Hello running legs...Nice to see you again

Well the base is winding down. Pretty pshyced that even though I had several colds this winter (2 year old, newborn and life in general are the culprits) I feel like I have a really good base. I have already knocked out my main goals for base.

1. Get to 275 Watts. I'm at 280 now
2. Get under 173. I'm at 167 with 11% bodyfat
3. Squat 275. Done that and more...without any real injuries.

Now I have to work on my goals for the build. Most of these involve getting back to some simplier things, but also some pure number goals as well.

1. Get body weight under 165 and 10% bodyfat
2. Get Power to weight ratio up to 3.9. Would love to see 4.0, but I think this is a little out of reach. I will need to watch out for weight getting to low and leading to a drop in power
3. Really focus on the diet. Paleo has been going okay, but I can do better.
   
4. LT run pace down to 6:05. Again, so close to that magical 6 minutes number, but I just think it would be too much of a sport specific stretch that is not needed for Ironman.
   

So on to todays tempo run. I've not been doing too much running as it is my strength, but I need to get back to it now. I had a 90 minute run today that included some tempo portions. The quote on the chalkboard yesterday at the bike session was "Bite off more than you can chew, and then chew it". With this in mind I was looking forward to this one. So the workout called for 3-4 x 6 minutes in zone 3 with 2 minute recoveries. With the above quote in mind, I opted for 4x 1 mile in zone 3 with 2 minute recoveries. I figured that zone 3 would be about 6:30 pace as I have done no real hard efforts in quite some time. Now the warmup felt good, and the weather was perfect for this kind of run. There was also a nice 1.3 mile loop that is marked every .1 miles near my office, so I figured I would give it a go there. 1st mile was 6:23 and right in the middle of zone 3. Felt pretty good. The one thing I tried though was to push the 2 minute recovery a little and try to cover the .3 miles back to the start. This didn't work to well as it is all uphill. So after the second repeat, I just jogged around the mile mark for 2 minutes. 2nd mile was 6:27 after not recoverying enough. The last 2 though I hit them pretty hard. 6:17 and then 6:07. The 6:07 was exactly one beat over zone 3. I'll take it. Given that my legs were feeling pretty heavy after the last 2 hard bike sessions, I think this went much better than expected. I'm looking forward to improvement with my running and I'm glad to see that my low run volume hasn't killed my ability to run well.
I'm still up in the air about jumping into the broad street 10 mile the first week in May. It would be a great test of my LT pace, but I just don't want to push too hard on an effort that isn't specific to my end goals. I will have to ponder this one further.

later,
Dave

(trying to get) Back to our regularly schedule programming

Well not that things have settled down at all, in fact it got a little more crazy over the last week. Mateo is doing well, although of course he doesn't sleep much. Helen, who normally really values her sleep, is doing really well though. Ben unfortunetly had a pretty bad cold that turned into "Croup" last Saturday. We had spent the morning at the aquirium (Just dad and Ben) and that night he woke up and couldn't breath at all. We had to take him to the ER and they gave him some medicine. Since then he has been getting steadily better. He certainly is making strides in the area of communication. He has very interesting conversations (with himself as well as us) and is learning more and more words and phrases.
My cutback week ended up not having any real tests except one as I was sick. But I did do a final Power test for the Cadence bike class. I was really happy with the numbers. I think I could have done even better if I hadn't been under the weather. My FP is now 279, which checks off one of my objectives to get to 275. I now am going to modify the goal and shoot for 290 (which of course is so close to 300...but we will see). Also this is all happening with my weight coming down slowly, but steadily. My Power/Weight ratio is now 3.45, so I am pretty happy about that.
The other big thing I am tackling this week is my diet. I have decided that I really want to focus on this as I have also done "so-so" in this area. I usually eat realatively healthy, but probably eat too much bad fat. I have also wanted to cut out grains, etc. To this end I am giving the Paleo Diet a 1 month try. I started on 3/14. Basically I have to cut out dairy (not that hard for me...don't do that too much), breads, potatoes, rice, beans, sugar and some other things. Basically good lean meats, and all the fruits and vegtables you want. I am going to follow the Diet with some slight modifications though. The book Paleo Diet for Athletes allows for high GI (Glycemic Index foods) foods (potatoes, rice, etc) after workouts as part of the recovery process. I expect this will be tough for me at first (there is usually a temporary loss of energy), but I plan to stick to it for 1 month. Fortunetly they do play by the 95:5 rule, which says that 5% of your meals can be "cheat" meals (ie whatever you want). I would really like to get to single digits in terms of bodyfat and overall I agree with most of the research behind this diet. I also like that they have modified it for endurance athletes. One of the hard things is simply getting in enough calories. When you eat 2 cups of vegtables, you get full, but there just isn't much in the way of calories. And of course calories is energy.
Hopefully I will get back to some normal training. This week is going okay so far. Both of my swims this week have been less than stellar, but I did a hard weights session on Tuesday and it after skipping weights last week, I'm sore.

Dave

Baby Mateo Arrives!

Well Baby Mateo has arrived.

Name: Mateo (Matt) Bayes Hartman
Date: 3/2/2007 2:02 AM
Weight: 8 lbs 13 oz
Length: 21.5 Inches

Everyone is home and doing fine. Helen went into labor on Thursday at work. She had contractions on and off a good chunk of the day at work and she left work early. She called me on the way home at about 4 PM saying that she had some "Braxton Hicks contractions that were about every 10 minutes apart". My wife is not known for her observations of the obvious. If someone would have smacked her over the head with a sign that said "Hey, its your due date and you are having contractions...guess what?...you are in labor", she still might not have thought she was in labor. Anyway, the contractions were not that painful at all and so she thought this might be a false alarm. My wife has a very high threshold for pain and sometimes this can be a bad thing. During her first labor, she was actually dozing in and out when she was at 10 cm's.
So I came home from work and we stayed at home getting some things ready and playing with Ben for a while. At about 8PM after I put Ben down, Helen decided that things were moving along pretty well and she was having contractions every 5 minutes for about the past hour. We were told to go to the hospital and so off we went.
We got to the hospital and the dr. checked her and said she was still only about 4 cm. This seemed odd as she has been almost 4 cm the past week or so. The dr (Dr. Lu) said that every doctor was different in the way they measured. So we started walking around, listening to the Ipod and just letting things happen. Helen did mention that this time was actually more painful. Once we got about 8 cm it was quite painful for Helen and we considered getting drugs. But she opted against it.
Before we go on...rewind a week. At Helen's last visit to the dr. she had asked how big the baby was. For Ben, the doctors had said the day before Helen went into labor that the baby was exactly 8 lbs. The doctor seemed confident in this number. It really surprised us, as Helen is pretty small and 8 lbs seemed huge. Well, wouldn't you know it, Ben was born at exactly 8 lbs less than 24 hours later. So when Helen asked this time the doctor (a different doctor) said the baby was about 6 lbs. When Helen said "Really?, our last one was 8 lbs...", the doctor said well maybe 7 lbs. Not that there is anything wrong with a 6 lb baby, it was just that after Ben being so big, we wondered what had been different this time. Did Helen not eat as much or as well?
The point of this rewind was that, given that this baby was going to be so much smaller, pushing wouldn't be as hard, so let's suck it up and deal with the pain. Yeah right! (See above for the actual birth weight).
So at 8 cm they broke her water. Last time this really helped things progress and the same thing happened this time. Within an hour they said we were ready to start pushing. Within 20 minutes of pushing, the nurses said to hold up for a minute. I don't know why they start the pushing without the doctors there, but anyway, we waited a minute for the doctor to arrive. Once the doctor was there Helen took over. Blood vessels bursting on her face, she just got down to work. Never once screaming, it was total focus.
There was one scare, the shoulders. Apparently this guys shoulders were coming out sideways, instead of up and down like the doctors prefer. The doctor appeared to be struggling a little with the shoulders and then yelled out for nurses to come in and help. I have to tell you that this was the scariest moment in my life. I didn't really know what was going on, but I knew I didn't like what I was hearing. I remember everybody pushing on her stomach, including me. I could feel his feet through her stomach. I turned to Helen and said "You need to push...now". She sensed I was nervous/scared and she gave it everything she had. Mateo came right on out, no problem. I remember looking at him and thinking, "hmmm...that doesn't look smaller than Ben was...". I got to cut the cord, which was apparently huge (I don't know, I have only seen two in my life). They cleaned up Mateo, and weighed him. Once they told us his weight, I actually remember asking if they zeroed the scale first. The nurse said yes. The doctor started muttering to herself. She said that if we have another one, we should get induced at 39 weeks. Apparently, someone Helen's size shouldn't be having nearly 9 lb babies.
While Mateo was being cleaned up, Helen was being tended to. But she started fading in and out of consciousness. Apparently her blood pressure was dropping and so they put in an IV. She wasn't in any real danger, but they wanted to watch her. Her recovery took a little longer because of this and she was shivering the entire time because of the low BP. They finally moved her up to a real room and although her BP was still low, they thought she would be okay. So I went home to get some quick sleep. It was 5:30 before I got home. Now did I consider just getting my workout clothes and going to my 6:30 indoor trainer class? You bet I did. But common sense took over and I decided sleep was more important.

On the way over to the hospital on Saturday, I talked to Helen and they said that for the first time in 11 months they had to double up in the rooms and Helen had a roommate. I remember thinking on the drive over that it would be funny if this was a fellow training partner from the Bryn Mawr Running Club, who I recalled was due around the same time. Well wouldn't you know it, that was Helen's roommate. Deb runs in the same speedworkout group as me (we are the "B" group...the "A" group is the fastest group). I don't know the odds of this, but they have to be pretty small. We got a picture of us before we left on Sunday along with another "B" group runner, Ed.
During all of this I was able to get in a 3 hour ride on Saturday and Sunday. So I was pretty happy about that. But then on Sunday I started feeling crappy and of course I woke up on Monday with a horrible cold (feverish, chills, aches, etc). Oh well, this was a recovery week for me training wise anyway. I'm just upset that I was not as useful as I could have been.
Anyway, that is the story.

later,
Dave