Sinner

Upper body - Horizontal: light
Movement prep
Bear 2x4/75 lbs
Row 2x20/85 lbs (this is the best these ever felt)
Diamond push-up 2x25 (had to rest-pause the last few of the second set)
Prehab work for core, hips, shoulders

Chipping away

Another LSD run. A little bit faster than last time. I still don't know how fast, but ~46 minutes for ~5 miles. A big improvement from ~60 for ~6. Still not blazing, but it's the "all day" pace. Finished up again having to rein the pace in since there was lots left in the tank.

Run: 5 miles - 2 miles @ 145 bpm, 3 miles @ 150 bpm

Knee Deep

Warm night in the house last night, so I didn't get a great night's sleep. I felt tired right from the gun. Next week is a rest week, so I should rebound pretty well and put together a good string of workouts after that.

Upper Body - Vertical: medium
Movement prep
Chaosbringer 4x3/75 lbs
Pullups 3x9,9 (last rep was oogly),7/no weight
Military Press 3x10,9,8/65 lbs

Green light ... red light ... green light ... red light ...

I need to quit reading about other people's workouts and thinking, "That could be interesting (read: painful)." Last week, I was told by Mark (the only known consistent reader of this blog) about microintervals: 10 minutes of 15 seconds of hard work, then 15 seconds of rest. Rinse and repeat. It's an interesting sensation. The efforts themselves aren't particularly difficult, but repeatedly spinning up the gear becomes harder, and the accumulation of fatigue catches up with you around minute 8. Then to top off the workout, I added a series of sprints, including a new max power of 981w. I'm still waiting to crack a grand. Soon.

Bike: 90 minutes - 10 minute warm-up
8x1 minute one-leg drills (39x19), 2 minutes recovery
2x10 minute microinterval sets, 10 minute recovery
15 s @ 450w, 15 s soft-pedal
4 sprints in 53x15 seated (working on getting the spin up)
4 sprints in 53x13 standing (PR=981w)
10 minute warm-up

Swimming lessons

North York Aquatic Club runs a triathlon-specific swim training program. There are two options: twice a week (M/F) at Douglas Snow at 5:45 am, or adding a third day (W) at the York University Glendon campus. Since I first learned about this, my plan was to do the 2x group, and go on Wednesday nights with Claire for another swim. Registration is, as of this morning, open. So I guess I need to sign up, get a proper swimsuit and goggles, and get a few sessions in before the November 12 start date.

I finished reading Total Immersion this weekend, so I know my cues: press your buoy, swim long, power comes from the hips. In my head, I'll be gliding magnificently through the water on my first day. In reality, I'll be flailing like a drowning monkey.

Act Like I Care

After a more active weekend than I'm accustomed (zoos can involve more walking than you think), back at it bright and early this morning. Monday is heavy (including Helmet in the stereo), and this week it's the horizontal plane. Nothing too sore from yesterday's run, except for the chunk of skin on my achilles tendon I happened to rub off. Not sure what happened there, since I've never had in issue with these shoes before.

Upper Body - Horizontal: heavy day
Movement prep warm-up
Bear: 2x4/75 lbs
Row: 8x3/135 lbs
Pushups: 8x5/30 lbs weighted vest + 100 lbs elastic tubing
Prehab work for core, hips and shoulder capsule

And a hearty congratulations to anyone who took part in Ironman Canada or Ironman Louisville this weekend. You put in the effort, you deserve to reap the rewards. A few more years, and they'll be calling out my name too.

Left foot, right foot

Another morning on the run. Form felt a little better, and I felt a little faster at a low heart rate. Still not fast, since a rough estimate for the six miles was about an hour. Slow, but as my aerobic efficiency improves, this will pick up quickly. There's surprisingly some tenderness around my knees. I think that's because my stride is so short right now I'm landing too much on my heels. I'll keep on eye on this over the next few weeks.

Run: 6 miles, 3 miles @ 145 bpm, 3 miles @ 150 bpm

More fantasy riding

Back on the i-Magic, back to the RLVs. This time, a trip to Flanders, for 83.5 km of cobbles and insanely steep hills. A fun ride, but I screwed up the pacing. I went too fast early, and suffered for it at the end (and the rest of the day), but still set some records.

Bike: Tour of Flanders RLV - 83.5km, 2:37:56 (CR), 237w avg (CR), +10 min warm-up, 5 min cooldown

Light and quiet

Back in the weight room this morning. I had to be quiet since we have houseguests, so no death metal for inspiration. Surprisingly little stiffness in the running muscles. Today was light work, with high-reps.

Upper body - Vertical: Light
Movement prep
Chaosbringer: 2x4/75
Pullups: 2x6+14/assisted
Military Press: 2x25/38
Prehab work for core, hips and shoulders

Hollywood Shuffle

Tonight was the first run in over a year. I think the last time I ran was the NYC Half-Marathon last summer. I've been one the bike pretty good for 9 months, so the legs are strong, the heart is strong, the lungs are strong. I should have been clipping this evening.

Not so much.

I could bring my speed around reasonbly quickly for Disney in January by tossing in a bunch of high-intensity work. But that's not how I'm going to approach it this time. Since I have bigger, longer-term goals (Muskoka 70.3, the eventual Ironman), I'm taking the longer-term mindset. I've been re-reading my Lydiard and Maffetone, and some Jack Daniels. Long miles with a HR cap are the order of the day until a certain speed is built up.

Because I haven't run in so long, my form sucks. Knees weren't picking up, no lower leg involvement. That will shake out over the course of the next few weeks. It's muscle memory, so it'll come back. Because my form sucks, my HR kept spiking at every little effort. Again, efficiency is the key. All my training will be based on distance and HR. I don't care about speed until at least November. My plan is to do the first half of every run at ~145 bpm, and the second half at ~150 bpm. I want to build a heeee-yuuuuu-ge base, so I can build an ever bigger peak. I'll run slow now so I can run fast later.

Run: 4 miles, not timed (but sloooow), 2 miles @ HR 145-150, 2 miles @ HR 150-153

(Oh, there was a 3 mile jog with a friend the day before the NYC Marathon. THAT was my last run.)

Sinatra

Wednesday's are medium day in the weight room. After doing vertical plane on Monday, we move to horizontal plane today. This morning's workout was:

Upper body - horizontal: Medium
Movement prep
Bear: 4x3/75 lbs
Bent Row: 3x8/115 lbs (form suffered on the last couple of reps)
Pushup: 3x10/30 lbs weighted vest + 60 lbs elastic tubing

2+2=5

For the next three weeks, I don't have any specific workouts chosen for my Tuesday night bike rides. I'm somewhat burnt out on my Spinervals DVDs. (No offense Coach Troy if you're reading, but you've been part of my life every week for the last 9 months. We need some time apart.) I didn't want to do any of the chosen 5 core workouts that will be included during marathon training, so I needed something new. I was going to do a tempo workout, but then I thought I could dress it up a bit. Maybe with something like Over-under intervals. Yeah, those are fun. But what If I did a sprint effort to start the "Over" part? YEAH!! That's a great idea. And so, tonight on the trainer I knocked out:

Bike: 90 minutes- 10 min warm-up
10 min one-leg drill work (Dead spot in left leg. Needs work)
4x(9.5 min @ 75% FTP(225w),
30 sec @ 150%(450w),
5 min @ 100%(300w))
10 min cooldown

That middle bit looks surprisingly like RWEs mixed into a tempo ride. Did I mention I'm not a smart man?

(But honestly, it was a fun, tough but not vicious, ride. I'll do it again someday.)

New York Times

This article from the Sunday NYT was linked in the Slowtwitch forums. It captures the mindset of enduro-junkie pretty well. As I'm starting this multisport journey, this quote seemed to ring true:
"Almost inevitably, I’d fallen into a triathlon stage, a near mandatory passage for someone like me — middle-aged, unaccomplished at any specific sport, afflicted with an equipment fetish and in desperate need of new ways to underperform. Why be good at one sport when you can be unimpressive at three?"

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/sports/playmagazine/0819play-endure.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=181a7f5a02bdc5c4&ex=1188273600&adxnnl=0&emc=eta1&adxnnlx=1187632855-0zLWKf/vHtJU/V/VClI09g

Picking up heavy stuff

According to the schedule, Monday morning is lifting time. With all the biking (and soon running), I'm not doing any leg work, just three sessions a week for upper body (avoiding the "Christian Bale in The Machinist" look). I change the set-rep scheme every time, and alternate the "plane of movement". So after a pretty good night's rest, I did:

Upper Body - Vertical: heavy day
Movement prep warm-up
Chaosbringer (combination lift): 2x4/75 lbs
Pullups: 8x3/+20 lbs (last set was 2 reps +20, 1 rep bw)
Military press: 6x3/85 lbs, 2x3/80 lbs
Prehab work for core, hips and shoulder capsule

While I was warming up, I realized that in a few weeks, I'll have to wake up around 5 to make it to the pool for 5:45 twice a week. That's early, even for me. I'll also have to switch to a "lift after work" schedule, which will require some rearranging of other parts of my day. I guess that's some of the sacrifice for this Ironman thing.

(Not so) Lazy Sunday

I decided not to make the trip to Elliot Lake for the Jewel in the Wilderness stage race, which I would now consider a mistake. If ever I was guaranteed upgrade points, this would have been the race. The terrain suits me (lots of "up"), and only 6 other people in the S4/M3 race (one of who DNF'ed the crit). I'm pretty confident I could have collected a point or two from the weekend. Next year.

Since I was supposed to race for two days, instead of taking today as a Z1/Z2 day like every other Sunday, I put a little more intensity into the ride. Considering yesterday's effort, everything felt good this morning, so I did 2 hours, with 3 - 20 minute efforts. Nothing killer, just tenderizing the meat a little. This week coming up starts the return to running, with fewer rides (2 each for 3 weeks, then 3 run - 1 ride until the marathon).

Bike: 2 hours, w/ 3 x 20 minutes @ 230, 240, 250w

Game Over

The Tacx i-Magic is a great training tool, except for those times it completely kicks your ass. Then it's still great training, but you feel like tool for being defeated by a trainer. Specifically, some of the Real Life Videos (RLVs, like a cycling video game, where you ride over "real" terrain) can be pretty tough to finish at a reasonable pace. Even more specifically, The Pyrenees Stage.

The Pyrenees Stage recreates the final three climbs of the 2005 Tour de France stage that was won by George Hincapie: the Col de Peyresourde, Col d'Azet, and Pla d'Adet. In three previous attempts at this RLV, I have been soundly defeated each time. I was never able to drag myself up the last climb. All the matches would be burnt, and I would have to get off the bike, and collapse to the floor, entirely spent. Today was my last shot, since the RLVs will be put away until after the Disney Marathon.

56.5 km later, I crushed it. The stars were aligned, my moon was in the house of Jupiter, or some other cosmic confluence of events occurred that gave me the power to not only finish, but basically dance up all the climbs. Either that, or I was just better prepared than my last attempt, which happened right after the honeymoon, and two days after a workout that left me with such significant DOMS that I could barely walk down the stairs that morning to hit the bike. Maybe that wasn't a great idea. Either way, today I stand as a man who finally defeated a glorified video game. I am win.

Training:
Bike: Pyrenees Stage RLV - 56.5 km, 2:39:xx (@232w avg)+10 min warm-up, 5 min cooldown

In The Beginning

Hello, and welcome to the new blog. With a change in athletic focus, it's time for a change in blogging. This blog will serve as a workout log, as well as a place for me to comment on progress, write race reports, and detail any sport-specific sensations. I won't have much here on my personal life (there's the old blog for that), instead leaving this for only training-related posts.

I'll try to keep things light, as much as talk of pace, heart rates, mileage and wattage can be kept light. Every once in a while, I might run a post twice through the Babelfish translator, to give it a true Super Karate Monkey feel.

Join me on my journey to become a triathlete. Enjoy my struggles to regain my running form. Enjoy my almost drowning as I learn to swim more than 10 metres. But mostly, enjoy my glowing failures and infrequent small successes as I work my way up the competitive ranks. So with a nod to NewsRadio (the most underrated sitcom of all time), welcome to the world of Super Karate Monkey Death Tri.