I was originally debating between keeping with the scheduled 4.5 miles, or maybe going to 4.75 or so, since last week was 4.3. Considering the bike ride was longer than anticipated, I settled on 4.5 for this week. It was pretty much the same loop as last week, but with the end farther up the street than before. I also made more of a conscious effort to go a bit slower and easier, since the primary purpose is building up mileage rather than increasing speed.
Garmin Results
A few days after, I seem in better shape this time around than I was at this time last week. Last week things were a bit tight around the IT band, but still not painful. This time, with some stretching after the bike, and some stretching after the run, as well as a couple yoga practices - things feel as though they weren't strained at all this past weekend.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
30 mile bike ride - 3/19
I meant to only do about 20 miles on this ride, and checked the map beforehand to see where my turnaround point should be. The plan was to do part of the Wachusett Reservoir loop, but at a certain point turn off onto a side street and follow it back where it would rejoin my outgoing path.
Unfortunately, I missed a turn, and ended up doing a loop back to where the halfway point was supposed to be. End result was an extra 10 miles.
The good news, though - is that I was purposely taking it rather easy on this trip. The goal with that was to try and prevent my quads from tightening up, pulling on the IT band. So as it turns out, the additional mileage didn't seem to put me at any worse for wear. I also made sure to spend a few minutes stretching after the ride was complete, before heading out on the run.
Garmin Results
Unfortunately, I missed a turn, and ended up doing a loop back to where the halfway point was supposed to be. End result was an extra 10 miles.
The good news, though - is that I was purposely taking it rather easy on this trip. The goal with that was to try and prevent my quads from tightening up, pulling on the IT band. So as it turns out, the additional mileage didn't seem to put me at any worse for wear. I also made sure to spend a few minutes stretching after the ride was complete, before heading out on the run.
Garmin Results
Swimming - March 2011
3/5
36 - 30:49
3/13/11
31:44
Interrupted by people joining lane. Started with about 20 laps of normal swimming, ended up transitioning many of remaining ones to intervals.
3/22/11
36 - 30:48
3/27
36 - 30:43
3/30
36 - 30:42
Well, I guess I'm nothing if not incredibly precise with my mile swim times. Pretty obvious that if I want to increase, I'm going to have to change something up - like maybe doing intervals instead of just doing a mile straight. However, I realized after I got home on the 30th that just doing a mile straight is barely taxing on my body. So from the point of view of energy conservation in a triathlon, thats good.
36 - 30:49
3/13/11
31:44
Interrupted by people joining lane. Started with about 20 laps of normal swimming, ended up transitioning many of remaining ones to intervals.
3/22/11
36 - 30:48
3/27
36 - 30:43
3/30
36 - 30:42
Well, I guess I'm nothing if not incredibly precise with my mile swim times. Pretty obvious that if I want to increase, I'm going to have to change something up - like maybe doing intervals instead of just doing a mile straight. However, I realized after I got home on the 30th that just doing a mile straight is barely taxing on my body. So from the point of view of energy conservation in a triathlon, thats good.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
4.3 mile run - 3/13/11
Right after I finished the bike ride, I took off for my ~4 mile run. It ended up being a little longer than anticipated, largely because I was so anxious to be able to run ont he sidewalk outside the bounds of my neighborhood, that I went with my typical ~4 mile loop. In hindsight, I probably should have stopped at 4 miles - I have this fancy shmancy GPS enabled HR monitor - I should have been able to tell just about exactly where to turn around to reach 4 miles.
Garmin Results
Overall, a pretty decent run. I definitely felt like running with no shoes makes for a very different T1 brick experience - in a good way. My not using the quads as much, my legs felt springier off the blocks than is typical after a bike ride.
Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to keep the pace closer to 9:30-10 min/mile, it ended up being faster. I really should have made a better effort to keep the pace down so as not to put too much on my hips and legs when starting the season, especially with little to no recovery time in between activities.
Also, my calves started to feel fatigued before I even reached the halfway point. During the run, I was concerned that maybe having the entire week off in between was not the best move, and I anticipated a few days of very stiff muscles in the upcoming week. So, while the 4.3 was doable, I was glad that was all I did.
Regarding the next few days - yes, the calves were stiff, but not as much as I feared. During the initial forey into barefoot running, if my calves felt like that during a run, I was pretty much guaranteed of three days of feeling very flat footed with very stiff calves.
The bigger thing that I paid attention to was, of course, the IT band. Every so often - even a couple months ago, I'd have moments where I could feel it being tight. I could feel the tissue rubbing on the outside of my knee ever so slightly. Never painful, just.. present. Since it seems to be omnipresent ever since last year, and I've since done an Olympic tri and half marathon with no issues, it has become something for me to pay attention to, but not be too concerned about. Essentially, I use it as a baseline and potentially an early warning system. Anyway, a couple days after the bike/run brick, I felt like it was rubbing a little more than usual. Since I was travelling, I decided to give my hips and legs a good stretch each night when I got back to the hotel, because I need to make sure to stretch on a regular basis, yoga class or no yoga class.
After a few days, things seem to have calmed back down to normal, so I think in the grand scheme of things, the intensity and workload from the brick workout was just about right. But it'll be something I continue to monitor, since I am figuring I'll do these brick workouts most Saturdays.
Back to running - I'm thinking this weekend will be about 4.5 - 4.75 miles. It's tempting to go for my 5.25 mile loop, but its still early to be tacking on an entire mile at once.
Garmin Results
Overall, a pretty decent run. I definitely felt like running with no shoes makes for a very different T1 brick experience - in a good way. My not using the quads as much, my legs felt springier off the blocks than is typical after a bike ride.
Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to keep the pace closer to 9:30-10 min/mile, it ended up being faster. I really should have made a better effort to keep the pace down so as not to put too much on my hips and legs when starting the season, especially with little to no recovery time in between activities.
Also, my calves started to feel fatigued before I even reached the halfway point. During the run, I was concerned that maybe having the entire week off in between was not the best move, and I anticipated a few days of very stiff muscles in the upcoming week. So, while the 4.3 was doable, I was glad that was all I did.
Regarding the next few days - yes, the calves were stiff, but not as much as I feared. During the initial forey into barefoot running, if my calves felt like that during a run, I was pretty much guaranteed of three days of feeling very flat footed with very stiff calves.
The bigger thing that I paid attention to was, of course, the IT band. Every so often - even a couple months ago, I'd have moments where I could feel it being tight. I could feel the tissue rubbing on the outside of my knee ever so slightly. Never painful, just.. present. Since it seems to be omnipresent ever since last year, and I've since done an Olympic tri and half marathon with no issues, it has become something for me to pay attention to, but not be too concerned about. Essentially, I use it as a baseline and potentially an early warning system. Anyway, a couple days after the bike/run brick, I felt like it was rubbing a little more than usual. Since I was travelling, I decided to give my hips and legs a good stretch each night when I got back to the hotel, because I need to make sure to stretch on a regular basis, yoga class or no yoga class.
After a few days, things seem to have calmed back down to normal, so I think in the grand scheme of things, the intensity and workload from the brick workout was just about right. But it'll be something I continue to monitor, since I am figuring I'll do these brick workouts most Saturdays.
Back to running - I'm thinking this weekend will be about 4.5 - 4.75 miles. It's tempting to go for my 5.25 mile loop, but its still early to be tacking on an entire mile at once.
13 mile bike ride - 3/13/11
Over the past few weeks, I've been spending between 30 and 40 minutes on the rollers a couple-few times a week. Initially, it was 30 minutes with no resistance, just to help things get used to the motion. Then I started adding in a little resistance, followed by upping the time.
Being mid-March, I thought it time to start playing around with daisy chaining workouts, which would essentially begin with doing the equivalent of a sprint tri on Saturdays (about a mile swim, about 15 miles on the bike, and around 4 miles run). Each week I'm thinking I'll up the bike and run, but one of the goals is to minimize the time between activities, so that I can get my body ready for the sustained physical exertion.
So today, because the weather is starting to get nicer, I decided to do a quick out and back trip on the bike that I knew was going to be between 13-15 miles. Assuming a pace of 3-4 minutes/mile - that'd be in the ballpark of the appropriate time increase from the 40 minutes on the rollers I had been doing.
Garmin Results
The first half of this ride felt fairly tough, and I was thinking that I really lost a step, but then I realized, when I turned around, that the wind had a lot to do with it. I believe the turnaround was at the pace drop right around 28 minutes. So that meant the return trip was a full six minutes faster - and it felt it. Can also tell that the HR was around 150 on the way out, and definitely lower (around 140) on the way back.
I noticed that my inner thighs felt fairly fatigued, which initially tell me that I will need to build distance slowly.
I'm thinking that my next ride should be around 20 miles or so.
Being mid-March, I thought it time to start playing around with daisy chaining workouts, which would essentially begin with doing the equivalent of a sprint tri on Saturdays (about a mile swim, about 15 miles on the bike, and around 4 miles run). Each week I'm thinking I'll up the bike and run, but one of the goals is to minimize the time between activities, so that I can get my body ready for the sustained physical exertion.
So today, because the weather is starting to get nicer, I decided to do a quick out and back trip on the bike that I knew was going to be between 13-15 miles. Assuming a pace of 3-4 minutes/mile - that'd be in the ballpark of the appropriate time increase from the 40 minutes on the rollers I had been doing.
Garmin Results
The first half of this ride felt fairly tough, and I was thinking that I really lost a step, but then I realized, when I turned around, that the wind had a lot to do with it. I believe the turnaround was at the pace drop right around 28 minutes. So that meant the return trip was a full six minutes faster - and it felt it. Can also tell that the HR was around 150 on the way out, and definitely lower (around 140) on the way back.
I noticed that my inner thighs felt fairly fatigued, which initially tell me that I will need to build distance slowly.
I'm thinking that my next ride should be around 20 miles or so.
3.5 miles - 3/5/11
In trying to stay with the idea of making Saturday the longer run of the week, todays run was in the 3.5 mile range - about 1/2 mile beyond last weeks run. I felt like the week in between was adequate to recover (not that it felt like any was needed). Once again, just a loop around the neighborhood, with some extensions thrown in to meet the distance requirement.
Garmin Results
Garmin Results
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