Are you ready?

Tiger asked me if I was ready for an upcoming race. I know it's really a rhetorical question because ultimately you are only as ready as your training allows you to be. Think about that for a second. You may have re-think your training if you aren't meeting your capabilities and/or goals. Haha, or even easier, redefine your goals to meet your training, I guess that would sort of be cheating though, wouldn't it? Anyway...

The time has come..

For speedwork. A synopis of the season so far: Nov/Dec: do 'whatever' training, hike, bike, run a bit, rest, just do whatever. Jan/Feb: structured base training. Acclimitize and adapt to the rigours of real training. Mar/Apr: similar to Jan/Feb but with a strength focus. Build strength through lots of hill repeats on both run and bike. May/June: maintain strength through occasional hillwork, add speedwork.

My thinking behind this year's philosophy is that every 8 weeks, I'm slightly changing the stimulas in an effort to achieve a higher degree of fitness.

Recap of the week:

Swim: 2k (!) there is a story here.
Bike: 2 hrs on the trainer + 167k
Run: 76k
Mon: easy 2k swim
Tues: a tough day. 2 hours outside doing hill repeats on the bike, followed by an hour run doing yet more hill repeats.

Wednesday, I rush through work to make it the pool on time, I have a 10X 400m set planned and just want to 'get er done'. Pull into the parking lot, turn off car, go to grab swim gear... doh, forgot it at home. Doh doh doh. Missed swim workout #1. Ran and biked instead.

Thur: midweek 17k run with 4X6min hard with 2 min rest. Easy bike spin for an hour. Hacked finger preparing dinner had to go to hospital to get stitched up. Nasty, gross picture at end of post. Tough workout followed by less than optimal sleep left me bagged on Friday...

Fri: missed swim workout #2 due to stitched up finger. Did an easy 9.5k run on trails. Bailed on bike workout.

Sat: ride with Cliff. Did 113k ride that featured some time trialling. The first one was a short 10k with a very nice tailwind. Totally smoked it in 13:15 for an average speed of 45.1 kph. The second TT was 13k, against a semi ridiculas headwind, on a crappy road with the added bonus of driving rain. Wheeeee! Time to HTFU. 23min, avg speed 35 kph. Owie.
Later, ran an easy 7.5k

Sun: ran 22k in 1:45. First half zone 1, second half zone 2.

Ok, here's the pic I promised. Be warned it's a tad on the gross side. Scroll down if you really must see it.



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Looks like I get a few more days off swimming..

A week of firsts

AND a week of seconds.

Being as we are enjoying some rather bad-ass weather for mid April, actually dare I say perfect weather? I dare! 25C and sunny with no rain in the forecast is pretty much perfect in my books. It was under this guise that I finally took the bike off the trainer and went for the season's first and second outdoor rides.

You are saying 'what? why haven't you been out earlier? - what a wuss!' Guilty as charged. But hear out my excuse! I play a bit of mental game with the trainer (110hrs logged this season and counting..), the longer I wait until riding outdoors the bigger the perceived reward. I frequently play the game "if I do X, then I'll get Y", where 'X' is the task and 'Y' is the reward. The reward might be anything, but typically involves food. (it really doesn't take alot to keep me happy)

But I digress.. the weather was perfect and the first outdoor ride went well. The second outdoor ride went better as I hooked up with Aaron and Stu and hammered the hills. QOTD was from Stu "I knew I was in trouble with you when I agreed to this ride, then I saw Aaron's quads and knew I was in deep." The guy is quadzilla. I think he's doing shh! secrit! training. Both Stu and Aaron did awesome, no matter what I dished out, they ate it up. Going to really enjoy riding with them this year. (just wait until they find out about my next ride... muahahaha)
Later that day...
I thought it would be a good idea to get 1 hr trail run in. The legs had other ideas. Mo Lasses and Leth Argy bitched and complained the whole way. Sucked it up and got her done, so no complaints.
The weekly total:
Swim: 7.4k
Spin : 3 hrs (trainer)
Bike: 190k
Run: 50.5k

I'm still pretty much in the hillacious phase of training. This week will mark the last of the intense hill training, I'll soon be working a bit more on speed work and a bit less on hill repeats.
Cheers!

Food!

A quick and simple obligatory post about food.

Triathletes are passionate about their sport. Which, in my opinion, is all due to endorphins, but that's a whole different post. Because most of us train ALOT, triathletes generally like to eat. ALOT. We are constantly fueling the engine and most of us are pretty aware of the stuff we're eating.

Here's a quick and dirty guide on my personal approach:
1) Avoid anything that has to do with the word 'diet'. Throw out that word and adopt 'lifestyle' instead. The entire diet industry (yes, it's an industry) only becomes more prosperous when YOU FAIL.
2) Common sense. Haha. As they say, the problem with common sense is that it's not so common. If I have to tell you to avoid (avoid, not completely forgo) doughnuts, processed food, simple sugars, pop etc... You need more help than I can provide.
3) Veggies. Take 20 minutes once a week and make a LARGE salad. If you make enough, it will last 4 days in the fridge. Bam, you now have a fresh salad four days in a row. Use a homemade olive oil vinagarette for dressing.
4) Again on veggies. Cut up a bunch veggies, throw them in a tupperware and you have plenty of easily accessible snacks anytime. Prepare time: 15 min
5) Fruit. Do the same thing with fruit! Make a huge fruit salad - berries, pineapple, oranges etc.. will all keep for at least 4 days. Prepare time: 20 min.
6) Shop the perimeter of the grocery store. Why? That's where all the fresh stuff is!

Done. Not so hard. I could certainly expand and talk about buying locally, watch pesticide use, organics, vitamins, red wine etc.. but honestly, if you can follow the very simple above outline, you've already adopted 90% of a healthy 'lifestyle'. Add some exercise, some quality protein, the odd treat and your set. It's not so hard. Really.

Standard disclaimer. I am not dietician. I'm only sharing what works for me. Ok, all this talk about food has me hungry....

Cheers!

New sheriff in town..

and her name is Chrissie Wellington. Three Ironman starts, 3 wins (!) including a little thing called the World Championships in Kona. (!!) Any doubters that thought she was just a flash in the pan, put those thoughts aside.. this is the real McCoy. Just check her splits from Sunday's Ironman Australia race:
swim: 53:27
bike: 5:08:34
run: 3:01:53
Beautiful. There is no weakness. Total race time was 9:03:55 (!!) and obviously won the woman's side of things, but get this, she was also 9th overall, just 8 pro men could beat her. Incredible.

Back to reality..

Last week was my 4th consecutive week of good training and thus my reward for the coming days could be defined as 'slacker'. Yup, gonna just focus on slacking, resting and catching up on other stuff. A week off now, will defineately help keep me fresh for later and help avoid any burn out. I don't want to slack, but I know it's for the best and so it shall be.
Some numbers for last week:
swim: 9.5k
bike: 6 hrs
run: 62k

A couple of highlights: 1) my swim feels great! It's finally back, took almost 3 months, but it finally feels 'right'. My workout last Wed was:
2(400fr, 100bk)
10X100m fr, on 1:30. (1:19's and 1:20's)
100 easy
10X100IM on 1:45 (1:30's)
100 easy
2(3X100 pull, kick, swim drills)
Total:3.8k
The workout was so good, I repeated it again on Friday and dropped my 10X100m free another second. Yay. Still operating above threshold, but didn't care, it just felt good.

Highlight number 2! Saturday, averaged 247w for the Ergvideo Lake Placid loop. Later Cliff came over and wanted to do an LT test on the Computrainer. I think he experienced a new level of pain. Put it to you this way, his *new* LT is almost 10 beats higher than his old level and I even saw his heartrate hit 190(!) towards the end of the test.. yea, the guy is apparently part humming bird or something.
Clearly, that wasn't enough for 1 day, so we went and did some run hill repeats afterwards. I wonder if I'll ever see him again..

Have a great week!