Update soon! I promise.

Busy bee lately. Update on things is forthcoming as I go into three weeks out before my first race of the season. :)

Tiny breakthroughs

If you've ever been stuck in a training rut you'll appreciate where I'm coming from.  After two years of being stuck at the same running pace, I'm making good progress in the right direction to getting a teeny tiny bit faster.

The United Healthcare half marathon was last Sunday and I had trained for this particular distance for the first time ever.  Actual training with speed work and tempo runs, the whole thing.  To top it all off, I followed it pretty well.  I made no excuses and I'm happy to say I got some good results.

I had a great race Sunday and managed to clock a 1:44 (7:59 min/mile average pace) taking six minutes off my previous half marathon time on the same race (similar course).  So my "Let's Get Faster in 2012" plan is working and I'm looking forward into going into my first half ironman with this run base and speed that I've built training for this race.

It feels nice to make a good training decision picking the half marathon over the marathon.  Now instead of a solid week's worth of recovery from a marathon  I was off for a day and back on the bike yesterday doing some hard intervals.

I also got to do my first race in my Eleonore Rocks colors and with my Infinit.  Both worked out really well.  Pictured above is my Kestrel/Eleonore Rocks race singlet I made with iron on transfers until my kits come sometime soon.  Even though it was a little arts and craftsy and had nothing to do with my cycling ability on the Kestrel end I was still super proud to be able to wear it.

I'm looking at doing a half ironman a month and a half marathon a month until the full ironman at Cedar Point in September.  Lofty I think, but necessary.  By November when I plan the run the Amica Newport half marathon where I want (ok need) my time to be well south of 1:40.  New goal, more training.  Now it's time to switch over my run focused training and start tempering it with get faster bike workouts, which will be great to stop the pounding on my feet and legs for a bit.

Training thoughts

My brain was mostly empty today as I reluctantly headed out for a 14 mile long run. I tried to fill it with positive thoughts or think of creative workouts because I'm working my training plan today for most of my season.

But all I could think about on this cool and rainy spring afternoon was how I didn't want to be running right now.

It started out achy and tired, still feeling my trail run earlier in the week and feeling my overnight shifts and crazy schedule earlier in the week.

I started thinking about how I'm always happy on perfect weather days spent training with good friends having fun. While these are great days and one of the reasons I love this sport, they suddenly didn't count as great training days.

I understood this moreso on a wet Sunday running miles and miles alone. Great training days happen when you want to quit or even never start but you follow through anyways. It's easy not to quit with company. When it's just you and some long, lonely miles it's a victory to be miserable and not take the shorter route home, to not quit because you don't want to.

Fighting the workout despite your results and pulling something positive out of the experience anyways. That's a great training day.

I ran today, I didn't feel fit or even fast. I felt pretty miserable and I was soaked and cold for 80% of my run. Despite feeling like junk I managed to keep on par (by seconds) with my best half marathon time.

From this kind of awful run today I pulled a pretty good conclusion that if I feel good on race day (even just a little better than today) I will PR, hopefully by a significant amount of time. It's just a half marathon, but it's an important step for me beginning my season and I'm pretty excited to see what I can do this year.

Hectic

Work and regular life have forced me into some kind of awful, hectic holding pattern or running around all over the state for all sorts of things.  So I haven't had time to update.

I've got crazy hours at all times of the day and night, Norah has Girls on the Run (which involves an easy hour to hour and fifteen minutes of driving each time...  twice a week), I have volunteer stuff at work to coordinate, the Girls on the Run 5K to help plan...  Workouts, swim classes, maybe some time to load the dishwasher/make dinner/do laundry and lastly maybe, maybe sleep.

Not else much going on.  Which is not true really, everything is going on.

Aside from my mastery of time management squeezing in workouts in whatever tiny amounts of time I have.  Darkness (cold and dark o'clock is my favorite time for a run), the hour where Norah is at Girls on the Run (great tempo workouts when you're going to be late picking her up), the two hours I have free between work (if I get out on time) and the time Ben's preschool closes (I love picking him up all sweaty decked out in a tri kit or running clothes).  Biking is slacking a touch because it requires the most gear, but I am packed in my car for every training and weather situation at any time.  It's like an athletic apocalypse in there.  I look a little homeless.

I started Masters Swim which I'm very, very excited about.  I have a long way to go, but it's a relief that I'm getting the swimming thing addressed and working on it.  Getting back in the pool every year is a hurdle for me because I hate swimming.  Most of that derives from being poor at it which derives from not receiving proper instruction.

I had one solid session, and I'm not even on the workouts yet, but I'm feeling much better in the water.  I know it's working because for the first time in almost three years of swimming I was sore in the muscles that you use for swimming.  Go figure.

I was just excited to make it a full lap across the pool the first day while the instructor watched and figured out what's wrong with my swimming.  When the assessment came up "not that bad" I was relieved.  That was my second time in a real 50 yard swimming pool and it seemed waaaay to big.  The first being at MIT for a Total Immersion clinic a year or two back where the instructor asked me if I had any "traumatic water incidents" as a child.  No joke.

Long story short, I felt better in the water.  More importantly, I went back to the pool to practice laps when it wasn't masters swim.  Huge victory.

I've had some easy bike rides, nothing major.  Working on my bike training plan to get some specific workouts in there outside and on the trainer.  Getting out for the long rides on the weekend has been a little harder, but I've been managing some good mid week distances.   I'm off Thursday and I need to get that done over pretty much everything else.

Running is going really well in the new shoes.  I'm running faster.  Which is pretty cool, but even more exciting when I know it's happening on purpose.  I ran almost thirty miles last week and all my runs averaged to 7:45 pace, even the perceived easy ones.  Which as a chronic 8:00+ minute miler with little improvement over time is really a big gain for me.  I'm getting really excited about the half marathon in three weeks, I think it's going to be a really good result.  I don't want to get too ahead of myself and post predictions, but I have a good goal.

Eleonore Rocks kits are coming soon, Kestrel kits are in the works.  I got my nutrition in today so I'll test that out today on my easy ride....  Big things, actually.  The fitness and the reasons are all coming together for this to be a really great season.

Time to go do some easy hills on the bike, hah!  That's funny.

Highlights

Not much happening at the moment.  Base training, writing training plans, looking into a few masters swim programs.  Kicking it into gear because my first half ironman is in 12 weeks.

We (Kevan and I) bought a CycleOps Powerbeam Pro to share between the two of us to train.  I'm looking forward to some sufferfest power training sessions at home.  The best part?  Unlike outside or the computrainer studio it really doesn't matter what I train in.  Aside from silly outfits and good times it means that I can train with power, which is an immensely helpful training tool.  I'm pretty excited.

Still training to PR the Cox Half Marathon, still on track for that.  Trying to figure out my newest shoe confusion. I've been training in the K Swiss K-Onas for about two months and I really like them, and I get a little calf pain.  Which I've credited to inefficient running form because I'm a pronator and not really a natural runner.  I bought Nike Free Runs on a whim at an expo last week to wear during TRX, run drills and to walk around in because I like the idea of minimalist shoes.  The foot strengthening idea seems great and I need to work on that to help with my pronation issues.

After hard intervals on the Computrainer on Tuesday night I ran afterwards with a friend in them at his pace, which would be a little easier for me.  I figured easy pace I could focus on form and see how the shoes felt without risking any kind of strain.  We did an easy 5k with a negative split at the end and I finished faster and feeling better than I had with the K-Onas.  I chalked it up to sometimes just changing shoes worked for me.

I am reticent to try new shoes after The Great Saucony Kinvara Incident of 2011 where I got new shoes for my birthday...  Minimalist, light, nicely constructed shoes.  My birthday happened to fall on a Wednesday which is group run night, 7 hilly miles through Providence's East Side.  I had done it at least 10 times before.  Long story short I wasn't made for those shoes and ended up in Physical Therapy.

So I ran the dreaded Wednesday night run in the Frees at a good pace, pain free.  I ran mid to forefoot and felt good.  And I have to say I woke up with minimal soreness and no calf pain to boot.  So I'll probably try and figure out what's happening via the internet and then if that fails go to Rhode Runner and consult them.

And I'm happy to say that I'm actually on the right bike and don't need to upgrade to a new and shiny Kestrel 4000, because turns out it may not be an upgrade for me after all.  I had a little new bike fever/envy via the Kestrel team and the Eleonore Rocks crowd and it was cured.  I'm always glad and grateful to know people with great bike knowledge that can help me decode these kinds of things.  Bike fit is so finicky and I'm so happy and comfortable with the Airfoil that it's a relief to not have to switch over.

So that means we make the Airfoil better.  I am having a hard time with race wheels.  Silly, tiny wheels.  I want to find something other than Zipp or HED but unless something else falls from the sky I would probably have to go that route.  Not that they aren't great wheels I'm just sure there are other options for me.  A lot of the little manufacturers I looked at that have great reviews just don't make wheels in my size.  So that may be a next year kind of thing.  I have a friend who'll let me borrow, so there is that.  A solution for this season.  But I would like to own.  It's one of those things that I won't feel like a real triathlete until I get race wheels.  Fancy bike and training wheels.  Sad.

Ok, it's a day off time to go walk my dog and then ride the bike for a couple of hours when it gets a touch warmer.  Just need to figure out where.

Base Building

Yesterday's bike workout: 54 very hilly miles, four Category 5 climbs.  It was a good ride.  3:22 but with a good amount of stopping.



If I could only be as consistent to do a workout like this every weekend leading up to triathlon season, I'd be all set.

Training Currency

I've decided that my the most important currency for me lately has been time.  I used to think I was at a disadvantage for a long time because I wasn't earning six figures and couldn't buy all the speed in the world.  I didn't have X bike and Y Wheels.

Balance is becoming harder and recently I've been trying to train smarter and harder with less time.  Two weeks of that and I'm getting much better results.  More intervals, harder efforts, less time.  I've had a decent amount of balance than over the winter.

Priorities being what they are it breaks down (in this order):

• Kids/Family/Relationship Time - Much more important than training or racing.  I want to give my two kids the world.  If I miss Monday's speed workout to help my daughter with her math homework then so be it.  I'll make it up another day.  It's harder now that I'm alone with them.  So on days they're with dad (if I'm not working) I need to make the most of it.
• Work - Need money to race, it's pretty simple.  Lately I'm putting in enough effort to stay employed.
• Training - That is what it is.
• Everything else

It's becoming more and more important that I nail workouts as they happen.  I'm waffling back and forth on coaching but I realize I'm kind of a nightmare when it comes to scheduling.  I would drive a coach nuts.  I drive myself nuts.  As I've learned with the Endurance Nation Fast Camp I signed up for...  I can't do anything in any kind of order, I try to keep a reasonable schedule.  Long runs, interval and long easy bikes, tempo runs, swimming...  But I can't commit to a weekly schedule, every day depending on work or kids is per diem for workouts.  So I'm still self coaching for a little while to see if I can still do it.  I self coached myself through an ironman last year, I think I can do it again this year.

Self coaching can be a great accomplishment and a great excuse I find.  If I do well, it's pretty amazing.  If I don't meet my goals, "Well, you know... I am self coached."

This year has much more volume than last year.  A half ironman at least once every month and a full in September.  A half marathon once a month so I can slowly creep my time down.  The 70.3 training is more speed focused and the 140.6 training is just trimming the fat off last year's time and going faster while keeping up the endurance.

I think last year with all the long, slower endurance training I realized maybe I wasn't meant for sprint and olympic distance triathlons.  I can do them, but I just can't push myself to that pace that's needed to do really well.  I can push the pace to squeak out a podium, but not win.

Current training for the Cox Half Marathon is going well.  I did a tempo long run (contradictory?) last night and kept pace for just under ten miles, easy effort.  I'm really hoping for a ten minute PR on that race at least.  Any PR on that race would be good, but I like goals.

Cycling training is definitely picking up as I head outdoors for the spring for longer rides.  I'm still looking to do shorter, power focused rides on the trainer.  Which is nice because I can do them and not worry about sunlight or the weather or time of day.

Off to enjoy this unusually warm weather in March (80ish in New England in March, what?!) the best way I know how, on my bike!