4+ hour weekend

I was aided by some nice weather this weekend and had my first real long ride of the year (and it was outside!). I got out for 2:40 (~48 miles) on Saturday afternoon. This is my longest ride of the year by an hour and the first time I've been out on the roads in Philly since who knows when... My legs actually didn't feel too bad. It felt GREAT to be outside. I have no idea how fast I was going bc I think the battery in my speedometer is broken. It probably wasn't too fast, but I sure felt like I was flying. The first 2 loops I did my heart rate was jacked (165ish average). I couldn't hold back the excitement of being outside and not being freezing cold. Toward the end of the ride I was absolutely cooked. My legs were ok, but I only packed 2 gu's and a 32 oz water bottle so I was running very low on fuel. I also only had half a pb&j for lunch right before I ran out the door. By the time I headed in I was feeling pretty woozy. Note to self: nutrition is important in long workouts.

I followed it up with an 11 mile run yesterday morning. I was again surprised at how fresh my legs felt. I probably went out a little harder than I should have for a "long and slow" run. I finished in 1:22 (7:30ish pace). With the nice weather and fresh legs it's tough to hold back. My foot feels ok. I don't think the PF has completely healed, but it doesn't hurt as badly as it did last week. I will be stretching and rolling it out a lot this week.

I ended the week with a little over 10 hours training. Not bad considering I had to cancel all my swims last week due to a wardrobe malfunction... ie I lost my swim suit. I probably could have gone in my tri shorts, but I only have a couple pairs and didn't want the chlorine to eat them. Hopefully the suit I ordered will arrive today and I can make up for it this week. I'm going to reschedule my 2000yd TT for this weekend.

2 pictures I'll leave you with...things that have been getting me through it.

I've been packing big salads and fruit for lunch to increase my good-food intake and cut back on my grains and anything processed. This bad boy is loaded with spinach, cuc's, tomatoes, stuffed olives, peppers, carrots, hummus, shrooms, avocado, broccoli, and tuna. I top it with an olive oil, balsamic vinegar, pepper, and mustard combo. It also takes just as long to make a sandwich as it does to whip up a salad.

And thanks to my wonderful girlfriend, Maddy, I've made the switch to french press coffee. It is delicious and tastes 10x better than drip coffee. If you don't believe me, try it yourself. All the delicious oils from the beans get trapped in the paper filter of drip coffee. The french press gives you a much less bitter flavor. I drink my coffee black, so the less bitter, the better. I also bought some "Kona Blend" coffee. It's corny, but it reminds me of what the eventual goal is. Sometimes before/after morning workouts I even use my m-dot coffee mug. I won't bring it in public (yet), but I like feeling like an ironman.

Ok. Busy week ahead.
Do great work.

Lots of thinking and maybe a "crash" in the future

So this weekend I was thinking a lot about what I'm doing... What I'm doing day to day, what I'm giving up, why I'm doing it all, etc. I'm working on a post to come later this week that will encompass all of that.

For now I'll just say that I'm moving along. I have been a little less enthusiastic and tenacious with my workouts as I would like this month. I've been cutting my long rides, I swapped out all my runs last week for rides, my swimming has plateaued in both speed and volume... I just haven't found the motivation that will get me through everything. I'm lacking the consistency that I need.

That is why I think it might be a good time to CRASH! I read this article on Joe Friel's blog, and it got me thinking. A "crash" is basically a workout bender. For 1-2 weeks you just have to put your body through hell. Ramp up the training to the point of over-training (but just before the point of injury) and you can see some really positive improvements once you recover. It might be just what the doctor ordered.

Now the question is where am I going to fit in this bender?? Baseball starts next week, which means I lose an extra 2+ hours per day. Don't get me wrong, I love coaching, and I love baseball season, but it's going to do a number on me. Luckily I do have spring break coming in a few weeks. March 18-April 4 is when I'll try to fit in my "crash". By this time I should be able to get outside on the bike, and I'm far enough away from a race that I won't hurt myself competitively.

That's all for now. Although I'm a little mentally down on training right now, I have been doing a good job getting up for my 5am workouts. I even got out for a 50 minute run this morning despite 4" of snow. It was kind of cool seeing only my tracks on the path that I run on. If the early bird gets the worm, I got it this morning.

Do great work!

Swimming videos!

YES! I finally go copies of the videos Ed took of me in the water. This was after 2500 yds, a lot at high intensity, so I'm not as focused as I should be... but I guess this is what I'll look like after my first lap around mirror lake, right?

Some things I've been working on since watching the videos: my hand entry is too close to the centerline. I need to get wider, reach further and go straighter. My body roll isn't really rolling as much as it should - especially the back half. And there's no way I'll be able to keep that kicking cadence for the IM swim if I want to finish the race. I kick harder to keep my legs up on top of the water (not dragging). I need to figure out how I can do this without tiring out my legs. Lastly, my pull is a little deep in the water. I'm losing power in my pull by straightening my arm out that far.

ANY AND ALL comments, criticisms, critiques, etc are greatly appreciated. If you notice I'm doing something wrong - PLEASE help me out and throw in your 2 cents. I'm not a swimmer, but I want to become one.

Thanks in advance for everyone who rips me to shreds here...

And thank you, Ed, for the tapes!

Backing off the run a little

I think I might be having a little plantar fasciitis flare up in my left foot and I'm less than thrilled about it. This is the first time I've ever had this happen so it really took me by surprise. My heel started bothering me last week and I just continued to run through it. I thought I was slamming it on the ground too hard or something because of where the pain was located. I tried to be very cautious to be up on my forefoot more, but this only aggravated my heel even more. After some researching on the internet, I think it's got to be plantar fasciitis... And now that I've diagnosed myself, I need a treatment plan. I am just starting to up my training hours and distances so I don't want to take time off, so I'm going to swap out all of my runs this week for rides. As long as I get my legs turning over, I shouldn't lose too much ground. I'll also ice, stretch and take some anti-inflammatories to get things feeling better. If this works, I'll still try and do my long and slow run next Sunday - it's only 75 minutes, I think. I'm also going to ease myself into more running intervals. I think by jumping back into intervals with the same intensity that I was doing them months earlier (during marathon training) might have been the cause of this flare up. I first started feeling the pain right after I did some pretty fast 1200's a couple Thursdays ago.

So this week will be big on the swim/bike - light on the run. Maybe I'll try to get a couple strength training sessions in. Ramping up the hours on the trainer should be helpful because I did cut my long ride a little short on Saturday since we had friends coming in from out of town.


A very long swim scheduled tonight (4000yds) - should be a killer!

Happy Friday!

The end of the workweek! It has been a long one, but a good one. I was pretty productive in my first week as a 26 year old. I was up before 5am on both Tuesday and Thursday to get in a solid hour workout before showering and going to work. I had 2 good swims so far and I'll finish with another tomorrow (and hopefully a 4th on Sunday). The swim workout I did last night was actually a pretty fun one...

500 warm up
8x50 drills
6x (50-100-150) alternating hard/easy with 20" rest
2x 100 all out on 30" rest
200 cool down

I'm keeping all of my fast 100's right around 1:25, which I'm really happy about. I also had a friend, Ed, dive in a take a few short videos of me swimming. It was great to see what I look like, although I have quite a lot of work to do. The video revealed that I'm dragging my legs, my back is almost arched because I'm trying to extend my torso, and my catch is too close to my head and too close to my centerline. I'm going to try and pay close attention to those things when I swim next and I'll try some drills to correct them. Hopefully I can film myself again in a week or two and see a difference. Something funny that another swimmer/triathlete told me in the pool last night, "if it feels good you're probably doing it wrong. If it feels awkward, that's probably right." It's funny, and true.

I was really hoping the weekend would be warm enough to get outside on the bike. It looks like it will be in the 40's tomorrow afternoon, but we have some company coming so I'll either have to brave it in the morning or punish myself on the trainer again. Sunday it should get in the 40's too, so maybe I'll make it out then. Although, I did get the 2010 Kona dvd so maybe a trainer ride won't be too, too bad.

Enjoy the weekend!

Less than 8 hours

No, I don't plan on finishing the ironman in less than 8 haha. I suffer when I get less than 8 hours of sleep. Once and a while it's ok, but a couple of nights in a row really start to wear me down. This morning was an example of it. I could barely get out of bed this morning at 6:00am, when I normally set my alarm, because I went to bed around 11:00pm. I got a solid 7 hours, but I was toast. Granted yesterday I was up at 5:00am for a 1 hour trainer ride (after only 6 hours sleep), then worked a typical day, went home and went to the pool for 2500yds from 7:45-8:35pm... But I remember in college and even before I got into triathlon I used to routinely function on 6 hours of sleep or less. I can't imagine that now. I drink coffee almost daily now even though I didn't start until last year when my training got under way. I'm very cautious with caffeine because I'm sensitive to it; more than 1.5 cups and I'll be sweaty and jittery for hours.

There are some people out there that can function and train off 6 hours of sleep per night, but I am not one of them. Luckily I am in the early stages of my training so my workouts aren't killing me yet - tonight is calling for a baby brick (45min ride/25min run). I need to focus on keeping myself rested during the spring or I know I won't really get anything out of my workouts - I'll barely get through them.

Onto some better news...I found my HR watch!!

It must have fallen into my bin of sweaters when I was putting away some laundry last week. But I found it! I was dreading the though of spending an extra $75 to replace it. Especially since I just added up my spending from January and I overdid myself a bit...

Happy humpday!

25 years down and the best one is yet to come!

It's been a while since my last post so I'll do a quick rundown of what has been going on. Today is my 26th birthday. I spent awesome weekend celebrating and relaxing. Friday night after a quick 4 x1200  workout with David (which went really well! **see below), Maddy organized a surprise dinner at a great authentic Spanish tapas restaurant in Northern Liberties (http://www.barferdinand.com/). The food was great and the company made it even better. Saturday I slept in, had breakfast at a local diner, went for a nice 3000yd swim and then headed into NJ for my bday dinner with my family. We went to my favorite local restaurant/bar and the wing supplier of the famous WingBowl that took place this past Friday, PJ Whelihan's Pub. I downed 19 delicious buffalo wings (ordered 20 and 1 sadly tumbled to the floor). The shocking part is that in the aforementioned WingBowl, the winner, "Super Squibb", ate 255 buffalo wings in 30 minutes! I don't know if I could do that in 5 days... Really impressive stuff. After dinner we went out for a while which lead to me taking a rest day on Sunday.

This week it's back to work. I'm shooting for about 12 hours this week with some good speed work. I also need to up my swimming a bit as last week ended with under 10,000yds. I'm trying to find a way to video tape myself underwater...any suggestions?? (my camera takes video, but isn't waterproof).

OK - that's all for now. I'll check back with something nice and meaningful later this week.

**Times for the 1200's: 4:31, 4:25, 4:17, 4:10. It feels good to go fast! I want to get a road race in some time in the next couple months before my legs really start to feel fatigued. I'll be looking out for 5/10k's or maybe even a 10 miler...

Also, if you want to see the workouts I have planned  - check out the "CALENDAR" link on the top right of the page.