1 week until my first event

In 6 days, I will have finished my first triathlon of the season. It is amazing to me that I am planning on racing soon, when it has been to cold here in Milwaukee for me to ride outside more than one time. Last year the Bucknell Passionman Triathlon was a very warm spring day and took place in the afternoon. We could not have hoped for better weather. However, this coming Sunday is supposed to be around 60degrees and will be taking place in the morning.

The Bucknell Passionman site: passionman.wordpress.com
- find the course maps and general info here

My final week of preparation will look like most other weeks of training. I will be in the pool Monday - Thursday. I plan to run a 10k today, a 5k tomorrow, and some very light 5ks Wednesday and Thursday. I'm not pushing any of my workouts hard this week. Due to the short length of the Passionman, I don't feel the need to taper into the race. At one point, the bike portion of the race was the least of my concern. However, because of the weather I have been confined to the indoors and not fully tested myself on the bike out on the road. I hope all those spinning classes will carry over well....

My goals for the race are as follows:
Swim: 650m 10 mins
Bike: 13.2miles 35 mins
Run: 3.1miles 21 mins

Last year I had to strategize where I would expend my energy. This year it will be all out for the entire course. A course of this distance requires speed and adrenaline, not endurance and strategy this time around. The real question is what to wear and how to transition. Were it to be another warm beautiful day, I would wear only a tri suit and only change shoes (no socks) at the transition area. At 60degrees and partly cloudy, I might want to look into drying off after the pool and a long sleeve jersey... That will have to be a game time decision.

I am looking forward to this race and hope to beat my goals and possibly bring home the gold metal (for non students) ;)

Sick Days

The past week has been a bad week of training on two fronts. First, the few extremely nice days we had early last week resulted in lazyiness once it got cold again. I just dont want to run on a treadmill after knowing how nice it is to run outside. Also, now that I have gotten out for a short ride on the new bike, I dont want to go to a small dark spin room. Second, the changing temperatures resulted in a bad stomach flu over the weekend and I am still attempting to fully get over it. Work in combination with being sick is not a good recipe for cardio workouts. while I feel better today, I am still fairly exausted from not eating well the past few days.

I definately believe its important to fully recover from an injury or sickness before going back into training, but today I am going to try a light and easy 5k on the treadmill. It might help to get the blood pumping and pick up my energy levels.

My nutrition has also been sub par the past week. I truely want to make a push to eat well and its is proving to be very difficult. This weekend I'll be stocking up at Sam's Club and the Local Market, so anyone out there with some advice on nutrition.... let me know now. Otherwise, I see a lot of chicken, eggs, and talapia dishes in my future.

I am not going to post the workout plan for the last week, because I didnt do it. I know, I know, not good, but its time to get back on the indoor bike and treadmill for a little while longer.

Swim and Run Time Trials

After the tri camp, I am mentally entering a new stage of my training.  I aim to have a steady training plan, more defined goals and objectives, a better diet, and an overall commitment increase.  The plan starts on Monday and I will be trying out what is called a CRASH week.  I will talk more in depth about what that entails in a different post.  In order to prepare some short term goals, I performed a swim test of 1500yrds and a 10k run test.

The 1500yrd swim test was easily done in 27:30.  I hope to drastically improve upon this time by the end of March to 22:30 or 45seconds per 50.  Swimming will become a focus as it is definitely one of my limiters.

The 10k time trial was even a little better than expected.  I had set a mental goal for myself of 55mins and performed the test at 53:50.  I would like to drop this time to 50mins flat before drastically stepping up my distance on the run.  And, courtesy of the New Garmin Forerunner 305, here is my heart rate during the 10k:

Why do an IronMan?

I think that one consistent piece of every triathletes training and race day is that he or she knows why they are competing.  However, this motivating factor is not always easy to put into words.  Just as I believe it is important to have tangible written goals, I think it is important to examine one's reason for training for and competing in an IronMan event.

That being said, I can not seem to put my reason for competing into words.  I think I grew up on athletic competition, especially in Lacrosse, and miss the pure exhilaration I got from competing and also from winning.  Throughout college I tried every sport ranging from skiing to surfing to skydiving.  However, I have come back to the basic acts of swim, bike, and run, and found a way to push myself mentally and physically to be a more driven individual.

MSE Triathlon Camp Day 3

The camp is now over, and just in time to head back to work tomorrow :(.  The final day really pulled everything together for me.  Our schedule was simple:

7-8 Breakfast

8:30-9:45 Swim Drills (more doing today and less learning) + 5 50s on 1min15

9:45-10:30 Open Water swimming

11-12:15 Spinning with Nathan

Lunch, Q&A, Closing

So while it was a simple day, I was really able to get a lot out of the swim.  First, I go a half decent swim workout in.  Second, Dwight was able to work with me a little bit on getting mroe power out of my stroke.  By turning my hip more and stretching out my pull hand, I'll better be able to use my core to snap back and get a more effective pull.  I look forward to working on that in my next few pool workouts.

Spinning was great because it felt terrible.  I have been an All Star on the spin bikes at the gym, but there isn't any substitute for your bike on a trainer.  It was without a doubt more difficult if only because I think it forces you to use slightly different muscles.

That was that.  I dont think I will be enlisting any of the coaches for training plans.  I feel that I was able to get good enough high level advice on training plans that I can work out my own.  Monday and Tuesday will be rest days this coming week and I'm going to be using that time to build the year long plan.  So far three races on the horizon (Passionman Tri Bucknell, High Cliff 1/2 Iron WI, and FL Ironman 140.6).

MSE Winter Tri Camp, Day 2

I'm going to break this post down into a few sections because of the immense amount of things I learned and experienced today. I will warn you now its a long post.

First, I want to comment on the overall skill level of those attending. My initial assumptions were totally off. I assumed that the people who would attend a tri training camp would be experienced. Yes, its billed as an all levels event. But, that was my assumption none the less. This is not the case. The average skill level is low. I had expected to be one of the least in shape and experienced athletes and find myself closer to the top. This in itself would not be a bad thing, however, there hasn't been any group work based on skill level. I don't want to sound snobby here because I really do enjoy everyone at the event, but I quickly tired of catching people in the pool after 10 yards. But thats enough of that. Now on to the excellent stuff thats been going on.

The Morning
The coaches mentioned in my last post continue to prove themselves to be excellent mentors and knowlegable athletes. We started the day with some dynamic stretching where I continue to learn little things I do wrong on a regular basis. After breakfast we headed into the pool, where Dwight ran through an extensive amount of swim drills with us. I would dive underwater to watch his demonstrations and his form was awesome to see. The drills I knew, but I got some excellent on site feedback on ways to tweak my personal stroke during various drills. We also had our swim taped from underwater head on, underwater from the side, and above water. I am very pleased to say that when reviewing my stroke, Dwight didn't have much immediate feedback. He wants to work a bit more with me tomorrow on really harnessing the power of my body rotation during the stroke, so look for a report on that tomorrow.

Next up were some running drills aimed at teaching us how are foot should be striking the ground. I can only describe it by saying that you should land on the middle (ball) of your foot using a hamstring pull. I am sorry but Im still wrapping my head around the details deeper than that. We also video taped the run. Now, I have never claimed to be a good runner. In fact, I hate running (although I'm beginning to like it more, shh). I was still unprepared for what I saw on the running video. I do was called extreme pronation. This is only visible in slow motion from behind, and appears to be mostly on my right foot. In order to work on this, I need to focus first on landing on the balls of my feet in that sweeping hamstring pull motion. Next, I need to look at a shoe change (which is depressing because I just bought these shoes).

Im losing focus on this post so I'll stop it here. We also did some cycling and nutrition which I will try to remember to post about tomorrow, but probably not. Also, on a gear note, I really want the Garmin 405 (might have to settle for the 305 ;), and I still want the Equinox TTX 9.9 SSL. Our coach Nate has the 2008 version. Awesome.

Another whole week past

Rather than doing another boring workout recap, I am going to ramble instead.  Overall, it was an ok week of training.  I received 3 books from Amazon: Triathletes Training Bible, Training Plans for Multi-Sport Athletes, and Going Long.  I have started going through the Training Bible, and it keeps referencing the difference between newbies and seasoned athletes.  One of the major differences is training randomly vs training with a plan.  The pros use a plan that does not change daily.  They have specific goals.  They work towards those goals with and without emotion.  They allow emotion to drive them and to drive their passion.  But professionals do not let emotion drive their workouts.  Emotion can not drive daily, weekly, or season long workout plans.

For the time being, I am going to continue with my "amateur" approach.  However, by the end of the week I intend to have developed a steadfast plan that I can direct my effort into.

Week's Training Log Review

Sunday:  Off Day, Go Steelers!!!!!!

Monday: Spin 4:30-7.  First 30mins warm up on my own.  5-6 Spin Class:  I was able to push myself harder during this hour than on past Monday's which really made the 6-7 spin class with Joanie that much more grueling.  I still asked for 30-45 second pick ups each time, but certainly couldn't feel my legs after about 15 mins.  The thing that Joanie doesn't let you do is slow down.  And when you do take a quick 15 second recovery and lessen the resistance, you immediately start picking it up in RPMs and resistance (at your own pace, but the reminders help).

Tuesday: Run 6 miles in 59.30.  This run felt terrible.  I was cramping the whole time.  In order to get it done in at least 10 min miles, I kept telling myself "Garret if you can't push though this 6 mile run, you wont ever make an iron man."  It proved to be enough motivation to get it done!

Wednesday: Off Day.  I'm seriously debating changing Wed from an off day.  I miss the workout to much.

Thursday:  Swim 2500 yards with drill worked in.  First day working out at the MAC (see previous post).

Friday: 50min Spin with Michelle.  I might have to stop going to this one.  Michelle isn't my kind of instructor.  We had to many rest periods and not enough push from her to work harder.  Her class just isn't my style, although I think she is a good spin instructor.  We'll have to see if I go back next week.

Saturday:  Was supposed to run, but ended up sleeping and resting all day.  I'm not very happy with myself on this one.  Especially because it was nice enough to run outside.