Wednesday

WednesdaySwim - wu - 400 swim and drills; 3 x 500 yd. 15 sec rest btwn. Time trial pace; 300 cool down - pull, kick, non free

Here's what I did:

wu - 400 swim and drills; 1 x 500m 1 mi rest; 1x 300m; 100m cool down - pull, kick

I was NOT feeling good during this swim. In fact, everything about it just sucked. My rhythm felt like it was off, my breathing was ok, my legs and arms just felt tired. I've been having a rough past couple of weeks and hope that next week bings about some better feelings about these workouts. After I lost count on the 2nd 500, I gave up and switched to my cool down. No sense in prolonging a bad workout. Better luck next time dear pool...

Tuesday Run

This week is cardio week at TNT, so that's a great thing.

TuesdayTrack/Speed workout; 5k time trial

I met Coach L at her daughter's soccer practice to do this run. Apparently no one wants to run anymore... other than me. So, she mountain biked next to me and I ran. I won't say I ran it at a time trial pace, but I did get to chat with Coach L about next season... which I'll reveal later this week. I did my 3.1 miles in just over a half hour (slower for me) and then walked the other .9 ish miles to get back to the car for a total of about 40 minutes. Not too shabby for a "eh, I know this is supposed to be a time trial but I'm not feeling it" kind of run.

This week's workouts

Here's this week's workouts. Lots of time trial level work this week.


Monday
Day off

Tuesday
Track/Speed workout; 5k time trial

Wednesday
Swim - wu - 400 swim and drills; 3 x 500 yd. 15 sec rest btwn. Time trial pace; 300 cool down - pull, kick, non free

Thursday
Bike -wu; 10 x 1 mile repeats; cd
Run - 15-30 min. after the bike

Friday
Swim-
6-10 x 100 yd. with 15-20 sec. rest btwn.
Good wu and cd

Saturday
Bootcamp

Sunday
Swim/Bike brick
Swim Clinic at Reston / Bike Reston course after.

This week in recap

Since I was lazy and didn't update this at all this week, I'll just put it all in one entry:

MondayDay off

What I did: I did exactly this. I desperately needed it too. After the weekend's workouts, I was still sore and not up to doing anything.

Tuesday
Track/Speed workout - wu with drills - pose drill (#4), exaggerated lunge, lean with hips; 2 x 800 , 2 x 400, 2 x 200. All with equal recovery.
TNT
Spin

What I did: We spent a lot of time doing the drills, which was fine. It's super dark in the mornings these days, but it was beautiful. The weather was perfection (in the mid-50s, low humidity) and the stars and moon were out. I did the 2x800s and the 2x400s, but didn't have time for the 2x200s. Around 1:51 this afternoon, we had a 5.8 earthquake. On the East Coast, that's unheard of! I went to TNT later that afternoon, but skipped spin. My hamstrings were still a bit sore from the weekend and I didn't want to push it unnecessarily.

Wednesday
Swim - wu - 400 swim and drills; 20 x 50 with 10-20 sec. rest between hold each effort within 3-5 sec;
300 cool down - pull, kick, non free

What I did: 400m warmup, 10x50 with the 10-20 sec rest. Today was a "slacker" day. I didn't feel like doing the swim and I hung on the wall chatting too much. One of the ladies had done IronGirl the weekend before, and I wanted to hear about it. :)

Thursday
Bike - 3-5 x 5k effort/ spin 1 mile in between
TNT

What I did: TNT then up to the spin room for 2x5k effort spins with 1k in between (instead of 1 mile) since the spin bike computers are in km and not miles.

Friday
Swim- 4 x 300, 3 x 200, 2 x 100, 1 x 50

What I did: Went to the grocery store to get a few things for dinner, weekend, and the following week. Hurricane Irene is getting ready to ruin the weekend, so everyone was there, and I knew I needed to get in before it got to be too late. Later in the night, my body started to freak out. My hand fell asleep, then my upper lip and nose had some tingling, then my eyes got weird and I couldn't see correctly, and then I got a killer headache. I'm not sure if it's the weather or what, but 2 asprin and some water, and I headed to bed.

Saturday
Run - 60-120 min. run depending on distances you're training for.

What I did: So far today, I slept in. I figured I needed it given how my body was behaving the night before. This week's been so weird. My sister called and she's coming up with her son to seek shelter. Mom decided to stick it out at her house. I'm starting to get a headache again, so we'll see how it goes.

Sunday
Brick -
sprint - 20-25 mile bike / 3 mile run
olympic - 30 mile bike/ 3-4 mile run
half - 40-50 mile bike/ 8 mile run

This week's workouts

Here's this week's workouts. They don't look nearly as bad as last week's for some reason.

Monday
Day off

Tuesday
Track/Speed workout - wu with drills - pose drill (#4), exaggerated lunge, lean with hips; 2  x 800 , 2 x 400, 2 x 200. All with equal recovery.
TNT
Spin

Wednesday
Swim - wu - 400 swim and drills; 20 x 50 with 10-20 sec. rest between hold each effort within 3-5 sec;
300 cool down - pull, kick, non free

Thursday
Bike - 3-5 x 5k effort/ spin 1 mile in between
TNT

Friday
Swim- 4 x 300, 3 x 200, 2 x 100, 1 x 50

Saturday
Run - 60-120 min. run depending on distances you're training for.

Sunday
Brick -
sprint - 20-25 mile bike / 3 mile run
olympic - 30 mile bike/ 3-4 mile run
half - 40-50 mile bike/ 8 mile run

Sunday's Brick

I emailed L about whether or not we were still on for our Sunday ride on Friday night. I got an email on Saturday afternoon from L that was only addressed to T and I. I was so happy to see T's name on the email! However, it also scared the living bejesus out of me. T and L are VERY strong riders. Not only that, but they were both going to be on tri bikes and I was going to be on my road bike. YIKES!!!! Oh and L picked one of the hilliest routes around here.

I woke up at 5:20, got ready, and heaed over to L's house. She was trying to get out of the ride with T. T wasn't having it, so we drug her along. L had to be home sooner than she thought, so we'd just have to push it. L said "did you hear that Heather? T says you're going to have to ride like hell!" I said "I was planning on having to do that to keep up with you two anyhow!" They both laughed.

The ride was HARD. I'm not even going to lie. My legs were not ready for this ride. After all of the squats and lunges yesterday, I guess they were more tired than I thought. I spent most of the ride chasing down L and T. They had me set pace for about 10 minutes, which was good, but whew! I was glad when they took back over. L was talking with T about someone being a "great athlete" and how impressed she was... apparently she was talking about me. I got up "my hill" (the one I fell over trying to get up the first time I rode it) this time. Man was that rough.

After we got back into the neighborhood to get back to L's house, L rode back with me for a minute and told me that I'm bad ass. We had a chat about how much I've put into this season and how most 1st season triathletes don't put in the work I have, how I've never complained that a workout's too hard and I just do whatever is asked of me, and how much dedication I've put in. Once we got out to the main road, T said "we've got 2 minutes to get you home, let's rock it back". Those two took off like CRAZY. Um yea, here's where a road bike FAILS in comparison.

They were kind of giggling when I finally got to L's house. I was like "nice guys, I mean, obviously the tri bike wins!". T and I changed into our running shoes, L went in to shower and get going to her daughter's soccer stuff. T and I decided to trail run for a bit. We did just about 4 miles. My hamstrings were KILLING me about 3 miles into it. T and I talked about that and why they were bothering me... and it was the first time I mentioned the 500+ squats/lunges I did yesterday. She about stopped running and was like "HEATHER!" That made me laugh a bit.

We also talked about T becoming a coach. She'd be great at it. She's worried about building clientelle and also having a group that's motivated to do their workouts. I completely understand what she's worried about. I think a certain type would gravitate towards her.

Overall, a great workout this morning. My legs are killing me. I'm ready for my rest day tomorrow!

Saturday

J and I went to weekend TNT today. S was running it - very interesting. He had a lot of his normal people there, which was actually a bit annoying because they wouldn't stop complaining. I just don't understand complaining at a completely optional workout. I mean, all workouts are optional, but Saturdays are really optional for TNT.

I didn't have any issues with my workout today. J was exhausted by the time we left. Glad we had the walk home for him to get his breathing and heart rate down.

Friday

I had a hair cut this afternoon and then headed straight to the pool for today's workout:

Swim- Broken mile

And the broken mile is exactly what I did. I didn't push it too hard. My shoulder's really been bothering me this week, so I'm trying to take it easy while still doing the work. I didn't get the run in again today, but hopefully tomorrow.

Thursday

Today's workouts were as follows:

Run - sprint - 4 miles.- 1st mile - 85% , 2nd mile 95%, 3rd mile 85%, 4th mile 95%
olympic - 6 miles - 1st @ 80%, 2 mile- 95% 3 - 80% 4- 95% 5 - 80%, 6 - 95%

Bike - this can be doubled up on Wed. Thur or Friday depending on schedule.
7 x 5 min. hard 3-4 min. easy recovery btwn. Good wu and cooldown

TNT

I did TNT first. It went well - the last thing we did was 10 pushups followed by 10 squats, 9 pushups, 9 squats, 8 pushups, 8 squats... down to 1 of each. I managed to finish first out of our class which earned me more squats. YAY!

After TNT, I went into the spin room and did the bike workout. It was a nice, long ride. For the hard sections of the ride, I rode the base of a hill. Nice and hard after 7 - 5 minute efforts. Rode for about 66 minutes.

I put off the run until later this week. Double workouts are difficult to fit in when you've got lifting to do too.

Wednesday

Here's the workout for this morning:

Swim - wu - 400 swim and drills; 20 x 25 m all out with 50 m active rest recovery; 300 cool down - pull, kick, non free

Here's what I did:

Swim - wu - 250 swim and drills; 18  x 25 m all out with 50 m active rest recovery; 50 cool down - pull, kick, non free

Total: 1650m

I was definitely dragging this morning. Once I got into the grove of the swim, it felt good. Coach L and H & M were talking about the future of Amazia. I only caught pieces of it, and am a bit curious. We'll see what happens.

Tuesday

This morning's workout was the following:

Track/Speed workout: wu with drills - pose drill (#4), exaggerated lunge, lean with hips. 10 x 400 with 2 x recovery

There were 3 of us there, plus Coach L, which was nice. We did the drills in the parking lot since the sun's no longer up at 5:15 and we needed some light (and the track's not lit very well). I still hate these drills, am probably doing them wrong, and don't really feel like my running form needs to change all that much. A few months later, I'm still not convinced Pose running is for me.

We did 6 x 400s with the 2x recovery (then I had to leave at 6am). Each of our 400s was between 1:38 - 1:41. Not too bad, a 4 second differential. The majority of them were 1:39 or 1:40, so that's good. S was keeping pace today, which I was happy about because I really wasn't wanting to do these. I'm feeling really grumpy so far this week, and really overwhelmed, so to just follow someone was a nice break mentally.

TNT went well tonight - pretty typical workout. My shoulder's been bothering me, but that's nothing out of the ordinary.

Spin class was rough - D being back is awesome. Hills and sprints today. The hills were super long. We had a new spinner in class, he did well! Love Tuesday night spin class!

This week's to do list

I feel like this week's workouts are more of a to-do than a schedule. I need to get my head right again.

Monday
Day off

Tuesday
Track/Speed workout: wu with drills - pose drill (#4), exaggerated lunge, lean with hips. 10 x 400 with 2 x recovery
TNT
Spin

Wednesday
Swim - wu - 400 swim and drills; 20  x 25 m all out with 50 m active rest recovery; 300 cool down - pull, kick, non free

Thursday
Run - sprint - 4 miles.- 1st mile - 85% , 2nd mile 95%, 3rd mile 85%, 4th mile 95%
olympic - 6 miles - 1st @ 80%, 2 mile- 95% 3 - 80% 4- 95% 5 - 80%, 6 - 95%

Bike - this can be doubled up on Wed. Thur or Friday depending on schedule.
7 x 5 min. hard 3-4 min. easy recovery btwn. Good wu and cooldown

TNT

Friday
Swim- Broken mile

Saturday
Crossfit (which I don't do, so maybe I'll do the run from Thursday this day instead)

Sunday
Brick - 1.5- 2 hour bike / 30 min. run

Saturday Run

Yea yea yea... today was supposed to be a swim and yesterday was supposed to be a run. But you know what? I didn't do the run yesterday and woke up to BEAUTIFUL running weather, so I went out for a 3 mile run. It was 71 degrees, a little humid, overcast, and just right for the run. I had a few technical issues (my watch battery was low when I started out and died 2.7 miles into my run), but whatever.

I did a sub-30 minute 3 mile run, which I desperately needed after last weekend's poor performance. Now... to start running a bit longer so that I'm ready for this Olympic distance on October 1!

Thursday TNT

Today, I did TNT. I thought about biking as well, but in the end, I just didn't feel like it. TNT was good, I was called "the pacer" by T for our leg exercises. Always a fun thing! I made sure to live up to my new name and tried to get my fellow TNT-ers to work for their rest. HA! Only one of them managed to keep up with me... slackers!

Wednesday - Almost slacked off

This morning, I just wasn't feelin the idea of swimming at 5am. I felt bad because it meant only one of our team members went to the pool, but I knew I just wasn't going to have a good workout. So... I didn't go. Instead, I managed to talk myself into swimming this afternoon - but only after I was told J wasn't getting home until after 7.

Here was today's workout:
Swim - wu - 400 swim and drills; 10-15 x 75 m all out with 25 m active rest recovery; 300 cool down - pull, kick, non free

Here's what I did:
Swim - wu - 400 swim and drills; 6  x 75 m all out with 25 m active rest recovery; 3 x 100 swim; 200 cool down - pull, kick, non free

Total: 1500m

It didn't feel great, but I got something done. Better than nothing...

Tuesday

Today's workout was:

Track/Speed workout -
wu with drills - pose drill (#4), exaggerated lunge, lean with hips; 4 x 200 (1/2 track); 2 x 400 (1 x track); 1 x 800 (2 x track); cool down

Here's what happened:

I've decided that my tri group is filled with slackers. I understand that our coach is out of town, but can't SOMEONE else actually run in the group?! No one wanted to meet up for the run, so that's out for today. I decided to do TNT and spin class today. Since this week is pretty run heavy, I'll probably skip this run instead of trying to squeeze it in.

TNT was good. T and I are going to start working on lower weights, higher reps and see how that goes over the next 6 weeks. We'll get it down. I need to get him on the same page as what I'm on... slowly but surely.

Spin was great! D was 15 minutes late (OOPS!), but she's back from vacation and it was an awesome workout. I almost skipped spin to do the run, but I'm so glad I didn't.

On another note, I'm starting to think forward to off-season. I got the Triathlete's Training Bible and the Essential Week-by-Week Training Guide books yesterday, and am very happy to see that there are a couple of off-season training programs in the EWbWTG book. Can't wait to get reading and putting together a plan!

This week's workouts - Back on the horse!

This week's workouts look like they're going to be tough. I need to get full force back on the wagon, and this is the week to do it. Rock on.


Monday
Day off

Tuesday
Track/Speed workout - 
wu with drills - pose drill (#4), exaggerated lunge, lean with hips; 4 x 200 (1/2 track); 2 x 400 (1 x track); 1 x 800 (2 x track); cool down
TNT
Spin

Wednesday
Swim - wu - 400 swim and drills; 10-15  x 75 m all out with 25 m active rest recovery; 300 cool down - pull, kick, non free

Thursday
Bike - wu 20 min.; 10 x 1 mile effort, rest 1 min. easy spin btwn.; Run - 20-30 min. off the bike
TNT

Friday
Run - 10k time trial (85-90%) record time

Saturday
Swim - 1000m at 85% of your 800 effort from last week

Sunday
Brick - Hills, hills, hills; Great training for all the triathlons coming up in the next few weeks. Bring along anyone else who wants to bike!! Make sure to bring bike and running equipment!

Dog Days Sprint Tri: Ashburn, VA

Pictures to come

Dog Days Sprint Tri Race Report

• Race Name: Dog Days Sprint Tri
• Race Date: August 7, 2011
• Race Location: Ashburn, VA
• Race Distance: Sprint  (400m swim,12 mi bike, 5k run)
• Division: F 30-34
• Total Time: 1:27:03
• Time Breakdown: Swim – 9:02, T1 – 3:09, Bike – 41:29, T2 – 1:53, Run – 31:32
• Age Group Placing: 13/32
• Overall Placing: 48/148 (women only)

Pre-race

Race registration was online only and was fine. The race was $85 originally. I got a discount for doing both of their races. The course maps were available online and at packet pick-up. Packet pick-up for this race was pretty good, annoying because you had to bring your bike & helmet to pick-up to be checked, so everyone’s standing around with their bikes & helmets trying to walk through the line to get their packets, again. Also, the first table, where they checked your id and USAT membership, they had divided into 2 lines, alphabetically… except, none of us knew that, again! You only figured it out once you got to the table. The swag was ok, t-shirt, water bottle, a fizz tablet, and a lot of paper.

The race was pretty well organized. There were plenty of volunteers and officers on the course, which was great. The bathrooms at the start/transition/finish were in the pool house, which seemed to be fine. There weren’t really any pre-race activities, which was fine.

The race was at the Broadlands pool. The transitions were long again, but I was prepared for that this time. The bike course was local roads and the run was on a neighborhood trail.

Race morning, I got up around 5:00, got dressed, ate breakfast, put everything in the car, and headed out. We got to the parking area at around 5:45. We started the walk to the transition area, got my timing chip, did body marking, and went into transition. I got in, set up my bike and all of the other stuff, and had plenty of time to relax. The weather was ok, mid 70s with a LOT of humidity. It made the race really difficult. There were about 300 people there, which turned out to be a nice size.

Swim

Today’s swim was a 400m snake swim in a 50m pool. The pool water felt great, especially since the humidity was making it feel a lot warmer than it was. Obviously, no wetsuits for this swim. I didn’t do the warm-up for this race, mostly because by the time I started, the warm-up would’ve worn off. I wore clear goggles for this race. I got passed by one person. I felt better coming out of the water this time. It was a long run into transition and I got reoriented pretty quickly.

I feel like the work I’ve been doing on my swimming has been paying off. Now to keep at it!

Bike

The course was a double loop, some hills course. They had the right lane closed to traffic, which was great. In the June race on the same course, I had a car pull out in front of me despite police direction. In this race, I had a car pull out in front of me AGAIN! And again, it was despite police direction. Thankfully I was paying attention and anticipated her idiocy. I was going 23 mph, slightly downhill, and would’ve t-boned her and ended up worse for the wear than her car. At least she pulled into the correct lane. I still have some hill work to do, but I’m getting more confident in my bike handling. The longer I spend on it, the more comfortable I get.

Run

This run was awful. Even coming out of T2, I felt like hell. It was so humid out, I couldn’t get my breathing to slow at all. I ended up walking one minute of each mile just to get my breath. I also felt like I was going to puke for at least the last 2 miles of the run. It was not a good run at all. Still need to do more BRICKs, but apparently, I need to start running in the middle of the day or in the afternoon, even when it’s nasty humid out.

Transitions

The transitions went pretty well. I managed to cut some time off of T1 from June. T2 went well – I remembered to throw the watch on as I’m running out of T2 instead of waiting for it to do its thing while I’m in transition. I also had both GPS units get the satellites before the race, so I think that helped. Next race, I may just throw on the swim watch and wear it for the entire race.

Post-Race

I felt like crap after the race. My entire body felt drained, and not in a good way.

As soon as I was finished the race, I was handed a bottle of water and declined the smoothie. I found the table of bananas and assorted carbs, grabbed a banana and came back later for a bagel. They were posting the results every 15 minutes or so, so that was nice. We left before the awards ceremony. The distances were all accurate. The race officials were fair; two DQs because they only did one loop on the bike course.

Official race results were posted that night. No word of when the race photos will be posted.

Summary and Lessons Learned

I had a really bad week the week before the race. All of my workouts felt like I was putting in so much more effort than I probably was, and I was just dragging. With the humidity, it just made that feeling worse. This is the first time that I could’ve DNF’d and been ok with it. I’m getting more confident on my bike, but there’s work to be done there too. All in due time.

Thursday TNT

Today, I did TNT and not really any of my cardio. Life's a bit crazy for the next couple of days, so I'm taking the time to "rest" before my next tri. I might regret it later, but I've just got too much else that has to be done at certain times that really interfer with working out. ARGH! Gotta get back on the horse - next week for sure!

Dragging to the Pool Wednesday

This week has been horrid as far as my body is concerned. Maybe TMI, but I hate "ikky week". My body just doesn't want to do it's normal thing and I feel like I'm dragging the entire time. Today was no different. Just getting out of bed was a feat.

I made it to the pool about 10 minutes late, did my warm up and then chilled out when M and H got there. L got there not too much later, and we proceeded to chat for about 20 minutes. I guess I wasn't really feeling it.

Workout was:
wu - 400 swim and drills; 20 x 50 yds. (1st 25 sec. rest 2nd 20sec. rest 3rd 15 sec. rest 4th 10 sec. rest. 5th 5 sec rest. Repeat rest in this order until finished); 4 x 50 pull 50 kick; cool down

I did:
wu - 200 swim and drills; 15 x 50 yds. (1st 25 sec. rest 2nd 20sec. rest 3rd 15 sec. rest 4th 10 sec. rest. 5th 5 sec rest. Repeat rest in this order until finished); 2 x 50 pull 50 kick

So, basically, I did half the workout. Not anything to be proud of.

Tuesday's all screwed up

I went to bed last night around 9:30, set my alarm for the 4:10 wake up, drug myself out of bed, got ready for my run, and then checked my email. I was the only person, other than my coach, that was going to be at track. REALLY?! Needless to say, I emailed my coach back and said "go back to bed". If she could do the run with me, I'd say "let's meet up", but she can't, so it's not really worth it. So... back into pajamas and into bed with me.

Went to the gym a little early to get in some of the intervals. I did about 5 of the 30 sec on, 30 sec off repeats and then went to TNT. TNT was good - T decided I look too comfortable doing squats and lunges without weight, so I got a "friend" (a 25 lb weight). After a good beating to my legs, I went to spin class.

D's been out on vacation, so we had a sub again. She was just ok. I don't think I'd ever willingly take her class again, but whatever.  It was a rushed 2.5 hrs of working out, that's for sure!