Multi-sport training or social event?

So I've been 'following' a training plan for about 5 weeks now as I make my journey to the White Lake Half Ironman event in May. I put 'following' in quotes because I'm not as strict about following the plan as others might be. I'm trying to cover the distances specified, but I don't always do the drills specified or work out at the Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) specified. Usually (except for the swim), I am going harder and longer than specified.

What's this going to mean come event day? I'm not sure. Some could say that I will be over-trained. Not sure what that really means if indeed I do complete the event and in a reasonable amount of time. Could it make the difference in hitting a goal time and missing it by 3 minutes (like the 2010 Assault on Mt Mitchell)? Perhaps, but I'm as much doing this event for the social interaction with my friends as I'm doing it to stay active and in shape.

So, what about the social interaction? There is a group of 17 of us that are planning to stay in a cabin in White Lake. It's one big Half Iron support group! It is really fun to be able to share the experience of training with these peeps. Despite the fact that we're not really spending all of our training time together. We occasionally get together for a run or a sufferfest session, but not necessarily even once a week.

What's cool is seeing their posts, tweets, texts and emails talking about what training they have done that day, or how that training is going. Of course, we're all responding to each others communications with words of support and advice when asked or appropriate. It brings a whole new perspective to what for me has been mostly an individual pursuit.

So, am I going to White Lake to participate in and challenge myself with a Half Ironman event, or am I going for the social event which is the White Lake Half Ironman? In all truthfulness, it is both. I'm looking forward to sharing the camaraderie in the hours leading up to the event, as well as the 'race recaps' following the race. And of course, in between all that there will be 1.2 miles of swimming, 56 miles of biking and 13.1 miles of running. Bring it on!

My first Half marathon - 1/7/12

I'm paying the price today for my efforts in yesterday's Half Marathon. Legs are really tight and sore. it was worth it though, finished up 6th out of 25 in my age group with a time of 1:44:10 (results here).

I've never run a half marathon before yesterday. Well, not an official timed event. Once upon a time, many years ago, I was training for a marathon and so I have run the half distance, but never for any kind of time. So, yesterday was the first.

I'm pretty good at recognizing my RPE level (Rate of Perceived Exertion), mostly because I have only recently started training with a heart rate monitor on my bicycle. Never have done that with running. So, I had set a goal in the days leading up to the half to finish in less than 2 hours. In fact, I had decided to shoot for a 9 min/mile average pace. That calculates to a finish time of just about 1h58m.

Having only run 5k and 8k races in the past several years, I know that I tend to go out faster in my first mile. Knowing this, I thought I'd do my best to control my effort and not do the first mile too quickly. I'm fully capable (in a 5k) of doing a sub 7 min for my first mile, and that is what I DID NOT want to start with for this half marathon.

I lined up with my peeps Bo, Robin and Scott somewhere in the middle of the pack. This was a good thing as there were some peeps who ran a pretty fast half marathon out in the front of that pack!

As I was running along, just finding a groove, Rob Dempsey (HIS radio DJ) ran up along side me and I chatted with him for a minute. His garmin (or whatever device he has) beeped, and I asked if that was mile 1. Yes, in fact it was and we had covered it in just under 8 minutes. Somehow I had missed the marker, and my Garmin forerunner is on the blink, so I was using my old fashioned Timex watch (with timer and lap counter).

As we ran along through the 2nd mile, we chatted a bit, but mostly I was listening to my body to see how it felt about the pace we were running. As we approached mile 2, I actually saw the marker and clicked off a lap on my Timex. Actually, lap 1 was 2 miles, and my time was marked at 16m07s. In the neighborhood of 8 min/mile now for two miles. I was feeling good, so I decided this was the pace I would continue until I felt I needed to settle down a little. Rob decided to slow his pace a little and we went our separate ways.

Up till mile 2, it was basically flat, and after mile 2, the course started some shallow rolling hills miles 3-5. At mile 3, my trusty Timex shows 24m10s and at mile 5 (missed mile 4) it shows 39m53s. That's a solid 8ish min/mile pace.

One of the great things about this course is the hills. While it is hilly, and some of the up-hills are pretty damn mean, it really means that you get both: up-hills and down-hills. Although you lose time slowing down on the uphills, you gain it right back when going down-hill. What I found was the downhills are not terribly steep, allowing you to open up your stride and carry some speed as gravity assists. This allows you to make up time from the ascent. This allowed me to maintain the 8ish min/mile pace.

The Mile 5 marker is right at the base of one of the steeper hills on the course. Was great to See Nikki and Cara near the top. After that hill, the rollers became a little deeper for miles 5.5 - 8(ish).

I missed the mile 6 marker, but my mile 7 time was 56m8s. Despite the rollers, and the hills between mile 5 and 7, I was able to maintain the 8(ish) min/mile pace that I had been carrying. I was pretty happy about that, and was still feeling pretty good at just past the half way point. The time was clicking by pretty fast I thought.

At mile 8, Timex shown 1h3m55s, and at mile 9 1h11m56s. Around mile 8 was a another steep hill, and right at the top was a water station. I grabbed a cup of water, and tried to drink some down. Unfortunately, I ended up with a bunch of air in my stomach. I was able to run through it (partially because of a long downhill immediately following the rest station). After a long gradual downhill, we turned into the Green Valley neighborhoods.

Near Mile 10, I saw a good friend who had volunteered for the race. Her job was to direct the runners on the course. Although I was feeling good, hearing her ring the cowbell and offer support meant a lot. I high-fived her and another friend who was there waiting for his wife and kept rolling along. At mile 10, I was still rocking the 8 min miles, my time was 1h19m56s.

I rolled through mile 11 at 1h27m48s. I was really pleased to see how well I was keeping to that 8 min/mile pace. I had thought by now I'd be dropping time, especially on the hills. They weren't bothering me that much by mile 11, although I was definitely feeling it by this time.

Just past mile 11, the course turns uphill until the last tenth of a mile. I had been passing people since Mile 5. No-one had passed me until I approached mile 11. This guy goes flying past me at a pretty good clip. He had to have started pretty slow. No matter, he passed and I decided it best to try to stick with the pace I'd been running. Although as the road turned up, I could see that I was catching some other people. Of course, this gave me motivation, and I tried to reel in whoever else I could see. That is, without significantly increasing my pace.

My pace did increase, although I missed the marker for mile 12 and there was no marker for mile 13. I did catch 3 other people in those last couple of miles. One was a younger kid who stopped to walk just past a refreshment station. It feels good when I pass people who are half my age!

There was one guy I was trying to catch, he must have sensed it because he never let up. For any increase in pace I may have had, he somehow knew, and matched it perfectly. I must have been about 50 meters behind this guy for the last mile. That distance never seemed to vary. I didn't have enough to sprint early enough to catch him, although even the sprint I did make as the course turned for a down-hill finish - he matched it and I gained no time on him.

I crossed the line at 1h44m10s. That calculates out to about a 7:57min/mile pace. I'm pretty happy about that, as I had initially thought I'd be lucky to hold a 9 min/mile pace.

Next race: The Winter Challenge!

Catching up

Wow, the holidays have come and gone so quickly! I can't believe I have to go back to work tomorrow. Well, it was nice to have some time off anyway.

Before this little break, I'd been doing pretty well posting up my food and my workouts. There is no way I'm going to be able to remember everything that's happened in the last couple of weeks, so I won't try to list all of that here.

My newest addition to my home is my new entertainment center. A 43" plasma TV is connected to an Apple TV box. While I'm not a guy who watches a lot of TV, the value of the apple TV is that I can stream the Sufferfest videos from my computer to the TV. Of course, the Apple TV does so much more, but that one feature right there made it worth the entrance fee.

I've already done one sufferfest session. My Neighbor came over last week and we did 'Angels'. This is a great workout which has three 8 minute climbs as the core workout.. The last one going up l'Alpe d'huez with footage from the 2010 Dauphine libere which was won by Alberto Contador.

Yesterday was a great ride here in Greenville County - the Final Fifty. This ride is put together by the local cycling club. We had a great group, and some incredible weather. Hard to believe it was the last day of December and the high was 60+ degrees!

Today was a recovery ride with some team-mates from the Spinners Racing team. Great ride, legs felt good, but I felt the need to give them a break after the final fifty ride.

I've been eating a lot over the last couple of weeks. Probably too much beer as well. Today I barely ate anything, yet I still feel stuffed. Looks like it's going to be a lot of veggies and fruits for a few days - try to detox a bit.

Today launches 2012. Some big goals for this year:
Resolution Run Half Marathon (Jan 7 - my first Half marathon)
Winter Challenge off-road triathlon (Feb)
Greenville Spring Series (road bike races - Feb / Mar)
Sprint Tri (Downtown Columbia - April - My first ever triathlon)
White Lake Half Ironman (May)
The Assault on Mt Mitchell (May - about 2 weeks after the half)

We'll have to see what else the year brings, that seems to fill the first half!

Good luck and best wishes for 2012!

jd

Following a plan...

Isn't really as easy as it sounds.  It takes a lot of discipline to follow a plan to the letter.  As stated yesterday, discipline is my biggest challenge.  It's not the discipline of getting out and getting into the activity, it's more the discipline to follow the plan.

Ok, last night I didn't follow the plan.  However, had I met up with friends and did the sufferfest, I would have gotten in the hour on the bike.  It would NOT have been the workout prescribed as I would have pushed much harder than the plan.  But, it is one example of where my discipline breaks down.

Tonight, the plan was to do about 1500m in the pool.  A 4x75m warm up with various exercises, 3x400m at increasing exertion levels and a 6x25m cool down with each 25 m slower than the last.  I got the swimming, just not at the distance nor in the prescribed intervals.  In fact, I probably went slower than I have in my previous swim workouts.

This is  probably where a coach really helps.  A coach could provide me with details of why it is important to follow the intervals and exercises prescribed.  At this point with the swimming, I'm not really having an issue with boredom, so exercises or not, I have too much to concentrate on with the swim to have to worry about being bored.

Cycling on the trainer - without having a class or some exercises to follow (i.e. a video workout) - THAT IS BORING!!

Well, tomorrow is a long run.  I think I'll give gunner a little bit of a break tomorrow, maybe he won't get quite so much distance total for the day.  I don't want to work him too hard, he's still a puppy!

Food today, nothing too different from previous days.  Successes:  No chocolate from the evil jar!

Getting close to bedtime, off to dreamland to dream about swimming, biking and running.

jd

My biggest challenge....

is Discipline.  Today's workout was supposed to be 30 minutes of easy run and 60 minutes of small ring trainer torture on the bike.  I should have gone to a trainer class - I brought the bike and trainer into the house but it never got set up.  Sitting on that thing for an hour without the visual stimulation of something like the sufferfest videos or the group dynamic of a trainer class was going to be too much torture. 

So, you can bet my christmas present to myself this year is going to be a set of the sufferfest videos and a new television to which I can hook my computer to watch them.  Those will get me motivated. 

I did get 40ish minutes of running in.  Gunner requires that, so it is easy to get out with him.  He really loves running. 

Food was ok today.  a bowl of cereal and a protein shake for breakfast.  fibre bar for snack, shrimp jambalaya and a veggie medley for lunch.  Even had some fruit - banana pudding!  Dinner was the rest of the stuffed chicken breast with some beans, salsa and cheese in a tortilla.  Also had a nice little salad to go with that.  Wouldn't be complete without my chocolate milk!

that's it for me.  I'm hitting the sack.  Tomorrow is a new day and just a swim, although I'll get some running in there as well....

jd

and so it begins

20 weeks.  That's how long I have before the White Lake Half Ironman.  I've downloaded a training plan from Beginner Triathlete.  It is a 20 week program that I'm going to see how well I can actually follow.

Today's workout was intended to be 40 minute run at perceived exertion of 3, 2500m swim (800m warmup, 1500m main, 200m cool-down).  I was pretty worried about how this plan started - that seems like a long swim when you are just starting a program!  It makes me worry about what is to come!

So, my exercise routine started at 430am today.  I took Gunner out and bumped his distance a little bit.  It was a little slow, but we ran 2.7 miles at close to a 10 minute pace.  Ended up being just under 26 minutes of running.  since it was supposed to be at RPE 3, that was about the right pace. 

When I got home this evening, I took him out for another 2 miles.  This was at about a 9:30 pace, so that makes pretty close to another 20 minutes of running.  A few more minutes than the plan called for, but I had to break it up in two chunks in order to fit it in my day.  Does that still count?  I don't know.

For the swim, I essentially skipped the 4x200m exercises the plan calls for and just swam 2400m straight.  I know the exercises are designed to help me strengthen my technique, so I need to concentrate on doing those.  I was so nervous about the total distance, I just put my head down and went for it.  Just over 59 minutes to cover the 2400m. 

I could tell I was getting tired towards the end.  My technique started to break down, although my stroke count stayed pretty much the same.  I was hitting 19, 20 or 21 strokes for 25m.  I don't know how that is compared to anything, but that is where I am.

Especially towards the end, I wind up swallowing some water, or at least getting it in my mouth and nose when I try to breathe.  Makes it difficult, but I suppose it is not all bad - Tedd says that is what happens in an open water swim...

Food today: cereal again with milk and a banana.  fibre bar for mid-morning snack.  Hamburger steak with mushroom gravy and mashed potatoes (and gravy) for lunch.  PB&J sandwich as a mid-afternoon snack, protein shake for dinner. 

that's my day, going to take Gunner for another walk, then go to bed. 

jd

hitting the bricks

So, here I've signed up to do a half Ironman triathlon.  For those who are not familiar with Ironman triathlons, there is a full (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run) and the half (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and 13.1 mile run).  I've never done a traditional tri before, but if you know me, it won't surprise you that I'd commit to a half Ironman having never done a real tri.

I have done a number of off-road tris.  However, the Off-road tri is very different in one aspect.  The water portion of the tri is a flat water kayak.  While a trail run is different from a road run, and mountain biking is different than road biking, the differences in those activities are not massive.  However, kayaking is VERY different from swimming - especially for someone like myself who does not consider himself a swimmer. 

So, because of that, I've joined the westside aquatic center which has a very nice pool.  I've been swimming about 2 times per week for about a month now.  I'm not being coached, but that's part of my challenge - see what I can do without a coach.  Although, I have to admit, it's really part stubbornness and part cheap.  I'm not in a financial position to really be paying a coach right now. 

I'm set to begin a 20 week training program tomorrow.  Day number 1 it calls for a 40 minute run and a 2400m swim.  While these two activities for tomorrow don't have to be back to back (we call this a brick), there are days where I'll be required to do a brick. 

In fact, I have done a couple of bricks in the last few weeks.  The bricks I've been doing have been a bike followed by a run.  A few weeks ago, my teammate Hudson and I went out for 28ish miles on the bike (WAY harder than I really planned), and about 3 miles of running (again WAY harder than I really planned!).  Today was another brick - 50 miles on the bike followed by a 3.2 mile run. 

How hard is too hard.  This is a very difficult question for me to answer.  I tend to work (ride or run or swim) at whatever pace my body feels like going.  Sometimes that means I'm pegged all of the time, sometimes that means I'm in total cruiser mode.  Today was a mix of both. 

I rode today with the A group.  What this means is that they are going to go pretty hard.  You get guys who have a lot of experience in the A group, and the pace tends to be fast.  Of course, for a guy who races in Category 1, today's ride may have been a true recovery ride.  For me, as I said, it was a mix. 

Early on in the ride, we encountered some rolling hills that caused my heart rate to get pretty high.  My respiration was also high, and I was thinking there was no way I could stick with that pace.  Things seemed to settle down a little, and I started feeling better about my chances of sticking with this group. 

About 20 miles in, our ride leader Jim stopped us and announced a 4.5 mile sprint zone.  As we started rolling again, everyone up front was looking at each other like they were waiting for something.  Well, if they were waiting for someone to jump, they weren't waiting for me.  I took a flyer off the front, knowing full well I'd be lucky to be able to stay out there for very long.  I gave it my best shot though, and it woke some peeps up. 

I came off the front when they caught me and found a spot in the pack to recover.  After a while, the pack started slowing down again, and I could see a couple people off the front.  Of course I had to take another flyer.  I chased down the first of the riders, held the front of the pack for a little longer, then relinquished the lead to someone else. 

By this time, I was really feeling it, and I was VERY lucky to be able to hold on to the back of the pack through the rest of the sprint zone.  It was a fun section and we had a little break at the stop sign to let everyone catch up. 

The rest of the ride picked up in the overall pace, but still stayed pretty civilized.  Our average riding pace climbed up towards 19mph, and I was feeling pretty good.  I sat on the front for a couple of rounds before I went back to the back of the pack.  As we closed down for our final miles, my body was starting to talk to me about the efforts I'd made. 

We finished out the ride in 3h02m and it was almost exactly 50 miles.  Not the fastest pace I've ever ridden, but for this period, in my current condition, it was plenty fast enough. 

So, now comes the brick.  A former team-mate Dave had also ridden in the A group and he had said he'd also be interested in making a brick out of the day.  So, we had our running shoes in my car, and when we got back, we made a quick change and set off on our run. 

I have a Garmin forerunner which has capability to time each activity seperately.  I need to work a little more with this device, as I messed it up today and didn't get the run timing down just right. It has a way to time your transitions and correctly time your next activity.  Looks like I'll have to get the manual back out to refresh myself on its operation.

So, we started off on our run.  Dave immediately set a pace I knew I wouldn't be able to keep.  That was OK, he became a carrot for me.  It made me run a lot faster than I had planned, but overall I felt pretty good, so I wasn't too concerned about it. 

The one issue I had, was with my left quad.  I could feel it wanting to cramp from about the beginning of the run.  It didn't, but had we run more than a 5k, it may have given me some real problems. 

With my timing issues, I didn't get all of my per-mile times accurately.  for example, I had run a quarter mile or more before I realized that I needed to do something else to get the run time to start.  I hit the start / stop button and ran for a little while.  After a couple more minutes, I looked down to see that the timer had stopped!  I hit start / stop again, and it told me to begin running.  How much did I just lose on getting good accurate timing? 

Once it finally started tracking the run correctly, I was already close to 1/2 mile into the run.  When I finally got to what it measured as 1 mile, it said my first mile pace was 14+ minutes.  I know I ran faster than that, but it counted the transition time in that first measured mile.  My second mile was counted correctly and showed as 7:47/mile pace.  I never actually made a third measured mile because of that issue in the beginning.  The clock stopped at 2.94miles.  My average pace had continued to drop - first mile 14+ min, after 2nd mile 11:05ish and at the finish, my average pace was down to around 10min/mile.  No matter what, the run was a pretty good pace for me.  I generally do 8:30-9minute miles when I am training by myself, or even when I run with the boys. 

So, that's a brick.  A pretty good pace for the bike, and a pretty good pace for the run.  Now I just have to get comfortable in the water....

What about nutrition for this day's exercise?  I ate a 2 eggs, half of a stuffed chicken breast, some beans, cheese and salsa wrapped in a tortilla for breakfast.  I ate nothing while on the bike or before the run (MAJOR mistake), then I fell off the wagon and ate junk food for dinner.  I'm not even going to say where it was I am so embarrassed by it.