Tuesday Track Work

11 x 200 with a 200 bounce.

According to the schedule today was supposed to be 10 x 200. It was a short workout because most of the group will be doing the Sandestin Triathlon Saturday or the 2-mile Elvis Lives Run Thursday.

Now you are wondering whether I have trouble counting to 10. If this were a swim workout the answer would be YES. I can't keep track of laps to save my life. However, during speed work, I know exactly how many reps I have done.

So the plan at the beginning of the workout was 2 sets of 5 with a 3 minute rest in between sets. There was some mumbling about one guy doing 20 instead of 10, but I ignored that.

The first set of five went as planned. I was not quite fast enough to start each rep with the fast crowd but less than 25 meters behind at the end of 5 laps. During the second set, I was able to stay a little bit closer and catch up during the recovery. It was during this set that the brain washing happened.

After the third 200,

Leader: "Only two more in this set". 

Me: "Only two more then beer"

After the fourth 

One more then a break

One more then I die

During the final recovery and rest period

Even if you can't do another set you should do at 
least 1 more. It will make you feel better.

I knew this was lie but I just couldn't say no. After a four minute rest I lined up with the rest of the crazies ready to give this final 200 everything I had left. 

3, 2, 1, go

And we were off...well, they were off. I was left in the dust. It turns out my limit is ten.

The silver lining in all of this was the "new" and improving Guido Sportif triathlon support van waiting in the parking lot with a 1/6 keg of strawberry ale. More pictures to come as the planned upgrades are completed.

River Cities Weekend

I am finally recovering from a busy weekend with friends. The weekend started with me waking up at 4am for what was supposed to be an 8 mile run.  It was cut a little short due to a lightning but I was happy that the first 6 miles were done at low 10 minute pace.  That is a lot slower than what I am used to but better than my heart rate runs have been so far.

The rest of the weekend was devoted to supporting friends in the River Cities Triathlon in Bossier City, Louisiana. The race is known for the amazing swag bag and hotter than hell temperatures.  It lived up to its reputation in both categories. The race bag included a nice looking duffel bag, technical T-shirt, cotton T-shirt, sports socks, flip-flops, sunglass and all the usual Gu and recovery drink samples.

It was a typical race weekend for us. After driving 4+ hours to get to Shreveport we decided we were too close to Texas not to drive over and pick up some New Belgium Brewery beer. Saturday night we piled five people, three bicycles and a dog into one hotel room.

Race morning started hot despite the overcast skies. That race really needs to start at 7 instead of 8. One unique aspect of this race is that each swim wave is started with the firing of a cannon. The swim was a ½ mile rectangle in a hot tub temperature lake.

The biggest complaint I heard from race participants involved the distance participants had to run out of transition with their bikes before getting to the mount line. The bike course was a hilly 18 mile loop, 90% of it on smoothly paved roads. I spent a lot of time spectating at the mount/dismount line. I have never seen a running bike collision but there were some very close calls when faster athletes were trying to run passed walkers during the long transition zone mentioned earlier.

Once the athletes made it thru transition off they went on the run course which was mostly difficult due to heat. The run course was a shady loop thru the park but the complete lack of air movement was brutal. Many people commented that they had never seen that many people walking during a 5k triathlon run.

Overall it was a really enjoyable weekend and completely worth my slow start Monday morning. Next year I hope to be participating, because spectating is way too stressful. I have marked my calendar and will be ready to sign up the minute registration opens.

This morning was the first of what I hope will be a very long string of easy morning runs. The idea behind the initial stages of heart rate training is that you should be doing most, if not all, your training at your target heart rate. With an entire month of big races/events coming up in October, I am not willing to give up my current training in order to do that. As a compromise I am going to try to run at least 30 minutes every morning at or below 155 HR. This leaves my afternoons and evenings open for my other normal workouts.

Maybe after Ironman Austin I will be able to devote all of my workouts to heart rate training for a few months. I am looking forward to the point where my low heart rate pace starts dropping. 

New Job and New Toy!!

 Today was my first day in a new position. I am still just an intern but different office and different responsibilities. I am slowly working my way closer to the job I want not just what I have to do to pay the bills while in Grad School.

Causeway Bridge

This switch adds about 25 minutes of bridge driving (see above) to my commute each way which means morning runs happen in the dark.  Not a big deal since during the summer in Louisiana that is the most comfortable time to run anyway.

Waiting in my mailbox when I got home was my new-to-me Garmin Forerunner 310xt!

Garmin Forerunner 310xt

I had a Forerunner 305 for a few years until I lost it at a post-race party a couple weekends ago. Since I have started doing heart rate training I decided to upgrade to the 310XT in order to have vibrating alerts.

I have only used it once but I am already in love. The vibrating alerts set to the heart rate zone worked well on the run. Running 11+ minute mile pace is still painfully boring to me to but with the new watch I can start to zone out since I don’t need to look at the watch every 5 seconds. (Audio books on my mp3 player also help with the zoning out J)

Another neat feature of the 310XT is how it works with the Training Peaks Device Agent. This allows me to wirelessly upload the data straight to Training Peaks. I can now leave the watch plugged in near the front door so I won’t forget to grab it on my way out.  

Heart Rate Monitor

Yesterday, I pulled my heart rate monitor out of the closet, for the first time in years, and took it to a speed-work with me. I always assumed I was in pretty decent aerobic condition. I have run two marathons, a couple half-marathons, and just finished my first half marathon with acceptable times.

 The walk from my car to the track brought my heart rate up to a whopping 127 bpm.  A very easy 1 mile warm up jog hit 182, and the hardest of the 10x300 workout peaked at 192 bpm. Eeek!

Today's swim-bike workout was not as scary. A half mile open water swim averaging 152 bpm followed by 10+ miles on the bike averaging 157 bpm.

 The coach told me I need more long slow runs and I need to run my slow runs at 70% heart rate. My internal response, “Screw that. I just ran 8 miles at 8:45 pace. I don’t need slow training.”

As usual, I am wrong.

After spending a slow day at work researching heart rate training, I am willing to admit it might have some merit (imagine that). The most convincing article I read was Working Your Heart by Mark Allen. How I currently understand it, 60-70% of your max heart rate is the intensity at which your body is able to convert fat to fuel and if you consistently train at that heart rate you will be able to run faster at that heart rate. As much as I want to believe that I am just too good for long slow training, if it a 6 time world ironman champion isn’t too good for heart rate training I can hardly claim to be.  Maybe I will acquire some patience along the way.