Summer Trudges On

Not much to write about for the past few weeks. We were hit with the most fantastical round of monsoon moisture that went on for several weeks. Such a relief given the drought and poor irrigation season. My pastures are actually looking really good, considering. But it's meant that I've stayed out of the high country because the storms are dangerous, especially up there. We even had a bolt of lightning hit the ground in the pasture about 50 feet or so from the cow loafing shed and maybe another 40 feet to the house. Scary. And I've actually been sort of kind of training for my upcoming triathlon in Durango and that doesn't involve high country hiking. But I'll get back at it, especially when fall hits.

In general the smoke from the western wildfires hasn't impacted us here too badly but of course the one weekend I had a bike race and people down to visit/ride was the worst air quality so far this summer. I bailed on the race and riding with my friends, the AQI was around 170-180. And the Sleeping Ute looked like this.

Which is to say you couldn't see it at all. No way was I going to exert myself in that soup. My general rule of thumb for exerting myself in wildfire smoke is an AQI less than 70 and decent visibility of the surrounding mountains (Mesa Verde, Sleeping Ute, etc.). We're in uncharted territory with this, I can't find any good research/science about what is actually a safe level of smoke or the long term effects of exertion in wildfire smoke, so I'm taking no chances. So far this rule of thumb has worked well, I've not had any instances of coughing, wheezing, etc. after workouts since moving out here. I have had workouts in Boulder where I thought the smoke level was o.k. but I had a sore throat afterwards so I've sort of figured out what works for me. 

Last week saw clear skies and I headed to Lake Nighthorse in Durango to get in some open water swimming and check out the triathlon bike course. I tried swimming in McPhee a month or so ago and it was so low. Some places were deep enough but I'd be swimming along and scrape my hand along the bottom or suddenly notice a pile of dirt or rocks in front of me that normally would be submerged. It was a bit difficult to navigate, I had to keep looking up to see what might appear in front of me. Which I guess is good practice for sighting buoys but was a nuisance in reality.

Poor McPhee

This is what it normally looks like.

 

Lake Nighthorse is beautiful. Nobody draws on it for irrigation so it was plenty full.

 

I ran into a guy who was also there to swim and he showed me where I could swim. There was a line of buoys all the way across to the other side of the lake and he said it was about 3/4 mile which seemed a bit ambitious for my first real long distance swim of the season. And I wanted to have something left to ride the bike course. I almost made it to the other side but decided to turn around after 1000 yards. It was a good decision because the bike course ended up being way more difficult and terrifying than I was expecting. About 9 miles or so is on a road with a bike lane but the remaining 3 1/2 are on a road with no bike lane or shoulder. And there was a lot of traffic. I actually turned around on the no shoulder road after maybe a quarter of a mile because it was just too scary. I hate riding in traffic as it is but a busy road with no shoulder is a deal breaker. I was a bit confused about whether or not the road would be open to traffic during the race and I finally just got confirmation from the race director that it will be. I asked him if the road will be busy on a Saturday morning but haven't received a reply. It's an out and back course so cars will be swerving from both sides of the road to avoid cyclists making it even more dangerous. So I may sleep in on race day, we'll see. There's also the possibility of a bad smoke day. 

I didn't check out the run course but another guy I met in the parking lot described it to me and it doesn't sound too crazy.

I'm going to continue training because that's the fun part but I dunno, I'll see how I feel about that bike course on race day.

Yesterday I did another 750 meter time trial and my time was 33 seconds improved over my time from 3 weeks ago and still way slow. But that's where I'm at right now, at least I felt confident in the open water and the 750 meter distance seems easy enough. The 2000 meters at Lake Nighthorse felt good too though my pace was so very slow. It is what it is with only 3 months of swimming after a year and a half off. I suppose I'm thankful it isn't worse.

After yesterday's time trial I met some friends to go riding and we started off with a long, steep climb on the road that goes to the trailhead parking lot. The race has a lot of climbing, more steeper climbing than I was anticipating, so I wanted to get some steep climbing in. It was almost 1:00 so the heat of the day and no shade and by the time I got to the parking lot half an hour later I was too dizzy and nauseous to go any further. We stood talking in the shade for a bit so I had a chance to cool down a bit before the steep, twisty descent back to town. They carried on with a big epic ride that was probably too much for me even if I'd driven to the parking lot. I haven't felt that bad in a while, I'm done with the heat of summer. Probably need some more rest days too. Yesterday was supposed to be a recovery day and it ended up being anything but. I feel like the bulk of 'training' is behind me at this point, just need to get a couple rides in on the road bike to make sure the bike is o.k. mechanically. It's 27 years old and the shifters are kinda sketchy. At least I remember the hack to get them working. 

Race director just emailed me back and said he has a friend up in the subdivision that the course goes through and the friend saw several cars going 90 on that narrow, shoulderless road. Ugh! I'll see how I feel about this on race day. I guess I can always turn around on the bike course and go back to Lake Nighthorse for more swimming.

Gearing up for Xterra Beaver Creek Mountain Champs

Up until this week I've been ambivalent about this race.  I entered it so that I could get enough points to qualify for Xterra Nationals which admittedly is a stupid reason to enter a race.  And when I found out I probably wouldn't need the points I lost what little enthusiasm I had.  But it has provided the motivation to train for a race of hard climbing and it's also very similar to the type of course we'll have for Nationals.  In fact, it seems tougher in that it has more feet of elevation of climbing and is at a higher elevation and the distances are only slightly shorter.

To compare:

Bike

Mountain Champs:  15.5 miles, 3600' of climbing, 7400' - 9350'

(click for bigger)

Nationals:  17.7 miles, 3400' of climbing, 4900' - 7300'

No elevation map.

Run

Mountain Champs:  5.75 miles, 1300' of climbing, 8100' - 8707'

Nationals:  6.1 miles, 700' of climbing, 6400' - ? (don't know the highest point but max. of 7100')
 
No elevation map.

The run at Mountain Champs has almost twice the climbing at an elevation 2000' higher than the course at Nationals and is only .35 of a mile shorter.  The bike at Mountain Champs has 200' more of climbing and starts at an elevation that's 100' higher than the highest point at Nationals and is 2.2 miles shorter.  I don't think either course is terribly technical, certainly not as technical as Curt Gowdy, but I'm sure there will be the odd challenging bit here and there.  I didn't go up to pre-ride the course, didn't feel like making the drive to Beaver Creek and spending the money on gas to ride at a ski resort.

I did however splurge on a hotel room.  I was going to drive up on race morning but it's a 2 1/4 hour drive mostly through the mountains and I didn't feel like waking up at 3:30-4:00 and playing Deer Roulette on dark mountain roads at 4:30 a.m.  Somehow this seemed like a false economy and I was able to find a room for $80, not bad for tony Beaver Creek.  The race is very fussy, you pick up your race number at one location, set up your run gear (T2) at another location then go 3 miles down the mountain to set up your bike gear (T1) at a third location.  And of course the maps they provide of all these locations are crap, one was illegible and had south pointing up which only added to the confusion.  I was stressing too much over all the preparations and once I got the hotel I heaved a huge sigh of relief and realized this could be a fun race weekend.  Turns out some of the pros are giving talks the day before so I'll have something to do after picking up my packet and you can even swim in the lake if you like though I probably won't.  I'm not worried about the swim.

So I'm finally looking forward to the race and I decided to give it a proper taper rather than training through the week.  My strategy is to keep a solid, steady pace and not to redline too much if I can help it especially up that 5 mile, 2000' climb at the start of the bike.  Getting up that climb with enough legs left to do the rest of the race will be the key to a good day especially since that climb could easily take 1/4 of the time to complete the full race.  Long steady climbs like this used to be my thing then the bad knees happened and I stopped doing the big all day bike climbs.  Will be interesting to see how I feel about the climbing on race day.  And if I can tackle this course in July then Nationals in September will be easy.  Sure it will.

Weather forecast for race day is 70 degrees with a 40% chance of thunderstorms but they don't say if it's the typical afternoon thunderstorms or if they might start earlier.  It's only Wednesday though so the forecast can and most likely will change, hopefully for the better on the rain front but I like the high of 70 degrees.  Racing at altitude is challenging but the cooler temps. make up for it.

In completely unrelated news I had some real live agility practice this morning.  Joy invited me out to the barn where she practices and we finally have some civilized weather.  We just worked short sequences, jumps and weaves with the jumps at those shallow USDAA angles to each other.  Fun but challenging.  I'm so out of practice.  Hopefully this nice weather will hang around so I can get some more practice in.  Strum looked so happy to be running and stretching his legs.  He's been surviving mostly on long, hot leash walks.  Too hot to take him running and I haven't been hiking in the high country in a while.  Think I'll plan something for next week since I'll be recovering from my race anyway.

Airing My Dirty Laundry

I wore all these clothes today for my bike/run workout.  Talk about a high maintenance sport.

Part of the reason for the clothes-splosion is because Holy Pacific Northwest Batman, today's bike ride up Left Hand and James Canyons looked like the opening scenes from Twin Peaks.  Cloudy, cold, damp and clammy is normally my least favorite kind of weather, I like my bluebird skies and Vitamin D sunshine and rainbows flying out of everybody's asses because they're so goddamn happy all the time in the happy sunshine.  But after the past month of no rain and 95+ degree heat and single digit humidity causing the whole Front Range to catch fire, today was a welcome change.  Anyway, I was so soaked in sweat from the humidity after a measly 2 hour, 20 minute bike ride that I had to change clothes before my run or face the consequences of some serious chafing.  Good thing I have my own washer/dryer and don't have to go to the laundromat.

We had a lot of rain last night and there was a lot of mud/rocks/debris that had washed onto the road in both Left Hand and James Canyons.  In fact Left Hand was closed for a time yesterday.  They cleaned it up enough for cars to easily clear the mess but there were some challenging sections for those of us on the skinny tires of a road bike.  Still was a magical ride in the mist, everything smelling so lush and green and the creek roaring with water.  Even a few remaining impromptu waterfalls coming down the sides of the canyon walls.  

Somebody is not so excited about the rain/thunderstorms.

Not sure why he thought this would help nor why he thinks frantically digging in the bathtub will help but he's always been one to think outside the box so who knows?

This week's training was low volume but high intensity.  Seems like I spent the week dodging thunderstorms so I decided to make up for the lack of hours with more intervals.  Two run workouts of hill intervals and a bike workout that was supposed to be intervals but turned into more of a fartlek type session due the trail.  Few of the uphill climbs lasted as long as the planned 4 minute interval so I decided to ride really hard every time I hit an uphill and recover on the downhill since it seemed there was more short uppy - downy type hills.  There were a couple of climbs lasting way more than 4 minutes so I rode as hard as I could until I needed to recover then rode hard again.  Thunder chased me off the mountain sooner than I was hoping but that hour of hard, red in the face riding had my quads trembly by the time I got back to the car.

Was hoping to do the weekly Stroke-n-Stride (swim/run) race out at the Boulder Rez on Thursday night but the race started at 6:00 p.m. and at 5:20 it was thundering with hard rain coming down so I didn't want to go out there and risk losing my entry if they cancelled the race.  Of course it did clear up in time and the race went on but there was no way of knowing until the last minute.  So I lost a day of training because I didn't want to do anything else during the day before a race.  Also lost a day of training dur to the agility trial/Smoky McBarbecue poor air quality day.

Legs are tired from the shock to the system of the harder workouts but I'll need to keep up with training for at least a few more days so I can rest near the end of the week for the Mountain Champs. on Saturday.  Feeling more prepared than I did last week but still wish I had another couple of weeks to get more climbing in.  How do these races sneak up on me like that?  It's not a goal race but it's long and hard and lots and lots of climbing so I'll need fresh legs if I hope to finish before they disassemble the finish line.

I keep having these thoughts that it would be so much easier to go to DOCNA Champs only 40 minutes away rather than the hassle and expense of a 7 1/2 hour drive to Utah for Xterra Nationals.  It seemed like a good idea at the time but the reality of that road trip is starting to sink in.  I was whining about the hassle and the drive to Joy after explaining to her all the races I entered and training I've been doing to qualify and she seemed a bit incredulous that I'd even consider not going.  'You have to go', she told me, so when I start fretting over the details and hassle of the trip I keep hearing her words.  I do have to go and it means I need to start setting up my training schedule for it now so it doesn't sneak up on me.  Stupid high maintenance hobbies.

Higher and Higher

Wasn't exactly feeling all that recovered from last week's race but I'm already started to obsess over my next race and by Saturday I knew I had to suck it up and get back out there for something beyond easy recovery training.  The School Bus Trail is not in the West Mag closure area and there's a way to access it also without going into the closure area if you know how.  My next race is the Xterra Mountain Championships in Beaver Creek, just outside of Vail, and that race is all about the climbing.  And not just climbing but climbing at a high elevation.  The bike ranges from 7425' to 9456' so I decided I'd better hit the high country at least once this weekend.  Plus, so hot in town, not quite as bad up at 9000'.  This trail felt so much steeper than 900' in 3.25 miles though to be fair I rode more than that.  Not sure where on the trail this map is measured from.  In all I rode 11 miles in 2 hours, 5 minutes, the portion up School Bus taking about 50 minutes from the start of the trail at the road to the top which I suspect is farther than the 3.25 miles shown on this map and measured from a different starting point.  I think I was around 5 minutes faster than a few weeks ago.  Didn't feel as hard anyway.

School Bus Trail

The bike portion of my race has a climb of 2000' in 5 miles and an overall elevation gain of 3600' in 15.5 miles.  The good news is that I don't think the trails are all that technical but I'm not sure I'll make it up there to pre-ride the course.  The run has a total elevation gain of 1300' in 5.75 miles and consists of 2 climbs separated by a downhill section.  The biggest of the climbs is around 607' in 2 miles.  So today I went up to Heil Ranch which isn't all that high but I didn't feel like driving and it's only 12 minutes or so away and provides a climb of 822' in 2.5 miles, just a bit steeper than my race.

Somehow the trail didn't feel as steep as it usually does but this could have been due to the snail's pace I was running thanks to the over 90 degree heat.  I was in the woods and there was occasional cloud cover but still, a hot day for a nearly 2 hour run.

I went a bit farther than this, linking up to Wild Turkey via Ponderosa Loop and turning around after I'd run for an hour.  I'm guessing it was maybe 6 - 6.5 miles in 1 hour, 52 minutes.

Not sure how this bodes for my race in 2 weeks but not much I can do about it at this point.  Most people pick Mountain Championships and Nationals for their 'A' races but I'm not feeling the love for this race being an important one for me, mostly because of the timing.  I've decided to look at it as another nice hard training day in preparation for Xterra Indian Peaks three weeks later.  Since I've already done that race and have a point of comparison I can try for some better times, especially on the run.

So the next 5 weeks leading up to Xterra Indian Peaks will see bike intervals, run intervals and as much hills as I can shake a stick at.

Poor dogs, it's too hot for them to do very much.  I'll have to pull out the hose and the weave poles so at least we have some kind of practice before Wednesday.  I found out the site isn't air conditioned, just swamp coolers so that could get interesting.  Don't know why I thought it was air conditioned.  I think I'd almost rather be outside but I guess we'll see what it's like and it's only Grand Prix and Steeplechase so hopefully won't be too long of a day.  Have a hilly bike ride scheduled for after the trial and Jonny laughed pretty hard when he saw that but I'm on a mission here so I'm determined.  But I do have some wiggle room in the training schedule if I end up too tired.  Hmmm, who's idea was all these races?

Crazy Dog Lady Goes to Boot Camp Redux

I signed up for a month of boot camp classes through one of those Groupon knock-off type deals.  $15 for a whole month of unlimited classes sounded like a great idea at the time.  I showed up for my first class, 'Hills and Drills', on Wednesday and was the only one to show up because apparently the other regular folks had had such a hard workout on Monday that they were still licking their wounds by Wednesday.  So the instructor had me all to herself.  Which was maybe a good thing because it meant I didn't have to be mortified if I was the last one up the hill and everyone else was waiting for me.

Anyway, it's been forever since I've done running intervals and most of my running these days involves shuffling along and avoiding knee pain.  My introduction to hill intervals involved running up a big ass hill to the Starbucks where I was tortured with not getting a mocha for a reward.  Instead my reward was running in place while bringing my knees up really high until I felt ready to barf or hopping up and down off a curb until I also felt ready to barf.  Then down the hill for recovery and some funny lunge thingies at the bottom while a homeless guy watched on and probably thought we were crazy though maybe not because this is Boulder after all.

But wait there's more.  A 1/2 mile interval on Boulder High School's fancy pants rubberized track then a 1/2 mile cool down.  Then the core exercises.  I do a lot of butterfly kicking on my back in the pool at masters so I thought I had at least a smallish amount of core strength but it turns out I was seriously deluded.  We did maybe 4 minutes worth of core strengthening and once again I'm ready to barf.  Two days later my abs were still so so sore.  I'm scared to go to the regular weight/strengthening workout where they do a lot of core work.  Maybe too hard core for me or maybe it'll be good for me.  I guess I'll find out next week.

This has been a very stressful week on the work/business front.  I had a radio interview which I've never done before and found preparing for it very nerve wracking but somehow when I did the actual interview some strange, coherent, professional sounding person took over my brain and it turned out pretty good I think.  It's going to air on Tuesday and I'll provide a link when I know the time but I'll also have it as a podcast so anyone can listen to it anytime.

At the same time I was getting wound up over the radio interview I also signed a lease for a new office.  I was so excited about it because I get it all to myself full time and it's only $14 a month more than my current office which I share and only get part time.  I thought I had a month to month lease on my old office when I signed the lease for the new office.  But after the fact I decided to check the lease to be sure but couldn't find it and went into a panic because I found an emailed, unsigned copy of the lease that said it was for a year.  I was sure I'd had them change it before I signed it but I couldn't find the ammended, signed copy.  Tore my office apart, mad at myself that I'd somehow lost it despite being so supposedly well organized.  Was also freaked out with myself, not so much because I'd forgotten the terms of the lease but more so because I was so sure of them that I didn't even think to check until after I'd signed the other lease.  Is it a sign of early dementia?  Or maybe the boot camp is more of a sign.  Getting old is a bitch.  And Jonny found my first grey hair but that's a trauma for another day.  In the end I was either right about my lease terms or my landlord is really nice because he listed the office space on Craig's list before I had a chance to discuss it with him.  What an enormously huge relief that was!  The thought of having to pay for 2 offices for 4 1/2 months was also making me want to barf.  So happy to be through with all of that drama and all on the same day plus several hours worth of clients.  I'm also very excited about my new office, will be great to have a space that's all my own and no more folding up an acupuncture table and moving a recliner around every time I see clients.  I feel bad leaving my old place, the people were all so nice but I was having trouble scheduling clients into the hours I had available to me and was losing at least one or two clients a month because I couldn't work out the scheduling.  Was also having noise issues and my new place seems a lot more quiet.  Can't wait to move in next month.

Phew, bring on the weekend.  I feel a super long bike ride in my future.  And some agility fun.

Strummy says hooray for weekends!

Ready or not

Tomorrow is race day. Thought maybe I should put down some goals.

1. No drowning.

2. No falling off mountain bike.

3. No tripping during the trail run.

4. Maybe, hopefully not finishing DFL

Swim is 750 m (686 yards), bike is 12 miles (11 on singletrack, 1 on dirt road), run is 4.8 miles on trails. Swim should be no problemo to easily finish but my time won't be great. Went to too many open water Reservoir masters swims instead of interval/pool workouts and I'm sure I've lost some swim fitness. Bike should be o.k., too. I've done a reasonable amount of riding this summer on harder trails than the one the race is on. I've got some new hunky tires on my bike that are ridiculous overkill for the trail I'm riding tomorrow (people were asking the race director is they could use Cross bikes which are beefed up road bikes) but I'm too lazy to change them. I'll probably have a weirdo panic attack at 10:00 tonight and decide I need to change them back to my skinnier more nimble ones but oh well. Run is 4.8 miles and will be the toughest part and biggest unknown. For some reason I thought the run was 4.2 miles when I signed up but only recently found out I was mistaken. Farthest I've been running is just under 3 miles. I'm up to a run/walk pattern of 8/1 which is near enough running straight through but the distance will be a big step up. I'm sure I'll be fine but how my knee will hold up is something of an unknown. Didn't feel like I could have pushed the getting back to running program much more than I did though and hopefully the steep hiking will have helped. I was up to 6 miles or so of steep hiking so I know I can cover the distance and I'll slow to a walk if the knee acts up.

I didn't do any brick workouts (bike then run right afterwards) which is a big mistake. This was mostly due to logistics as most bike rides were done in the mountains with other people who don't run so once the ride was over we drove straight home. Again, I'm sure I'll be fine but the first mile or so after T2 won't be pretty.

Racing is a rare treat for me and this is my first race in 2 years so I'm excited for it. The course is beautiful, the weather should cooperate and though I wish I was in better shape I think I did the best with my training that I could have given the constraint of my knee and I know I'm prepared enough to finish. Hopefully my knee will be in as good a mood as I am when I wake up tomorrow.

Bike, Hike, Repeat

My 2 days off were wonderful but exhausting, the sort of thing you need a vacation to recover from. As a result I'm tired and playing catch-up and don't have time to deal with the photos and oh crap I have an agility trial tomorrow and when was the last time Strummer had any practice? If you have to ask and can't remember it's probably not a good sign. If things get much worse I'll need a hazmat suit to clean my house. But summer is so fleeting, especially up high in the mountains so for now the dust bunnies breed like rabbits and we don't let anyone in the house.

I don't have time for a full Week in Training post but in brief Saturday was 2 1/2 hours/13 miles or so biking at West Mag (schoolbus trail, phew an awful lot of steep climbing), Sunday was 2 hours/5 miles hiking on the Sourdough Trail just up from Boulder, Monday was 2 1/2 hours/20 miles biking in Winter Park/Fraser (1 3/4 hours drive) and Tuesday was a 3 1/2 hour hike almost to Isabelle Glacier in the Indian Peaks Wilderness area. Strummer came along on that one and it gets steep and rocky and he finally looked maybe a little sort of kind of tired. Yeah, in my dreams, crazy boy had a full recovery on the 45 minute drive home. Me, not so much. I feel like my fitness is improving but that I'm still way out of shape. I've been doing a good job with the training but it takes time especially when dealing with injuries. Race is in 2 weeks, agility trials this weekend and next, busy busy.

I'll leave you with this great story from One Bark at a Time. Wish I could write like that (sigh). It's maybe not for everybody but I loved it.

Week In Training - June 22 through June 28

As promised I'm trying to be good about logging my training. Strum had a bunch more agility practice than I listed but I can't remember it exactly and it was mostly in the backyard.

Monday-Walk 2 miles (Lola & Cody)-morning
Swim-2300 yards (masters, Spruce Pool, Jane coach)
Knee good

Tuesday-Run/walk 3 miles (30 mins. of 2 mins. run/1 min. walk + warm up/cool down)
with dogs (Cody & Strummer)-morning
Knee good

Wednesday-Walk 2 miles (Strummer & Cody)-morning
Agility practice at B.E.-Lola
Knee bad

Thursday-Swim at Rez (about 30 minutes back and forth parallel to shoreline,
still not feeling in shape enough to do the course)-morning
Strummer's agility class w/ Joy-1/2 hour private-evening
Knee bad

Friday-2 mile walk (Strummer & Cody)-morning
Agility practice at B.E.-Strummer/dogwalk-morning
Agility practice at B.E.-Strummer/dogwalk-evening
Knee better

Saturday-3 mile walk (Strummer & Cody)-morning
Knee good

Sunday-3 mile walk (Strummer & Cody)-morning
Mountain biking-2 1/4 hours, over 12 miles, West Mag-afternoon
Knee good

WEEKLY TOTALS
Swim-3,000 yards (approx.), 1 1/2 hours
Bike-12 miles (off road, elevation), 2 1/4 hours
Run/Walk-2 miles, 1/2 hour

Total: 4 1/4 hours

Walking: 13 miles, approx. 4 hours

Not a great week for tri training but I did a lot of walking. My knee acted up, probably due to the hiking, so I didn't run as much as I would have liked and I missed Friday night swim practice due to being exhausted and needing to get up early Saturday morning. I'm hoping to have 7-9 hours of training per week and this was only 4 1/4. I'm not counting my walking as part of my tri training but I am keeping track of it because it effects my knee and my training so I need to track it to get the full picture. Hoping to get in more swim yardage this coming week, we'll see how it goes.

Off to the races

After much internal argument and debate about what if anything to do about a triathlon race schedule this summer I decided on the Fat Tire Triathlon at the end of August. I did this race as part of a relay back in 2005 and as a solo effort a year or two before that. The year I ran the full tri it had rained so much before the race that they had to reroute the bike course off of the single track so that the trails weren't trashed. The course went out and back on a dirt road. So I thought it would be fun to finally get to do the single track course as part of the race. I pre-rode the course before race day so I've ridden it before and it's beautiful. The race organizers put together a nice little video of the course so you can see the trails if you're interested:



I'm surprised more races don't do this, especially the off road ones. It gives you a great feel of what you're in for and is a good selling point for your race if you've got a nice scenic course.

I wanted to do the Indian Peaks Triathlon that I did a couple of years ago but decided against it for a number of reasons. The main reason being that the race is now run by a different guy and I don't like the new race director for a number of reasons. Also he raised the price of the race and given the state of the economy this really really pissed me off. I thought that took some nerve especially since many race directors are lowering their prices this year or at the very least not raising prices. So this year I'll go to a USDAA trial instead. That's the great thing about summer in Colorado, there's always plenty to do.

I'm hoping to have the discipline to log all my training and report it here on a weekly basis. It's funny to think that the main reason I started to blog was to force myself to record my training regularly and somehow that went right out the window. But record keeping is important and here's why. When I went to the Rez on Thurs. for my morning swim workout I got about 1/4 of the way and realized I was getting out of breath. At first I thought I was being silly and tried to talk myself into continuing but I soon felt like I had no business being out there and headed back to shore. I made it back no problem but it took me a while to catch my breath. When I got into work I checked the calendar and realized it had been over 4 weeks since I'd last been swimming! In my head I was thinking it had been maybe 2 or 3 so I need to keep track of things better. If I'd realized that I'd been off for so long I would have done a few pool workouts before heading back to the open water.

Hopefully now with money invested in a race I'll be more disciplined with my training and record keeping. The good thing about this race is that I don't have to follow any strict training program. I can do all the stuff I would do in the summer anyway and as long as I get in 7-9 hours a week I should be fine but the added pressure of the race should ensure that I get my butt out of bed to go to the Rez rather than rolling over and sleeping in when I feel like it.

Day of Speed I'd say

You know triathlon season is kicking into gear when you have 3 showers in one day. First one was after a morning run with da boyz. I finally made it a full 1/2 hour of 5 mins. run/1 min. walk with only a few twinges of knee pain going up a hill. This was not the speed part of the day by any means but felt faster than I've been going, almost like a run as opposed to a penguin shuffle. Cody was not thrilled, he hates running on leash and Strummer kept trying to stop every 10 yards to sniff and mark but it's good exercise for them so I make them go with me.

Shower #2 was after Tabata sprints on my lunch hour. I'm up to the full 8 reps and wow it is a hard workout for only 2 minutes. My quads have felt like jello all week and about an hour before lunch time I start dreading them but I feel good the rest of the afternoon and my knee's been tolerating them so I've been trying to gut it out.

Shower #3 was after masters swimming workout which was a sprint workout. Lucky me. To be honest I hate sprinting and I'm bad at it and it hurts and wah wah wah but I made it through the whole workout and the coach even said my last sprint of the night looked like a good effort, good form, etc.-Shocking! It was not the normal coach though so I guess I had her fooled. Jane, my normal coach, has given me some good basic pointers for sprinting in the pool and once I remembered to use them I guess was able to fake my way through. I'll post the workout below for my own benefit so I have a benchmark for where I am with my swim times right now. I feel like I'm oh so close to being able to move up a lane but not quite there yet. In the showers I asked someone from the next lane up what their prescribed interval times were and there was no way I could have held them but she said no one in her lane held them either and they ended up swimming the 100's continuously with no rest. Even so, I couldn't have swum at that pace continuously so I've got to keep plugging away for a while longer. The woman from the other lane suggested I move up anyway and sit out for a 50 here and there and draft wherever I can and I'll get better faster swimming in that faster lane but I'm not sure I agree. I think it's better to do the workout you're capable of, get enough rest per interval and put more effort into each swim rather than missing all the intervals and swimming at a continuous pace with no rest the whole workout. I know at least one of the coaches agrees with that, not sure what the research or general consensus is but speaking from personal experience I seem to get more benefit from doing proper intervals.

Today is a rest day except for maybe more Tabata sprints. The protocol calls for 5 days per week but they're so exhausting on top of all the other training that I may have to phase them in. So far I've only done 3 days this week and I think 3 last week. If it wasn't for my knee issues I'd push through today's fatigue but I'm thinking maybe it's best not to push my luck and have a nice solid rest day. Plus I'm not into that whole self-flagellation thing and I'm tired today.

I've got to decide if I want to spend money on races this year and if so which ones. Decisions, decisions.

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Masters Workout April 24, 2009
South Boulder Rec.
Coach: Eenie
All distances in yards

200 on my own pre-workout, mix of free/non-free

Warm-Up:
8x50 on 1:20 (start slow and build up to fast by 4th interval then slow back down)
[my times started at :50 and went down to :45 then back up to :48)
50 easy

Main Set:
All distances on 2:15
As the distance gets shorter, pace gets faster
Work on pacing for the 100's, try to keep them all the same pace
8x100 [my time ranged from 1:42-1:44, mostly at 1:43]
6x75 [these were the hardest, times were 1:14, 1:12, 1:06, 1:07, 1:07, 1:09
big jump in time from 1:12 to 1:06 was because I remembered to use quick
short strokes]
4x50 [times were :44, :42, :44, :43]
2x25 [times were :20, :20 we cheated and took a shorter interval because 2:15 is
too long to sit around for a 25]

Grand Finale:
3x75 on 2nd person rest
Wear fins for all
first 75 is kick with 25 easy, 25 medium, 25 fast
second 75 is kick with 25 fast, 25 medium, 25 easy
third 75 is free, fast

75 cool down

Total: 2450 yards

Not a lot of yardage but a hard set.

Tabata Sprints or Have I Taken All Leave of My Senses?

I've been intrigued with the idea of Tabata Sprints for some time now but my knee, oh what a tale of woe that has been and it's been bad enough living through it I didn't feel like reliving it by writing about it and I know you all have your own tales of woe about your own knees and whatnot so I've been staying off that topic. But finally after 3 rounds of physical therapy and many months of dealing with bursitis, the cure for which seems to be doing nothing to aggravate it, and other issues going on in my knee I'm finally able to start running again. I'm about 5-6 weeks into a back to running program and I'm going about 4-5 minutes run/1 minute walk for 1/2 an hour with warm-up and cool-down walking of course. Today I finally felt confident enough about my knee to give the Tabata Sprints a go. I'm hoping this will help me build some speed for agility (gotta keep up with Strummy and that running dogwalk somehow) as well as some strength for mountain biking and triathlon.

The complete protocol calls for 20 seconds of run like hell (pretend you're chasing Strummer down that dogwalk) then 10 seconds of rest. You repeat for 8 reps which is a total of 4 minutes. Do this 5 times a week and the proponents of this method promise you all kinds of fabulous things like speed and fitness and weight loss and the solution to your bad hair and fashion issues. O.k., maybe that last one is wishful thinking on my part. There are videos all over YouTube showing you how to do this but do you really need a video showing you how to do this? They are about as interesting as watching paint dry which coincidentally is how I spent my weekend-painting my laundry room which is maybe another story for another day but maybe not much more exciting than those videos. The one thing to note from these videos is how the people collapse in a puddle of their former selves at the end. Though I'll admit my idea of fun is perhaps a bit twisted this is not exactly my idea of fun.

Nonetheless, I gave it a go today and it was hard but I survived. I started out with only 4 reps because I read somewhere that you shouldn't start out trying to do the whole protocol. Also I'm worried about how my knee will tolerate this type of intense running so I wanted to start out conservatively. I had no knee problems while doing it and after icing and sitting at my desk for a bit my knee is still fine. At one point I thought my heart was going to explode and it took me a while to get back to breathing normally after I was done but my knee seems to be down with the program so far and that's the main thing. Tomorrow I think I'll go for 5 reps.

Also, I found this cool blog that has mp3 uploads timed for Tabata Sprints. It looks like the first 2 are the theme from Rocky which would drive me well out of my mind but one is just beeps which is perfect. I may have to make my own mp3's one of these days. The one fussy part about this workout was messing with the timer on my stopwatch. Not a huge issue but would be much easier to have beeps/music on an ipod.