I did my final testing of the week and I'm not sure how much testing I will do after this. I have a couple of races that I think I will be jumping into and those will replace most of my testing. But yesterday was a double test. Now normally you would never do 2 tests on the same day. You just wouldn't have enough time to recover. But these were lab tests. Lab tests are so much easier than field tests. With a field test you are pretty much going to failure. In the Lab as soon as you body hits a certain point you are done. For LT testing this is done by measuring the lactate in your blood at certain points.
Since I hadn't done much in the way or running hard and have done no field tests in running yet, we decided I would do that one first. Also, this was likely to be the harder effort. I had stated that when I am fit, I "felt" that my LT HR was about 181-183. As a matter of fact I had 183 in my traning peaks setup page as my run LT. This was based mostly off of feel and maybe some other races I had done. Basically the test starts by taking an initial reading to make sure I don't have lactate already in me. My number was good (~1.0). The number we were looking for was 4.0 mmol/L. So I started with 10 minutes of warming up. The test was basically to increase the speed every 3 minutes, taking a drop of blood at the end of the 3 minutes before bumping up the speed. I had to quickly straddle the treadmill and put out my hand. Alcohol wipe, dry, prick, wipe the first drop, put the second drop on the tab, and then jump back on the treadmill. The goal was to do those steps in ~15 seconds. It was no problem, although my fingers are sore today from all of the pin pricks.
We started at 8.4 mph and went up from there. We hit 4.1 mmol/L at 9.9 mph. Done. Only took 20 minutes of running. Turns out my HR at 4.1 was exactly 183. Cool, I really do know my body pretty well. Of course with me not being in running shape I figured my speed/pace would be pretty slow. Turns out that is not the case. My LT pace is about 6:07 mpm. I was pretty surprised by this given that I have done a total of 2 LT workouts in the past 3-4 months. My guess is that this number goes under 6 by race day. I think I am going to jump into the Broad Street 10 miler. I really want to know what I can do. Of course the other thing is that I'm probably going to need to start pushing a little bit more on my running. My paces have probably been slower than they should be. But for LT workouts I go almost solely by HR anyway. Too many variables when it comes to running outside.
The bike test wasn't as helpful. I think the problem was that I was not quite recovered enough. My lactate level was pretty high even at the start. It then dipped down, but shot back up quickly. So I don't have as much faith in that number. But I do think the LT HR on the bike was good.
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Swim Test Time!
As this is a recovery week and on my last recovery week I did no testing, this week will have somee testing. After this week I will move into my last base block (3 weeks on, 1 week recovery). For the last base block I am going to focus on adding in some more intensity during the break through workouts and less intensity during the non-break through workouts.
I really wanted to have this test be about focus as well. I wanted to push mentally as well as physically. Sometimes it is easy to just go out and hammer, but to try to really focus all the way through the effort can be hard. I wanted to think about a strong smooth stroke on every stroke for the entire 1K.
This was a 1000 yard time trial, which I have done 2 other times. 1st time was way back in December and I hit just under 15 minutes. The second time was a huge jump and I hit 14:30 exactly. This time I did not expect as big a jump. I did a little longer warmup this time. I followed Gordo's plan (from his book Going Long) basically.
Warmup
It seems like every time I do this test I end up with someone in my lane and it usually isn't until after I start. I started a little later this time, hoping that things would clear out. I was wrong again. The good news was that I only had about 200 to go when someone jumped in. The bad news was that this guy is pretty fast and big, so he created a pretty decent current that I could actually feel every time I passed him. It didn't help that right on the other side of the rope from me someone big was also swimming. So I think I might have lost a couple of seconds, but nothing I am going to factor in as this has happened every time. It was good practice for focusing when I was tired. I really tried to make sure I came off the wall strong as well and stayed as needle like as possible.
So on to the test. I always intend to start out slower, but again, I didn't do very good on this. The first 200 I came in at 2:43. So I just tried to stay even. Felt good through the middle. Really started to feel it the last 300. But I felt the effort was pretty even the whole set. Touched the wall at 13:56. I was pretty surprised by this and had to think through weather or not I had skipped a lap. But I did the math and realized that this must have been right. My 100 yd avg was 1:23. This is pretty nice and is about a 3 second improvement for my LT pace and over 30 seconds faster than my last 1000 yard effort. I think a lot of this gain is due to overall fitness and for the last block of base I am really going to focus on form again and cut back on overall yardage (but keeping the workout time volume the same).
So I definetly classify this as a success.
Dave
I really wanted to have this test be about focus as well. I wanted to push mentally as well as physically. Sometimes it is easy to just go out and hammer, but to try to really focus all the way through the effort can be hard. I wanted to think about a strong smooth stroke on every stroke for the entire 1K.
This was a 1000 yard time trial, which I have done 2 other times. 1st time was way back in December and I hit just under 15 minutes. The second time was a huge jump and I hit 14:30 exactly. This time I did not expect as big a jump. I did a little longer warmup this time. I followed Gordo's plan (from his book Going Long) basically.
Warmup
- 10 minutes easy swim
- 5 minues steady swim (T Pace + 4-5 seconds)
- 6x50 with 25 build, 25 easy
- 6x50 with 12.5 sprint rest easy
It seems like every time I do this test I end up with someone in my lane and it usually isn't until after I start. I started a little later this time, hoping that things would clear out. I was wrong again. The good news was that I only had about 200 to go when someone jumped in. The bad news was that this guy is pretty fast and big, so he created a pretty decent current that I could actually feel every time I passed him. It didn't help that right on the other side of the rope from me someone big was also swimming. So I think I might have lost a couple of seconds, but nothing I am going to factor in as this has happened every time. It was good practice for focusing when I was tired. I really tried to make sure I came off the wall strong as well and stayed as needle like as possible.
So on to the test. I always intend to start out slower, but again, I didn't do very good on this. The first 200 I came in at 2:43. So I just tried to stay even. Felt good through the middle. Really started to feel it the last 300. But I felt the effort was pretty even the whole set. Touched the wall at 13:56. I was pretty surprised by this and had to think through weather or not I had skipped a lap. But I did the math and realized that this must have been right. My 100 yd avg was 1:23. This is pretty nice and is about a 3 second improvement for my LT pace and over 30 seconds faster than my last 1000 yard effort. I think a lot of this gain is due to overall fitness and for the last block of base I am really going to focus on form again and cut back on overall yardage (but keeping the workout time volume the same).
So I definetly classify this as a success.
Dave
Monday, April 2, 2007
High Volume Week
Well I hope this high volume training pays off, because that was my highest week yet and I am spent. Surprisingly I don't feel that bad for a Monday morning given that I just did 9.75 hours of training over the weekend. Yep, you read that correctly. I did a 4 hour brick on Saturday and a 1:15 swim Sunday followed by a 4.5 hour bike ride. The brick on Saturday was a fairly hard bike as I did the ride with John K, a local guy who is also doing IMLP. He is a pretty strong cyclist and I was working pretty hard on the bike. Unfortunetly I didn't get the numbers from the SRM. But I spent a good amount of time in upper z2 and z3. But the weather was good and we did a 1 hour hilly run afterwards.
I was worried that I would lose focus on Sunday especially with a long ride. I did the swim pretty early and put in 3600 yards with some decent intervals in there (including 1K straight at T pace + 5 secs). Then I got home and got going on the bike. I was worried as the weather called for rain and I really didn't want to do that amount of time on the trainer. But I decided to take a chance and hoped the weather didn't get too bad. It turned out perfect. There was one 5 minute stretch where I felt some sprinkles, but other than that it was just overcast the entire time. My nutrition was pretty good and I was able to stay in z2 for power and HR most of the time. Now don't get my wrong after all that I had done already this weekend, I definetly had some tough times where I just wanted to get off the bike and lay down. At one point I stopped to get an emergency Red Bull, but they didn't have any, so I got on my bike and just kept on riding. When I got home I was done, cooked, shelled, spent, whatever! I was able to get about 700+ calories in me within about 30-45 minutes, which was good. A long hot shower helped as well. But I cannot lie, there was definetly some lasting affects to this ride. I didn't feel "right" the rest of the day. My mood was definetly a little off as well. I took a lot of effort to get motivated to do almost anything. I just wanted to lay down. Getting Ben ready and into bed seemed like an impossible task, and there were times where I was just staring off into space for a couple of minutes and had to be "snapped" out of it. I have never felt that spent or tired.
The good news is that I felt pretty good in the morning, after 8+ hours of sleep. I did a shorter, easier swim this morning and I don't feel like I'm completely over the edge. So this weekend was definetly reaching, but I feel confident that I didn't overdo it. I am glad though that I only have a couple more weekends that are this packed. I'm sure I was not much help at home, especially on Sunday.
This is a cut back week and I am getting both run LT and bike LT testing done on Friday. Interested to see how that goes. Otherwise I won't do too much testing this week. It will be nice to have a fairly relaxed week. There is a lot going on at work and I would like to spend some more time at home with the little ones as well.
Dave
I was worried that I would lose focus on Sunday especially with a long ride. I did the swim pretty early and put in 3600 yards with some decent intervals in there (including 1K straight at T pace + 5 secs). Then I got home and got going on the bike. I was worried as the weather called for rain and I really didn't want to do that amount of time on the trainer. But I decided to take a chance and hoped the weather didn't get too bad. It turned out perfect. There was one 5 minute stretch where I felt some sprinkles, but other than that it was just overcast the entire time. My nutrition was pretty good and I was able to stay in z2 for power and HR most of the time. Now don't get my wrong after all that I had done already this weekend, I definetly had some tough times where I just wanted to get off the bike and lay down. At one point I stopped to get an emergency Red Bull, but they didn't have any, so I got on my bike and just kept on riding. When I got home I was done, cooked, shelled, spent, whatever! I was able to get about 700+ calories in me within about 30-45 minutes, which was good. A long hot shower helped as well. But I cannot lie, there was definetly some lasting affects to this ride. I didn't feel "right" the rest of the day. My mood was definetly a little off as well. I took a lot of effort to get motivated to do almost anything. I just wanted to lay down. Getting Ben ready and into bed seemed like an impossible task, and there were times where I was just staring off into space for a couple of minutes and had to be "snapped" out of it. I have never felt that spent or tired.
The good news is that I felt pretty good in the morning, after 8+ hours of sleep. I did a shorter, easier swim this morning and I don't feel like I'm completely over the edge. So this weekend was definetly reaching, but I feel confident that I didn't overdo it. I am glad though that I only have a couple more weekends that are this packed. I'm sure I was not much help at home, especially on Sunday.
This is a cut back week and I am getting both run LT and bike LT testing done on Friday. Interested to see how that goes. Otherwise I won't do too much testing this week. It will be nice to have a fairly relaxed week. There is a lot going on at work and I would like to spend some more time at home with the little ones as well.
Dave
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