • 2.86 miles
  • 10m 34s /Mi

Phew, was running 9-9:30's for the first half, then we turned around and were going into the wind and a slight uphill that of course we didn't sense when we were running DOWN it! Brynn and I took the jogging stroller and pushed the little boys while D was at church youth group. I was hoping he would be able to come with us, get a little bit of training in since track is over and he doesn't have any structured athletics until he starts playing basketball sometime in June.

Oh, and once again, useless HR data.

Comparing yesterday's ride with a week ago my avg. power was the exact same--221, and my normalized power was 3 watts higher (253 vs 250). Quick little explanation of Normalized Power vs. Avg Power: This algorithm is somewhat complicated, but importantly it incorporates two key pieces of information: 1) the physiological responses to rapid changes in exercise intensity are not instantaneous, but follow a predictable time course, and 2) many critical physiological responses (e.g., glycogen utilization, lactate production, stress hormone levels) are curvilinearly, rather than linearly, related to exercise intensity, By taking these factors into account, normalized power provides a better measure of the true physiological demands of a given training session - in essence, it is an estimate of the power that you could have maintained for the same physiological "cost" if your power output had been perfectly constant (e.g., as on a stationary cycle ergometer), rather than variable. Keeping track of normalized power is therefore a more accurate way of quantifying the actual intensity of training sessions, or even races. For example, it is common for average power to be lower during criteriums than during equally-difficult road races, simply because of the time spent soft-pedaling or coasting through sharp turns during a criterium. Assuming that they are about the same duration, however, the normalized power for both types of events will generally be very similar, reflecting their equivalent intensity. In fact, normalized power during a hard ~1 hour long criterium or road race will often be similar to what a rider can average when pedaling continuously during flat 40k time trial - the normalized power from mass start races can therefore often be used to provide an initial estimate of a rider's threshold power.

May 15

Run
  • 22m 55s
  • 2.41 miles
  • 09m 30s /Mi

Run commute with the Mrs. to go pick up paint samples from Menards. Saved probably $0.25 in gas! ;)

Bike
  • 1h 48m 45s
  • 35.29 miles
  • 19.47 Mi/hr

Phew. That includes the ride to and the ride of the time trial (40K again). My time is roughly 1:14:40-ish for an average speed of 19.94mph. I put the disc on the rear for this ride today and I think that combined with the recovery week last week helped carry me to a faster avg speed this week from last week. Got to the start house and they had already started sending off riders. Tom asked what my average was going to be and I told him 19 so he sent me right away. I had time to clip out, tell him my avg. clip back in and go! haha

I didn't really plan any sort of strategy. On the way there I felt that the wind was basically coming out of the North, and all but a few miles of the course were from West to East, so I knew cross winds might be a factor with the disc but it wasn't as bad as I had expected. Going North from Roca Rd through Bennet was tough and I started getting calf cramps near the top of that Bennet hill so I dialed it back for a few miles. Otherwise I just pretty much went by feel and always found myself well into the low 200s for wattage whenever I would look down at it.

Brynn brought the little boys down to the finish line which was less than a mile from our house and that was super funny to see them yelling and cheering for us as we finished. I could hear them loud and clear when I finished even though we were across a four-lane HWY with a median. She said that they cheered for everybody and said that some people even gave a little wave or a fist pump when they heard them. Can't wait for IMKS to have them out there spectating the course!

Time Trial tonight--I guess the route changes every week so we'll be doing a route that I'm much more familiar with. In a way, I almost wish I wasn't familiar with it, because knowing the wind direction and the route I'm having a hard time strategizing. Guess I'll just have to stay around 200 watts and hope for the best!

show more

Bripod's Training Log


 May 2012 
SunMonTueWedThuFriSat
   1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31  
 

Volume

Time
Distance

Upcoming races

Totals

  • May's totals
  • April's totals
  • 2013 totals
  • 2012 totals