Biking in the Dark

I've never ridden my bike in the dark before. It's staying darker longer again, so 5am doesn't really mean light anymore!

Equipped with our headlamps, Coach L and I started out on our 1 mile repeats in the DARK. We saw lots of beady eyes... so many deer out. Thankfully, they all stayed in the fields.

The repeats went well - I kept a pace of 20-22 mph on each one, with a little under a 1/2 mile recovery. I felt great! It's amazing how much I've improved since March. Got in 10.5 miles total, 7 repeats with their recoveries. I would've loved to have stayed and done another hour of that. I'm off my rocker, I know.

TNT tonight - debating about spin since I rode this morning. We'll see how I feel tonight.

Sunday Sunday

Once again, I REALLY need to stop slacking off. I have a race August 7 that I feel less than prepared for. It'll be fine and I'll power through, but man...

So, here are next week's workouts. We'll see how the week goes!


Monday
Day off

Tuesday
Bike - Mile repeats. Bring headlamps. Should be light enough but just in case.

Wednesday
Swim - wu - 300 swim and drills; Drills - 1 arm drill, heads up drill, front to back drill; 8-10 x 100 yd. on either 2 min. /2:10/2:20 depending on your pace. You want to have a 15-20 sec. rest btwn.
Cool down - 200 non free (kicking, breast, back)

Thursday
Run - 5k time trial. Record time. This is race pace!

Friday
Swim - 3 x 100 pull, 100 kick , 100 swim; 2 x 400 swim; cool down

Saturday
Run - Speed work
wu - 15 min. with drills/ easy jog; Ladder - 30 sec. on 30 sec. off /1 min. on 1 min. off/ 1:30 on 1:30 off/2 min. on 2 min. off and then back down the ladder 2, 1:30, 1:00, :30; cool down 10 min.

Sunday
Brick -
Sprint - 1.5 hour ride / 30 min. run
Olympic - 2 hour ride / 45 min. run
Half Ironman - 2 hour ride/ 90 min run

White Water Rafting

Because it can't be all training and no fun... we went white water rafting today on the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers. It was absolutely beautiful. The weather was perfect, the people we were in the boat with were good, our guide was great. I really enjoyed the experience and can't wait to do it again. We did Class I - III rapids, so it was pretty tame. I'd love to do some Class IV sometime.

I'd post pictures, but they said "don't bring anything you don't want lost, ruined, or wet because it will end up one of the three", so we didn't bring the camera.

Swimming on Friday

I've decided the chemicals in the Brambleton S&H pool SUCK. They hurt my eyes... even with the goggles on.

Today's swim was:

Swim - wu with drills, pull, kick - 300 yd; Tempo swim - 1000 yds at 85% pace; cool down with non free

It's exactly what I did. My 1000m (since I'm in a meter pool instead of a yard pool) was done in just about 20 minutes. I'm happy with that time - just about 2 minutes per 100m.

I felt good for most of the swim, but was getting a bit tired towards the end of it. In a way, I was glad to be done, in another, I wanted to keep swimming. I'm going to start devising a plan for my off-season shortly. I want to really shoot for stronger swimming skills next season.

Slackin off Thursday

I had every intention of doing a Spinervals DVD tonight... until I let myself talk too much on the way home from the gym. I was getting to know one of my fellow TNTers, which needs to happen in order for me to feel better about making the switch to Brambleton. (Yea, I'm still secon guessing myself).

TNT was great though. T told me that I have "freakishly strong legs", which I guess is a compliment.

Tomorrow will be better...

Wet Wednesday

Today was another swim day (the weeks are predictible, aren't they?). I feel like today's swim was pretty easy.

wu - 300 swim and drills; Drills - 1 arm drill, fist drill, 6 kicks each side drill; 3 x (50y, 100y, 200y); Cool down - 200 non free (kicking, breast, back)

I did:

wu - 300 swim and drills; Drills - 1 arm drill, fist drill, 6 kicks each side drill; 3 x (50y, 100y, 200y); Cool down - 100 non free (kicking, breast, back)

Total: 1550 yds

The rec center where we swim moved one of the lane lines, so 2 lanes were 1. Coach L had all 5 of us swim in the large lane to kind of simulate open water swimming. We were all at different points in the workout and all over the place, so it was kind of simulated, but not really. It was a good swim overall. Not too hard, but not terribly easy (definitely qualified as one of our easy swims though).

On another note, I always feel like I need to do more cardio on Wednesday nights. Maybe I'll have to start doing yoga on Wednesday nights to fill that hole.

Tough Tuesday

Today was a really tough day for me. Not so much work-out wise, but mentally. Here are my workouts for today:

Track - Running drills - practice #4, pulling with hamstring, leaning with hips , exaggerated forward lunge; 4-6 x 400's - staying within 3-5 sec of each other
TNT
Spin

Track was really hard for me today. Coach L snapped at me for no reason and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. After she snapped, she did go back into normal "L", so it was really weird. Apparently, my running form is pretty close to POSE running, which is what she's trying to get us to work towards. Such an odd workout.

TNT was good. I always love the first one back after cardio week. I did manage to pull T back when he was putting more tension on my squat rows! One point for me!

Spin was HARD! With the Tour de France going on, I apparently need to pay attention to what stage is going on. Today was a sprint stage - so we did an hour of sprints. Hard work I tell you! It's ok, I feel like I'm getting stronger, so I can't complain at all!

Overall, I think the 3 workouts today have gotten me out of my funk. Thank goodness!

This week's schedule

Here's this week's schedule. I seriously slacked off the past 2 weeks - need to regain focus and get back on the horse. I especially need to make sure I get my long run in. I've been seriously slackin on getting those in and it shows in my training.


Monday
Day off

Tuesday
Track  - Running drills - practice #4, pulling with hamstring, leaning with hips , exaggerated forward lunge; 4-6 x 400's - staying within 3-5 sec of each other
TNT
Spin

Wednesday
Swim - wu - 300 swim and drills; Drills - 1 arm drill, fist drill, 6 kicks each side drill; 3 x (50y, 100y, 200y); Cool down - 200 non free (kicking, breast, back)

Thursday
Bike -  20 mile time trial (all out effort)
TNT

Friday
Swim - wu with drills, pull, kick -  300 yd; Tempo swim - 1000 yds at 85% pace; cool down with non free

Saturday
Run - long run
Sprint -  4 miles
Olympic -  7 miles
Half Iron - 11 miles

Sunday
Brick -
Sprint - 1.5 hour ride / 30 min. run
Olympic - 2 hour ride / 30 min. run
Half Ironman - 3 hour ride/ 60 min run

Been Slackin...

I skipped both Friday's and Saturday's workouts. Oops?! I did get in a 75 min spin today. I used the Spinervals Aerobase 17.0 today (part 2 of 5 basically). I really liked it - low intensity, lower cadences, low heart rate - but still great workout. The nice thing about the Spinervals DVDs so far is that they don't feel like the amount of time that it's been taking (ie: 75 minutes felt like about 30). I think I'm going to order a few of the hill training ones so that I can get in some harder training as well.

I also took the time to clean my chain today. It DESPERATELY needed it. Man that cleaning solution was disgusting by the end of the cleaning. It's all shiny and pretty now, so we'll see if I can keep it that way!

Spinervals

Today's workout was for the bike:

wu 20 min; 40 min. tempo ride - hold a fast pace, just under race pace

Since I've been horrible about doing the Thursday bike rides, I bought the 5 Aerobase Spinerval DVDs. Tonight, I did Aerobase 16.0 (which is the first of the five). It was an 80 minute ride. High cadence, aerobic capacity. Great ride - can't wait to do it again! I think my next spin will be Aerobase 17.0 (the 2nd in the series). Happy to get it in!

Swimming lap after lap

Today's workout was:

wu - 500 swim and drills (Drills - 1 arm drill, fist drill, 6 kicks each side drill, breathing 3, 5, 7 drill); 10 x 75's (10-15 sec. rest btwn); Cool down - 300 non free (kicking, breast, back)

What I ended up doing was:

wu - 500 swim and drills (Drills - 1 arm drill, fist drill, 6 kicks each side drill, breathing 3, 5, 7 drill); 10 x 75's (10-15 sec. rest btwn); Cool down - 100 non free (kicking, breast, back)

The only thing that changed was my cool down. The swim felt good, especially for a day when I was trying to convince myself that I NEEDED to do it. I even skipped the morning workout. I'm glad I talked myself into doing it in the afternoon. I was trying pretty hard to concentrate on my form, especially keeping my head down further in the water. I'm still reading Total Immersion, and have been working on tips from it.

My 75s were anywhere between 60 and 70 seconds per set. I was pretty happy with it. I know I can get faster, but that'll come with time.

Total: 1350m

Spin torture

I don't know what I was thinking in going to spin class tonight. I was tired (still) from the run. I think I was hoping that it would flush out the lactic acid from my earlier run that had been gathering in my legs all night.

It did. And now, I'm more tired than I was to begin with.

We did "Tour de D" tonight. Hills, hills, and more hills. Long, steep, standing hills. I hate standing hill work. It drives me nuts. I just hate being out of my saddle. I need to get over it and go with it.

Back on Track... Literally

Today's workout was the normal Tuesday track workout:

Running drills - practice #4, pulling with hamstring, leaning with hips.
We are going to stick with the 200's this week, keeping the distance of the sprints shorter to practice good form.
6-10 x 200's

Only 2 of us showed up. I was so glad that T showed... for a while I was sitting around alone. We went for about a mile warmup (at a T & Heather pace of 9:00/mi). We walked out the 200m, which looked longer than 200m for sure! We proceeded to run 5 of the 6-10 we needed to. Ah well... 6:00am came a little fast this time.

T really pushes me. She's been so great this season and has really taken me under her wing. She rocks. :)

Up tonight - spin class!

100th post & Next Week's Schedule

Hard to believe it's my 100th post already! This season's been crazy. My first and last tri's of the season have both been canceled, forcing me to find new ones to take their places; I've done an aquathon; and I've done things I never thought I'd be able to do. I've looked into things I never thought I would and have set goals I previously would've thought I was crazy for setting. I think the most important thing the world of triathlons has taught me so far is that it's OK to roll with the punches; get mad, get upset, but suck it up and move on. I feel like I've been able to apply this in the rest of my life since I've started with my training for tris. Self improvement is always a good thing in my book.

Speaking of my last tri of the season... TriRock Gettysburg got "postponed" until next year for "logistical reasons". Whatever. All I know is now I need to find a new tri... again. I feel like this is the story of my season. I have it narrowed down to the Giant Acorn International or the Half Full (International distance). Just need to determine which to do.

Here's this week's schedule:

Monday
Day off

Tuesday
Running drills - practice #4, pulling with hamstring, leaning with hips.
We are going to stick with the 200's this week, keeping the distance of the sprints shorter to practice good form.
6-10 x 200's

Wednesday
Swim - wu - 500 swim and drills (Drills - 1 arm drill, fist drill, 6 kicks each side drill, breathing 3, 5, 7 drill); 10 x 75's (10-15 sec. rest btwn); Cool down - 300 non free (kicking, breast, back)

Thursday
Bike - wu 20 min; 40 min. tempo ride - hold a fast pace, just under race pace.

Friday
Swim - wu with drills and swim  300 yd; Broken mile swim (11, 10, 9, 8, 7, etc. down to 1); cool down

Saturday
Run - long run (distances below)
Sprint - 3 -4 miles
Olympic - 6-7 miles
Half Iron - 9-11 miles

Sunday
Brick (distances/times below)
Sprint - 1.5 hour ride / 30 min. run
Olympic - 2 hour ride / 40 min. run
Half Ironman - 2. 5 hour ride/ 60 min run

Friday Easy Ride at the Beach

So, the reason my schedule's been all sorts of messed up this week is because we were headed to the beach yesterday for a short vacation with J's family.

Today, we took an easy ride - about 12 miles, we think - from our beach house to the end of the island and back. It was actually one of the most stressful rides of my life. There were a ton of intersections on the bike trail that really confusing. Some motorists waved you through, some didn't. It was hard to tell if people were turning or not. There were a lot of families on the trail, so that didn't help either. I almost ran into a kid when I said "on your left" and he started going left. Ugh. So stressful. On top of it, we were on the hybrids, so I didn't feel like we could move to the road.

Hopefully whatever our next ride is won't be as stressful!