Big Week and Skipping Spring

Mar 12 - Mar 18

S:  16,400 yds - 3hr 55min
B:  165.28 mi - 9hr 10min
R:  40.18 mi - 5hr 8min
Total:  18hr 13min

Like it says.  Another biggest week ever (I think).  And just like last year, it looks like we are jumping straight from 40 degree days to 80 degree days.

Training this week was full of adventure.  With the time change occurring last week, we now get daylight until roughly 7pm, which is great for biking during the week.  What this also means is that the Tuesday Night World Championships (aka "roadie ride") has started up.  It's always fun to get to duke it out with some solid Cat 1 and 2 guys, as opposed to just doing solo rides.  On Saturday, I headed out on the bike with Hallie and Ed, which has become a tradition of sorts.  Hallie usually has some sort of similar set of threshold sets, and Ed is a solid cyclist and is always up for anything...so it works out pretty good.  We warm up for an hour or so, and then start our respective sets and then meet up after we are done for the remainder of the ride.  We tried a new route and warmed up longer than usual, so when it was time to start a ~45' set I was down to 1 bottle.  Well, 3' into the first interval I hit a huge bump and unfortunately ejected my last bottle.  It was a 10' interval so I doubled back such that I finished the interval right where I thought I dropped it...but I couldn't find it.  From then on, it was another 3 sets of 10' without 1 sip of water...and the pollen was awful...that was probably one of the hardest things that I've done in awhile; not the workout in and of itself, but the fact that I lost my water! 

Well, I'm 1 week away from this year's first race.  It's a duathlon out at Oak Mountain State Park here in Birmingham, and it will consist of a 5k run, a 20k bike, and then a final run of 2.5k.  Total time should be close to an hour, so it will turn out to be pretty painful.  I'm ready though.  I'm more confident in my biking and running right now than I ever have been.  No question.  Biking has been going very well lately, and I'm anxious to put all the hard work to the test!

Spring's Here

Mar 5 - Mar 11

S:  14,300 yds - 3hr 27min
B:  112.07 mi - 6hr 17min
R:  39.69 mi - 5hr 2min
Total:  14hr 46min

Not much to say here, except that Spring is here because I'm now riding in shorts/short sleeve kits.  Boom.  Gone are the days of taking 10 minutes to kit up in layers to go ride in the cold.  Of course this also means that I need to either bring Gatorade on my rides or some salt tablets...I did neither of these today (and forgot my credit card), so the end of the ride really sucked.  This week was lower total volume due to Tuesday being a "sleep in and catch up on laundry" day...which was AWESOME...but the weekend made up for it with back to back days of some tough sets on the bike.  Annnnnd, I finally got back on the TT bike this week...figured it might be a good idea since 2012's first race is in 2 weeks!

Big Week

Feb 27 - Mar 4

S:  16,950 yds - 4hr 4min
B:  150.04 mi - 8hr 30min
R:  42.65 mi - 5hr 26min
Total:  18hr 0min

I'm not quite sure, but I think this might have been my biggest (hours) week of training ever.  If not, it's up there.  But that doesn't really matter in and of itself.  What really matters is the 10 weeks of consistent volume as of late, and better yet the 10 weeks of consistent volume in each of the 3 disciplines.  That is the key.

On Sunday, I had a pretty tough set to do on the bike, and I figured I might as well treat myself to one of my favorite out and back routes out to the bustling metropolis of Vandiver, AL!  Of course my usual riders were all busy, so this one was solo.  This picture of my heart pretty much sums it up:

Offseason's Almost Over...

Feb 20 - Feb 26

S:  14,450 yds - 3hr 26min
B:  136.25 mi - 7hr 27min
R:  42.48 mi - 5hr 17min
Total:  16hr 10min

Another week in the books.  Highlights included my first bike race in a number of years, although it was just a "training race."  It was a lot more fun this time around...probably because the engine is slightly better, which of course makes things more fun.  In other news, I just realized that my first race is less than 4 weeks away...time to get the TT bike up and running!

A little bike testing, and stuff

Feb 13 - Feb 19

S:  14,700 yds - 3hr 36min
B:  122.68 mi - 7hr 20min
R:  40.17 mi - 5hr 1min
Total:  15hr 57min

With last week being focused mostly on running, this week brought back some bike volume...back to back 3 hour rides this weekend, with Saturday being a 30' all out TT to finally get a good handle on my functional threshold power, and Sunday being a pretty tough set of 5x8' threshold intervals.  Luckily,  I've got some really good (and very fit) friends who are as crazy as I am who rode along with me for Saturday's TT and Sunday's intervals to give me some extra motivation! 

The test went extremely well.  I averaged around 15 more watts than I've ever even done for 20', and this was a 30' effort!  Now, of course that means that Sunday's set was at a little higher wattage than previous threshold sets, but that's what it's all about...continuous improvement.  On the bicycle, as with any other part of life, I think that complacency is one of your worst enemies.  Whether it's copping out and doing easy bike sets because it's "easier" and doesn't hurt as bad, or slacking off at work and not pursing the knowledge needed for the job, or slacking in your faith and not pursuing God in all parts of life, it all leads to one thing: no growth...no growth as an athlete, no growth in your career, and no growth in your spiritual life.

Mercedes Half Marathon RR

Feb 6 - Feb 12

S:  14,800 yds - 3hr 42min
B:  71.06 mi - 4hr 33min
R:  52.26 mi - 6hr 26min
Total:  14hr 41min

Biggest run week ever...that about sums it up.  And it all culminated with Mercedes Half Marathon on Sunday.  As this clearly wasn't a race that I was trying to rest up for, I didn't quite know what to expect in terms of how my legs would handle it and what kind of pace I would be able to sustain.  That being said, the game plan was to go out the first 3ish miles at a semi-conservative yet still pretty quick pace, try to pick it up a little bit in the middle portion of the race, and then really crank it up if possible for the last ~5k.  Well, this is how it unfolded.  It went pretty much exactly according to plan, which is of course always a good thing  In hindsight, I might could have gone out a little bit harder...but I knew I wanted to be more cautious than aggressive for the first couple miles.  All things considered, it was a good early season performance indicator and I'm pretty encouraged about the upcoming season! 

Random Thoughts
The past couple of months of running have been lots of mileage, but almost exclusively at an aerobic pace (with the exception of some short fartlek type efforts).  Even though I haven't been doing very much fast running, it was still possible to run a fast half marathon.  And by fast I mean something fast relative to what the majority of my training has been at.  This should speak volumes to the benefits of 1) what building an aerobic base can do for you and 2) the benefits that you get from having your body make specific adaptations to high run mileage (running economy, etc).  It seems as if there are always arguments against high run mileage, like "you'll get injured" or "your time is better spent elsewhere."  As with anything in life, it is an opportunity cost problem.  At some point, maybe you do reach diminishing returns or the risk of injury is too high.  But the general idea that you can get faster at running off of less running is contrary to, well, everything.  If you want to get good at something (traithlon, playing the guitar, solving math problems, etc) then doing more of it is the way to go, isn't it?  Sure, you can improve as a runner off of limited mileage, but the flaw in that analysis is that you should be comparing to what you could have done if you had run bigger miles, not what you have previously been doing.  Of course it's a little more complicated for triathletes because of the whole 3 sport thing, but in general I think that people have been conned into thinking that running a lot is bad for you!

Week Six

Jan 30 - Feb 5

S:  16,000 yds - 3hr 43min
B:  114.73 mi - 7hr 19min (10,048 ft of climbing)
R:  45.83 mi - 5hr 55min
Total:  16hr 57min

Highlight of the week was buying a new car (08 4runner).  Besides that, it was another awesome week of training!  Lots of running and swimming, and it's feeling good.  For the first time in awhile, I was able to ride outside for all 4 rides, culminating in yesterday's ride in perfect sunny 60 degree weather.  Mark Fisher and I went roaming around Vestavia and Hoover to find some hills, with much success: