At least it's nice outside

43 mile ride

Well, somehow I did it. I was pretty sure that after last weekend's ride that 45 miles was going to be a stretch. A long stretch. I figured I'd just see how it went and do what I could. I dragged a friend along - thanks Deb. It's the only time I will ever be faster than her. She fractured her scapula a few weeks ago at a cross race, so the fact that she hung on as long as she did (over 30 miles) is impressive. She also hung in there for my 4 x 3 mile Z3 intervals.

It wasn't a fast ride by any means, and I struggled, but in the end got through it. And right now, that's more important than speed. It's only week 2.

Zone 400

5 mile run
1700 meter swim

I'm not sure which is worse - hill repeats or Z4. I don't think I'm quite ready for Z4 yet. I also don't think I'm quite ready for hill repeats. Today's torture was 6 200m hill repeats. I know that 200m doesn't sound very far, but let's just remember that I'm still at the point where 3 miles at an easy pace hurts. I headed off to the hill behind the ballfields and managed to map out 200m from bottom to top on the first interval. 200m feels pretty far to me. I'd make it about 3/4 of the way up the hill and then be about ready to die. And I let myself feel this way 6 times. I'm actually surprised I did all 6. And #6 was my second fastest. It's amazing how the thought of being done can be so motivating. The rest of the run was done at a snail's pace but I was not complaining.

I missed half of masters and was half wondering if Wolfgang would also kick me out of class for being late. Jane kicked me out of class on Sunday because I got there late and it was too crowded. But Wolfgang just looked at me with his look. Before he could comment on my timeliness, I said "at least I came". That seemed to satisfy him, at least until he started criticizing me for taking a break to rest (His theory is that because I'm late, I'm not tired and should therefore make all the intervals without taking an extra break. A lovely theory. Just not reality.) I barely held on for the part of class I did make. He was having us do 100s on 1:40 and that just isn't very realistic right now. I made 1 and then just did continuous hundreds. My legs were pretty dead from the run so it took everything I had to hang on. It's probably a good thing I got there late.

But so far, Week 2 already seems to be going better.

Getting Hit by a Brick

brick: 28 mile ride, 2 mile run

The scheduled workout was a 25 mile ride and a 4 mile run. I didn't think it would be that bad. It didn't seem like it would be that bad. Of course, I hadn't done much during the week.

I got started around 12:30, probably about when the wind started. It had been really nice and sunny that morning. It was no longer nice and sunny. I was cold throughout most of the ride. I always forget the booties...The wind held me at bay for a good portion of the ride. Had it not been for my Z3 segment, I may have averaged 10mph. Yes, I was that slow. I had 11 miles in Z3 that seemed to take forever. I finally finished that only to return to my 10mph pace. The ride ended up a little long. I didn't believe the Road Closed sign on 63rd. One of the signs made it seem like the road was only closed during the week, which is how they did it over the summer if I remember correctly, back when I was avoiding 63rd. But the sign was correct. The road was closed and I wasn't about to go off roading on my tri bike. So, turn around I did and hence the extra miles. Normally I don't mind a few extra miles, but today was not one of those days. 25 miles had already seemed long enough. If I hadn't been so cold, it would have been frustrating. I was just so slow. But I was too exhausted when I got home to care. Well, I cared enough to tell Matt that I didn't want to talk about it when he asked how my ride went.

I thought maybe I'd feel better during the run. I figured maybe I was more cold than tired and that I'd wake up with some Z3. Not quite. My feet were numb and I was really just plodding along trying to get some feeling in them. I was still cold and not getting any warmer. I turned around after a mile and headed home, deciding to call it a day. I figured with the extra miles on the bike I was still breaking even relatively speaking.

Getting back into shape sucks!

Week 1, Day 1...Square 0

3 mile run
17 mile bike

Slow. That's the word of the day. I haven't done much for the last month and a half. I definitely enjoyed my time off, but started feeling like a slug a few weeks ago. Work has also gotten crazy busy and I've started to miss taking a break at lunch to go for a run. It was time to start again. I started swimming about 3 weeks ago and tried running last week. Since Harvest Moon, I've swam 6 times, ran 4, and biked once. Totally out of shape.

I'm glad I did a few workouts before Week 1. I was starting to feel like I needed to get in shape before I really get in shape. And this way, there are no surprises with how slow I am. My runs have been 3-4 miles and the first few hurt. I've gotten a few seconds slower each run. Totally out of shape.

But, as Craig says, now I'm ready to start up again. And I am. Week 1, Day 1 was easy. Everything in Z2, though Z2 feels a little hard these days. I'm not focused on time right now and just trying to monitor heart rate and try to figure out how much I need to readjust my zones. So nothing too exciting with the run or the ride. It was my first ride on the Computrainer and so far, so good. Though it's definitely not as fun as power max. There's something about 7 other people dying along with you that makes you hold out for just a little longer. I'm going to have to get some good movies this winter. But tonight was a short ride and TV was enough to get me through it.

Complete aside: Tomorrow is a rest day. I know, I haven't done anything yet and I'm already getting a rest day. But there will be no resting. Tomorrow is The Day. November 4. The day we've been waiting ALL year for. History in the making. And as nervous as I am, I am optimistic that Obama will pull through to victory.

Starting Again

It's time to start training again. I met with Craig a few weeks ago to discuss goals for this coming season and a review of this season. My thoughts on the season haven't changed much, so I won't go through that again. I had a harder time setting goals that I thought I would. CDA is obviously the big race of the season, but I'm not sure what my goal is having already done one. Sure, I want to be faster and since it's a hilly course and hills are not my strength, this is definitely a challenge in itself. Craig brought up Hawaii and I said, "Sure, that's always out there." And so it was put out on the table. But this is sort of one of those secret goals that I have, the ones that come after the real goal. And this in itself is kind of silly because usually both of them are revealed. For Florida, my "real" goal was to finish and to finish strong. I did not want to be crawling across the finish. My not so "secret" goal was to finish under 12 hours because no matter what people say, you have a time set in your mind. But this always came after my "real" goal.

Throughout my training, I proved repeatedly to myself that 12 hours was possible. I had many moments of doubting it though, and had to revert back to the Just Wanting to Finish Goal. It probably wasn't until a few weeks before the race that I let myself tell myself that I was ready. Of course, saying this outloud was sometimes enough to make me panic and doubt and revert back to the "real" goal. But then it finally stuck. I remember telling Petra the day before the race that we were ready and that unless something went horribly wrong, there was absolutely no reason that we would not finish before the cutoff. 12 hours was entirely possible. And I absolutely believed it at this point.

My problem is that I don't want to set unrealistic goals. At one point during training, things were going really really well and I was on track for a 4 hour marathon. At this point and after reviewing the prior year's results, Hawaii popped into my head. Maybe, just maybe. It didn't turn into a goal, it was more of a wouldn't this be a pleasant surprise if it happened. Matt didn't think I should think about it because it might get my hopes up. My argument was that it was better for me to have a positive thought in my head of maybe I can do this than to have a negative thought of I can't do this. Positive thinking is always better. I looked at it as getting my spirits up which helped in training.

This year is different. Hawaii still seems like a long shot. Last year's winning time for my new age group was 10:34. There were 5 spots given to my age group, with the slowest time being 10:42. That's a big time difference. I know it's so variable, but that's still a big time difference. So, we decided on 11 hrs, where the extra hour came from shaving 30 minutes off the bike and 30 minutes off of the run. However, then I consider my goal for the season: 30 minutes total off of my half-Ironman. And this didn't happen. In trying to be positive, and reminding myself of the conditions I faced during this year's halves, I have attempted to make this seem reasonable. 30 minutes off of a half, an hour off a full. The math adds up. My full time was pretty much twice my half times. Convinced?

The big thing is going to be the bike. Once again. The plan: 1. We are going to really work on hills. 2. Power max class. We both agree that this really helped me last year. 3. Computrainer training outside of power max classes. My new indoor trainer will become my friend. As for the other two, I don't think I'm going to shave a lot of time off of my swim - I'm going for 2 minutes. I am more than happy with my swim and it's not like I'm really going to gain a lot of time. I will have to work on the run, but also hope that I don't have any weird injuries this year that prevent me from getting in the longer miles. I personally believe I need more interval workouts - more hard interval workouts. I remember early on this season (before I really started racing) how hard my workouts were. I remember thinking they were way harder than IM training. But they paid off, so I want a few more here and there. And then there's transition. I can easily bring down my 10+ minutes of total transition time.

But first, I must start training...