Crash Weekend!

Well it was supposed to be a crash training weekend. A crash training week/weekend is where you really explore your limits in terms of volume. I was planning on a 2.4 swim Friday, 112 bike followed by an hour run Sat, and a long-ish run (2-3 hours) on Sunday. But it never happened quite like it was supposed to. The swim on Friday went great. I swam with Jeremy and we did 2 full loops, hitting the first one in 31+ and the second one in about 32+. 63 minutes was way faster than I thought I could go. But my avg HR was right where I wanted it to be. I did draft off of Jeremy for some portions of the swim, so I'm sure that helped, but I was really stoked about how well it went. The last 1/4 of the swim I pushed a little harder than I would in the race, but I never felt uncomfortable or out of breath. Overall I still think this was faster than I will likely race.
On Saturday I woke up and felt good. I had had a sore throat the later part of the week and I was worried I was going to not be 100%. The goal of the ride was actually to ride a little harder than I was planning to race at. I know what my pace/power should be for the race. So I really didn't feel the need to see that anymore. I knew I could put down almost 500 cal/hr on the bike at a HR of 150+/-. The reason for pushing maybe a little bit harder was so that I knew what I should NOT feel on race day. If ever I felt on race day that I was pushing as hard as I was in training, than I was pushing too hard. I also wanted to see if I could do the same calorie intake at a slightly harder effort. Well the first loop went well. It was faster than my goal pace by a bit (3:10 ish), but not by a lot. I came in and got re-fueled and started out on the second lap.
Then my day ended! Abruptly! I came out of the hotel and started downhill to head out of town and I remember a car passing me and then deciding that he needed to quickly turn into the gas station. Problem was that he didn't give me enough space. I hit the breaks hard and almost saved it, but over the bars I went. I don't recall actually making contact with the car, but I don't think my front wheel hit (no damage to the front tire/wheel at all). But I went flying! I hit the ground pretty hard. I remember yelling out as I was going down and I knew it was going to hurt. I jumped up pretty quick though and then realized that I should sit down as I hadn't done a "check" of my body yet. I was waiting for the shock to wear off and I would realize that a bone was sticking out. But nothing really major seemed wrong. My shoulder really hurt and I could tell I had some road rash, but other than that I was more stunned than anything. John K was right behind me and he stopped to help out. I remember he looked a little shocked. But he made sure I was okay. My bike has some bent handlebars and will need to be replaced, but no other real damage to the bike. I did drive myself over to the ER to get my shoulder x-rayed and the road rash reviewed. Everything checked out okay. Now don't get me wrong, this was still pretty serious, not so much for what happened, but what could've happened. If I had been in the aero-bars, I can assure you that I wouldn't have reached the breaks in time and things would have been much worse. If I had been going faster, things would have been worse. If...If...If. Well, when you have a young family at home, those If's become much scarier. I remember walking my bike back to the hotel (1/4 mile away) and thinking "I just got hit by a car". Let me tell you, it doesn't matter how minor the injuries/damage, that is something you don't want to say. I called the wife immediately and told her I was heading over to the ER to get checked out. The helmet was dented and is therefore being thrown away. You are only allowed one crash with a helmet.

Having laid out the scenario to several people, including those in the ER, it appears that the guy just made a turn when he shouldn't have. I personally think I was caring a little too much speed given that I was in "town" still and I know in the future I will be much more careful about it.

I'm pretty sure, that my training will take a hit. I figure I am probably not going to do too much of anything this week. I may be able to ride on a spinning bike at the gym, but I'll have to see when I am ready for that. The biggest question I have is whether I will be okay with getting back out there again on the bike on real roads. I'm pretty sure I will be, but I won't know until I clip in to those pedals. I know it gave my wife a scare and it clearly gave me a scare as well. I spent the remainder of the weekend icing and watching TV. Not the way I hoped the weekend would go. My training plans will be to get healthy and then I don't think I will really try to do any more "build" phase work (higher intensity). I think I will just stick to the volume stuff at easy pace until taper time. It is possible that my taper has already started, but I don't think so. The shoulder is feeling better already and I'm pretty much off the motrin. I will really need to focus on the diet and make sure I think about how much I eat, given that my work load is decreased. I also am pretty sure that any time goals that I may have had (although I had nothing formal...just low-mid 11 hours) are not goals anymore at all. My goals now will be to swim easy, bike even easier (i'll probably drop 10-20 watts off of my planned pace) and run with a smile. I really won't care about time. I'll just be glad that I can see my two sons at the finish line.

Dave

Race Report

Okay, I quick report as I don't have too much time. Work is pretty busy, of course.

Although the race didn't go as well as I had hoped in terms of my bike and run I was happy with the overall effort. I think a lot of the fast guys most have stayed in bed, as I did pretty well in the overall placing (13). My time was 5:15, which on this course I think was pretty good. I think on a course like Eagleman (which I did last year) this would have been a sub 5. I talked to one really fast guy (5 OA) who said he felt this course was at least 20 minutes slower than an average 1/2. This was the first year for the race and the organization was pretty good. I think there is some worry that b/c the bike course was so tough, there may not be a lot of repeaters. Lots of people walking bikes up hills.

Swim
I wanted to swim a little harder on this one and try to find some feet to follow. They ended up trimming a little off of the course at the last minute due to some buoy issues. We figure it was about 100-200 yards short. I did find some feet about 1/2 way through and was able to keep on them for the most part. I did find that I was kind of snaking back and forth a little (or maybe he was), but it definetly helped. About the last 300-500 yards I got up with a group of about 5 and this helped a little. Didn't have to sight too much. I hit the beach in 29:30 and then had about a 1/4 mile uphill run. I had decided to stop just after the beach and strip my suit there. I would make the run up the hill easier and for me the suit comes off easier just out of the water. This worked out well and really helped out my overall transition. Got going on the bike pretty well. The only down side to the good swim, was that my HR was pretty high (close to my bike LT) and it took a while on the bike to get this back down.

Bike
This didn't go as I had hoped. I had a power number in mind (210-220 W) and had done this in training on an 80 mile ride with no problems and was able to get off and run an hour after that ride. During that training ride my HR was good (about 10 below LT) and that was my goal here. But I just couldn't get those power numbers AND my HR was way higher. It was all I could do to keep my HR under my LT (~173 on the bike). But I rode the hills well. Many people would pass me on the hills during the first lap, only to coast down the other side. I would climb steady and then hit 40+ on the downhills as I was still pedaling. On the second lap, nobody was passing me, either up or down. I was pretty much even between the two laps. Hit T2 feeling pretty good.

Run
Out of T2, I was running with someone from my club who had a really good ride. He was hoping to do 7-7:10 pace, which is what I was thinking, so we ran for a little while. But on the first hill he pretty much realized that was going to be too fast for him. So I left him. I was around 7 min pace for the first 4 miles, but this course has a tough 3/4 mile climb in it and the footing was all gravel road. We did this climb 2 times and this hurt the overall pace. I was able to pick off a couple more guys and overall my run was pretty good. My stomach did start to not feel so well about mile 9 or so. At this point there was no one behind me, and the guys ahead of me had about 5 minutes on me. So I pretty much cruised on in. I wish I could have been closer to the 2 guys in front of me. They finished right near each other and I think I could have been in the mix if I would have ridden better.

I recovered pretty well, although didn't eat enough as my stomach was not feeling so good. I also had done a 100 mile ride on Tuesday that week and a hard friday ride/run. I think this probably had an affect, although I didn't feel that fatigued.

This week I have recovered pretty well, although my workouts still haven't been "on". This is a big weekend and next weekend is even bigger as we had up to LP. This weekend is a 5 hour brick on Sat (3 and 2 hour run...gotta get some longer runs going) and a 4 hour ride on Sunday.

Later,
Dave

New Job and time to get moving!

Well I have finally figured out my new job. I am taking a position at AmerisourceBergen where I will be managing the Data Services area (ETL, Data Integration and Business Intelligence). This is a job that I am a good fit for and I am excited to get going. It was a tough decision as I had 3 offers that I had to decided between. They were all pretty good offers, but I feel I made a great choice in the end. AmerisourceBergen is a pretty large company and the IT group there is very well organized and Managed.
My training has taken a hit though with all of the job search stuff. I have so busy with it and the other family obligations that I haven't been able to stick to a good schedule. But I have been getting in some good workouts. I hit the track the other night for a very neat late night track workout. I love running track workouts at night, it feels like you are running faster when it is dark out. I started about 9:30 or so and did a 90 minute workout. It was warm, but the humidity was low. I didn't eat well beforehand, so expected this might be a tough one. But I was able to hammer out 4x1600 with 400 fast job (2:30-3:00 minutes) in between. I was hoping to do about 6:05-6:10 pace (~10 mile pace). But after hitting the first one in 5:57 there was no way I was going back over 6 minute pace. The last one was hammered in 5:49! This was cool, especially as it was my first real track workout of the year. I usually pick up about 10 seconds after the first month on workouts like this. So in one month I will try this again and go for 5:50's.
Biking has been going okay. I did a 100 miler today and had my first real bonk. It sucked as I was 25 miles from home when it happened. I know why it happened too. I ate horribly yesterday and did not carbo loading at all (hotdog, 2 hamburgers and some steak...oh yeah and a couple of beers). It was the holidays and I paid for it. I really need to get back on the wagon with my eating.
I have my first race this weekend...Black Bear 1/2 Ironman. I'm treating this as a B or C priority race. This is a cutback week for me (although I did do 100 miles today), so I will just take it a little easy and hit the race as hard as I can. I don't have any real expectations about the race, although I would love to run ~7's and ride ~220W. For the swim I just want to get through it, although I should be able to do ~1:30 pace.

Dave

Catching Up!

Okay, just a short post to let you know that I am still around. As a consultant, from time to time I get the chance to "ride the bench", which is just a way of saying my contract/project is done and I need to find another one. Even though you would think this gives me more time to train, it hasn't been the case. After a great weekend 2 weekends ago, I came down with another head cold. I'm sure I just pushed a little too hard. Saturday was a 5:27 bike ride followed by a 45 minute run. Oh yeah, the bike ride had 2285 ft of climbing per lap...I did 3! That is over 6800 ft of climbing. There was a climb near the end of the loop that was over 2 miles long and steep. But I did it and although I was wiped out, my nutrition was still pretty good. Sunday we did 2 hours on the bike and then I did a 10 mile run. This workout was done on the Black Bear 1/2 Ironman course, which I am doing in a couple of weeks.
Well hopefully I can post more later...Have to get to bed.

Dave

Bike and Run LT Testing

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.

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

• 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

This was done with about 20-30 seconds between each of these. I did jump out to use the bathroom after the first 6x50. I also took a little longer break to get setup after the last 6x50 so I did another 50 building on both 25's.
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

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

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

Thank you...May I have another?

Well I guess I have no one to blame but myself. I was the one who decided I could handle this many hours a week. After a 8.5 hour weekend...yes you read that correctly, I didn't say Week, I said WEEKEND. It was actually a great week of training. Still no baby though and I keep waiting for the mandatory time off to begin.
So what does one do for 8.5 hours over a weekend. Well first you get up at 5:30 on Saturday to start a 3 hour indoor trainer ride. Started a little late, but not too bad. Was able to do a pretty good workout. I have the ride broken into 10 minute segments, with something different every 10 minutes. I also throw in some "steady aerobar time". These are just longer stretches where I stay aero the entire time, and ride at steady/ironman race pace. I then immediately transitioned to a 1 hour run. The run felt great. Was able to do 7:30-7:40 pace without pushing very hard. HR was steady the entire run. Mostly upper z1 lower z2. Nice dip in the ice bath afterwards.
Then on Sunday I did a 3.5 hour ride. This was supposed to be a group ride outside, but instead I was back in the basement staring at the wall. I then did a 1 hour swim in the afternoon, which was only about 45-50 minutes (this is a class and I didn't get a chance to add anything either before or after). I was definetly tired, but the steak and 2 beers I had for dinner tasted all the better.
The good news is that I get to do the same thing next weekend, except I can go ahead and add an hour to the Sunday ride. I am going to do anything I can to make sure that at least this ride is done outside. Maybe even both rides. Assuming the baby arrives this week (which it definetly should), this ride may get shortened. But if I do get outside, I will definetly have to do some better planning (nutrition, tools, clothing, route, etc).
If anyone has any good ideas on a 4.5 hour route around the philly area, let me know.

later,
Dave

Getting Motivated for this weekend

So far this has been a good week. Everything is quiet on the baby front and my new prediction is that we will make it to our due date (which is 2/28 or 3/1 depending on who you talk to). Because of the imminent baby I will likely have to do both of my long rides this weekend on the trainer. I hope at least one of these can be done on the porch, where I at least be outside. I have done this in the past and it works well. You don't get overheated and although I get strange looks from the neighbors, it is much better than the basement.
I have 8.5 hours on tap for this weekend. A 4 hour brick on Saturday and a 3.5 hour ride and 1 hour swim on Sunday. The swim should be relatively easy as it is mostly technique work.
I am getting another LT test done on 3/4 which is during my next recovery week. This one will be done in a "lab" and is part of the coaching that I signed up for. They will also test my max V02, which I am not as interested in as I don't think this is as useful in Ironman training.
BTW, you thought this weekend was bad. Next weekend, which is the 3rd week in a 3 week buildup is even tougher. 4 hour brick on Sat, and 4.5 hour ride on Sunday with a 1 hour swim. That is 9.5 hours of training in 48 hours. I will be more than ready for the cutback week.
I also got my fathers day gift all lined up. I will be attending the IMLP recon trip the weekend of June 16 with Joe, et. al. Joe organized this one and it looks like a bunch of people are going, as well as some folks from Beginner Triathlete.com. I'm really looking forward to this weekend. The plan will likely be as follows:
1. Arrive Fri afternoon and do a 2.4 mile swim in Mirror Lake (2 loops)
2. 112 bike (2 loops) and ~1 hour run on Saturday
3. 56 bike and 13.1 mile run Sunday (this is tentative).

Okay, back to work.

Dave

Long weekend, still no baby and Ice bath

Between now and 5 PM I have exactly one hour total free (2 1/2 hour blocks) when I am not in meetings. Of course that is when I have to get some actual work done. A good weekend for the workouts though. Saturday was a 3 and 1 brick (4 hours total) with the 1 hour run done at under 8 minute pace. The run felt good and I think my running form is returning quickly. My bike was also pretty good. I mixed it up a bit and had 10 minute blocks of something different most of the way (different cadences, wattages, standing, sitting, etc). Avg for the ride was 169 Watts. The legs definetly felt it towards the end as I was pushing a little harder, but the run felt smooth and easy. Sunday I went long on the run. 2+ hours and ~15 miles. This was probably a little longer than I should have gone, but the foot had no real issues and feels good today, so I am saying that I am officially over my foot injury issue. That being said I probably won't go longer than 15 for a while. There really is no need at this point in the season. My legs definetly feel tired and beat up a little today as I used muscles I havent' used in a while. I did unfortunetly skip my swim workout in the afternoon as there was just too much that needed to get done around the house and I was pretty beat from the run. But it was still 6+ hours of workouts this weekend. Next weekend is looking tough. A 4 hour brick on Saturday followed by a 1 hour swim and 3.5 hour bike ride on Sunday....Mommy! I really hope I can do at least one of thouse rides outside as the trainer can be pretty boring.
After my 4 hour brick on Saturday I had the perfect recovery. Within minutes of finishing I had a recovery drink with some OJ, banana and protein. I then took a bucket of ice upstrairs, filled the bath with nothing but cold water, dumped the ice in and then sat in the bath for 10 minutes. I do this with my shorts and socks still on. In the summer the water doesn't get cold enough for the ice to not melt. But on Sat the ice never melted. I expected I might only last 5 minutes, but I made it the entire 10 without too much trouble. I highly recommend these after hard workouts, especially after long runs. They really help with the recovery and I usually feel much better the next day.

later,
Dave

I passed the test with flying colors!

Well I did my 20 minute all out time trail on Monday AM. We did a 15+ minute warmup, then some zone 3 efforts, zone 4a, 4b efforts and then a couple of zone 5 efforts. The purpose of the longer, tougher warmup is that you shouldn't be too fresh for the time trail. This is supposed to predict the power/hr that you could hold for a one hour race. But doing a race of this length is really taxing on the body (recovery mainly), so usually a 20 minute effort is done. I figured this would be better than my first test by a fair amount and it was. My goal was to start out at 250W and go up from there. I pretty did exactly this, with the last 5 minutes almost all over 300. I ended up with a 269 avg and was really happy with that effort. My goal was to get to 275 by spring time and I think I am on my way. This was a pretty big jump for me though, and it will mean that my workouts will now feel "harder". For example my Zone 2 power used to be 189 and now will be about 203. That means even endurance rides should be done around 200 Watts. I'm sure it will take me a week or so to adjust to this, but it is what it is. This was definetly one of the better efforts I have put out.
I also started to add some quicker pacing to my runs and the foot is feeling good. I did 90 minutes last week and this week I am going for 2 hours with a group of guys that live near me and are getting ready for IMLP as well. Good thing is that they start early (6 AM on Sunday morning), which means that I will get back home in plenty of time to help out.
I also need to give some kudos to Candence. I have really enjoyed the workouts that they have done and I am also starting to get some good information from the swim class that I am taking as well. The coach is giving me lots of good tips and it really seems to be helping. So I have decided that I am going to continue my coaching relationship with Cadence through IMLP. I think the main reason is for getting answers to questions, and having a structed training schedule. I have been okay in the past with my planning, but sometimes I don't plan an entire week out in advance. Having this done will really help out, timewise. I just have to login to see what I am doing and also I can see what my plans are for the weekend.
Speaking of this weekend, I have a 4 hour brick (3 hour ride, 1 hour run). This should be fun...as it will likely be on the trainer indoors.

Later,
Dave

Recovery Week

Well I am in the midst of my recovery week. It has been good so far. I had a cold at the end of last week and pretty much kept up with the training knowing that I was getting a break this week. It has really helped. I have slept some more and have felt refreshed.
This is also good timing as we really need to get some stuff done around the house before baby #2 arrives. Helen has already started having the Braxton-Hicks (sp?) contractions, which last time was about a week before she went into labor. Last time she went into labor on her due date, but who knows this time. Anyway, tomorrow I have a very rare complete day off! So I told Helen to make me a "honey-do" list and I will go to town on it. I also will try to let her sleep in both days this weekend as she can use the rest.
Today I also had a massage. It is a theraputic massage and I had them almost weekly when I was well into training for the 1/2 Ironman. So I am going to probably start getting these almost weekly when the volume is higher. She does a great job of getting me back in alignment. I have one leg that is slightly shorter then the other, and it can cause some out of balance issues from time to time.
I also ordered my raceday wheels this week and have officially switched to the Pocono half Ironman instead of Mooseman. I just realized that it was too far to travel for a B priority race. Hopefully the organization of the Poconon half goes well. It is the first year for it.

later,
Dave

PS: I am supposed to do the power test on Monday. We didn't do it today due to technical difficulties.

The joys of having a 2 year old

One of the "benefits" of having a 2 year old in daycare is that you get to be sick all winter long and sometimes even into spring and summer. I understand that Ben (my son) will get sick from time to time, but it is just impossible to keep from catching it from him. He hasn't quite learned how to keep others from catching what he has. Right now his favorite place to put his fingers is in Daddy's nose. So I am not fighting my second cold this month. I am trying to be very careful that it is not from over training, and I don't think it is in this case. My overall volume is way up, but last weekend I was able to get some good sleep and even a nap in the afternoon. I was on very little caffeine all weekend as well. This time it is just a head cold and nothing in the chest, so I am able to keep training for the most part, after cutting some workouts short and modifying others. I am schedule for 17 hours total this week and I would probably come in close to 15 instead. But I will still hopefully get in 7 days of training.

Some stats from last week:
Planned Time: 15
Hours from ATP: 15
Actual Time: 14:03
Swim Distance: 8100
Bike Distance: 146.2
Run Distance: 17.5
Strength: 1:00

I found out that next week, which is a cutback week, will include a 8-mile/20 minute time trail on Friday at my indoor biking class. I'm really looking forward to this as I think I have made some pretty significant improvements in my functional power. Functional Power is supposed to represent the power you could hold over a 1 hour race. My current number was found on the 2 or 3 rd class back in December. I am about 5-6 lbs lighter and I can tell my legs are stronger.
I really think I can come in about 8-9% higher. With the lighter weight and higher power, this really helps my power-to-weight ratio. I would really like to get this number up over 3.5. Nothing to brag about, but it would really help with the biking section of IMLP.
This Saturday will be my first ride with a fellow blogger Jeremy. Looking forward to a nice long ride. It will be nice to have someone else there for the ride as these can be mentally taxing. We are planning a nice easy 1/2 hour run afterwards. Then on Sunday I have my longest run since November planned. Hopefully the foot cooperates for the 1.5 hour run. I can tell that I am loosing a little leg turnover speed from all of the biking and lack of running. I'm okay with this as long as I recognize it and don't try to run my normal paces when I'm not ready for them.
One parting question/dilemma...I have had no alcohol for several weeks now as part of a plan to watch body composition more closely. Should I have some beer during the Super Bowl on Sunday? Feel free to weigh in.

later,
Dave

5 hours in two days...and it isn't over a weekend!

Last week ended up pretty good. The plan was for a total of 15 hours and I was about an hour short of that. I moved my Sunday long-ish brick (2.5 hour ride 1 hour run) to Friday instead. This was to free up some family time on Sunday as well as do a swim class that Cadence is offering. The swim class didn't involve much swimming as it was the first class. Next week is a 400 yrd time trail. Hmmm...haven't tried to race a 400 yet, I'll have to think about a goal pace. It appears that I am one of the stronger swimmers there, but I'm in this to work on my form, not fitness.
So Friday I had my morning indoor bike training class at Cadence. I decided that I would ride another 90 minutes after the class and then do an hour run. It went pretty well, atlhough I was definetly tired aftewards. The run was also freezing cold (I think it was single digits...without the wind chill), but I got it done. Forgot my gloves, so I had to tuck the hands into my sweatshirt. No problem. Finished about 10 AM and then worked from home. Spent the day fueling as well. Then up at 5:30 on Saturday to join Guys Bike shop folks for an indoor 3 hour training ride. This was a lot of fun and I really liked it. During the 45 minute drive there I was debating this as it is a long way to drive for a 3 hour ride. Don't know if I will do this again, but it was nice. The person leading the class had a bag with different 10 minute segments in it. Everybody picked one out and that is what we did for the next 10 minutes. It would usually be something like 5% grade zone 2-3 for 8 minutes with 2 minutes recovery. It was never anything hard (we stayed in 2-3 most of the ride), but it was good to pass the time this way. I think I will have to do that for all of my indoor rides.

So flash forward to this week. I have 17:00 on the plan (holy crap this is a part time job)! Thank god next week is a cutback week. The tough part of this week is the Tues/Wed combo. It might not be known, but due to life (work, family, etc), I do almost all of my workouts in the morning during the work week (and weekends for that matter). This means that if the coach says do a 1:30 brick workout and a n hour swim, these are both done in the morning before work. So after working late-ish yesterday (nothing compared to my summer work hours) I got to bed by 10:15 PM and was up at 4:30. Usually I would swim and then do the brick, but I thought I would mix it up today as sometimes that pool can be crowded at 5:00 AM (yes, you read that right). So I did the 75 bike 15 min run first (actually went 16 minutes on the run, for 2 miles exactly) and then I changed and got in the pool. Did 6x500 with 250 warmup and cooldown for 3500 yards total. Took 40 seconds between 500's. This felt good, but with the ride/run before hand the calves started cramping a bit. I really need to get my calf cramping issues figured out. I know part of it is just inflexible ankles that have built up over years of running, but my swim volume is up over 3 hours a week now and I figured these would eventually go away. Grant it, it only happens on harder/longer swims or after a ride/run now, but still. In tri's I almost always get a calf cramp. I wonder if it has anything to do with the wetsuit?!?!

Well I have to get back to work. A 3:30 ride this Saturday. Need to see if I can make this happen outside??? Not looking forward to 3 1/2 hours on an indoor trainer.

later,
Dave

Another Big Weekend Planned

Well this weekend I'm hoping to get in some higher volume again. Last time I tried this I came down with a cold, but I am hopeful this time works out better. I'm not feeling overtrained or overtired at this point, so I think things will work out. I have signed up for a Tri Swim class through Cadence that starts on Sunday. I'm really just looking for someone to take a look at form and maybe help out with some things and also to get some more structed swim training in. I think the bonus will be that I'm going to try to move around some training so that I go longer on Friday and Saturday and then on Sunday I can just do the swim and maybe a short bike ride. This will hopefully free up some time for family. I know that the higher volume weeks are coming so if this change works out I think it will really help.
My plan for this week is around 15 hours total. This includes a 3 hour ride and a 2.5 hour ride with a one hour run afterwards. On Saturday I'm doing a indoor 3 hour trainer endurance ride at FitLife with the Guys group. It should be interesting and hopefully fun. I had two really good swim sessions so far this week as well. I did a 1 hour straigt swim (just over 2 miles) on Tuesday and today I did 3400 yards with many 300's in there. Also, I did a 1000 yard time trail on Saturday which went well. This was basically I warmup, followed by some hard-ish 50's and then a 1000 yard all out swim. It seems everytime I do these I end up having to share a lane with someone, which makes this harder. But I did it anyway and was able to push pretty hard and felt it was fairly accurate. I think had nobody been near me I could have gone just a little faster. For the 1000 I was able to do 14:30 which came out to about 1:26-1:27 for my per 100 yard avg. This was an improvement over my 1:30 avg I had a couple months back. I'm really starting to gain some confidence with my swimming, both in terms of speed, form and endurance. Maybe I won't be in the bottom 10% at IMLP in the swim!
I was able to hit the weights a couple of time last week and this week as well. Feeling pretty strong, but as the training volume is raising, these will become more maintance sessions and less max strength. I'm pretty close to my goals for leg strength anyway, so this is a good time to start making sure I don't over do it. One thing I have realized is that when I want to go heavy (ie heavy weight for less reps) I am better off doing this on a Hammer strength or machine as opposed to free weights. I have a habit of "tweaking" things when I do free weights with heavy weight.
I also did something other than just an easy, short run this week. I actually did 6x3 minute hill repeats on the treadmill. They were at 5.0% grade and 7.0 mph (8:34 pace) with 2 minutes recovery. It was 8 miles total. I definetly am missing some run fitness, but the foot is okay. It bothered me a little during the run itself, but didn't hurt throughout the day or the next day, which was happening before. So I'll probably try a 10 miler next week and see how it goes.
I'm also going to reserve my race wheels for Mooseman and IMLP this week I think. I used RaceDayWheels.com last time and this worked out well. I'm probably going with Zipp 808 tubulars. Also, speaking of the bike I have the ultegra front derailleur up and running, although i'm "trimming" more than I would like. I need to get the rear derailleur on this weekend and do some general maintenance (clean chain, lube, etc).
I think next week will probably end up being my highest volume week ever. The cool part so far is that the volume is not killing as much as I thought. It's mostly the last of sleep, work, getting sick, etc that is getting to me. I did a 2.5 hour workout on Tuesday and was really not the wiped all day long. It helps, I think that I am moving my bigger meals to earlier in the day (big breakfast...semi big lunch and lighter dinner).

Recovery Week and No Excuses

I am in the midst of a recovery week. I had asked some of the coaches at trainingpeaks and also did some research and basically learned that even though I was sick last week and had sort of a cut back week, this does not count as my actual cutback week. So this week is slightly less volume as well. I will though make one of the weekend rides a little longer just to get back the feel of things. But the hours this week will likely be around 8-10 hours total. I did do a pretty hard lifting session for the legs yesterday at the gym though. It felt good and I can definetly tell that I am getting stronger. Squats and Leg presses are both up in terms of the weight I am using. This will hopefully really help out my power. I would love to see 260-270 at my next FT test (my first one was 250 back in December).

I realized an interesting thing about tri-ing yesterday when I got to the gym. I had got into the locker room and was planning on doing a swim. But I realized I forgot my swim bag in the car. No problem, I can just walk the 200 feet back to the car and get it. Or I could just change things up and do something different. So instead of a swim and lift session yesterday, I did a 8 mile run and lift session. As I was running I was thinking that all of the different forms of exercise tri folks do, it is really hard to have an excuse that you can't do something. With marathon training, there is only so much "cross training" you can do, eventually you have to run. But with tri-ing, if you shoulder hurts, you bike, if your foot hurts, you swim, if your back hurts, you stretch and do yoga or some lifting. If you forget your shoes, you swim. Forget your googles, do some lifting, biking, or running. So my point is that it is really hard to find an excuse to not train with tri training. My foot has been not 100% ever since I did the Baltimore marathon, so I have had to really cut back my running, to probably only about 10 miles a week for the last 3 months. But I have still been able to put in up to 10-13 hours a week of training without much problem. I love this sport!

Keep on tri-ing.

Dave

Getting Sick Sucks!

Well for the second time this year I came down with an illness. On Friday I felt okay after my workout, but I was definetly a little tired overall. Then at work I started just feeling more and more under the weather as the day went on. I ended up staying later than I wanted to and by late afternoon my throat was getting noticibly sore. I could kind of seeing it coming. I like to think that this was not due to overtraining. But I did have 10.5 hours in by Friday, so that definetly contributed. So instead of getting in a great 16 hour week last week going into a recovery week, I got in 10.5 hours in 5 days and did nothing over the weekend. I could have probably ridden a little bit on either or both days, but decided against it and figured I would try (note I said try) to help out around the house.

For the past year or so I have tried to prove to myself that I am not a typical guy when it comes to getting sick. Almost every guy I know is useless when they are sick, and I am definetly in that category. My wife who is pregnant and has been sick a couple of times already is more productive when she is sick than I am when I am rested and healthy. But I have been trying to just say "Suck it up and deal, Dave". But this weekend I didn't do so well. I really should have tried to do at least a little something on Sunday. On Sunday I was taking no medicine for the symptoms and really didn't feel that bad, just a slight sore throat and congestion.

I have always heard that if you have a illness that only bothers you above the neck (head cold), that you can workout, albeit less intense. But the sore throat I had was telling me that my body was still working pretty hard to get rid of it. So I did the Zicam/Airborne and just rested. This mornings ride was definetly still affected by the cold, but it was pretty good.

One question I am wrestling with is how to treat weeks where I take time off due to being sick. Do I treat these at unplanned cutback weeks, meaning that I start a 3 week buildup again after this week? Do I just stick to the laid out plan and if that week was supposed to be a big week and did not end up being big due to being sick, so be it? For example, last week was supposed to be a big week with high volume and this week was supposed to be a cut back week. But since I was sick last week and did less than planned, should I take this week as a cut back week as well? Might shoot off an email to one of the Cadence coaches.

Oh well, enough complaining. I expect I am going to get back on track here this week.

Dave