20 Weeks to go....

Hey there! Awesome week this past week! I feel as though I have finally turned a corner with my training and am on track to do this!!

My left lower leg and knee are a little sore...so not toooooo much running this last week. Quick recap for you...95 miles biked, 12 miles run and about 8000 yds of swimming... scary to think that I didn't even run or bike the full distance I will race in one day come June...wow.

Great ride on Saturday! I love the Pacific Coast Highway, and this weekend was no exception! The weather was gorgeous (got up to about 68 degrees by the end of the ride), there was a light breeze, and the sky was a beautiful crystal clear blue. A clear example of why I live in California. There is an amazing peace of mind that comes from riding through this area, seeing the mountains and the ocean, feeling alive and healthy, cruising along on my bike. I come back not really knowing what I thought about for 4 hours...guess you could consider it my meditation time!

Time to snap out of it and get back to the grindstone that is build week 2...

Here is the schedule for this week-
Monday-
1:00 Bike-hill repeats (these mad a huge difference last week, so I actually looked forward to them! HUGE deal considering I am not a fan of the hills....)

Tuesday-
Coached Swim
:40 Run (easy)

Wednesday-
:45 Bike Trainer (spin-ups) followed immediately by
:20 Run (10k pace...ie, hard...)

Thursday-
Swim Set TBD
:40 Run-hill repeats

Friday-
REST!!!!

Saturday-
4:00 Bike-going climbing in the canyons!!
:15 Transition run (right of the bike)

Sunday-
:20 Trainer (hard effort)
1:50 Run
Swim Set TBD

There goes the social life!! Ha ha...

See you all next week!

21 weeks to go....

Hi there super fans! Ok, so maybe I don't have fans yet, but by the end of this I really SHOULD...

I thought it would be fun for you guys to see what I am up to over the course of the week, so I am going to start sharing my training schedules with you weekly, and then give you a BRIEF recap of any milestones or interesting stuff that happened along the way...

So, this week we are coming off a recovery week. Generally during a recovery week, we let the body rest a bit, possibly do some workouts for time (to see how we are coming along), and get ready to begin the next build phase of our training.

This past week we swam 15 100's in the pool for time. I am happy to say that I have dropped several seconds off my 100 time and I was fairly consistent through the set! Woo hoo!!

On to this week, here's the schedule (swim sets are TBD right now, but we will probably swim about 7000+ yds this week I think...)
Monday-
1:00 Bike hill repeats
2k timed swim (that I didn't get to yesterday...)

Tuesday-
:40 Aero zone run
Coached Swim Practice

Wednesday-
:50 Bike Trainer with spin ups, followed immediately by
:10 run at 10K pace

Thursday-
:40 Run hill repeats
Swim set TBD

Friday-
REST!!! (no yoga....way too sore after last weeks session!)

Saturday-

4:00 Bike, followed immediately by
:10 run HARD off the bike

Sunday-

1:45 Run
Swim set TBD

All in all, probably about 11 hours this week....now you understand why I might not be ansering my phone when you call....it's not that I don't care.... :-)

Tune in next week to see what happened!

A New Year...

So...the holidays are over...phew! Now I can get back to training. Yes, I, along with most of my teammates (thankfully), took most of the holidays off to unwind and relax a bit. And I felt the effects of this decision on Saturday morning...the 5 mile climb up Mandeville took me about 8 minutes longer than usual...and my heart rate? We aren't going there.... But it is good to be back. This week is a build week, so...the hours are a bit longer, and the workouts getting a bit harder. 167 days to Ironman...may sound like a lot of time, but there is a lot of work to be done between now and then. Thanks for coming along for the ride. 2007 should be pretty cool.

The rain in Spain....

Might stay on the plain, but in SoCal this past weekend it was in the canyons.....more specifically, the canyon we were CAMPING in... Ah yes, it wouldn't be a Team in Training Camping Weekend without some inclement weather! At least it didn't snow as it did in March up near Paso Robles...now THAT was an experience! But I digress...

The weekend was actually quite lovely, up to the part where it rained...

Friday night the mentors, captains and coaches headed up to the psuedo-wilderness of Leo Carillo State Park in Malibu for some camp fire stories and howling coyotes (I SWEAR there was one in my tent...). The rest of our team, and the teams from South Bay and Eastside, joined us Saturday morning for the training portion of the festivities. For the IronTEAM, it was a ride out to Camarillo and back. Heading out, Coach Paul looked down at his bike computer and noted that we were CRUISING along with no effort what so ever...hmmmm...can you say tailwind?? Save your energy for the return we were reminded... And if any of you are curious where your artichokes, lemons, strawberries and onions come from (oh and the fertilizer plant), I can pinpoint the exact location for you... without even looking! The ride out was gorgeous, if not odiferous, and the ride back, well, it was interesting... Sometimes the wind switches late morning...but on this particular morning...no such luck. I don't think my bike saw such low gears since climbing up one of the canyons back in September! It mellowed out a bit though, and all in all, it was a great ride. Except for the part where I realized I need a new saddle for my bike...but we won't get into that....

I think I have frostbite...but it was only 48 degrees...

Ok...yeah...it's official! I am a bit of a wuss... I think it might have been about 48 degrees this morning on my bike ride...but add the wind chill factor (self-generated of course!)...and it felt like 20-I SWEAR! My fingers are still feeling kinda funny and I have been back 3 hours now... Guess it is a good thing I don't live in a cold climate any more! Final conclusion-bike ride was a little bit of a bust...but I AM 13 miles closer to being an Ironman, so, maybe not such a bust after all.

Oh yes! I am sure you are all anxiously awaiting news of my fancy schmancy blood lactate test last weekend! Well, to quote Coach G...I have "minimal anaerobic capacity"...WOW. Actually, it's not such a bad thing when considering an Ironman distance race, but it also explains why hills are the bain of my existence... Overall, I am in pretty good condition for where I am at in my training though-woo hoo! Final conclusion-More low heart rate training, and then maybe attempt to become friends with the hills...can't wait...

Rest week?

So...this week is a rest week...translated as, "last week may have been a big week, but it's also Thanksgiving, so you can forget about being sedentary!" Rest and test, baby, rest and test. Workouts are a bit lighter following our first big weekend last week (2.5 hour bike, 1:10 minute run and a swim). I have to admit, my legs were kinda tired Monday morning... Anyway...so this week we did a run marker set (40 minutes, so we can compare later on), have a swim marker set on sunday (1k swim), and I am getting my Blood Lactate Test for the bike done on Saturday (very fancy, I know!). The test will tell me (and my coach) where my current fitness level is, what my heart rate zones are, and how and when my body starts producing Lactate which in turn affects muscle productivity, fatigue, etc. It's all actually really cool and quite interesting. You can learn more about it at the following link, http://www.coachgareth.com/Lactate.html
I guess that's all for now...I'll let you all know how the test goes next week!!

First Team Ride

Woo hoo! Yeah!

So we had our first IronTeam "brick" this past weekend...a brick is a bike ride followed immediately by a run...get the legs ready for that whole transition from the 112 mile bike ride to the 26.2 mile run....and that after the 2.4 mile swim...y..e..a..h.... Like I said before, if you weren't sure just how crazy I was, now you have confirmation. So as I was saying, we had our first team brick workout. Got up to Zuma Beach, in Malibu, at around 7 am. Gorgeous day! Headed out North on the Pacific Coast Highway towards Ventura County. Happy to say, I hung towards the front with the boys....like you would expect anything less, right? Bit of a head wind on the way out, so it took us nearly 15 minutes less to get back. Drop the bike, change the shoes, and off on the run. Pretty short, just 15 minutes...enough time to make the body yell, "what the hell are you doing to me??" Then it was off to lunch. I mean really, what other reason is there to work out for more than 2 hours at a time? Til next time...