On Sunday (5/27), due to family obligations, the only workout I could manage was to get a swim in - and that was only because my parents live on a lake. So I got there a bit earlier than everyone else to squeeze it in before the main festivities.
Practically all my swims at the pool in the past.. year or so have been a mile and a half in length. I chose that distance because it's long enough to be effective, but not so long that I can't stand the boredom. Also, the ironman swim would be done in a wetsuit - so while it is longer, some aspects of the full distance would be easier. Anyway, my plan was to start increasing distance from 1.5 miles - something like 1.7 or 1.8 miles, then a week or two later go up to 2 miles, and build up from there.
I know from experience that straight shot up and back through the middle of the lake is about 1.2 miles. Going around the perimeter adds a bit - maybe 0.3 miles. So I knew that I'd have to follow the perimeter and add a bit. At one point in the past, I had made a partial double loop and it turned out to be 1.7 miles - so I figured I'd do the same thing. Then, in the middle of the swim, I decided to extend it from there, thinking that I'm in the water already and I mine as well suck up the mental boredom and maybe I'd get to like 1.8 or 1.9 miles.
When I got out of the water, I was pretty surprised to see a full 2.4 miles. Not only that, but it was in 75 minutes - just about on target for what I've been thinking I'd do during the event. A couple factors could change this, though - one, I didn't have to contend with other people like you do in the mass swim; two, I've been figuring on swimming the outer edge of the mass of people to avoid the chance of getting a busted face from a random kick. On the other hand, I've also heard that the drafting effect is pretty significant. I've even heard that there's a bit of a whirlpool effect. I suppose I can see that - 3000 people swimming in one direction, I can certainly see where there'd be a slight current being created.
On Monday (5/28), I did what is likely my only century training ride this year. I did a few last year, but always finished them being pretty wiped out. Although I knew that I'd be better fueled during the event thanks to the aid stations every 10 miles, there was still the mental concern of having to do 112 miles on the bike and not having at least one ride of similar length during training that went extremely well.
Today's ride was primarily focused on being able to finish the ride, feel strong at the end, and avoid the bonk I've experienced around mile 80-90 in the past. To prepare for this, I stashed some water along the course the night before so I'd be able to make sure I could stay hydrated. Also, I switched up and used a new formulation for energy gel that I could bring along. Actually, it's more like energy syrup with its consistency - but being thinner than a gel meant that I could load a few 8oz fuel belt bottles with it, strap it around my waist, and have over 2000 calories worth of glucose and fructose (in a 2:1 ratio - mimicking the C2MAX carb blend that Powerbar uses in their Ironman Perform drink that will be on course at IMLP) at my disposal. That left the 2 x 24 oz water bottles available for water plus a Nuun electrolyte tab. And with the water stashed at the 25 mile mark on the out & back course, plus the halfway point being at my parents - I knew I'd be able to refill every 25 miles.
I left in the morning with the water bottles filled with gatorade (mine as well take advantage of the starting point and save the syrup). As I mentioned, I just wanted to finish the ride strong, so I kept the pressure on the pedals a bit light. I discovered after several miles that my HR was hanging around the 120 mark, so I thought that maybe a good thing to shoot for would be to try to keep it under 130 for the trip out. It was morning, and thus pretty cool out still - so it should be doable. I'd allow myself to get up to 140 on the return trip. Not only would it be getting hotter - but it'd also simulate the fatigue from doing the first loop of the IMLP course. And by keeping the HR in total below about 140, I stood a better chance of having strong feeling legs for the run portion of the brick workout I was planning (at the time I was planning on an 8 mile run).
Everything went really well for the trip out. HR stayed in range, only popping above 130 a couple times during ascents - but the legs still felt strong. Strong enough, in fact, to not need a break at the halfway point, which I've done in the past.
On the trip back, it started warming up quite a bit, but I was still able to keep pace and keep the HR under 140 for the most part. By this time, though - it started becoming more apparent that the energy syrup and water I was drinking to dilute it was not hitting the right concentration. In retrospect I think I was starting to get dehydrated. I knew at the time during the ride that I wasn't drinking water at the pace I was planning on - but my stomach also felt like it wasn't absorbing things too awful well, so I was concerned that adding to it would just make it worse. As best as I can figure, I might have taken on too much syrup at once, which started a downward spiral chain reaction. Ideally, I'd have taken a small amount of syrup, a couple swigs of water, and been on my way - but with the syrup on my fuel belt, handling it while moving was a bit of a challenge, so when I did have the bottle free, I tended to take more than I probably should have at once.
Once I got home, I left the fuel belt and took the last 24 oz bottle of Nuun water. I also downed a GU quickly, and brought another with me just in case. My HR was showing as being erratic nearly from the start, even though I was going at an easy pace and perceived rate of exertion was low. But then I'd fiddle with the HR monitor strap, and it'd plummet from the 160's down to the 140's - so I figured it was just static from the tech shirt. Normally this goes away after about 1.5 miles - but even at the three and four mile mark, it was acting up. I eventually got fed up with dealing with it and just left it, and decided I definitely have to get some static guard. Pace was 9 min/mile for a few miles, which I was pleased with, but now the dehydration and screwed up fueling from before was catching up with me. I let myself take a walk break at mile three to try and get regrouped, which helped, but then an incline between mile 4 and 5 took its toll and I took another walk break. I took the other GU, and it seemed to help - but then I realized that I would have to wash it down with electrolyte drink, not water. And what my mouth really wanted to taste at that moment was water. Finally, I was running low on liquid in general - so I decided to cut the planned 8 miles short and go with 6. Part of it was that I screwed up the fueling and hydration, part of it was that I decided that I'd rather save the miles (on account of the ankle) for later in the week, and part of it was that I started thinking that due to my lack of running volume recently I was probably behind the 8-ball in trying to knock out a longer brick run. One thing I did learn though was that even amid the fixable mistakes, I'll still go with my original plan during the event of walking the aid stations every mile. I don't mind taking walk breaks regularly, even though it might drive up my average pace to 9:30 or 10 min/miles - as long as it keeps me from having to walk large portions from mile 13 on - because if that happens, the clock will really start to accumulate time.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Week of 5/21 - 5/26
Monday
Monday is typically my yoga day, but I decided to not go for a couple reasons. One was that my work schedule had me driving out to W Mass on Tuesday and Wednesday, and I knew the commute would make getting a bike workout in pretty rough - so I wanted to get one in on Monday while I could. The other is that the legs just didn't feel quite ready for yoga. As helpful for recovery as it is - I have found that in some cases its usefulness is diminished if I go to class too soon after a tough workout.
So the bike workout was called Smith. With nine weeks to go before Lake Placid, I figure the time for workouts being primarily intervals with a focus on FTP boost is over, and now it's time to extend that out a bit. As a result, I am starting to opt for more threshold workouts near FTP. However since my FTP value just bumped by significantly, I didn't want to start with some workout with lots of time @ FTP, so this workout comprised of 10 minute segments @ FTP, seemed to fit the bill pretty nicely.
I definitely feel the effects of the higher FTP. The power numbers are closer to target, and I don't have the excess energy to float my power numbers above the target by 5-10W like I did before. So, whereas before I didn't want my average power for the interval dropping below target - for the time being I'm ok with it as I get used to the increased FTP.
Tuesday
Throughout the day on Tuesday, I planned on it being a rest day - especially in the morning when my legs felt like they were dragging. When I got home, I succumbed to the trap of over-training, and felt like I was being lazy if I didn't do something. So I picked another threshold workout called Mary Austin. Turned out to probably be not a great idea. About an hour into it, I could tell my legs were still cooked. I felt as though I could manage to finish the workout, but by the time I got halfway through the last interval, I decided it was time to pack it in. I was having more and more difficulty hitting and sustaining the target power, and the HR was getting higher and higher. Although I hate to abort a training session, the fact that I was having a hard time with the power numbers told me there was little to gain by continuing, so I bailed about 15 minutes early.
One of the toughest things is to moderate workouts and avoid over training. This usually takes the form of not doing enough easy workouts to allow recovery, as you get into the mindset that every workout must require some effort. So sometimes it's best to swallow pride, cut a workout short and just admit that rest is necessary. Wednesday would be that day.
Wednesday
After a few days of my ankle continuing to feel normal, I decided to give it a brief test with a 3 miler with the foot taped up. Keeping in mind that today is supposed to be a rest day, I kept the pace nice and slow (plus, I had the dogs with me) to keep the HR down. Fortunately, the ankle felt perfectly normal afterwards, which is a very good sign. My plan is to do another bike workout tomorrow, and then do somewhere around 6 miles or so on Friday with no tape.
Thursday
Today I repeated a workout I did a few weeks ago - 90 minutes on the trainer with 3 x 20 minutes @ FTP. Once again, it was a pretty tough workout, this time especially since the FTP was recently raised. However, like last time, I also found that the first couple minutes of each interval was the worst - after a few minutes, the legs and cardio system seem to get into a steady state and the burn in the legs subsides a bit. I don't recall from last time, but I definitely felt as though the heart and lungs were fine - the bottleneck was more the strength of the legs.
The other thing I looked at, just for comparisons sake - was the heart rate zones from this time and last time. The first time around, 45% of the time my heart was in the VO2max zone, and 16% of the time it was in the threshold zone. This time, it was more even - about 33% VO2max, and 30% threshold. I'm sure much of it can be attributed to the increase in LTHR from the most recent power test (I forget the numbers), as what was VO2max would have fallen into the threshold category. However, in a sense that doesn't matter - the fact is this time around my fitness had increased enough so that the exertion demanded by this workout decreased.
Friday
This was just an easy 5 miler, mostly to see how the ankle was feeling. I originally thought about doing six, but opted to go a little more conservative (although at the end I felt like 6 wouldn't have been an issue). I had a brief moment around mile four where I felt like it might be getting a little bit more, but that went away. Still, I soaked my foot in ice water for 10-15 minutes afterwards. As good as my ankle has been feeling, it has been varying between 95-99%.
I'm still not sure whether it's the peroneus longus, or possibly the peroneus brevis tendon. The two are very close to one another. Also, if you look up peroneus brevis tendon eversion, you can find hits that describe how I can move the ankle to test it, as there are times it feels ok normally, but putting strain on the tendon (via eversion) highlights a sore spot, indicating that it's still not fully healed. Performing this motion had always produced soreness until last Sunday, and when/if I do feel anything now, it's isolated to where the tendon is kept in place just below the bump on the outside of the ankle.
Fun fact - it's the peroneus brevis tendon that Curt Schilling had sutured during the 2004 post season.
Saturday
I had kinda planned on a bike workout, but had too much stuff around the house going on. Although it doesn't count as a workout, between mowing the lawn and walking the dogs, that accounted for about 5 miles of walking throughout the day. Normally nothing to write about, except that the fact that my ankle still feels no worse for wear is a good sign.
Monday is typically my yoga day, but I decided to not go for a couple reasons. One was that my work schedule had me driving out to W Mass on Tuesday and Wednesday, and I knew the commute would make getting a bike workout in pretty rough - so I wanted to get one in on Monday while I could. The other is that the legs just didn't feel quite ready for yoga. As helpful for recovery as it is - I have found that in some cases its usefulness is diminished if I go to class too soon after a tough workout.
So the bike workout was called Smith. With nine weeks to go before Lake Placid, I figure the time for workouts being primarily intervals with a focus on FTP boost is over, and now it's time to extend that out a bit. As a result, I am starting to opt for more threshold workouts near FTP. However since my FTP value just bumped by significantly, I didn't want to start with some workout with lots of time @ FTP, so this workout comprised of 10 minute segments @ FTP, seemed to fit the bill pretty nicely.
I definitely feel the effects of the higher FTP. The power numbers are closer to target, and I don't have the excess energy to float my power numbers above the target by 5-10W like I did before. So, whereas before I didn't want my average power for the interval dropping below target - for the time being I'm ok with it as I get used to the increased FTP.
Tuesday
Throughout the day on Tuesday, I planned on it being a rest day - especially in the morning when my legs felt like they were dragging. When I got home, I succumbed to the trap of over-training, and felt like I was being lazy if I didn't do something. So I picked another threshold workout called Mary Austin. Turned out to probably be not a great idea. About an hour into it, I could tell my legs were still cooked. I felt as though I could manage to finish the workout, but by the time I got halfway through the last interval, I decided it was time to pack it in. I was having more and more difficulty hitting and sustaining the target power, and the HR was getting higher and higher. Although I hate to abort a training session, the fact that I was having a hard time with the power numbers told me there was little to gain by continuing, so I bailed about 15 minutes early.
One of the toughest things is to moderate workouts and avoid over training. This usually takes the form of not doing enough easy workouts to allow recovery, as you get into the mindset that every workout must require some effort. So sometimes it's best to swallow pride, cut a workout short and just admit that rest is necessary. Wednesday would be that day.
Wednesday
After a few days of my ankle continuing to feel normal, I decided to give it a brief test with a 3 miler with the foot taped up. Keeping in mind that today is supposed to be a rest day, I kept the pace nice and slow (plus, I had the dogs with me) to keep the HR down. Fortunately, the ankle felt perfectly normal afterwards, which is a very good sign. My plan is to do another bike workout tomorrow, and then do somewhere around 6 miles or so on Friday with no tape.
Thursday
Today I repeated a workout I did a few weeks ago - 90 minutes on the trainer with 3 x 20 minutes @ FTP. Once again, it was a pretty tough workout, this time especially since the FTP was recently raised. However, like last time, I also found that the first couple minutes of each interval was the worst - after a few minutes, the legs and cardio system seem to get into a steady state and the burn in the legs subsides a bit. I don't recall from last time, but I definitely felt as though the heart and lungs were fine - the bottleneck was more the strength of the legs.
The other thing I looked at, just for comparisons sake - was the heart rate zones from this time and last time. The first time around, 45% of the time my heart was in the VO2max zone, and 16% of the time it was in the threshold zone. This time, it was more even - about 33% VO2max, and 30% threshold. I'm sure much of it can be attributed to the increase in LTHR from the most recent power test (I forget the numbers), as what was VO2max would have fallen into the threshold category. However, in a sense that doesn't matter - the fact is this time around my fitness had increased enough so that the exertion demanded by this workout decreased.
Friday
This was just an easy 5 miler, mostly to see how the ankle was feeling. I originally thought about doing six, but opted to go a little more conservative (although at the end I felt like 6 wouldn't have been an issue). I had a brief moment around mile four where I felt like it might be getting a little bit more, but that went away. Still, I soaked my foot in ice water for 10-15 minutes afterwards. As good as my ankle has been feeling, it has been varying between 95-99%.
I'm still not sure whether it's the peroneus longus, or possibly the peroneus brevis tendon. The two are very close to one another. Also, if you look up peroneus brevis tendon eversion, you can find hits that describe how I can move the ankle to test it, as there are times it feels ok normally, but putting strain on the tendon (via eversion) highlights a sore spot, indicating that it's still not fully healed. Performing this motion had always produced soreness until last Sunday, and when/if I do feel anything now, it's isolated to where the tendon is kept in place just below the bump on the outside of the ankle.
Fun fact - it's the peroneus brevis tendon that Curt Schilling had sutured during the 2004 post season.
Saturday
I had kinda planned on a bike workout, but had too much stuff around the house going on. Although it doesn't count as a workout, between mowing the lawn and walking the dogs, that accounted for about 5 miles of walking throughout the day. Normally nothing to write about, except that the fact that my ankle still feels no worse for wear is a good sign.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Reach the Beach Relay - 5/18 and 5/19
Pre-race:
This was the first relay event I've participated in - I had been asked to fill in at the last minute for a relay in the past, but work scheduling didn't allow it, so ever since then I've been excited/waiting for the possibility to join in one. To make it better, our team joined with the Alzheimers Association to raise money for the local charity chapter. Aside from things like fundraisers for boy scouts and band in high school, this was my first charity/fund raising event.
At first, knowing that I've built up my distance for a marathon in recent history, and that this was going to be coming up only a handful of weeks before Lake Placid, I wanted to do one of the longer rotations, and initially I was seeded into one that put me at about 19 miles. The plan was that I would treat this as a long run - even though it'd be split into three different legs, the fact is that there would only be several hours between legs - so I couldn't treat it like individual runs with normal amounts of rest in between. However, in the weeks leading up to it, I ended up being plagued with successive soft tissue injuries. As of two weeks before the event, I was thinking I might have to drop out entirely because the 11 mile threshold run caused visible bruising and swelling (though minor), and I saw no way I'd heal up enough to be able to do all 19 miles. After some emailing back and forth with the team captain, and after a couple days of reasonably encouraging healing results - I switched slots with someone, and ended up with the first two legs being in the 4-5 mile range each, with the last being 7.something miles. By this time, I was pretty certain I'd be able to run the first leg, which made me feel much better - had I paid my own entrance fee, I'd have been ok with losing the money and having to drop out. But after having raised nearly $700 in charity, I felt like I'd be letting people down if I didn't give this race what I could, while still considering other events like the Patriot (four weeks out) and Lake Placid (nine weeks out). By being able to run at least one leg, it set my mind at ease a bit. Around a week or so before the race, it was starting to look pretty good for my being able to run the second leg as well. The third would have to be played by ear.
On Thursday night I met up with the rest of the team - only two members had I met previously, everyone else was new to me. So after work, we went out for dinner & drinks at a local restaurant and chatted briefly as the few people who hadn't met introduced themselves and met face to face with people who had been just about spamming their email inbox over the past two weeks. This group had a tendency (and I include myself in this) to let the emails fly fast and furious.
On Friday morning, we met up at Mt Wachusett, the start of the race. Our team was slotted to start at 9am. We gathered around 7:30, attended orientation, got our team picture and all the normal pre-race stuff.
Van 1 rotation 1:
At 9am the gun went off, and our first runner took off with about a dozen other teams that were starting at the same time (the first wave started at 8am, and the faster teams were to start later at about 2pm). We watched the first leg for a bit, then his van mates had to get going to meet him at the end of his leg and switch runners. The first leg was only 2.8 miles, but it was virtually all uphill, going to the summit of the mountain. I was in van 2, and we knew we wouldn't be up for a few hours, so we went back to one of our teammates houses to hang out for a bit.
Around noon or so our van headed to the first van transition area (VTA) at Assumption College. This is the transition that marks the last leg for one van and the first leg for the other, and it's an opportunity for the whole team (minus the person running) to get together and chat a bit and exchange any pertinent information. But mostly it's an excuse for goofing around and making fun of each other, and check out how other teams have decorated their vans.
Van 2 rotation 1:
After the exchange, van 1 headed back to our teammates house to shower, eat, and rest up before their turn would be coming back around again. As for our van, we had a system going - meet the person running about halfway through their leg (usually around mile 2.5 - 3 or so), make sure everything is ok, ask them if they need anything like water or gatorade, and then head to the next transition area, wait around for a bit while the next participant gets ready to run their leg. Rinse and repeat 6 times, and with around 10 miles left in the rotation, call folks from the other van and let them know that it's time to head to the next VTA so they can take over.
My rotation was 2nd to last in the six person rotation for our van. By this time, we had already passed a number of teams (and keeping a tally on the side of our van), but one team in particular was our main target - a team of women who were wearing tutu's. I believe they started at 8am, so it took us a while to catch up to them, but in the legs leading up to mine, we were gaining a lot of ground. Since I knew I'd likely only be doing two legs, I decided to do my first leg waay too fast to catch up to them. After putting out a 6:40 first mile, with the HR jacked up to 170, I knew I overdid it - but I also felt that I could likely sustain that intensity for the distance. I ended up catching up to the tutu around the 2.5-3 mile mark, and for the rest of the leg, continued adding distance - I didn't want to take the chance that this was their slow runner and that they'd catch right back up.
Almost immediately, my legs were getting sore, so I knew that my next leg (at night) was definitely not going to be as fast - I'd have to keep the HR at a more reasonable level. Also, since our van's last leg was at Hopkinton State Park, I took the opportunity to soak my legs in the cool water of the reservoir. Not quite an ice bath, but it was something.
Van 1 rotation 2:
After we were finished with our first rotation, our van headed out to get some food, and back to our teammates house to rest up a bit, such as it was. We handed the baton off to the other van around 5:30, and by 9pm we were alerted that the other van had about 10 miles to go - so when you consider about an hour and a half of back and forth driving time, some time to eat and shower - it left maybe 30-60 minutes for any sleep.
We headed out to the next VTA (Bellingham High School) to wait for our other van. This started becoming the point in the whole event where you doubt the wisdom of signing up. Having been up all day, not necessarily having a great nights sleep the night before, it being dark out, knowing that the next 4-5 hours there will not only be no rest, but you will have to run a handful of miles as well - it all adds up to 'why am I doing this again?' But once the baton is handed off, it's back to business.
Van 2 rotation 2:
The night legs are interesting. On one hand, they are definitely creepy because there are long stretches of little/no light - if you are on a major road, there are street lights, but there are also more people on the road who may or may not be drunk or obscene. If you are on a minor road, you don't have the traffic, but you also don't have as many street lights. For guys, the bigger concern is drunk drivers or people not paying attention, but for females this can be a dangerous situation. We saw a group of three people running together, which made a lot of sense for safety reasons. In our teams case, we just closely followed our female teammate in the van. On our way to one of the transition areas, we stopped at a Dunkin Donuts to fill up a bucket of ice in anticipation of my needing to ice my ankle after my leg was finished. Every other place was closed (it was around 11:40 at night), and the DD was closing up - so we had to go through the drive through and explain that we had a bucket, and just wanted ice because we were in a race and were a bit banged up.
My second leg was just over 4 miles, and began at about 1:30am. I settled in to a 155 HR, which ended up being just a tad faster than 8 min/miles - just about right for marathon pace. By this time in the event, we were seeing very few teams ahead of us, or very few teams in general at all, so I had little external motivation or reason to increase the pace at all. About 1.5-2 miles into the run, I started feeling the ankle. It was minor, but I also knew from experience that it was only going to get worse. By the time I got to 3.5 miles, it was building and I realized that if I was feeling it this much being on two advil, that there was no way I could trust it for the 3rd leg of over 7 miles. It was at this point that I knew this was to be my last leg. My only hope was that I'd finish and not set my recovery back significantly.
Van 1 rotation 3:
When I got back to the van, everyone was passed out. The other van was notified that we were close to the VTA (Oliver Ames High School), and after the transition, our van headed to the next, and final (for us) VTA at Apponequet Regional HS. Once we pulled in (probably around 3:30 or so), everyone tried to get some sleep. I somehow managed to get a couple hours' worth even though I was sitting in the front seat of the van - just barely enough to feel somewhat refreshed, but not enough to avoid general grogginess for a bit after waking up. The way the course was laid out, the 3rd legs for both vans were the longest, and the 2nd legs were shortest - so whereas we had a super-quick turnaround the night before and didn't have a chance to sleep - this time we had probably an extra hour or so while waiting for the other van. Then around 7:30 we got the call from the other van to get ready.
While we were waiting, we noticed that there were some transitions already happening - and these people were cruising. The ultra's. We were wondering when they'd show up - those who started at 2pm the day before. Apparently in the past, they'd show up and pass the team during the night legs. However we (at least us in the 2nd van) hadn't really encountered this yet at all. We had an earlier start time, so that accounted for most of it - but we knew at some point these teams would be showing up and our +/- ratings for passing people would start to show some minus's. Apparently now was that time. But, before too long, it was our turn again.
Van 2 rotation 3:
As I mentioned, the third legs were the longest - generally between 6 and 7 miles for each person. So it just meant a bit more time waiting. When it came time for my leg, my replacement had already been made aware that I wasn't going to be able to run, so he put my number on and forged ahead. Technically, thats against the rules - if someone drops out, the next person is supposed to run and the slack gets taken up by whoever it falls to (in this case, it would have been runner #1 in the first van). However, with this being the last leg, the rule could be skirted by simply saying that no one was available to run, so the ball kept dropping until it got to our designated replacement. We had a brief scare that morning because in getting out of the van, he managed to twist his knee a bit, and at the time he wasn't sure he'd be able to do his own leg, nevermind add an additional 7 miles. However, ironically, I had twisted my knee similarly a couple weeks ago, and in my case I just found that although it didn't feel quite right, the knee was still stable and as long as it was kept moving, it sorted itself out in pretty short order. During his first leg, we checked in and all indications were that his knee felt fine - so all was good.
At the end of the race - the whole team gathered up a few hundred feet from the finish, so when we saw our last runner, we all joined in and crossed the finish line together and then posed for pictures.
Post race:
All in all, this was a real fun event, and I'd definitely like to do this kind of thing again. I feel as though I have unfinished business to take care of, since I wasn't able to run the last leg.
Here is where things got wierd, though. The rest of that afternoon, I was careful with my foot because it wasn't feeling all that great. I figured I set my recovery back at least 3-4 days - I was glad I bailed after the 2nd leg in terms of recovery, because I felt like I was at a point where if I continued on much more, the setback would have grown exponentially. I was even limping/hobbling a bit that afternoon. Later that evening, I looked into things more, trying to find out more precisely what part of me was injured - and once again it came up as some sort of strain/sprain of the peroneus longus tendon (most likely), cuboid syndrome (many symptoms, but not the incipient injury that leads to it), or a stress fracture (not likely, but can't rule it out). What I did find, though, was something called low dye taping, to help stabilize the cuboid. I gave that a shot, and it felt ok - but then again, I had a couple advil at that point. I called it a night and went to bed.
Eleven hours later, I woke up on Sunday morning. I put my foot down and it wasn't perfect, but actually felt a bit better than I was anticipating. I hobbled around on a crutch for a bit that morning and got my bucket of ice water and a bucket of warm water, and alternated 5-7 minute soaks between the two for about 30 minutes or so. I retaped the foot, and it felt.. really good. Throughout the day, I did the alternating soak thing 3-4 times, but continued with my typical errands and walking around and realized that my foot was feeling better than it had over the past 4 weeks, even through range of motion spots where it had previously been feeling tender. Somehow, even though it felt like it was on the verge of blowing out again 24 hours before, now it was suddenly feeling 100% healed. This actually pissed me off a bit - why couldn't it have done that a few days before hand!?
This was the first relay event I've participated in - I had been asked to fill in at the last minute for a relay in the past, but work scheduling didn't allow it, so ever since then I've been excited/waiting for the possibility to join in one. To make it better, our team joined with the Alzheimers Association to raise money for the local charity chapter. Aside from things like fundraisers for boy scouts and band in high school, this was my first charity/fund raising event.
At first, knowing that I've built up my distance for a marathon in recent history, and that this was going to be coming up only a handful of weeks before Lake Placid, I wanted to do one of the longer rotations, and initially I was seeded into one that put me at about 19 miles. The plan was that I would treat this as a long run - even though it'd be split into three different legs, the fact is that there would only be several hours between legs - so I couldn't treat it like individual runs with normal amounts of rest in between. However, in the weeks leading up to it, I ended up being plagued with successive soft tissue injuries. As of two weeks before the event, I was thinking I might have to drop out entirely because the 11 mile threshold run caused visible bruising and swelling (though minor), and I saw no way I'd heal up enough to be able to do all 19 miles. After some emailing back and forth with the team captain, and after a couple days of reasonably encouraging healing results - I switched slots with someone, and ended up with the first two legs being in the 4-5 mile range each, with the last being 7.something miles. By this time, I was pretty certain I'd be able to run the first leg, which made me feel much better - had I paid my own entrance fee, I'd have been ok with losing the money and having to drop out. But after having raised nearly $700 in charity, I felt like I'd be letting people down if I didn't give this race what I could, while still considering other events like the Patriot (four weeks out) and Lake Placid (nine weeks out). By being able to run at least one leg, it set my mind at ease a bit. Around a week or so before the race, it was starting to look pretty good for my being able to run the second leg as well. The third would have to be played by ear.
On Thursday night I met up with the rest of the team - only two members had I met previously, everyone else was new to me. So after work, we went out for dinner & drinks at a local restaurant and chatted briefly as the few people who hadn't met introduced themselves and met face to face with people who had been just about spamming their email inbox over the past two weeks. This group had a tendency (and I include myself in this) to let the emails fly fast and furious.
On Friday morning, we met up at Mt Wachusett, the start of the race. Our team was slotted to start at 9am. We gathered around 7:30, attended orientation, got our team picture and all the normal pre-race stuff.
Van 1 rotation 1:
At 9am the gun went off, and our first runner took off with about a dozen other teams that were starting at the same time (the first wave started at 8am, and the faster teams were to start later at about 2pm). We watched the first leg for a bit, then his van mates had to get going to meet him at the end of his leg and switch runners. The first leg was only 2.8 miles, but it was virtually all uphill, going to the summit of the mountain. I was in van 2, and we knew we wouldn't be up for a few hours, so we went back to one of our teammates houses to hang out for a bit.
Around noon or so our van headed to the first van transition area (VTA) at Assumption College. This is the transition that marks the last leg for one van and the first leg for the other, and it's an opportunity for the whole team (minus the person running) to get together and chat a bit and exchange any pertinent information. But mostly it's an excuse for goofing around and making fun of each other, and check out how other teams have decorated their vans.
Van 2 rotation 1:
After the exchange, van 1 headed back to our teammates house to shower, eat, and rest up before their turn would be coming back around again. As for our van, we had a system going - meet the person running about halfway through their leg (usually around mile 2.5 - 3 or so), make sure everything is ok, ask them if they need anything like water or gatorade, and then head to the next transition area, wait around for a bit while the next participant gets ready to run their leg. Rinse and repeat 6 times, and with around 10 miles left in the rotation, call folks from the other van and let them know that it's time to head to the next VTA so they can take over.
My rotation was 2nd to last in the six person rotation for our van. By this time, we had already passed a number of teams (and keeping a tally on the side of our van), but one team in particular was our main target - a team of women who were wearing tutu's. I believe they started at 8am, so it took us a while to catch up to them, but in the legs leading up to mine, we were gaining a lot of ground. Since I knew I'd likely only be doing two legs, I decided to do my first leg waay too fast to catch up to them. After putting out a 6:40 first mile, with the HR jacked up to 170, I knew I overdid it - but I also felt that I could likely sustain that intensity for the distance. I ended up catching up to the tutu around the 2.5-3 mile mark, and for the rest of the leg, continued adding distance - I didn't want to take the chance that this was their slow runner and that they'd catch right back up.
Almost immediately, my legs were getting sore, so I knew that my next leg (at night) was definitely not going to be as fast - I'd have to keep the HR at a more reasonable level. Also, since our van's last leg was at Hopkinton State Park, I took the opportunity to soak my legs in the cool water of the reservoir. Not quite an ice bath, but it was something.
Van 1 rotation 2:
After we were finished with our first rotation, our van headed out to get some food, and back to our teammates house to rest up a bit, such as it was. We handed the baton off to the other van around 5:30, and by 9pm we were alerted that the other van had about 10 miles to go - so when you consider about an hour and a half of back and forth driving time, some time to eat and shower - it left maybe 30-60 minutes for any sleep.
We headed out to the next VTA (Bellingham High School) to wait for our other van. This started becoming the point in the whole event where you doubt the wisdom of signing up. Having been up all day, not necessarily having a great nights sleep the night before, it being dark out, knowing that the next 4-5 hours there will not only be no rest, but you will have to run a handful of miles as well - it all adds up to 'why am I doing this again?' But once the baton is handed off, it's back to business.
Van 2 rotation 2:
The night legs are interesting. On one hand, they are definitely creepy because there are long stretches of little/no light - if you are on a major road, there are street lights, but there are also more people on the road who may or may not be drunk or obscene. If you are on a minor road, you don't have the traffic, but you also don't have as many street lights. For guys, the bigger concern is drunk drivers or people not paying attention, but for females this can be a dangerous situation. We saw a group of three people running together, which made a lot of sense for safety reasons. In our teams case, we just closely followed our female teammate in the van. On our way to one of the transition areas, we stopped at a Dunkin Donuts to fill up a bucket of ice in anticipation of my needing to ice my ankle after my leg was finished. Every other place was closed (it was around 11:40 at night), and the DD was closing up - so we had to go through the drive through and explain that we had a bucket, and just wanted ice because we were in a race and were a bit banged up.
My second leg was just over 4 miles, and began at about 1:30am. I settled in to a 155 HR, which ended up being just a tad faster than 8 min/miles - just about right for marathon pace. By this time in the event, we were seeing very few teams ahead of us, or very few teams in general at all, so I had little external motivation or reason to increase the pace at all. About 1.5-2 miles into the run, I started feeling the ankle. It was minor, but I also knew from experience that it was only going to get worse. By the time I got to 3.5 miles, it was building and I realized that if I was feeling it this much being on two advil, that there was no way I could trust it for the 3rd leg of over 7 miles. It was at this point that I knew this was to be my last leg. My only hope was that I'd finish and not set my recovery back significantly.
Van 1 rotation 3:
When I got back to the van, everyone was passed out. The other van was notified that we were close to the VTA (Oliver Ames High School), and after the transition, our van headed to the next, and final (for us) VTA at Apponequet Regional HS. Once we pulled in (probably around 3:30 or so), everyone tried to get some sleep. I somehow managed to get a couple hours' worth even though I was sitting in the front seat of the van - just barely enough to feel somewhat refreshed, but not enough to avoid general grogginess for a bit after waking up. The way the course was laid out, the 3rd legs for both vans were the longest, and the 2nd legs were shortest - so whereas we had a super-quick turnaround the night before and didn't have a chance to sleep - this time we had probably an extra hour or so while waiting for the other van. Then around 7:30 we got the call from the other van to get ready.
While we were waiting, we noticed that there were some transitions already happening - and these people were cruising. The ultra's. We were wondering when they'd show up - those who started at 2pm the day before. Apparently in the past, they'd show up and pass the team during the night legs. However we (at least us in the 2nd van) hadn't really encountered this yet at all. We had an earlier start time, so that accounted for most of it - but we knew at some point these teams would be showing up and our +/- ratings for passing people would start to show some minus's. Apparently now was that time. But, before too long, it was our turn again.
Van 2 rotation 3:
As I mentioned, the third legs were the longest - generally between 6 and 7 miles for each person. So it just meant a bit more time waiting. When it came time for my leg, my replacement had already been made aware that I wasn't going to be able to run, so he put my number on and forged ahead. Technically, thats against the rules - if someone drops out, the next person is supposed to run and the slack gets taken up by whoever it falls to (in this case, it would have been runner #1 in the first van). However, with this being the last leg, the rule could be skirted by simply saying that no one was available to run, so the ball kept dropping until it got to our designated replacement. We had a brief scare that morning because in getting out of the van, he managed to twist his knee a bit, and at the time he wasn't sure he'd be able to do his own leg, nevermind add an additional 7 miles. However, ironically, I had twisted my knee similarly a couple weeks ago, and in my case I just found that although it didn't feel quite right, the knee was still stable and as long as it was kept moving, it sorted itself out in pretty short order. During his first leg, we checked in and all indications were that his knee felt fine - so all was good.
At the end of the race - the whole team gathered up a few hundred feet from the finish, so when we saw our last runner, we all joined in and crossed the finish line together and then posed for pictures.
Post race:
All in all, this was a real fun event, and I'd definitely like to do this kind of thing again. I feel as though I have unfinished business to take care of, since I wasn't able to run the last leg.
Here is where things got wierd, though. The rest of that afternoon, I was careful with my foot because it wasn't feeling all that great. I figured I set my recovery back at least 3-4 days - I was glad I bailed after the 2nd leg in terms of recovery, because I felt like I was at a point where if I continued on much more, the setback would have grown exponentially. I was even limping/hobbling a bit that afternoon. Later that evening, I looked into things more, trying to find out more precisely what part of me was injured - and once again it came up as some sort of strain/sprain of the peroneus longus tendon (most likely), cuboid syndrome (many symptoms, but not the incipient injury that leads to it), or a stress fracture (not likely, but can't rule it out). What I did find, though, was something called low dye taping, to help stabilize the cuboid. I gave that a shot, and it felt ok - but then again, I had a couple advil at that point. I called it a night and went to bed.
Eleven hours later, I woke up on Sunday morning. I put my foot down and it wasn't perfect, but actually felt a bit better than I was anticipating. I hobbled around on a crutch for a bit that morning and got my bucket of ice water and a bucket of warm water, and alternated 5-7 minute soaks between the two for about 30 minutes or so. I retaped the foot, and it felt.. really good. Throughout the day, I did the alternating soak thing 3-4 times, but continued with my typical errands and walking around and realized that my foot was feeling better than it had over the past 4 weeks, even through range of motion spots where it had previously been feeling tender. Somehow, even though it felt like it was on the verge of blowing out again 24 hours before, now it was suddenly feeling 100% healed. This actually pissed me off a bit - why couldn't it have done that a few days before hand!?
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Week of 5/13 through 5/19
Sunday 5/13:
Today I did the TrainerRoad McAdie workout - second time around for this workout. It's an over/under workout, where the intervals are right near FTP - spend two minutes just under FTP, followed by 1 minute just over FTP, rinse and repeat 4x per interval, with a few minutes rest between intervals. This is supposed to help simulate varying grade terrain on climbing hills, or any situation where you are riding along and need a brief spurt of extra power.
I'm starting to think whether I should increase my FTP again. The workouts are tough, but I'm also tending to float well above the target number to make sure that I minimize chance of dipping below. So as a result, I tend to ride 5-10W higher than the target in most situations. So I may bump up the FTP from 231 to 236 and see how that goes, or I might actually do the 20 minute power test. I've avoided the power tests because I believe you want to be fairly well rested for them - so with that in mind, Tuesday might be a good day to do that, as it'll be the day after Yoga (Monday).
Monday 5/14:
Yoga. Standard stuff.
Tuesday 5/15:
Decided to go with the power test on this day. After doing yoga the previous day, and knowing I'd probably not hit the bike much over the subsequent couple days as I prepared for a relay I'm participating in over the weekend, I decided to go with the full-on 20 minute power test.
Earlier in the day, I started mentally thinking and predicting what my end result would be. I knew that the 20 minute test is based on going as fast as you can for 20 minutes, and the normalized power over that 20 minutes is something like 95% of your FTP. So with my FTP currently at 231, I'd need to do somewhere around 242-245 just to maintain the FTP at 231. I felt like that was possible. It may not be fun, but it should be possible.
But then, as I do with all my workouts, I ended up bumping up above that number, because I don't want to see my power go below target (even though if its low by a few W, it shouldn't really matter). So with the mental minimum target of 245, I ended up saying 'eh, going to 260 is only a few more RPM's, lets see how that goes'. And.. it went. There were times when it'd slow to less than 255, but for the most part it stayed between 255 and 265. Meanwhile, the HR slowly crept up from 160, through 165 and ending up closer to 170. During the last minute, I gave it everything I had left (in measured fashion to make sure I wouldn't collapse before the end), pushing the power over 300.
In the end, the new FTP value was recorded at 244 - a full 13W more than my previous FTP setting. That means that since January when I started on the trainer, my FTP has jumped from 220 to 244, just over 10%. Then again, spending almost 3 days worth of time should produce some nice results :)
Wednesday 5/16 and Thursday 5/17:
These days were off days in prep for the Reach the Beach Relay (summary in another blog post). Or, not prep so much as a chance to be a tad lazy and rest up a bit, taking advantage of the disrupted schedule I'd have over the next few days.
Sunday 5/20:
Still a bit sore from the relay, I decided to do more of a recovery spin on the trainer as opposed to a new interval or threshold workout based on my new FTP number. If the new FTP were only a few W higher, than maybe I'd have done something other than a recovery workout - but the jump in power is significant enough that I'd like to be reasonably prepared for the first one so I can establish a nice baseline for fatigue and recovery.
So today's workout was just a 60 minute free. The first 10 minutes were a warm-up and ramp-up to about 90% FTP, where I stayed for 10 minutes. Then a drop down to 70% FTP for 10 minutes, followed by a few segments of 90% FTP for 5 minutes with 70% FTP recovery. This ended up splitting the workout about 50/50 between the active recovery and sweet spot power zones.
Today I did the TrainerRoad McAdie workout - second time around for this workout. It's an over/under workout, where the intervals are right near FTP - spend two minutes just under FTP, followed by 1 minute just over FTP, rinse and repeat 4x per interval, with a few minutes rest between intervals. This is supposed to help simulate varying grade terrain on climbing hills, or any situation where you are riding along and need a brief spurt of extra power.
I'm starting to think whether I should increase my FTP again. The workouts are tough, but I'm also tending to float well above the target number to make sure that I minimize chance of dipping below. So as a result, I tend to ride 5-10W higher than the target in most situations. So I may bump up the FTP from 231 to 236 and see how that goes, or I might actually do the 20 minute power test. I've avoided the power tests because I believe you want to be fairly well rested for them - so with that in mind, Tuesday might be a good day to do that, as it'll be the day after Yoga (Monday).
Monday 5/14:
Yoga. Standard stuff.
Tuesday 5/15:
Decided to go with the power test on this day. After doing yoga the previous day, and knowing I'd probably not hit the bike much over the subsequent couple days as I prepared for a relay I'm participating in over the weekend, I decided to go with the full-on 20 minute power test.
Earlier in the day, I started mentally thinking and predicting what my end result would be. I knew that the 20 minute test is based on going as fast as you can for 20 minutes, and the normalized power over that 20 minutes is something like 95% of your FTP. So with my FTP currently at 231, I'd need to do somewhere around 242-245 just to maintain the FTP at 231. I felt like that was possible. It may not be fun, but it should be possible.
But then, as I do with all my workouts, I ended up bumping up above that number, because I don't want to see my power go below target (even though if its low by a few W, it shouldn't really matter). So with the mental minimum target of 245, I ended up saying 'eh, going to 260 is only a few more RPM's, lets see how that goes'. And.. it went. There were times when it'd slow to less than 255, but for the most part it stayed between 255 and 265. Meanwhile, the HR slowly crept up from 160, through 165 and ending up closer to 170. During the last minute, I gave it everything I had left (in measured fashion to make sure I wouldn't collapse before the end), pushing the power over 300.
In the end, the new FTP value was recorded at 244 - a full 13W more than my previous FTP setting. That means that since January when I started on the trainer, my FTP has jumped from 220 to 244, just over 10%. Then again, spending almost 3 days worth of time should produce some nice results :)
Wednesday 5/16 and Thursday 5/17:
These days were off days in prep for the Reach the Beach Relay (summary in another blog post). Or, not prep so much as a chance to be a tad lazy and rest up a bit, taking advantage of the disrupted schedule I'd have over the next few days.
Sunday 5/20:
Still a bit sore from the relay, I decided to do more of a recovery spin on the trainer as opposed to a new interval or threshold workout based on my new FTP number. If the new FTP were only a few W higher, than maybe I'd have done something other than a recovery workout - but the jump in power is significant enough that I'd like to be reasonably prepared for the first one so I can establish a nice baseline for fatigue and recovery.
So today's workout was just a 60 minute free. The first 10 minutes were a warm-up and ramp-up to about 90% FTP, where I stayed for 10 minutes. Then a drop down to 70% FTP for 10 minutes, followed by a few segments of 90% FTP for 5 minutes with 70% FTP recovery. This ended up splitting the workout about 50/50 between the active recovery and sweet spot power zones.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Week of 5/6 through 5/12 - cycling hills and intervals
Sunday:
On Sunday, my fears regarding my foot were realized. Immediately upon putting weight onto it in the morning, I felt pain. I was really hoping that a nights sleep would take the edge off, but not so much. So I popped 4 more advil.
Fortunately, though, doing bike work has never seemed to bother this injury, so I headed up to Wachusett Mountain to get some hill work in with a friend. The concept was simple - ride up and down hills for a while, both for the physical benefits as well as some mental preparation for the hills at Lake Placid. During investigations, it appears that the bike course @ IMLP is often in the 4.5-5 % grade range - which isn't necessarily huge, but the placement of them makes them deceiving and difficult. Mt Wachusett is in the same range - the only thing missing is the 10-20 miles of climbing.
At first, we ascended from the parking lot (located about half way up) to the summit - a distance of about 2.5 miles. After that, we decided to descend all the way to the bottom, which would add another mile of climbing distance. In the end we discovered that the bottom half was more of a steady climb and felt easier, while the top was more rolling, with some sections of steeper grade. Liking the combination, we repeated the climb from the bottom to top again before calling it a day.
One of the questions I've had for a while is whether my power output is high enough to allow me to spin at a nice cadence of 90 while staying well in an aerobic heart rate zone. Doing these hills gave me the answer - nope! However, I did discover on the last ascent that if I lowered my cadence to around 50, I could do so, albeit slowly, at a manageable heart rate. That is an encouraging bit of information, because from everything I gather, if you cook your legs too early during an Ironman, you really pay for it on the run. Yeah, going 4-5 mph on the bike may be slow - but if it keeps you from walking at 18 min/miles during long stretches of the run - that time gets made up.
Back to the foot - on Sunday night I continued with the alternating of the cold/heat immersion. I even grabbed an old crutch to hobble around on so that I could completely minimize the amount of weight that foot had to bear.
Monday:
The foot felt slightly better on Monday morning - I think I still took 2 advil though, and was walking slow to keep from hurting it more. Fortunately for the whole morning, I was able to stay seated. At lunch I popped a couple more advil - and by the time I got home, I realized it was feeling much better. Yeah, I had taken advil - but not only had the amount decreased, but the overall pain did as well. I still had to be careful, but I was really surprised at how much improvement had been made.
I had considered going to yoga, since Monday if my normal yoga night, but decided not to - if things were healing nicely, I didn't want to take the chance that the balance poses @ yoga would set things back. While it's possible it could have helped, it was progressing nicely on it's own, so I didn't want to mess with it.
Monday evening I did the Ansel Adams trainerroad workout - a return to interval based training. This one was a new challenge, as the intervals were 50s long @ just over 130% FTP, with 50s rest in between. It was only an hour long workout, though, vs the hour and a half I had been doing. However, the intensity factor was 0.99, whereas most of my workouts have been in the 0.85-0.93 range - so this was definitely a bit more intense.
Continued with cold/hot immersion for the foot - three times. One session in the morning before work, one upon returning home, and one before bed.
Tuesday:
Once again, the foot continued to feel better on Tuesday morning. Certainly nowhere near 100%, and still having to walk a tad slower or with slightly altered gait to keep from irritating it - but found myself going through short stints of walking like a normal person (wow, is that nice!). Dropped down to 1 advil in the morning and 1 at lunch. In fact, there were periods after returning home where it felt completely normal, and I forgot I actually had a bum foot. So thats good news.
On Tuesday evening I did the TrainerRoad Bago workout. Holy crap - I was not ready for that one! I picked it because I wanted something interval based that was intense - and this had an intensity factor of 0.94. However, just the intensity factor alone doesn't tell the story - this workout was more difficult than the Ansel Adams the day before, even though that one had a higher intensity factor. The reason this was more difficult was that each interval at 120% FTP was for 3 full minutes. The other thing is that I purposely put the bike into a high gear, so that I could practice some lower cadence gear mashing, since it became apparent to me that I'd not be able to sustain a cadence of 90 rpm anyway at IMLP. So that may or may not have made it more difficult. Either way, I got through the first 6 intervals and came exceptionally close to calling it a day - the legs just didn't have enough left for another 6 at that intensity. However, I made myself a deal - I'd allow slacking on the target power (down into the 260's) if I finished the whole thing - because finishing even without hitting the target is better than not finishing. It was still tough, but much more doable.
Wednesday:
Went to yoga on Wednesday night. The foot has been improving steadily day by day, and by Wednesday I was feeling comfortable enough that the balance poses and time in the heat would not adversely affect things.
Thursday:
On Thursday I did the TrainerRoad Thor workout again. I had done this one in the pat, but only for an hour and ten minutes due to a tightened workout window. In looking at my writeup from last time, it was a taxing workout, and I felt like I could finish the entire 90 minute workout - so today I wanted to see how it compared to last time. This workout has multiple sets of 12s sprints @ ~188% FTP, followed by 4 minutes at slightly above FTP. As usual, I had a bit of a hard time nailing the target power on the 12s portions due to them being so short, but all in all, it was a solid performance.
Friday:
I took the day off from work on Friday for various reasons, but one benefit was that I was able to get the Rockhouse workout in again. This is the 3 hr race simulation workout, and it.. works you. It was definitely easier the second time around - the first time the seat was uncomfortable virtually the entire 3rd hour, whereas this time it was more bearable. That goes a long way towards the workout being easier from a mental standpoint. However, just like the last time - I was pretty tired right away, and the legs were definitely feeling it for a couple hours afterwards. But it was the best opportunity for a long training session for the weekend.
Saturday:
Saturday was largely a rest day, but I ended up going to the pool for a swim workout - the first since about March.
Total Distance: 2650 yds (53 laps - I actually did 54, but the last one didn't get counted because I screwed up trying to stop the counter)
Total Time: 46:54
I lost about a minute or so since the last swim - still in the 31 minute/mile range, which I'm ok with. I'm not too concerned, though, because I'm sure that time will be recovered once I start putting the final touches on the swim portion over the last 6-8 weeks before Lake Placid, and get a lot more swim time in.
On Sunday, my fears regarding my foot were realized. Immediately upon putting weight onto it in the morning, I felt pain. I was really hoping that a nights sleep would take the edge off, but not so much. So I popped 4 more advil.
Fortunately, though, doing bike work has never seemed to bother this injury, so I headed up to Wachusett Mountain to get some hill work in with a friend. The concept was simple - ride up and down hills for a while, both for the physical benefits as well as some mental preparation for the hills at Lake Placid. During investigations, it appears that the bike course @ IMLP is often in the 4.5-5 % grade range - which isn't necessarily huge, but the placement of them makes them deceiving and difficult. Mt Wachusett is in the same range - the only thing missing is the 10-20 miles of climbing.
At first, we ascended from the parking lot (located about half way up) to the summit - a distance of about 2.5 miles. After that, we decided to descend all the way to the bottom, which would add another mile of climbing distance. In the end we discovered that the bottom half was more of a steady climb and felt easier, while the top was more rolling, with some sections of steeper grade. Liking the combination, we repeated the climb from the bottom to top again before calling it a day.
One of the questions I've had for a while is whether my power output is high enough to allow me to spin at a nice cadence of 90 while staying well in an aerobic heart rate zone. Doing these hills gave me the answer - nope! However, I did discover on the last ascent that if I lowered my cadence to around 50, I could do so, albeit slowly, at a manageable heart rate. That is an encouraging bit of information, because from everything I gather, if you cook your legs too early during an Ironman, you really pay for it on the run. Yeah, going 4-5 mph on the bike may be slow - but if it keeps you from walking at 18 min/miles during long stretches of the run - that time gets made up.
Back to the foot - on Sunday night I continued with the alternating of the cold/heat immersion. I even grabbed an old crutch to hobble around on so that I could completely minimize the amount of weight that foot had to bear.
Monday:
The foot felt slightly better on Monday morning - I think I still took 2 advil though, and was walking slow to keep from hurting it more. Fortunately for the whole morning, I was able to stay seated. At lunch I popped a couple more advil - and by the time I got home, I realized it was feeling much better. Yeah, I had taken advil - but not only had the amount decreased, but the overall pain did as well. I still had to be careful, but I was really surprised at how much improvement had been made.
I had considered going to yoga, since Monday if my normal yoga night, but decided not to - if things were healing nicely, I didn't want to take the chance that the balance poses @ yoga would set things back. While it's possible it could have helped, it was progressing nicely on it's own, so I didn't want to mess with it.
Monday evening I did the Ansel Adams trainerroad workout - a return to interval based training. This one was a new challenge, as the intervals were 50s long @ just over 130% FTP, with 50s rest in between. It was only an hour long workout, though, vs the hour and a half I had been doing. However, the intensity factor was 0.99, whereas most of my workouts have been in the 0.85-0.93 range - so this was definitely a bit more intense.
Continued with cold/hot immersion for the foot - three times. One session in the morning before work, one upon returning home, and one before bed.
Tuesday:
Once again, the foot continued to feel better on Tuesday morning. Certainly nowhere near 100%, and still having to walk a tad slower or with slightly altered gait to keep from irritating it - but found myself going through short stints of walking like a normal person (wow, is that nice!). Dropped down to 1 advil in the morning and 1 at lunch. In fact, there were periods after returning home where it felt completely normal, and I forgot I actually had a bum foot. So thats good news.
On Tuesday evening I did the TrainerRoad Bago workout. Holy crap - I was not ready for that one! I picked it because I wanted something interval based that was intense - and this had an intensity factor of 0.94. However, just the intensity factor alone doesn't tell the story - this workout was more difficult than the Ansel Adams the day before, even though that one had a higher intensity factor. The reason this was more difficult was that each interval at 120% FTP was for 3 full minutes. The other thing is that I purposely put the bike into a high gear, so that I could practice some lower cadence gear mashing, since it became apparent to me that I'd not be able to sustain a cadence of 90 rpm anyway at IMLP. So that may or may not have made it more difficult. Either way, I got through the first 6 intervals and came exceptionally close to calling it a day - the legs just didn't have enough left for another 6 at that intensity. However, I made myself a deal - I'd allow slacking on the target power (down into the 260's) if I finished the whole thing - because finishing even without hitting the target is better than not finishing. It was still tough, but much more doable.
Wednesday:
Went to yoga on Wednesday night. The foot has been improving steadily day by day, and by Wednesday I was feeling comfortable enough that the balance poses and time in the heat would not adversely affect things.
Thursday:
On Thursday I did the TrainerRoad Thor workout again. I had done this one in the pat, but only for an hour and ten minutes due to a tightened workout window. In looking at my writeup from last time, it was a taxing workout, and I felt like I could finish the entire 90 minute workout - so today I wanted to see how it compared to last time. This workout has multiple sets of 12s sprints @ ~188% FTP, followed by 4 minutes at slightly above FTP. As usual, I had a bit of a hard time nailing the target power on the 12s portions due to them being so short, but all in all, it was a solid performance.
Friday:
I took the day off from work on Friday for various reasons, but one benefit was that I was able to get the Rockhouse workout in again. This is the 3 hr race simulation workout, and it.. works you. It was definitely easier the second time around - the first time the seat was uncomfortable virtually the entire 3rd hour, whereas this time it was more bearable. That goes a long way towards the workout being easier from a mental standpoint. However, just like the last time - I was pretty tired right away, and the legs were definitely feeling it for a couple hours afterwards. But it was the best opportunity for a long training session for the weekend.
Saturday:
Saturday was largely a rest day, but I ended up going to the pool for a swim workout - the first since about March.
Total Distance: 2650 yds (53 laps - I actually did 54, but the last one didn't get counted because I screwed up trying to stop the counter)
Total Time: 46:54
I lost about a minute or so since the last swim - still in the 31 minute/mile range, which I'm ok with. I'm not too concerned, though, because I'm sure that time will be recovered once I start putting the final touches on the swim portion over the last 6-8 weeks before Lake Placid, and get a lot more swim time in.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Week of 5/1 through 5/5 - cycling and threshold workouts
I'm going to try a weekly update (or maybe 2x per week) instead of daily - it might help tie some things together more cleanly between workouts during a single week.
On Monday I did a short 4ish mile run - the first since the long 17 miler the other week that ended up aggrevating my right foot right around my 5th metatarsal. The point of this run was simply to see how my foot would react - it was feeling much better, about 95%. However I know from experience that the last 5% can take a real long time, so I thought I'd try a test run to start getting an idea of how much it might set me back or what effect it might have. Sometimes injuries and healing can be a step-back-two-steps-forward kinda deal. The foot ended up feeling perfectly fine while running - oddly enough I feel it more when walking and not at all during running - but that afternoon it started getting a little tender again. The other reason I picked this day to test it out is that I knew I was going to go to yoga in the evening, and that always helps out a bit.
On Tuesday I did the TrainerRoad Trojan workout. I wanted to do a more threshold type workout - last week was primarily intervals, so I thought something more steady and sustained would be a nice change of pace. This workout was that, being 6 x 10 minute sets with brief sprints during those sets. Unfortunately the sprints were so fast that by the time I got up to power, they were just about over - so that is why the readout shows I fell short of the target power, even though I intentionally kept @ power for 2-3 seconds after the sprint in an attempt to resolve that issue. Anyway, I liked that it was a solid amount of time @ threshold.
On Wednesday the foot was feeling good enough to give a shot to a six mile run with intervals - similar to the interval session from a couple weeks ago. Warm up two miles, 1/4 mile intervals at target of 1:38, 1/4 rest in between. This was done with a coworker during lunch at work, and since it was with someone else, it naturally ended up being too fast - as evidenced by the brief touch of 200 bpm for the heartrate, and the first three intervals reaching 190 bpm, and all but the last being faster than 1:30. It wasn't until the final interval that we hit the 1:38 (and that was partially uphill). Oops.
Wednesday evening saw another cycling workout. Continuing with the threshold theme (also since I did intervals during the run), I did the TrainerRoad 90 minute free workout - a completely free form workout. It consisted of 5 minutes of warmup spin @ 50% FTP, followed by 5 minutes of ratcheting up by 10% FTP every minute - making the last minute @ FTP. Then it was 5 minutes rest before 3 x 20 minute intervals @ FTP with 5 minutes rest in between.
On Thursday, I only had time for a one hour cycling session. I wanted to continue with the threshold theme, so I found a workout called Wallace which fit the bill - 2 x 20 minute FTP intervals with a couple brief 30s 'breaks' at ~95% FTP. Even though the HR was lower for the same power as the previous night, my legs felt more worn and fatigued.
On Friday I took a rest day - I wanted to do a threshold run on Saturday, and with Thursday's workout highlighting fatigue, I decided it was a good day to take a break. Also, I had been hitting the bike hard the past two weeks, and just needed a mental break from it.
On Saturday morning, the foot was feeling really good again (though not quite 100% still), so I went ahead with a threshold/marathon pace run. In my mind I knew I should limit it to about 11 on account of the foot, but my motivation wanted to do more like 13. I ended up settling on a route that was about 11.7 miles, mostly because I just wanted something different for that distance as opposed to my typical 11 mile route around the Sudbury Reservoir. It was an interesting run with multiple stages - the first few miles felt really strong, and I was really happy with how things were proceeding, wondering whether to thank relative running rest over the past couple weeks (on account of the foot) or the FTP workouts on the bike. After the 4-5 mile mark, I started to feel fatigue a bit, so I tried to remain more focused than usual during these times on form - making sure I wasn't over-striding, keeping cadence up, and trying to keep loose. Around the 6 mile mark, I came to a crossroads, so to speak - slow down to try and keep the HR under control (as it was starting to creep up, or speed up and turn the 2nd half into something like a progression run. I opted for the latter, because the foot was starting to be a slight bother, and I knew that the longer I was out, the worse it would get. By the time I hit the 9 mile mark, the foot was a constant annoyance and I kinda wished I had opted for the other loop that was closer to 11 miles as opposed to this one that was closer to 12. I actually considered stopping to walk, but knew that this particular injury hasn't been historically helped by walking - so I pushed on to get home as fast as possible and get in the ice bath.
Fortunately, I had already drawn the cold water bath before I left, in the interest of minimizing time. I was glad I did - once I got home, I quickly had my recovery drink of chocolate milk and protein powder and got in the tub. Typically after a few minutes in the tub, any sort of aches or whatever I've had during the run go away - but I could still feel tenderness in my foot, so I knew that wasn't a good sign. I ended up popping 4 advil to get a head start on anti-inflammatories, as it was evident that just cold water alone wasn't going to be enough.
Throughout the afternoon and evening, I stayed on advil and have been aggressive with ice water immersion of the foot, following by massaging and rewarming to get fresh blood flow. My hope is that this will be like a lot of other overuse injuries I've had - very slow to heal and stubborn to completely heal, then it gets worse, and then it gets better. However, that pattern could certainly be an effect of being more aggressive about healing the 2nd time around.
On Monday I did a short 4ish mile run - the first since the long 17 miler the other week that ended up aggrevating my right foot right around my 5th metatarsal. The point of this run was simply to see how my foot would react - it was feeling much better, about 95%. However I know from experience that the last 5% can take a real long time, so I thought I'd try a test run to start getting an idea of how much it might set me back or what effect it might have. Sometimes injuries and healing can be a step-back-two-steps-forward kinda deal. The foot ended up feeling perfectly fine while running - oddly enough I feel it more when walking and not at all during running - but that afternoon it started getting a little tender again. The other reason I picked this day to test it out is that I knew I was going to go to yoga in the evening, and that always helps out a bit.
On Tuesday I did the TrainerRoad Trojan workout. I wanted to do a more threshold type workout - last week was primarily intervals, so I thought something more steady and sustained would be a nice change of pace. This workout was that, being 6 x 10 minute sets with brief sprints during those sets. Unfortunately the sprints were so fast that by the time I got up to power, they were just about over - so that is why the readout shows I fell short of the target power, even though I intentionally kept @ power for 2-3 seconds after the sprint in an attempt to resolve that issue. Anyway, I liked that it was a solid amount of time @ threshold.
On Wednesday the foot was feeling good enough to give a shot to a six mile run with intervals - similar to the interval session from a couple weeks ago. Warm up two miles, 1/4 mile intervals at target of 1:38, 1/4 rest in between. This was done with a coworker during lunch at work, and since it was with someone else, it naturally ended up being too fast - as evidenced by the brief touch of 200 bpm for the heartrate, and the first three intervals reaching 190 bpm, and all but the last being faster than 1:30. It wasn't until the final interval that we hit the 1:38 (and that was partially uphill). Oops.
Wednesday evening saw another cycling workout. Continuing with the threshold theme (also since I did intervals during the run), I did the TrainerRoad 90 minute free workout - a completely free form workout. It consisted of 5 minutes of warmup spin @ 50% FTP, followed by 5 minutes of ratcheting up by 10% FTP every minute - making the last minute @ FTP. Then it was 5 minutes rest before 3 x 20 minute intervals @ FTP with 5 minutes rest in between.
On Thursday, I only had time for a one hour cycling session. I wanted to continue with the threshold theme, so I found a workout called Wallace which fit the bill - 2 x 20 minute FTP intervals with a couple brief 30s 'breaks' at ~95% FTP. Even though the HR was lower for the same power as the previous night, my legs felt more worn and fatigued.
On Friday I took a rest day - I wanted to do a threshold run on Saturday, and with Thursday's workout highlighting fatigue, I decided it was a good day to take a break. Also, I had been hitting the bike hard the past two weeks, and just needed a mental break from it.
On Saturday morning, the foot was feeling really good again (though not quite 100% still), so I went ahead with a threshold/marathon pace run. In my mind I knew I should limit it to about 11 on account of the foot, but my motivation wanted to do more like 13. I ended up settling on a route that was about 11.7 miles, mostly because I just wanted something different for that distance as opposed to my typical 11 mile route around the Sudbury Reservoir. It was an interesting run with multiple stages - the first few miles felt really strong, and I was really happy with how things were proceeding, wondering whether to thank relative running rest over the past couple weeks (on account of the foot) or the FTP workouts on the bike. After the 4-5 mile mark, I started to feel fatigue a bit, so I tried to remain more focused than usual during these times on form - making sure I wasn't over-striding, keeping cadence up, and trying to keep loose. Around the 6 mile mark, I came to a crossroads, so to speak - slow down to try and keep the HR under control (as it was starting to creep up, or speed up and turn the 2nd half into something like a progression run. I opted for the latter, because the foot was starting to be a slight bother, and I knew that the longer I was out, the worse it would get. By the time I hit the 9 mile mark, the foot was a constant annoyance and I kinda wished I had opted for the other loop that was closer to 11 miles as opposed to this one that was closer to 12. I actually considered stopping to walk, but knew that this particular injury hasn't been historically helped by walking - so I pushed on to get home as fast as possible and get in the ice bath.
Fortunately, I had already drawn the cold water bath before I left, in the interest of minimizing time. I was glad I did - once I got home, I quickly had my recovery drink of chocolate milk and protein powder and got in the tub. Typically after a few minutes in the tub, any sort of aches or whatever I've had during the run go away - but I could still feel tenderness in my foot, so I knew that wasn't a good sign. I ended up popping 4 advil to get a head start on anti-inflammatories, as it was evident that just cold water alone wasn't going to be enough.
Throughout the afternoon and evening, I stayed on advil and have been aggressive with ice water immersion of the foot, following by massaging and rewarming to get fresh blood flow. My hope is that this will be like a lot of other overuse injuries I've had - very slow to heal and stubborn to completely heal, then it gets worse, and then it gets better. However, that pattern could certainly be an effect of being more aggressive about healing the 2nd time around.
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