Friday, Feb 3rd

Friday was a stretch day with the Grid rollers.  OMG I never knew such an inanimate object could inflict so much pain in a person.  Here is a pic of one.  Essentially you roll yourself around on this thing and get pain.  So I show up for the 6am class and notice everyone is sweating and they are all grinning at me.  Then they start razzing me about not showing up for the run.  What run?????  I misread the email.  Crap!!!  So after stretch and weightlifting, I went home and ran. That sucked.

Here are the stats.

2 miles

20:30 minutes:seconds

137 Avg HR

Fire Drill

So this post is a little tardy but funny none the less.  Last Friday we were in stretching class and the fire alarm goes off.  We are told it is a test, so we just keep stretching with the grids trying to ignore the ear piercing alarm.  After a few minutes we figure out that this test is going to occur for quite some time.  Finally, I go up to the alarm with my work out towel and cover the speaker.  It dampened the sound to annoying but there I was standing there on top of a box holding a towel over a fire alarm.  Katie goes to get tape, but she had to weave all over the building because the fire doors were closed.  She finally gets back with tape and her and Jorge tape the towel over the alarm just in time for it to turn off.  It looked hilarious.  It was truly a team effort.  After class we took the tape and towel off.  Here is a pic.

Sleep Talking, Swimming, & Waking up early

Today started out really weird, then got normal then I found out why it started out weird.  Let me explain.

For the third day in a row I awoke at 4:45am.  I knew I had a restless night but I was rested.  I did the usual morning routine.  Coffee, banana, getting dressed, etc. Kissed the wife and drove to the aquatic center to swim.  The swim workout was 2,500 meters or 2,732 yards.  Not too hard, but hard enough.  I am actually kind of doing the cool down much to the pleasure of the CL.

I then got showered and went to work.  A normal day right. Later today I got a call from my wife. She asked if I was ok. I said I am fine.  She then said I had quite an evening talking in my sleep.  Of course, I asked what did I say.  Well, it went like this according to her.  "The training is too hard."  "It's just too hard."  Well, we all know what training I was talking about.  She said I was quite animated and upset about it.  I do not remember a thing.  What a night!

This waking up at 4:45am has got to end.  I am too tired. Tomorrow is stretching at 6am I get to sleep a half hour later.  Whoo hoo!!!!!!

That's all for now!!

Train hard, train smart,
XXX

Cycling Lactate Threshhold Test

The CL was back at it today.  Last week it was the running Threshhold Test TT.  This week it was cycling.  Since nutrition is called the "fourth" discipline of triathlon, I can't wait for that test.....

At some ungodly hour I awoke to drag myself, my bike, and my trainer down to the Lake Nona Y. We were meeting at 5:30 am.  I was the second one in the gym and started setting up my bike.  The only thing everyone could say to me when they came in was "Scot you are here early.?"  Yes I am normally a little late.  Anyway CL showed up and we eventually got started.

For 20 minutes we pedaled and for 15 minutes I complained about my HR monitor not working.  Finally the CL says do you have the strap on right?  I said yes.  I lift up my shirt and the pads are showing, ie they are not on my chest.  Oops.  I hated when she does that.  I am going to have lift up my shirt from now on to prove to her I put my damn HR monitor on correctly.  I know what happened, when I took my sweatshirt off must have gotten caught and rolled.

Now after the 20 minute warmup we pedaled for 30minutes as hard as we could go at a cadence of 85rpm or greater.  At the 10, 20, & 30 minute mark we told the CL our HR and cadence.  My were:
10 minutes - 147 HR, 97 cadence
20 minutes - 152 HR, 97 cadence
30 minutes - 152 HR, 99 cadence

What does that mean?  Well you average the HR look up your average in Joe Friel's book Going Long to get your training HR zones.  The CL said you back a few heart beats off the average. So if you do that my cycling HR training zones are as follows:

Traing zone 1 = <117
Traing zone 2 = 117 to 131
Traing zone 3 = 132 to 137
Traing zone 4 = 138 to 146
Traing zone 5 = 147 and up

Swimming tomorrow, Stretch, core, and lifting on Friday, and riding 55 miles on Saturday.  IMAZ here I come.

Train hard, train smart
XXX

Swimming......

Well, I should thank the CL for having us swim at the Aquatic center this morning.  Apparently the 528 was a nightmare during rush hour.  It had accidents and heavy traffic from a convention in town.  Since I was driving it before 6am, I missed it all.

Swimming was fun today until we got the part where we had to do 6 50s (that's meters not yards, so it is longer) on the one minute.  This means you have to swim hard to the other end of the pool under a minute.  Any   time in the minute left you can rest.  When the minute is up, you are swimming again.  That is hard especially in meters.

Speaking of early start times, the CL called practice at 5:15 so we can run before stretching.  Is she nuts?  Well  I am going to bed now.  Nite nite...

Train smart not hard
XXX

Lactate Threshhold Test

Today was a hard day.  We had a lactate threshhold HR test.  What does that mean?  It is a test that when you are done you will be able to determine your HR training zones.  It is more precise than using 220 minus your age.

So you warm up for 10 minutes then you run as hard as you can for 30 minutes.  The idea is to run the same pace for the entire 30 minutes.  At 10, 20, & 30 minutes you take your heart rate.  You then avg those numbers.  The average specifies your heart rate at the bottom of zone 5.  From that number you can calculate your zone 1, 2, 3, & 4 HR ranges.

The test was grueling. I started out at a good pace.  The usual suspects went flying by me.  Suspiciously, there was one person that stayed behind.  It was my new shadow, Steve.  As you may remember he haunted me in the 1 mile test a few weeks ago.  He was back.  He stayed within 20 yards of me the whole time.  At the end he over took me. I just could not run any faster.  Good job, Steve.

The results were:
Ran 5500 meters in 29.5 minutes. (I stopped running at 29.5min because I felt like I was too close to my max HR.  Better to be safe than sorry.)  This was 3.41 miles.  Broken down in 5k time, I ran a 5k under 27minutes which is a personal best. More importantly my HR average was 163.  This means that my zone 2 training ceiling is 144 bpm.  I had been using 120 per the 220 rule mentioned above.  I do need to have the CL confirm this.

All in all I will be able to train at a faster pace from here on out.  This makes sense since 2 years ago I trained for a half ironman and trained at 140HR pace for the run.  I was definitely ready for that half ironman.

We are swimming tomorrow.  I will be getting up early, so I am going to bed early.  Good night!

Last week - Training sucks on the road

So last week I was on the west coast of Florida for a conference and then went to Columbia, SC for a business meeting.  Well, training while traveling can be quite challenging.  Fortunately, the hotel in FL was on the beach (good for running) and had a nice but short pool.  So I got some swimming in and running.  Columbia is a whole different story.  First it was cold and then the treadmills sucked.  Forget about a stationary bike.  It was difficult to say the least. I am going to have to evaluate my out of town trips a little more.

Nevertheless, I returned to Orlando to do a 50 mile zone 2 ride on Saturday and an 8-mile run on Sunday, also in zone 2.  All in all, it could have been worse.

Train smart not hard.
XXX