While my last post may sound like I'm down it is not the case. I'm actually back to regular training even with my busy work and travel schedule. I have just recently signed-up for my next big challenge. So next year on July 24th I'll be racing with about 2500 of my closest friends in one of the oldest IM races in the US. Entry is confirmed, money spent and all that remains is to train for it. I'm really looking forward to this. Until then I'll keep racing and get back on the running horse.
I haven't been keeping up with this blog lately. It has various reasons that can be summarized as family, work and training keeping me crazy busy. I decided to post a summary of random items and thoughts related to training and other mostly sport activities I did or plan to do in the near future.
Training has been going real well. Craig and Erica keep me on my toes and I must say that the training makes me feel like I'm building a solid engine to carry me through this season. I may have mentioned it here before, this year I focus on longer races and will be doing quite a few 70.3 races. Actually 70.3 is my focus for this year and I plan to do a long course aqua-velo race in late September as preparation for full Ironman in 2010.
Weather has been turning nicer in PA and running outside is going well. Today was my first day on the bike outside and it was a blast. I did little under 3 hours ride in the neighborhood and enjoyed every bit of it - even the climb to South Mountain. It was a fartlek ride so I did some fast climbs, easy riding, fast descends, long steady segments - had it all on this ride. Tomorrow is long run and I wonder how well my legs will carry me in steady state run with 20 minutes tempo and pick-ups to 5k race pace thrown at the end. Should be fun. Next week is my very first duathlon on Sunday. Still need to sit down and think through the race plan. I seem to do better when I have solid plan preferably with backup going into the new race format.
Few weeks ago Dasa and I ran races in Quakertown. Dasa did the 4 mile run and I did the 10 miler. If you are not familiar with the area where I live let me describe it to you - fairly hilly. Locals call it PA rolling terrain. People from flat lands would probably call it bloody hilly. In any case the 10 miler was on fairly hilly terrain and it is one of the races that tests your pacing strategy. Dasa did very well in her 4 miler even though she was not happy with the hills and had to walk parts of the course. I did quite OK in the 10 miler and recorded a new PR - well I kind of expected it as last time I ran 10 mile race was 10 mi South Mountain race and that is just one hill - all the way up and back down. This Quakertown 10 miler is little easier and sports more varied terrain (not climbing up for 3.5 miles and then running back for 3.5 miles as on South Mountain). In case you want to check the terrain and my race log you can look at the Training Peaks for details.
I have not been checking the Polar product pages over the past few weeks, but I remembered seeing a new add in Triathlon magazine - something about 3D training. The watch in the add looked new so the other day I browsed through the Polar running and multisport computers and noticed few new things. The S625X seems to be phased out from the product line (at least it no longer appear on the polar.fi pages. The S725X is still being offered and effectively can be used instead of S625X if you add the foot pod.
But more interesting is the new watch for recreational athletes - RS300X. It looks like a replacement of the RS200 watch, but it adds the ability to work with G1 GPS sensor for speed and distance. It seems to be geared to runners, but I assume that it can be used for cycling, walking and other activities if you use the G1 GPS sensor to record speed/distance. Looks like a nice basic no frills watch for people that want to keep their training simple and still get the benefit of speed/distance and heart rate. Polar sells the watch in few packages - base watch without any speed/distance sensor, second is bundled with S1 foot pod and third option comes with the G1 sensor. Each package contains the HR Wearlink+ belt with T31 HR transmitter. The watch comes in black or orange color (just like the RS200 used to be offered in black and red). The pricing in the US is very reasonable 170 USD for the base watch and 250 USD for one of the packages with either S1 or G1. You can actually get them for about 20 bucks under MSRP from most dealers. I hope I can get my hands on one to provide more details.
Another big news that I have not touched on is the availability of the CS600X which is an upgrade of the CS600 bike computer that enables GPS location recording (just like the RS800cx does). I have not seen the unit yet, but expect that it provides the same capabilities as CS600. From the manuals it looks like it has larger memory and few minor differences. But the core functionality is very close to CS600. Just like CS600 Polar offers the CS600X in two boxes - one without power and one with power. If you already own CS600 with power you can simply swap the CS600 head unit for CS600X (and sell the used CS600 on eBay). All sensors should work fine with the CS600X as they also use the W.I.N.D. technology. I do not believe there is an upgrade program offered by Polar in any country.
I have got the Suunto X10 ABC watch few weeks ago and really love it. I do not use it for running or biking (well I may take it on some bike rides or runs when I plan to get lost and use the track back home function). But I started to get my feet wet with geocaching. I'm just getting started and attempted to find only two caches. One successfully one was hidden very well so maybe next time. It is an interesting way to explore the neighborhood - I never knew there are about 20 caches in 20 miles radius around my house. What I like even better is that Ian likes it too and seems to be interested in finding the caches. We have yet to find one where we can take something (and put something of similar value back). It seems like a good fun and great way to get out of the house for a walk in the park. If you never heard about geocaching you can find more info on the geocaching.com site
Few years ago when we went to Dominican Republic for vacation I got certified in open water diving by PADI. I have dived on subsequent trips to Caribbean and enjoyed it a lot. But in the past few years I have not done any diving. Last year when Erica and Craig organized open water swim in Dutch Springs I envied the groups of divers getting ready to go under. I'm thinking about taking refresher course this year and doing some diving on weekends when weather gets warmer. I'm sure I can enjoy the diving even in the colder water of PA. Obviously trip to Caribbean would be nice, but I do not believe it will happen any time soon... Any triathletes out there that also do diving? Any tips for getting started again?
Just a short post about the progression of my swim training. Erica looked at my stroke last year in September and fixed few things I discussed in earlier post. Working on these swim stroke issues helped quite a bit. Well the fact that I was in the pool 3-4 times a week since September probably plays role as well.
The more I swim the more I'm understanding the term - 'getting feel for the water'. I can now actually feel when my hand does not move efficiently or when I tilt my head or kick in the wrong way. So things definitely improved. And I also have some stats to back this claim up.
We have done testing on approximately monthly basis. The test protocol is fairly easy. After warm-up I swim 300 yd during which I build up to a pace I think I can sustain for the whole set. Then take 20 seconds breather by the wall and do 3x100 yd with 15s rest followed by 300 yd. The total time from the start of the first 300 yd to the finish of the last 300 yd counts as the test time. Here are the test results of the past tests from October to just few days ago.
By the way the bike and run training is moving in the right direction as well. Craig had me doing some serious bike and run tempo work on the weekends. I feel that this is going to make me fast this season. I can't wait for the first tri race which will actually be the Black Bear half ironman in late May.
Well the title says it all - after the marathon Erica and Craig had me swim a lot and do some biking. I have been in the pool three times every week and I really enjoy the swim sessions in the pool. Erica keeps my swims interesting and mixes in a good balance of drills, speed work and longer segments. But we keep everything under 300 yd in one go which is what I need. I get easily bored.
One of the interesting elements we did this week is the Locomotive which keeps the 300 yd interesting - basically the locomotive is alternating easy and hard pace on increasing distance segments - you start with 25 easy, then do 25 hard then repeat the ez/hard for 50 yd distance and last the same for 75 yd. You can also do reverse locomotive which is the same drill in reverse - starting with 75 hard / 75 easy and so on. I really like these ez/hard combinations. They make the time in the pool fly by so fast. I have been really enjoying the swims this time of the year and like the way I'm getting the feel for the water. I can actually feel the water as I swim and feel the difference between different positions of my hand on entry and pull, feel the water resistance depending on how my body is positioned and recently I started to get hang of the kicking. Kicking is something that I still need to work on quite a lot as I tend to not kick much during the swim. And yes my times for 100 yd swim have been dropping down which is great. I hope this will continue through out the winter and my swim will get better in next season.
Like most athletes on this side of the globe I'm enjoying the beauty of the off-season. With all the key events out of the way I'm already looking into the next year. After evaluation of this year I decided that the next year focus will be on the half distance or 70.3 if you will.
There are few reasons behind this decision - first and quite important one is that I just love racing this distance. It is challenging enough, but it does not wipe you out for many weeks. This past season I was actually able to finish two 70.3 races in the same month without much suffering (well if you do not count the gash in my leg I suffered in the second race in bike crash). Second reason is that you can actually train for this distance on fairly reasonable schedule. Which means that you can still keep your job and maintain reasonable level of social life. You do not need to become training and race goals obsessed as with full Ironman training. It is all about balance.
I already discussed the preliminary race schedule with Craig and ran few ideas by him over the past few weeks. After the first discussion I already secured spot at my key race which will be a new venue for me - Ironman 70.3 in Rhode Island. I have read few good reviews of the race and I wanted to try one of the officially sanctioned events next year. It is within driving distance which was also something I considered. Prior to this race I'll do Black Bear half ironman which is pretty tough course, but that is a race I wanted to do. I like killer courses that thrash you - I did the Black Bear sprint this year and did not do all that bad considering the total meltdown during the swim. Plus CGI always puts on great events. I'm considering few other 70.3 races in the region one of which is Quakerman half which I have raced in the past two years and always had a great day securing second spot in my AG. Leading up to the Black Bear I'll do few running races 10k in February, half marathon in early May and I'd like to do mid-May duathlon in the area where I live. But that may be a challenge to squeeze in with the half marathon and half ironman on both ends of month of May. I'm still likely to do the Anthracite Tri which is Olympic distance course on tough biking and run course - well it is in Poconos just like Black Bear and the hills are just hard to avoid in that area. I may do Steelman Olympic distance race and I'm still looking for late season half to close off the season. I may do the Beach to Battleship half if I can find money to get there with my family and bike.
The season plan is not all locked down, but I already have few key races I'm aiming for so my training can start taking shape again in early 2009 to get ready for the bear...
I have not talked about training lately. But since my bike accident in late September I have been trying to get back to marathon training. I had two rocky weeks when I was suffering from cold. But I have been back on the road in the past few weeks and completed some tempo runs and long runs. With one long run little shy of 3 hours just this past Sunday.
Am I ready to race in less than 12 days? I guess I'm as ready as I can get. And I'm sure Craig has some more fine tuning in store for me. I'm ready mentally and that is what counts. I'll go out there and run as good as I can. It will be my very first attempt at the marathon distance so I take it as much as a learning experience as a race with the clock. I have my goal, but I'll be flexible and adjust as the day goes (and that means both ways). I learned on the long runs that the going gets tough past the mile 16, but I also learned that you can keep pushing and it gets better (not necessarily easier). So with the few days to go I continue running, biking and swimming. I hope to see some of you down in Philly. If you see me say hello as I do not necessarily know you :-).
I'll be in Philly on Saturday afternoon together with my support crew - my son, wife, mother in law and a friend of the family. Anyone staying over night in Philly and wanting to get together for a chat or sip of pearly water let me know. I'm chicken the night before race - no need to inflict more pain by bad habits than what the distance causes itself. But I'll for sure get a glass of good red wine the night after the race. Do you know any good restaurants downtown that accommodate larger group with a kid? I'd like to get some good, but light meal and get good sleep. It does not necessarily need to be Italian pasta, but I'm not really looking for steak house either... See you down in Philly.
Also I plan to be at the expo on Friday between 2-4pm let me know if you will be around we can meet-up and chat before I hike back to the woods north of Philly.
This is a third article focused on how I use the HRM in training. If you missed the previous articles you can find them on this site. Follow the links below:
RS800CX - more detailed review of the functions I.
RS800CX - more detailed review of the functions II.
I selected a different title for this post than for the previous two as it is not much about the RS800CX watch, but more about 3rd party software I use for analysis of data that I gather during training. I'll also make references to CS600 with power sensor as that is what I use on my bike and the software analysis tools leverage the power data. And lastly instead of discussing the programs one by one without much context I'll talk about the entire process from the workout planning to the analysis of results of individual sessions as well as weekly, monthly and season.
Before we get down to the details let me talk a little about the software I use for my training. First up is the TrainingPeaks.com - website designed for endurance athletes that fully follows the Triathlete's Training Bible from Joe Friel (and also Cyclist's Training Bible from the same author). The Training Bible outlines a very structured approach to planning an entire racing season and periodizing the training for peaking at the key events. The TrainingPeaks.com site helps with planning the season, setting the goals and monitoring the progress.
Second software I use is the WKO+ from the same group that developed TrainingPeaks.com. The WKO+ used to be called CyclingPeaks and was geared towards cyclists, but in the recent few updates the software introduced features that help runners assess their workouts. As you can expect there is integration between the WKO+ and TrainingPeaks.com.
The third software package I started to use recently is the FirstBeat Athlete. The FB Athlete provides wealth of features including the Training Coach, but I use only parts of it that I found useful. I do not use the Training Coach in the FB Athlete as I prefer to rely on real coach rather than have software determine my plans for me. But there are folks that rely on software for fitness level training and are quite happy with the results. Now with the major packages introduced let's look at how I use them through out the season.
I'm not going to describe the whole Training Bible philosophy here, you can read it in the Training Bible books (note that new version of The Triathlete's Training Bible will be released soon, I suggest you to wait for it as Joe Friel made significant revisions to the book as he discusses on his blog. In short the season planning is done after your last priority A race in the previous season. The planning starts with setting the preferences for the next season like annual training hours, time frame, your personal data, then you are guided through setting the season goals and assessing your limiters. In the next step you plan individual races for the season and prioritize them as A, B or C events. Essentially the A events are the ones you will taper for and B, C events are either tune up races or testing races. It does not mean that you do not push hard in B or C race, it just helps you structure your plan. Once you set the races and their priorities the site will compute your annual training plan. The training plan basically spreads the annual training hours through out the season and assigns each week to a specific training phase (transition, preparation, base, build, peak, race). There is logic in the software that assigns the hours to each week according to the phase that you will be in during that week. You can adjust the annual training plan any time later or even re-calculate it during the season in case you need to re-assess due to unforeseen circumstances. The next step is to plan your week. The picture below shows the annual training plan that already has workouts logged against it (new one would be empty). Also note that the training plan has section for strength training, swim, bike and run and for each week you can determine which abilities you will work on (see the colorful bars at the top of the picture). The annual plan suggests the sports you need to work on based on the races you planned, but you can modify the plan as you see fit. There is much more that you can do with the plan, but as an introduction this is hopefully sufficient.
When I started training few years ago I used to put plan for the entire build-up to the A-race into the TrainingPeaks.com and it was typically a plan I derived from a book or combination of few canned plans. Few months ago I hired a coach and no longer do the detailed weekly planning. I receive them and execute them to the best of my ability. Typically my coach plans first few days of my week on Sunday the previous week and the rest in early part of the training week. There is a general schedule we agreed in the beginning that is pretty much dictated by my work and family commitments. If I have any changes to the general schedule or my status (like injury or sickness) I advise my coach via e-mail or through the TrainingPeaks.com site. The next picture shows the completed week (actually this is my last week) with individual workouts and instructions from my coach.
The second picture shows one of the planned workouts. Besides having the workouts on-line the site also sends you e-mail (if you chose to) with the workouts for next two days. If you need to you can move workouts around (unless they are from your coach - then you need to ask for them to move it).
For more complex workouts or for workouts in which I want the HRM to monitor key parameters of the workout I create planned workout in PPT5. In the workout I set the limits as I need them in the specific workout - for cycling sessions it is generally HR, cadence or power (I use CS600 with power), for run sessions I use mostly HR limits. I do not plan swim sessions in the PPT5 as the S625X does not support guided workouts the same way RS800CX and CS600 do. Plus when I swim I just have a printout of the workout in a ziploc bag on the pool side and follow it - not a big need to have the watch beep at me. Example of workout in the PPT5 is below.
The planned workout is then transferred to the HRM and I execute the training session according to the guidance. In case of simple workouts I use the Free workout type from the watch which does not have any guidance and is ideal for self-guided workout.
After the workout is complete I load it to the PPT5 and look at the key parameters of the workout. The PPT5 has been discussed in the previous articles so I'll not go into too much detail here. Typically the assessment consists of reviewing the pacing information, looking at whether I reached the workout goals and assessing where I had troubles. This may be a very short assessment for some workouts like easy recovery workout where I would only check if I went too hard at any point. For specific workouts like long bike, brick or long run I would look at the splits, power output (in cycling), pace, cadence and other variables on the chart shown below.
The PPT5 allows to change the selection (the thick blue bar under the graph) and select specific segment or segments (even non-continuus) and then review parameters for the selection. I may also add notes, laps and correct the errors in the recording (which does not happen often).
Once I'm done with the workout editing in the PPT5 I take the hrm file and load it to the WKO+. In the WKO+ I look at the overall training stress score (TSS) and intensity factor (IF). Note that the TSS and IF get only calculated for cycling workouts with power and running workouts with pace/distance data.
Then I look at the individual parameters of the workout and review the power zones (for cycling) and HR zones (for running) on the screen shown below. I also tend to look at Mean Maximal Pace for runs and Mean Maximal Power for cycling sessions. The software is very flexible and lets you define additional graphs to review other parameters of the session.
For majority of sessions I also look at the detailed graph and look at other parameters - like HR / power or HR / pace decoupling that is quite good way to assess your base in long steady state efforts. I may analyze cycling sessions to see how many candles I have burned - this is quite useful for race analysis to understand why you blew-up later on bike or did not have good run in triathlon race. There is just a lot you can derive from WKO+, but the software requires you to do good amount of reading of the manuals and I also recommend you to read Joe Friel's blog. Following picture shows the detailed graph of the session.
Last step in WKO+ is to load the workout results to the TrainingPeaks.com along with comments for my coach. The TrainingPeaks.com then lets my coach review the workout in detail and if I want I can share the workout with my friends via Facebook or just send people link to the workout details.
After that I take the R-R file from the workout and dump it into the FB Athlete for very quick assessment. I do not rely much on the FB Athlete in my training and use it to assess and cross-validate the overall weekly load. The FB Athlete computes EPOC and Training Effect for individual workouts and that is all I use it for. I do not utilize the Training Coach function. Here is a picture of the FB Athlete page.
For some workouts I review the graph showing which part of the workout I spent in which VO2 zone. It is interesting to see where I labored more than I should have. But I do not really rely much on the FB Athlete results and use them only as additional info.
On regular basis I review the weekly, monthly and entire season statistics. Most useful are the graphs I get from the WKO+. The program comes with pre-defined set of graphs that you can modify or add new ones to analyze your entire season, previous few days or specific date range. I have bunch of graphs on my overview page that show me weekly training volume and time for the season, HR distribution for the entire season and then the same graphs for each sport. For cycling I have a section that shows distribution of power in automatic buckets and also in training zones, mean maximal power over the previous month with mean heart rate, mean maximal power and mean maximal pace for the season and week, training stress and intensity factor for biking and running, cadence for biking and running, performance management chart and summary of the training with weekly and monthly average HR, TSS, power and pace. If you want other stats you can play around with the graphs and get them displayed on your athlete page in the WKO+. Sample of the page is below - not all graphs are displayed. Again as for other WKO+ related details read the WKO+ help on-line.
Second area where I look for overall data about the training volume is the TrainingPeaks.com - the Annual Training Plan shown on the first picture in this article shows the volume per week. The Actual field then indicates with color code whether I trained just enough (no background), more (red) or less (yellow) that planned.
As a secondary information for my weekly load I look at the overall EPOC for the week in the FB Athlete. The summary of the week is on the right side of the picture below.
If I used the FB Athlete for training planning I could also look at the training plan that dynamically changes as the workout results get loaded to the software. According to the software help the recommended training sessions should be taken as recommended durations and TE levels. If you need more time to achieve the TE you can take more time. I did not do any analysis of this function so I can not really comment on this.
This is in nutshell how I use the software to help me train. I must admit that I'm a geek and enjoy playing around with gadgets and hoard data that I can later review and analyze. It is important to say that you do not need to do all this to be successful. The most important part of all this is actually me working with personal coach. The rest is just making it more fun for me to train...
This week I slowly ramped-up the training volume and although it was a slow start the overall results for the week are not bad. I had great long bike ride yesterday. Took off in the afternoon in the general direction of one major route that I knew heads to next city. I followed the back roads and enjoyed the colors of autumn that is turning the leaves to all very nice mix of yellow, red and green. After about 20 miles I encountered a huge climb on which I had to stand and was moving up the hill at about 4-7mph while pushing the pedals real hard. It was a tough climb, but I'll be riding that route again. It is a great challenge. I may reverse direction as the other side of the hill looked as challenging as the one I was taking. The rest of the ride was as good and I really enjoyed the time out. I did some fast descends to see if I chicken out after the crash, but nope I can still get going down the hill.
Today was a run and swim day and it was as good as the biking. I ran this morning for about an hour and covered little over 7 miles at fairly relaxing pace - not really slacking pace, but I was not laboring during the run. It was a nice and chilly morning so I really enjoyed the time out while listening to IM Talk podcast discussing predictions for Kona. Well I saw Kona on the web last night and could compare the predictions with reality. They got the women's winner right, but did not almost even talk about Crowie. Well I guess so much for predictions of such a long and unpredictable race. Anyways the run went well and I had really great time out. Then in the afternoon I went to the local pool and swam a good 40 minutes session focusing on the areas Erica pointed out I need to work on. The pool was busy with some kind of party, but almost no-one swam so I had lane to myself and enjoyed my time in the water. I also tested rubber HR belt instead of the Wearlink+ that tends to flood and report weird heart rate - like 18 bpm after a hard 50 yards. The rubber belt worked very well and I did not see even one problem. At times I had little lower HR, but never below 100 which is what I would expect in a swim with fairly short rest intervals. I'm back to training and enjoying every minute of it.
I want to thank you all of you who contacted me over the past few weeks via comments, e-mails, Twitter or personally with the wishes of speedy recovery. Indeed I have been making good progress. Already last week Craig suggested easy spins on the bike trainer and they were not giving me any trouble even with the staples in my leg. We later added long walks with my son which was very good combination of physical exercise and family time (I wish I could do that with the other training as well). And yesterday was the first day when I ran - whole 10 minutes after 40 minutes on the bike. And everything felt good. My ankle is still little stiff, but it does not swell or hurt. Things are definitely looking up. Tomorrow is 30 minutes run and a short pool session.
This past Saturday I did another pre-ride of the JerseyMan Half Ironman distance race course. This time I did not get lost, did not climb four additional hills and kept pretty well within the power levels to keep the ride fast enough, but not race it. The ride was after a night of raining and the weather was quite humid, but very nice especially the part around the river.
The bike course profile is below and as you can see it is full of rolling hills, false flats especially in the front and back end of the course. The profile is starting in the parking lot about 2 miles up from the start, goes through the whole course (that is the long part to the first dot) and the rest of the profile shows the descend to the park, me riding down to the water, out to the run exit (at least for the event that they were marking for this weekend) and then climb back to the parking lot. It will be fun to ride this course. I'm looking forward to next week Sunday.
To quote my son's favorite character from movie Cars" "Speed. I'm speed." Exactly that is how I felt during the swim workout today. Yes we are continuing on my yesterday's post about improved swimming technique. Today was another swim workout in which Erica had me do 10x50yd and 5x100yd on fairly short rest. I was to vary between strong/hard effort and easy ones. Amazing swim that is all I can say about it. The last 100 yd in the set was all out and I swam it in 1:27 which is huge for me. I know I can not sustain such speed race, but it certainly makes you feel like speed daemon after doing 100 yd in 1:40 - 1:50 for over a year.
All it took was a trained eye and correction of style that seems to be fairly easy to implement. And I only started working on it last week. I wonder how much faster I get when I nail the kicking and breathing head position. I can actually feel when I swim when I do it wrong with the breathing - my body kind of fishtails and I need to correct it. Simply amazing. I'm actually looking forward to the race and will see what this does for the swim split.
Past week was my longest this season mainly because I decided at the last moment that it may be a good idea to complete two HIM races in September and secondly because I'm in third week of training for my first marathon. So most of my training at this point are long rides, long bricks or long runs. The weekend was pretty brutal - 3:20 brick on Saturday followed by 3:00 run on Sunday and complemented by recovery 20 minutes swim (that was actually the easy part). I also started working with personal trainers to get better. I'm already seeing pretty significant improvement in my swim technique - after only one session. My trainer Erica looked at my swim and suggested few small changes I can implement for the upcoming race. Actually the small changes helped me understand how 'feeling the water' should really feel. We will see if the changes make me faster during the race this weekend, but I can honestly say that they make my swimming more enjoyable and I can feel that I do not spend as much energy swimming as I used to. It is still long way to go to get the new habits engrained, but I'm really excited about this progress.
Think of me next Saturday at 7a.m. ET when the EnduraSports Quakerman Half Iron distance race starts. I'll be at the staring line trying to beat my last year's time. And then again on September 28th when I line-up at the JerseyMan Half Ironman distance race in Clinton NJ. I hope next Saturday will not be as hot as last year, but in any case I have plenty of salt tablets ready. Good luck everybody racing next weekend.
Today I went out riding in Clinton NJ where I'll be racing the half iron distance course in late September in the first installment of the JerseyMan triathlon. Today was second official organized ride, but it started at 8am and I wanted to get finished little earlier so I headed out on the course few minutes after 7am. The course was well marked and if I did not goof off I would not need to back track few times I did. The ride started at the parking lot about a mile and a half away from the Spruce Run park entrance. The first few miles are rolling terrain with few small climbs, but nothing very serious. I missed one turn and had to repeat the little loop twice to backtrack. Adding good 2 miles and two nice climbs very early in the ride. Third time is a charm and I found the turn and got back on track. In the race the climbs will not be there so the first part is relatively easy ride. Once you make turn on the route 513 it is rolling hills which means that if you keep momentum going you will not have any problems and will not need to get much out of the saddle - unless you want to. Descend to Frenchtown is great and in the race I'll let it go. I did take it easy today and did not ride aggressively on most descends not knowing what follows. From French town the route continues on RT29 which sports a lot of flats and false flat sections. It is nice, scenic although towards the end I was little bored - you will definitely not want to leave your aero position on this section. Then after a short ride on Rt519 you turn onto Lower Creek Road look for rough road, few bumps and potholes. They are hard to see under the tree cover and you may be surprised few times. I'll definitely not hammer in that section and the course asks for 23 mm tires. Then you will ride through the covered bridge - I snapped photo of it and also the NJ Multisport has it on the main page of the event.
After sharp right turn after the bridge there is some climbing to do - pretty steep hill on which you may as well stand-up and get your lags straightened. I climbed all the way up, rode for about half a mile and then rode back because I though I got lost. Oh well I climbed the hill again, met with one of the race directors in the middle of the climb. He warned me about the open grate bridge few miles up and off I went. Don;t get me wrong the course was very well marked, I just goofed off and did not pay attention and missed turns or got unsure where I am because my bike computer crapped out on me from the beginning so I could not really go by the provided turn-by-turn directions. Lots of adding and subtracting miles. But from this point on I did not have any issues. Soon I was back on route 519 which is really fast and you can let it all go. From this part on the course is more open - no more tree cover and shielding from the wind. If it is windy on the race day a lot of us will struggle in the second half of the course - just be ready. On Rt519 I was passed by bunch of bikers and it was cool as they were easy riding and I was keeping-up with them for about two miles. I have no doubt that if they wanted to lose me they could, but it was fun to get a bit of draft :-). Then I had to turn to the back roads.
From this point on the course is mostly flat, but has quite a few turns so make sure to keep your momentum through them not to lose much speed. This part is not really technical, but it has a lot of flat sections where you speed-up and then you have to turn and accelerate again. Then the course back tracks the initial about 6 miles of rolling hills and ride through the neighborhood. You can probably stay seated on all the hills including the climb on Main road. Then you ride over the highway 78 back to the park. I took time to cool down and rode to the park entrance. Probably the most challenging will be the climb back to the park from the road 625. It is not hard climb, but it is pretty tough after 54 miles of riding.
Towards the end of the ride on White Bridge road I got another nice draft - see the picture below. I just kept my distance. Did not want to end up on the spikes. Just a minute after that I stopped to check the directions when one other athlete flew through the intersection. So I hopped on the bike and followed in his path - until my phone rang and I had to stop again and chat with Dasa about where we are going to meet after the ride.
The bike course is nice, but it is a little deceiving course. I would not say it is pancake flat in the middle as some suggested - it has quite a lot of false flats and may actually be quite challenging mentally. You can easily maintain 23-25mph in many flat sections and it is probably worth getting more aero wheel set. To me I'll need to watch for the long flat stretches where it gets really boring especially on route 29 and route 519 on the way back. I'm more of a hills guy and enjoyed racing in Poconos this year. So we will see how I handle this course. I need to get my power meter together and prepare pacing and nutrition plan for the race otherwise I'll have troubles. It is no Olympic distance or Sprint. This distance will require more detailed planning than what I did for Steelman - "Go for it maintain speed over 21mph and never look back".
As I taper for my next A-race this weekend I'm asking question that many athletes face in the final days before the big event. Am I ready for this race? Last night I was reading the RSS feeds and came across this article from Joe Friel discussing the consistency of training. As I use the WKO+ software to track my progress it took me only few clicks to prepare the graphs that Joe reviewed on his website. So let's see how consistent was I this season.
Let's start with an overview of the training time / distance per week - not really on the list off what Joe discusses, but it gives a good view of how many hours each week I trained. The graph includes all swim, bike, run and strength sessions as well as races.
Now the time and distance is all nice, but it does not really tell us much about the training stress this put on my body. So next up is the Training Stress Score by week.
If you wonder which race I'm doing - it is one of the best organized races in my area - the legendary Steelman in the Nockamixon State Park.
This morning two years ago was the first day of the new Jan. That morning I laced-up my brand new Nike+ shoes with Nike+ sensor, put on the shiny new iPod Nano and went out for first run. Well now looking back at it it may not have been exactly running, but hey I was moving and doing positive steps. My motivation was to improve my fitness and lose the extra weight that I carried back then (well over 20 kilos to be exact). I was dead after 1.5 miles, but I was happy that I'm doing something to get back into shape. Day later I was back on the road and running another 1.6 miles and I have been doing this since then. Few months later I ran my first 5k - you can see the time on the right side of this page. Then I ran another 5k and my weight loss motivation got a friend - I wanted to get leaner and faster.
Fast forward to January 2007 when I started to feel little bored with just running. I started to think about adding another sport. At the same time I came across book from Joe Friel, read it in two days and was ready to make the plunge to triathlons. I knew I'll stick with it so I went full bore - tri-bike, treadmill (to make the training easier during the winter time and when I can not leave the house), and bunch of other stuff that one needs to get into triathlon. Luckily I already have pool in the backyard otherwise I do not think my wife would be too pleased if I had someone build one for us and justify it with tri-training :-).
And since then I do this swim, bike, run thing and love it. I would not necessarily say that I'm very good at it, but I'm definitely getting better and moving up in the score lists in the races. I got lucky last year when I finished 2nd in my AG in local Half Iron race and two weeks later took 3rd in local sprint race. This year I was 49th in Black Bear sprint (9th in AG) and last weekend 22nd in Anthracite Oly (6th in AG). Definitely an improvement, but here are still few things I need to work on to get better - can you say swimming and running... One thing surprises me though - I never knew I would do so good in biking part of the races. I guess the bike riding as a kid shows in my race results - as kids we usually took bikes to the lake and it was a good 45 minutes bike ride away. On the way to the lake we were descending a steep hill and that is probably helping me with my bike handling skills - I literally have no fear on descends (case in point - in the Anthracite Tri the first steep downhill ended in sharp turn - I still did over 49 mph (80km/h) on the downhill with no fear and made the turn nearly taking the cop that was at the intersection). I also do fairly well on the climbs - I guess it must be related to the rides home from the lake - we needed to climb back up the steep long hill after being pretty tired from all the swimming and running around the lake. Now only if my swimming and running were as good. I guess I still have a lot of laps and miles to do to improve on those two fronts...
Yesterday while I was logging my workouts to TrainingPeaks I added my new shoes and retired my old shoes. While I did that I noticed that I'm 4 miles short of 3000 miles on my triathlon bike. Wow that is pretty good considering I do not ride all that much. I bought the bike in March last year. I hope it holds well for another 3000 miles. Now I wonder how soon the wheels will need to be replaced. I may just buy some race wheels and use the ones on the bike just for training. Anybody has any idea how long Mavic road bike wheels last? I do not really want to spend any money on wheels this year if possible.
This weekend I did a long bike around the lake Nockamixon - it is the race venue for my 2 races this year (the Steelman and EnduraSport Half Iron). It is a great 18.5 mile loop around the lake on rolling hills with two fairly good hills - one pretty steep and one fairly long. So it is a great place to ride and train for the terrain common in PA.
On this ride I took my Suunto T6 to monitor my HR, Polar S625X was strapped on the bike as a power meter and just for fun I threw the Garmin 405 in my pocket to get a GPS record of the ride. All went well and the ride was quite nice. I got it done before the huge heat wave came in. I had to re-fuel quite a bit. I may have made a mistake (again) of not taking salt tablets during the ride. But that is not why I'm writing this - the main reason is that as I use the Garmin 405 more and more I found another two major issues new users may need to worry about. I already wrote about the one issue with the elevation data that is just messed-up even on shorter runs or bike rides. But this weekend dring the ride I came across another issue related to energy consumption on the bike. I switched the 405 to bike mode, but even with that setting the darn thing thought I consumed 4323 kcals during the ride. Well not so - according to the Suunto log it is more like 1550 kcal which sounds more accurate. I'm seriously questioning the method Garmin uses to calculate calories. I like the Polar approach better - no HR = no calories information. Better than bad guess in my opinion. Difference between 4300 and 1500 is just too great to be useful.
Second new issue is related to software - Garmin Connect web site where the ride is reported as aerage speed of 11.5mph. Well the math just does not add up on this one - no matter how you slice it riding 56mi in 2:45 is more close to 20mph than to 11.5. Looks like they took the last lap average speed instead of averaging the speed over the entire distance. I hope they can fix this one quickly. The calory consumption issue shows up in the watch so Garmin you really need to release a fix the elevation data and the estimate of calories for biking. I do not burn 77 kcals per mile on the bike. It may be best not to estimate calories expenditure if there is no HR data provided. But that is just my uneducated opinion.
Yeah I did it. I took the half day off work on Friday and started my vacation in the pool. The swim was fairly long, but quite enjoyable as the pool was almost empty during the whole time. I did 300 yd repeats and did total of 5500 yards (little over 5km). Then I went to BN and got myself a good cup of latte with scone. I regained my composure over the tri and running books. After the swim I went back home and spent some time with my son until Dasa came back home. Then I laced-up ad went for a run to the town to pickup the race packets for Dasa and I for the 5k race for the next morning. I took the long route for the total of 6 miles. When I got home Ian was about to go sleep so I helped bathe him and put him to bed. Then after a short break and some power bars I mixed up my drinks and headed down to the basement to my bike trainer. I did 36 miles in easy pace and finished the day just before midnight. It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed the whole day. I'm pretty sure I'll do this again next year.
As I went through the day I captured my thoughts and feelings on the B-fit B-day page. Here are the excerpts:
Starting in about 15 minutes
Will be heading down to the pool in about 15 minutes. I'll take pictures as I go. Should be done by tomorrow morning after I finish the 5k road race in my town. Updates on Twitter - pity I can not link it here.
Swim complete 2:18:02
I was lucky, the pool was almost empty. During the peak hours there were 3 swimmers. Very cool. I swam at very easy pace to enjoy the afternoon and finished the swim in 2:18:02. I go out fr a run soon - it is still very nice and I need to pickup a race packet for tomorrow so I'll just run down there pick it up and run back. Should be just about 6 miles. And I'll be biking later in the evening. 36 miles on the bike sounds like nothing compared to the 3 mi swim... First time I swam this far. I did 300yd sets with 1-2 min rest intervals. I recorded video that I'll post later if it is any good - still need to look at it :-).
Oh I actually swam 5500 yd just to be on the safe side :-). The total time for the 5500yd was 2:22:04.
6mi run done in 53:16:07
I took some time after the pool swim to eat something and have about an hour with my son before I laced-up and went out to pick-up my race packet for the 5k run tomorrow morning. It was so nice outside that I decided to take the long route and put in the whole 6 miles. I did not rush things and just cruised easy to the town and back. I wonder how I'll do on my run tomorrow. I'll definitely report that here.
The activity is recorded on Garmin Connect
I ran with the Garmin 405 including the foot pod that monitors my cadence. Now my son is in bed and I'll be heading downstairs to my dungeon to finish this challenge and the 36 miles on the bike. I have plenty of podcasts, books and one movie so it should be enjoyable experience. Need to get to bed before midnight to get at least 7 hours of sleep before the race tomorrow morning. Good thing it is in our town about 2 miles away from my house.
Finished bike 36mi just before midnight
Do I get extra points for finishing the gold challenge in less than 12 hours? Just kidding. That was actually a goal that kind of evolved during the day. The big unknown was the swim and once I had it behind me and regained the balance (I was like off balance for an hour or so from being in horizontal position for so long). Anyways the bike is done I'll now go get some food to refuel and tomorrow I guess I'll take the race easier than usual. The bike time was 2:11:13.
Summary of results
Swim (3mi) 2:18:02
Run (6mi) 53:16
Bike (36mi) 2:11:13
Total 5:22:31
Stared at 12:30pm ET finished by 11:55pm ET the same day. OK time for bed.
After all the swimming, running and biking I ran the 5k road race in Coopersburg. I did not expect anything exceptional in terms of time. In fact this was the very first race I started with legs that were more than dead. In spite of that I was able to run good 2 miles before I got double stitch and had to walk for about 100 meters. Then I resumed runing, re-passed most people that passed me during the walk break and finished totally exhausted in 21:42 (Garmin watch time). It was an interesting experience and I learned something new about pacing when tired. The next 2 days are very easy recovery days. And I do not plan any hard activities until at least Tuesday.
This year I decided to celebrate my birthday in style - tri-style that is. I have come across the B-Fit B-Day site that suggests to celebrate the birthday by doing a modified self-supported triathlon. The rules are fairly simple - you take your age and swim number of miles in the first digit, then bike the whole age in miles and run the last digit again in miles. I'll be 36 this May so it translates to 3mi swimming, 36mi on the bike and 6mi run.
I set the big day for next week Friday. I'll start with swim at the local pool. Not sure how long it takes so I allocated 3 hours to complete. Then plan to do 36mi bike session in the evening and next morning I'll run to the 5k race, run the race and run back which should total more than 6 miles. If I feel well in the evening I may finish the 6 miles in the evening and then run only the race the next morning. We shall see how I feel.
If you want to celebrate your birthday in style click on the B-Fit B-Day logo, sign-up a go for it.
Although from the blog pages it does not seem like it I'm still alive and training. Only the work load in the office picked-up over the past few months and I do not have as much time to write. It should get better over time, but probably not before the middle of this year. In the meantime I'm training for half marathon in late April and few triathlons (nothing longer than Oly) in June - Sept. Expect some race updates once I have the half marathon behind me in 2 weeks.
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