Morning Ride/Afternoon Run

Today was a double workout with a morning CompuTrainer ride followed by an afternoon interval run.

Bike Workout

Warm Up: ~20' @ 185 watts (Avg)
Main Set: 6-8 x 3’ @ 20>10 below; RI 2’
Cool Down: none

This was a rather easy workout. The goal was to establish baseline fitness and get my body adapted to and ready for more intense workouts to come. This new training plan attempts to do "more with less" in that the focus is on higher intensity and lower volume at the beginning of the training season. The idea is to build speed in the early season and then adapt the training to become more specific to the longer endurance demands of the Ironman as the season progresses. Hopefully, this means I'll be able to go faster for longer periods of time than I did in my first Ironman.

Run Workout

Warm up: 15-20' - gradually increase pace w/ do "primer intervals" of 20-60" at faster pace to warm up the legs
Main Set: 9-12 x 1’30” (RI 45”) done as L1 L1 L2 and repeat, where L1=6-7 RPE, L2 = 7-8 RPE and L3 = 8-8.5 RPE
Cool Down: 5' at RPE 6

This workout follows a similar plan as the bike workout. The idea is to get used to short bursts of speed and then gradually extend the sustained efforts during the intervals while reducing the rest intervals. Hopefully, this will translate into an ability to sustain higher efforts and faster paces for longer periods of time.

Morning Swim

In the pool this morning... and it was like a hot tub! I guess the seniors who swim at the Washington Park Rec Center are very vocal about the temperature of the pool. It was 88 degrees this morning. Ugh! It was like people stew!

This morning's Workout:

Warm up: 1 x 500 pull
Main Set: 6 x 75 (25" RI) done as evens= stroke/50 swim; odds=swim/stroke/swim
4 x 150 (25" RI) medium effort
9 x 75 (20" RI) drill/kick/swim
6 x 50 (20" RI) alt. fast and easy

Total: 2525 meters

Afternoon Bike

This was a bad run week for me. I only got one run in due to work and family commitments. I'm really going to have to be better about this, because I really want to improve my running.

Today was another 1:30 bike. I tried out a new program on my computer using the CompuTrainer called NetAthlon. The courses are much better than the CompuTrainer 3D courses, but I had some technical issues to work out. The plan was to ride a little over half the Wildflower Triathlon course (Wildflower is a half iron distance race in California) and try to maintain a moderate effort. However, I don't think NetAthlon was controlling the CT load generator properly. I'd hit a "hill" on the course, and it didn't feel as though the load changed at all. I need to figure that one out if I want to purchase the NetAthlon software.

Instead, I simply tried to ride 1:30 straight averaging about 200 watts. The load on the CT was weird, though. I was at an "in between" gearing, where the easy gear left me betwen 170 watts and 190 watts, and the harder gear put me between 210 and 230 watts. I ended up shifting back and forth, depending on how my heart rate was affected.

Workout Results:

Duration: 1:30
Work: 1072 KJ
TSS/IF: 91.8/.785
Pnorm: 204 watts
Pavg: 200 watts
Distance: 31.8 miles
HRavg: 133 bpm

Morning Computrainer Ride

Today was another hour on the CompuTrainer (CT) this morning. This workout was virtually identical to Tuesday's workout, consisting of a 25' warm up followed by 6 x 3' (2' RI), where the 3' intervals were done at a wattage that maxed my heart rate at about 20 bpm lower than my lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR) for the first interval or two, and culminated in a final (6th) interval where my HR reached or just barely exceeded 10 bpm lower than LTHR.

I felt really good during this workout, and played around with the Spin Scan feature of my CT. Spin Scan analyzes your pedal stroke to gauge your pedaling efficiency. I don't think I've been very efficient in the past. I'll need to read up a bit on Spin Scan and how I can use it to improve my pedaling efficiency.

Workout Numbers:

Duration: 1:00:11
Work: 724 kJ
TSS/IF: 67.9/0.823
Pnorm: 214 watts
Distance: 19.6 mi
Pavg: 200 watts
HRavg: 129 bpm
Avg Cadence: 91 rpm
Avg Speed: 19.5 mph

Later today will be another run session essentially mimicking Tuesday's run session, but with shorter rest intervals.

Morning Bike / Afternoon Run

Today was a bike/run day with a 55 minute CompuTrainer ("CT")interval session in the morning followed by run intervals in the afternoon. In the graph at the right, you can see the CT workout data. The workout consisted of a 20 minute warmup followed by 6 x 3 min. intervals at approximately 240-250 watts, with 2 minute rest intervals at ~140 watts. The concept was to choose a wattage for the intervals where my heart rate stays roughly 20 bpm lower than lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR), which for me is ~168 bpm. Keeping the same effort (here, ~245 watts) for each interval, the idea was to try to do 6 intervals without my HR reaching higher than 10 bpm below LTHR. From the graph, you can see that my HR reached ~ 159 bpm (about 9 bpm below LTHR) in the 6th and last interval. So... mission accomplished.

My second workout of the day was a 40 minute treadmill run that included a 15 minute warmup and then 12 x 1:30 of progressively difficult intervals (45" rest intervals). In this workout, rate of perceived exertion (RPE) was used to select the treadmill pace for the intervals. The intervals were broken out into 3 sets of 4 intervals, where the interval progression was 7, 7, 8, 8.5 on the RPE scale. In other words, on the first two intervals, I selected a pace that felt like a 7 on the RPE scale. For the third interval, I selected a pace that felt like and 8, and for the final interval, I selected a pace that felt like an 8.5. I then repeated these 4 intervals two more times. This was a tough workout, and I actually did not finish the final interval, because I just could not hold the pace for a full minute-and-a-half.

Tomorrow is a run-only day. Another 45 minute treadmill interval run.

Morning Swim

Once again, I was back in the pool today. Laura and I have worked out an arrangement whereby she get's Tuesdays and Saturdays to do an early morning workout, and I get Mondays & Fridays. The purpose of the arrangement is to allow us to get our training sessions in but keep one of us at home with the boys to watch over them and feed & change them.

Today, I was back at the pool to try to get back into the swing of the swimming thing. The water was very cold... relative to what it normally is at the Wash Park Rec Center. Typically, they keep it very warm for the aquaerobics, which is mostly attended by older people, who prefer warm water. I think it's usually in the mid-to-upper 80's. Bleah!!! Today, it was a crisp, cool 78 degrees... a little shocking at first, but very pleasant once you've warmed up.

Today's workout was nothing difficult. I had a planned workout, but forgot to memorize it before this morning, so I just made it up as I went along. The focus of today's swim was on form and drills.

I warmed up with 5 x 100 swimming easy followed by 4 x 100 alternating 100 kick, 100 stroke drills, and then 100 mod. hard effort. The main set was 10 x 50 alternating Hard/Med./Easy. I tried to keep the rest intervals farily short, but wound up resting too much. I cooled down with an easy 200 meter pull. Total: 1700 meters ~ 45 min.

Bike and Run

Today was a double workout since I didn't do the ride yesterday. In the morning, I got up and rode 1.5 hours on the CompuTrainer at between 150 and 200 watts. The object of this workout was simply to ride at a fairly constant power at about 20 beats below lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR). I notice that my power started to drop off about halfway through the workout. I started at a load of 200 watts, but at about 45 minutes in, my heart rate started to rise higher than 20 bpm below LTHR, so I scaled back. Unfortunately, the CompuTrainer's ergometer function steps the wattage by 50 watts, so when I scaled back to 150 W, my HR dropped to almost 30 bpm below LTHR. So, I ended up alternating between 150 and 200 watts for the remainder of the ride, hence the large peaks and valleys that appear on the power graph (pink) at the left.

After we went to a Christmas party, I took the boys for a run in the new jogging stroller. It is a pretty sweet ride for them. It's a Chariot Cougar 2 with the jogging stroller option. Rides fairly smoothly and is easy to push. It does pull to the left a bit. Gotta figure that one out. Anyway, I'm sure I ran slower than I would have without the boys, but I got the HR up into the upper aerobic zone. I think I ran about 4.75 miles or so. Good training day.

Back in the Water - Easy Swim

Finally got back in the water today, and oh am I out of shape!!! It felt good to be swimming again, but I have absolutely no stamina right now, and after about 100 meters, my form goes to hell.

I decided to keep it easy and short today, working mostly on drills. Here's the workout:

Warm Up: 200 swim, 100 pull, 100 kick, 2 x 50 (15")
Main Set: 8 x {2 x 50 (15") alternating drills.
Cool Down: 100 easy.

Hopefully, things start to come back quickly. My plan is to start swimming 2 days/week.

Cycling Benchmark

Today was a cycling test to see how I perform at funtional threshold power. The test was performed on a Computrainer in ergometer mode. After a 20 minute warm up, I rode 10 x 2:35 intervals @ 260 watts, resting for 25" between each interval.

Like yesterday's run benchmark, this is my first real benchmark on the training plan. Thus, I have no idea what the result mean yet. In any event, here are the results:

Watts	1 HR/RPE	2 HR/RPE	3 HR/RPE	4 HR/RPE	5 HR/RPE	6 HR/RPE	7 HR/RPE	8 HR/RPE	9 HR/RPE	10 HR/RPE
260	143/6.5	155/7	157/7	161/7.5	160/7.5	164/8	165/8	166/8.5	168/9	166/9

Tune in for later benchmark results, which will hopefully shed some light on how my training is progressing.

Run Benchmark

Today was a treadmill running benchmark. The data will be used to determine how my training is progressing.

The test is supposed to be a track test consisting of running a 4k time trial (10 laps on the track) at a moderately hard pace, such that you finish feeling as though you could have run several more laps. In adapting it to a treadmill, the goal is to have a ballpark figure as to how long the 4k track workout would take you, and then run for that amount of time (no longer than 20 minutes). Not being a great runner, I guessed 4k would take me about 18 minutes at a moderately difficult pace. Here are the results:

Split	Time	Speed	RPE	AVG HR
~1k	4:30	8.5-8.7	7	146
~2k	9:00	8.5-8.7	7	165
~3k	13:30	8.5-8.7	7.5	167
~4k	18:00	8.5-8.7	7.5	169
Total	18:00	8.6 (avg)	-	162

I have no idea what this means yet, as this was my first benchmark test. Tune in for later benchmarks to compare.

Noon Run - Hill Repeats (L4)

Finally back on the dreadmill today, and [hopefully] back into running. I haven't run at all since Nov. 16, nearly 2 weeks ago. That is just not good. Felt good today, though, on my hill repeat workout. The only thing I dislike about the dreadmill is the sheer boredom... made worse today by the fact that I forgot my iPod. :(

Today's Workout:
Warm up: 30' @L1-L3
Main Set: 5 x 3'@L4 (1')
Cool Down: 5'@L2, 5' walking

Workout Stats:
Duration: 1 hour
Distance: 6.75 mi
Pace: 8:53/mi

Morning Ride - Tempo Repeats (L3)

My running has really fallen off, and I did absolutely nothing yesterday, despite the fact that I had a long run scheduled. I've been bad about the running for a couple of weeks now, so I'm dropping volume back down to try to re-build. Now... on to today's workouts:

I did an hour on the Computrainer this morning doing the following workout:
Warm up: 20' @ L1-L2 effort
Main Set: 6 x 4' @ L3 effort
Cool Down: 10' @ L2 effort

You can see the workout pretty clearly in the graph. The first 10 minutes were spent warming up the Computrainer at a very easy effort. Once I calibrated the CT, I ramped up the power to L2 for the next 10'. At 20' in, I started the interval work, 4' on, 1' off at between 200-235 watts, which is my L3 range. I tried to stay closer to the upper end of L3. At 50' in, the intervals were over, and I started the cool down, again at L2 effort (<>

Long Ride - Mostly L2-L3, with L4 Intervals

Today I scheduled a long ride, and was intending to only ride about 2 hours, as I intended to do this ride on the trainer. However, it was such a nice day, and I got a hall pass from Laura, so I took it outside and rode the Cherry Creek Trail to the South Platte River Trail down to Littleton and back (round trip ~ 50 miles).

Workout:
WU: 30' easy (L1-L2)
MS: 2 x 35' (5') @ 85-90% of FTP (L3), 10' Easy, 4 x 6' (1') @ 105% (L4+)
CD: Remainder of time at 80-85% FTP

I only got 2 of the 4 x 6 minute intervals in, as the route I took was not particularly conducive to interval work in certain places. All in all, a great workout.

Looking Forward to a Visit...

... from my brother, Dan and his lady friend, Lisa (both pictured at the left), this weekend. He's coming up to Denver from Austin for the first time since the spring to meet his brand new nephews. This ough to be a fun weekend. The old Perkins twins and the new Perkins twins together for the very first time! Plus... I finally get to meet Lisa in person! This should be a good time, I think. If Will and Alex will let us sleep enough so that Laura and I are not zombies all weekend.

Afternoon Run - L2-L3 Easy Run

Good run today. I as pretty tired from yesterday's hill repeats, but I felt pretty good after I got moving. As you can see from the graph, I kept a fairly steady heart rate. I started off very easy at about 8:30/mi. At about 15 minutes in, I upped the pace to about 8:15/mi, and then again to 8:00/mi about 20 minutes in. My heart rate gradually rose from L1 to upper L2 in the first 15 minutes. By 20 minutes in, I was starting to get into the very lower L3 range, and I wanted to bump it up to the mid-upper range. So, that's when I upped the pace to 8:00 miles. You can see a huge drop off at the 43 minute range. That's where I decided to start walking for my cool down.

Workout
WU: 10' -15' @ L1
MS: 30' @ L2-L3 effort
CD: 3-5' walking
Distance: 5.07 mi.
Time: 45 min
Avg Pace: 8:54

Evening Run - L4 Hill Repeats

Workout:
WU - 25' build L1 to L3
MS: 5x3' hills (3.5-4%) (2' RI)
CD: 5' @ L3, 5' walking

This was a tough workout... Being rather poor at running, higher intensities really suck! This workout was originally structured to be an outdoor run, but my circumstances have relegated me to the treadmill for most of my weekday run training. Heart rate was pretty consistent for the first 25 minutes, building from L1 to L3 effort. The hills were tough. I kept the same pace (about 8:00/mi) but jacked up the treadmill incline to about 4% grade. Maintaining that pace up those grades for 3 minutes was tough. It felt good, though. I'm really enjoying the running right now!

Morning Trainer Ride - Power Pulse Intervals

Not a good week last week for training hours, and I'm off to a poor start this week, too. I didn't do either my long ride or long run last weekend. Time just got away from me. This week, I missed my Power Pulse Interval workout and 45 minute easy run yesterday.

Workout (FTP=260 on the CT)
WU: 20' @L1-L2 effort (~140-190 watts)
MS: 5 x 4-8' @ FTP+5% (1-2' RI)
CD: 10' @ L1-L2

I decided to reschedule Tuesday's PPI workout for this morning. Since Tue/Wed/Thu is usually a fairly intense block of workout days anyway, I figured that my recovery time wouldn't be severely affected if I do my mid-week hard run on the same day as a PPI session. I did cut the PPI session a bit short today because of time constraints. Also, that last interval felt really tough, and I figured it would be better not to be too fatigued for this afternoon's run. The session went very well. Each interval was fairly consistently at an average power between 270 and 274 watts. My heart rate stayed right about where I'd have expected it, and was about 4-5 beats higher on the last two intervals. All-in-all, I thought this workout went very well.

Workout Stats:(FTP=260 watts)
TSS: 65.1
IF: .883
Pnorm: 230 watts
VI: 1.09
Avg Heart Rate: 143 bpm
Distance: 17 miles
Avg Speed: 20.5 mph
Avg Cadence: 90 rpm

Next up today will be a 1 hour run with hill repeats.

Weekly Training Report

Bad week this week. Work and the kids kept me from doing much at all. Here is the breakdown:

Sport	Time	Distance
Swim	0	0
Bike	0	0
Run	1:40	12 mi
Total	1:40	12 mi

I have got to do more than that if I want to maintain, much less build, any fitness over the offseason.

5 Mile Afternoon Run - L2 Effort

Today was a quick 40 minute run. My training plan called for about a 2 hour Computrainer ride followed by a brick run, but I just didn't have time for the ride. The twins are taking a LOT of time right now (as I knew they would), and the training just has to suffer for now. Hopefully, the little that I'm able to do will minimize the training losses. It was a great run. Weather was a little brisk, but I felt very good. My heart rate seems to be running high, and I can't figure out why. With my estimated lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR) at 172 bpm, this run had me training in upper L3, which is a little higher than I wanted to be training. Maybe it's time to do a LTHR test to see if my LTHR has improved.

Workout Stats:
Distance: 4.95 miles
Time: 40 min
Pace: 8:04/mi

Afternoon Run - Mixed Efforts

Today is the first day I've run since last Friday. I hate missing runs, because I'm really enjoying it for once, and I need to get better at it. I was supposed to run easy for half an hour yesterday, but of course, work got in the way. Today's run was a "quality" session aimed at several different levels of effort over a "hilly" course. It was a dreadmill run, so of course, the hills were simulated. As with other, similar runs, you can see my HR gradually rise over the course of the run. The "peaks and valleys" in the graph correspond to the different grades of the "hills."

I felt really good today, despite not having run in several days. I have a feeling I may be in for some soreness in the morning.

Duration: 1 hour
Distance: 7 miles
Pace: 8:34/mile
Max HR: 172 bpm
Avg. HR: 160 bpm

Long Ride

I got the opportunity to ride long today, so I jumped on it. I rode easy down to the Cherry Creek Trail and then took that to the South Platte River trail down to Littleton and back (approximately 50 miles or so of fairly, but windy flat terrain). The ride incorporated two interval sets as well. Aside from riding easy to warm up and cool down, I added one set of 2 intervals where I tried to put forth an average of about 265 watts. Following that, I rested about 10 minutes at an easy wattage, and then did 3 intervals trynig to hold an average wattage at my funtional threshold power (about 275). The heart rate line (red) is easier to see the interval session. It as very hard to maintain a consistent power output, and so everything looks very random on the power graph (pink).

It was nice to be outside again. I hope the weekends stay relatively warm for a while. I did decide to bag the transition run, though. It was about feeding time for the twins when I got home, and I would rather spend time with them than training... especially running! :)

Distance: 50.76 miles
Time: 2 hrs 49 min.
Avg. HR: 135 bpm
Max HR: 158 bpm
Pavg: 227 watts
Pnorm: 245 watts
VI: 1.08
TSS (IF): 214.8 (.891)

Afternoon "Make-up" Run - L3-L4 Effort

Since I didn't get much running in this week, I jumped at the opportunity to run on Friday. I decided to make this a "hybrid" of the easy runs on Tue/Thu/Sat and the quality Wed run, because I expect to run long on Sun, and don't want to do too much prior to that run. Typical "hilly" run, as you can see from the heart rate graph at the left. Heart rate gradually rises to an average around 160 bpm with several peaks and valleys. By the end of the run, I was averaging about 164.

More Power Pulse Intervals... Once Again... No Run

Another set of Power Pulse Intervals today. This time, I think I held the power levels much better on the intervals, but I shortened them from 8'-6'-6'-4'-4' to 6'-6'-4'-4'-1'. I was trying to do the last three at 4', but I was too wiped on the last one. I also had to bag the most of my cool down. I was late starting, and just couldn't squeeze in a full hour before work.

Once again, work prevented me from running today. This is getting to be a nasty habit. I need to find the time to get these runs in. That's the area in which I need the most help.

Afternoon Run - L4 Effort... NOT!

Missed another run workout. Work is really starting to get in the way of my fun! I guess that's jsut how it goes.

Afternoon Run - L2 Effort.... NOT!

Had to bag my afternoon run workout due to work constraints. Grrr! I usually hate running, but I've been really enjoying it lately. I hate to lose out on that motivation.

Morning L4 Bike - Power Pulse Intervals

Well... fresh off my consultation with Rich regarding exactly how to do the PPI workout, I've discovered that as "difficult" as I thought this workout was before, it is even more difficult when done properly. Previously, I'd misunderstood the workout to require that during the intervals, you try to maintain an average power of about FTP + 5% until your heart rate reaches LTHR + 3-5 bpm. In a forum post, Rich indicated that this LTHR + 3-5 bpm is not the "finish line" for the interval work, but is intended to be a guideline. In my previous workout, my work intervals after the first were relatively short (not much more at most than about 2 minutes). That just didn't seem right. After adjusting my FTP down about 15 watts due to the fact that I was on a trainer and not outside, I think I've hit the nail on the proverbial head. From the graph, you can see that I held my intervals much longer (1st @ 8:00, 2-3 @ 6:00, and 4-5 @ 4:00). However, my power levels were a little low. I was closer to FTP than to FTP+5%. I think that's due to a little residual fatigue from my long run on Sunday. Legs are still a bit sore. I'll do this workout again on Thursday. Maybe then I'll have it down pat.

Next up is a 40 minute easy run this afternoon.

L2 Long Run

Good long run today... I haven't done a run longer than an hour in quite some time, but I felt really good on this one today. Today's run was a 1 hour and 20 minute easy run. I started out pretty strong and finished strong. I don't think I fell off the pace much, if at all. I didn't have my Garmin on, so I'm not sure exactly how far I went in that time period, but I did jump on Google Earth and plot the distance. It came out to almost 10 miles (8:04/mi). That's pretty darn good for me, considering my heart rate never really got that high, which indicates that my effort wasn't that hard.

L3 Brick

I haven't done a brick in a while... forgot how heavy your legs feel after riding. Whew! I'm a little tired!

Started the workout with a 1.5 hour bike ride on the trainer. Rich Strauss' Offseason Ironman Plan calls for a 2.5 hour ride today... but I just can't do much more than an hour on the trainer. I just don't don't have the stamina to deal with the boredom. I did talk to Rich, and I think the problem with my PPI workouts so far have been that my FTP is lower when I ride on the trainer than it is when I ride outside. This makes sense, as it's much harder to get motivated to ride on the trainer. I dropped my FTP to 260 watts for this workout, and I think I may have it pretty close. This workout consisted of an easy warmup followed by 2 x 20' at L3 effort (w/ 3' RI) and then a 14' cool down.

Immediately after the bike workout, I laced up the running shoes for a 30' run. I was supposed to run at steady L2 effort, but my HR immediately shot up to about 160-165 (upper L3 - lower L4) effort. I felt great, so I didn't worry about slowing down. HR was probably a little artificially high because of the bike effort.

Tomorrow is a long run, about 1:20.

Morning Bike Ride - L4 "Power Pulse Intervals"

Another set of Rich Strauss' Power Pulse Intervals today. This workout is a lot more difficult than it may seem. This was a fairly typical PPI workout. Warmed up for about 30 minutes at a low gear and low heart rate, and then launched into the intervals at function threshold (FT) + 5% until my HR reached lactate threshold (LT) + 3-5 beats per minute. Once again, the initial interval took several minutes (~5) to reach the required HR, and the reamaining intervals were relatively short (~ 1 min). Good workout... and tough.

EDIT

I replaced the picture with a Blogger-hosted version. Looks much nicer. Also, it would seem that I misinterpreted Rich's PPI workout. Apparently, I need to be holding my work intervals longer, as the LTHR+ 3-5 bpm is not the "finish line" for an interval. Also, because my FT seems to be a little lower when I'm on the trainer as opposed to outdoor, I need to move my work interval target power down about 15 -20 watts.

Afternoon 7 mile Run - L3 Average Effort

File this workout under Decent Tests of Mental Toughness. This was a fun one. One hour on a "hilly" dreadmill course without socks. I got to the gym at about 4 pm today, pulled out my gym clothes and started getting dressed only to realize I had forgotten to pack my running socks. I could have blown off the workout, but I figured that I really need to be doing my running workouts. Running is my biggest limiter, and I really want to improve my marathon time at Ironman Wisconsin this next year. I now have a few raw spots on my feet, though. Probably should have cut this one short.

As you can see from the graph, this was not an extremely difficult workout. Rich's Off Season Ironman Plan, which I'm follwoing until I begin my marathon-focused training calls for a 1 hour hilly run in which you spend time in several effort zones. I think this one would typically call for a little bit of really tough running (HR Zone 5), but I did not reach that kind of effort. The highest I went was into about mid-Zone 4, which corresponds roughly to a lower L4 effort on the scale I use. The graph is rather "wavy" indicating that I was constantly changing my effort up or down depending on whether I was "hill climbing" or not.

As you can see, the overall trend of the graph is toward a higher heart rate at the end of the run. Part of that is heart rate drift, which typically causes the HR to rise slightly as duration increases. But I think that another indication is that my run endurance is a little low right now (not surprising). The longer the duration, the higher my effort needs to be to maintain the pace set by the treadmill. If this had been an outdoor run, I likely would have run a shorter distance and slowed down over the duration instead of showing a much higher effort.

Morning Bike Ride - L4 "Power Pulse Intervals"

More "Power Plus Intervals" today. Once again, the lengths of my interval efforts were somewhat disappointing. I would have expected about 2-2.5 minute intervals, but they were only about 1:45 per interval (after the first interval). On the plus side, it seems that I managed my power output fairly well... averaging about 290 watts for each interval, which is about +2 watts more than the goal effort. So, I got that going for me... which is nice. Cadence was a little lower than I'd like (about 88 rpms) during the intervals. That seems to be a factor of the cassette I have on the Leader tri-bike. The gearing is not well spaced on a 53/42 with a 12-25 cassette. When I put on the compat cranks and add an 11-21 cassette, I expect the gear ratios to be better, and I can select a gear that feels more comfortable at about 92-95 rpms.

Easy Evening Run - 30 Minute L1/L2 Effort

This was a very easy L1-L2 run at about 8:45/mi pace. The goal for this workout was simply to get myself running again after a 2-1/2 week layoff. I haven't done much since the twins were born on October 7th, so I'm trying to get back into my frequency of running.

Afternoon Ride - L3 Effort

This was sort of a "make-up" workout I was supposed to do on Saturday. It was supposed to be a 2.5 hour effort, but it's hard to get motivated to stay on the trainer that long. Besides, I used the CompuTrainer in ergo mode, and I think the trainer was reading my watts too high. At 240 watts on the CT, my power meter was reading about 215. So, I don't think my effort wasn't as high as it should have been. I'll have to skip the ergo mode from now on, and stick to slightly inclined courses and my gearing for the proper power output.

The workout was supposed to be 30 min warmup followed by 2x20 min at 80-85% of functional threshold power (FTP), followed by 10 min easy spinning easing into 3 x 10 min at FTP and then another 30 min coolign down. After the 2 x 20 min (about 1:15), I was pretty much done with sitting on the trainer. As you can see from the graph, my power was rather low. 80% of FTP for me is about 220 Watts. My average over those two 20 min intervals was significantly lower than that. I'm a little disappointed with that and my desire to get off the bike at just over an hour, but I guess I need to work up to those long rides. Besides, I think my position on the bike is a little off. I need to do some adjustments and see if I can make it feel more comfortable.

Tomorrow is likely an "off" day. I'd like to swim, but I don't think Laura's ready for me to leave her alone with the babies to go off and swim in the morning. I'll push it to Wed., when my mom is in town and can help out in the morning. I may run easy for 30 minutes tomorrow instead.

AM Bicycle Trainer Ride - L4 Power Pulse Intervals

I finally got back on the bike this morning following a pretty restful night. I did wake up with the twins at 2:00 am feeding time, but Laura and her mom took care of the feeding, and I got to drift back into dreamland. Did I mention that having a grandmother in the house immediately following the birth of your kids is a godsend?

Today's workout was a set of Power Pulse Intervals, as prescribed by triathlon coach Rich Strauss' pre-packaged Advanced Off-season Iron Distance training plan. As before, the workout is an hour long session consisting of an easy warm up followed by 5 x Work Interval ("WI"), where the WI involves riding at about funtional threshold power (FTP) + 5% until your heart rate reaches lactate threshold (LTHR) + 3-5 bpm and then recover. For me, FTP = 275 watts and LTHR = 168 bpm. So I'm targeting about 290 watts until my HR reaches about 171-173 bpm. Rest intervals between WI's should be about one quarter of the time spent in the WI.

As you can see from the graph, my WI's weren't particularly long. Recall two weeks or so ago when I did my first set of PPIs, it took quite a while for me to reach LTHR, particularly on my first interval. This time, I got there very quickly, particularly on the last four intervals. I didn;t keep my rest intervals at the proper length, either. They should have been much shorter than they were. Ah well... I knew I'd lose fitness, as I haven't been on the bike in about 2 weeks. Hopefully, I can get into a routine and rebuild my lost fitness fairly quickly.

Afternoon Run - Mix of Efforts

This was my first run in almost 3 weeks. Work and the birth of my twins conspired to keep me off the dreadmill (pun intended) and the streets. This was supposed to be a very hard effort spanning an hour and over a mix of hill grades and heart rate efforts. However, I was not feeling strong, and I really didn't want to push myself too hard. I'd already missed my Tuesday run because of work, and I just didn't think the first workout back should be too hard. So, I cut it back to 30 minutes and did not push too hard into the L3-L4 zones.

This is a graph of the run heart rate data. Not particularly interesting. The treadmill course was set to "Random" because the workout called for hitting several heart rates over a variety of hill grades. The general "wavy-ness" of the graph shows you the variety of grades. Where the slope of the line goes negative, I was on a flat to very low grade. Where the slope goes positive, my HR was climbing because I was doing more work going uphill.

Tomorrow is my first bike ride in a while... assuming the twins are kind enough to let me sleep most of the night. I'm anticipating a noticeable loss of fitness during that ride.

A Happy Time

Laura took this picture of me when I got home from work today. After nearly two weeks, I'm really enjoying being a dad. I always heard from people that there's no experience like becoming a parent... that you can't even begin to imagine how much you're going to love that little bundle of joy. Well... it's really true. I'm already constantly worrying about them and gazing at them in wonder. A part of me still can't believe they're mine. They are so different from each other (no surprise since they're not identical), but strangely the same in many ways.

I'm also learning an awful lot about babies. For example, if you're going to have your newborn on your bed... make sure there's a water-resistant sheet or something under him. Our nice comforter and duvet cover are now at the dry cleaners following a diaper mishap. Maybe we should just accept that with both dogs and babies in the house, we just can't have nice things anymore. :)

Back in the Water - AM L1-L2 Swim

Well... It was back to work today after a week off following the births of my twin sons, Will and Alex. I figured I'd get started right by swimming this morning. It did not go very well.

I felt like I've been out of the water for about 3 months. Couldn't get into a rhythm, so I just did a bunch of drills and easy swimming. Only stayed in the water about 30 minutes and 1200 meters. I'll get back into it, but today was just an easy transition.

No Posts for a While...

I know I haven't posted anything on here for a while... but there's a good reason. I haven't done anything. My life has been consumed by this.

It's Almost Daddy Time!!!

I figured today's first post (assuming there will be a second) would be a bit of a departure from the Ironman training stuff, and be a little more about my personal life. I can't believe it, but In just a couple of days, I'll be a father of two boys!

The time this week has absolutely crawled by. Having a date certain when the birth process will begin is almost cruel! This is 200 times worse than the anticipation of Christmas as a kid. I just can't wait to welcome the boys into the world and to hold them for the first time!

Aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrgh!!!! Is it Friday yet?

Morning Bike Ride - L4 "Power Pulse Intervals"

This workout is one that I read about from a well-respected online triathlon coach who uses power meters in his bike workouts. It is supposed to be a 1 hour workout, but I cut it short to 45 minutes, because I got up a little late, and I need to be at work early today. The workout involves an easy warm up followed by 5 x Work Interval, where the work interval involves riding at about funtional threshold power (FTP) + 5% until your heart rate reaches lactate threshold (LTHR) + 3-5 bpm and then recover. For me, FTP = 275 watts and LTHR = 168 bpm.

The graph makes it pretty clear that these intervals are not uniform. It took several minutes for my HR to get to LTHR+3 in the first interval. However, by the last one, it was only a minute or two. Following the intervals, I finished off the session with some spin ups shake out my legs a bit. Those PPIs really start to hurt! I'll be very busy at work today, but hopefully, I can get in a L4 run. I haven't run since Saturday, and I really need to keep these legs moving!

Morning Swim - L2 Effort

Short post this morning. I swam a short set today, as I had to get into work early this morning. The workout was basically a 500 meter easy swim warm up followed by 1 x 500 pull and then 5 x 100 descending and an easy 150 cool down. Total of 1650 meters.

Hopefully, if I have time, I'll get an easy 4 mile run in later today.

Long L2-L3 Ride - How NOT to Do a Long Ride

Rule #1 of any ride over 2 hours --> always bring enough nutrition. I re-learned this one the hard way today. I didn't expect to be out there for much over 2-2.5 hours, as we were only doing 48 miles. Boy was I under-prepared! Much of the ride was climbing in the foothills, which is not only slow going, but a LOT of power output. Add into the mix the fact that I went off course by 6 miles, and you're looking at a round trip of 60 miles instead of 48, and nearly 4 hours in the saddle as opposed to 2.5. Doh!

Looking at the graph, you can see my power levels drop off right around the 3 hour mark... or you could see it if the the green cadence data wasn't in the way. Sorry about that. Anyway, that's a "bonk." I ended up having to stop at a convenience store and pick up a candy bar and a Coke for some quick energy. I was descending Lookout Mountain Road, and could feel my legs shaking with fatigue. On the last couple of climbs, I was in the lowest possible gear, and barely churning out 50 rpms on my cadence. It was miserable. Needless to say, I was cooked.

My training stress score (TSS) for the ride was just over 300 with an intensity factor (IF) of 0.95. That probably means nothing to most of you, but that's a pretty tough workout according to my Cycling Peaks Software. I'm considering taking tomorrow off entirely. Might do an easy run if I feel up to it, and if work permits.

Afternoon Run - L2 "Long Run"

Today was an easy long run of about 1 hour. I started from home and ran out 30 minutes and back 30 mintes at an easy Endurance pace. My heart rate never went above 160, which is right about where my "tempo zone" begins. Pace was just about 8:30/mi, so I feel pretty good about that. I'd really like to see my goal marathon pace be 8:30/mi (~ 3:45:00 marathon), but as of now, I'm targeting 9:00/mi (~4:00:00 race) for the Colfax Marathon in May. The graph is pretty boring. Pretty much a generally straight line after I got going. There are a couple of prominant dips where I had to stop and wait for a light to change. I felt great the whole way, though.

I'm riding long with the cycling club tomorrow. 48 miles starting from Golden, Colorado and heading into the foothills. Should be fun!

Morning Swim - L1-L2 Form and Kick Focus

Yesterday's run was a no-go. I'm apparently a moron, and forgot to pack my shorts in the gym bag. Of course, I didn't find this out until I was at the gym getting changed. Sometimes I think I'd forget my head if it wasn't attached.

Easy swim this morning. About 45 minutes (1500 meters) of easy form work and kicking. Basically, I warmed up with an easy 300 swim and easy 200 kick. Then, I did 1000 meters of stroke and kick drills, and called it a day.

This week is likely to be my last week of "freedom" to train pretty much how I want. If the boys don't come sooner, Laura's being induced a week from today, and the boys should be here Saturday or Sunday!

Morning Ride - L3 Tempo Ride on the CT

Well... work and my self-imposed "no evening workouts" rule hosed me on my easy run yesterday. I got busy and couldn't do my run in the afternoon, and I promised Laura there would be no evening workouts, so I couldn't do it when I got home. So... no run yesterday. No biggie.

Today's early workout was one hour on the computrainer with a 20 minute warm up, 30 minutes at L3 effort, and then a 10 minute cool down. The power/hr/cadence graph from the ride is included at the right. It's fairly uninteresting, but you can see from the graph that the first 20 minutes were done at about an average power of 190 watts. That's solidly in my "endurance" zone. Cadence stayed fairly constant at about 95 rpms, which is my comfort level for an endurance ride. You can see the heart rate data gradually rising throughout the first 20 minutes to about 130 bpm as I warm up.

At about the 20 minute mark, the Computrainer was programmed to give me a very slight simulated "hill" at a grade of about 0.25%. I switched to a slightly higher gear to get me into a higher power output, and then stuck to that for about 30 minutes. Power was roughly 225-230 watts (209-249 is my "tempo zone"). Cadence stayed fairly constant at around 97 rpms. Heart rate again steadily increased to about 153 bpms, comfortably in the "tempo" range.

At about the 50 minute mark, I switched back to the endurance zone, as reflected in the data, and cooled down. A nice, moderate ride. Later today, I'll do a tempo run to cap off this L3 day.

Morning Swim - L2 Form/Endurance

This morning's swim was a nice easy L2 effort (although I'm sure my HR hit L3+ a few times). It was an easy 3000 meters broken down as:

• Warm up: 500 easy pull
• Main Set:
• 5 x 100 stroke drills
• 1 x 1500 swim
• Cool Down: 5 x 100 alternating breast strok and free style.

Afternoon Workout - L4 Run (LT Intervals)

This was basically a repeat of last Thursday's L4 workout. I moved this workout to Tuesday to coincide with my L4 bike workout, so that I could have a "hard" training day. My theory here is that I can recover better by placing both really tough workouts on the same day instead of spaced apart by an active recovery day. Now, I'll have a very hard L4 day followed by an active recovery/endurance L1-L2 day followed by a moderately hard L3 day. We'll see how that works.

This workout consisted of a 10 min. warm up at L1-L2 effort (about 8:30-9:30/mi pace) followed by 3 sets of 5 repetitions of 40 second L4 efforts with 20 seconds rest between intervals. Between the 3 sets, I rest 3 minutes at L2 effort. The cool down was about 4-5 minutes of L2 effort. Total workout time was 35 minutes, with about 10 minutes (29% of the workout time) at L4 effort. Nice little effort there. Total mileage was almost 4.5 miles.

In the graph at the left, you can see a nice representation of the run. For the first 10 minutes, my HR gradually increases to the middle of L2 effort. At 10 minutes, there's a "hump" where my effort suddenly spikes up to L4 effort. Within each hump, you can just make out the 5 "peaks" and "valleys" showing the 40" efforts and the 20" rest intervals. At the end of the run, you see me head back to L2 effort. Notice the L2 effort at the end of the run is a little higher than the beginning. This is caused by HR drift, which tends to happen as you get fatigued. The work done in the intervals in the main set are the cause of this drift. I'll know my run fitness is improving when in the future this workout produces a cool down HR that is closer to the warm-up HR.

Morning Ride - L4 Big Gear Climbs

Today is an L4 block, meaning that I have to L4 workouts (bike and run) scheduled on the plan. I started the day off with a L4 computrainer workout this morning focusing on building sport-specific strength on the bike using big gear climbs. This workout is essentially a repeat of last week's big gear climb workout, except this time I remembered to set the CT to use English measurements instead of metric, so I got the proper distances. :)

The focus of this workout is building strength on the bike in order to help me power over all those rollers on the Ironman Wisconsin bike course. My goals this year are to ride between 5-5.5 hours (~19.5-20.5 mph) on the bike, but to conserve enough energy and have enough fitness to rin between 4-4.5 hours (9-10 min/mile) on the marathon. Last time (IM Moo 2004), I was underprepared for the hills, having trained almost exclusively in pancake-flat Dallas, Tx, and way undertrained for the marathon. This translated into a 6+ hour bike split and a 5 hour (11:30/mi) ego death march on the marathon. I was pleased with my overall time, but I know I can do it faster.

On to today's ride... Like last week, this ride was a 6 mile L2 warmup at high cadence (90-95 rpm) and power output between 180 and 210 watts followed by a series of quarter-mile hills of vaying grades (4% - 6%). I finished with a cool down of another 6 miles at L2 effort. As you can see from the graph, the quarter-mile hills are the "strength-builders." I chose to climb the "hills" using fairly high gears that allowed me to maintain a cadence between 50-60 rpms and power output in the L4+ range between 275 and 315 watts. As in last week's efforts, my HR lags the power output by quite a bit. Also, I never really got into the L4 heart rate range... again probably because the efforts were so short that my HR never really got a chance to significantly increase with the effort.

I really like this workout. I think I'll make it a staple of my strength-building phase, and work on some variations to help improve my strength and power at threshold. For example, I'll probably extend the "hills" to about 2-4 minutes of climbing so I spend more time working hard. This should cause some decent training stress and hopefully improve my fitness and climbing ability in the saddle.

Next up: L4 run intervals this afternoon. Working on foot turnover speed and L4 pacing.

Morning Ride - 2 hour Easy Effort

Well... I was supposed to swim on Friday, but got caught up with work, and has to skip... Also, I was supposed to run long (1 hour) yesterday, but I bagged it. So, today, I rode 2 hours with the Rocky Mountain Cycling Club.

It was a very easy ride. We averaged only about 18 miles an hour, and I didn't push at all. No ride data to post. I managed to accidentally delete it. Oh well.

Total training time this week was almost 7 hours. 3 rides, 4 runs and a swim.

Afternoon Run - L4 Lactate Threshold Intervals

Today's workouts were fairly tough. After a tempo ride this morning, I did a short run (35 minutes), which included some three sets of repeats at lactate threshold pace. I've estimated this pace to be between 6:30 and 7:00/mi. Because the intervals were very short, I opted to do them at 6:30/mi pace. The graph for the run is at the right. You can see the little "humps" that indicates the interval work. My HR never really got into the threshold zone. I think that's because these intervals were so short that it was difficult for my HR to catch up with my effort. If I'd held the intervals for about a minute to a minute-and-a-half, I'd probably have seen HR levels closer to my calculated threshold level.

Tomorrow will (thankfully) be a pretty easy day. No running, and only an easy swim in the morning. Time to recover!

Morning Bike Ride - L3 Tempo Ride

Today was a fairly short (1 hour) Computrainer ride focusing on 30 minutes of Tempo work. Now that I've finally figured out how to create Computrainer courses correctly, it worked out pretty well. This course was 24 miles long (although I only rode 19 of them in an hour), starting at a slight 0.25% incline for 7 miles to warm up, switching to a 10 mile 0.75% grade for the main set, and then back to 7 miles at 0.25% grade for a cool down. Due to the speed I could maintain at these grades and the proper effort, I only got in 19 of those miles.

Switching to the graph at the top left, the ride is pretty self-explanatory. For about 20 minutes, the pink line (power) is consistant at an upper endurance level. When I hit the tempo grade, you can see the watts jump up to about an average of 226 watts. Then, the watts drop down again for the last couple of minutes to the endurance zone. Heart rate was comparable as well. All in all, this was a pretty good workout. I do notice that the power drops off toward the end of my tempo work. Need to keep that more consistent.

Run Workout on 9/20/2006 - 30 min. L2 Run

Another boring workout today. Just slogging away in the Endurance Zone trying to get used to running frequently. This is exactly what yesterday's HR graph would have looked like if I'd remembered to bring my HR monitor... The only difference being that the average HR would have been a little higher. I took today very easy at about 8:45-8:50 /mile pace. My reasoning behind this is because of the fairly hard effort I put forth on the bike yesterday morning. As my training progresses, I'll need to schedule "active recovery" days where I really back off the intensity of workouts that follow very difficult workouts within about 36 hours.

In fact, I probably mis-scheduled for the week. I should have sheduled a harder run yesterday to take advantage of a "high intensity block." All this means is that I should make hard days really hard, and make easy days really easy. By following really hard days with really easy days, I can increase the training stress on the hard days and still recover on the easy days.

Morning Swim on 9/20/2006 - L2 Effort (Form)

This morning was an easy swim, mostly working on kick sets and stroke form. I've decided this winter to make a concerted effort to improve my kick. Although you don't use the kick that much in an Ironman swim, working on kicking can have a real positive benefit to strengthening your legs and core. Having strong legs and a strong core helps to improve your body position in the water and to improve your ability to hold that body position for the length of the 2.4 mile swim. Hopefully, that will translate into a faster swim split as well as less fatigue.

Today's workout was as follows:

• Warm up: 300 easy swim + 200 easy kick
• Main Set:
• 2 x 500 done as:
• 200m kick with a board, building 50m from easy aerobic to best effort (60")
• 50m kick on your back
• 2 x 50m kick on your side (balance drill)
• 150m freestyle, building the kick to over-kicking for the last 50m
• 20 x 25 stroke drill
• 200 meter cool down, easy swimming.

Total distance for the workout was 2200 meters.

Endurance Run on 9/19/2006 - 30 min L2 Effort

This was just an easy run at about 8:30/mi pace. I forgot my HR monitor, so I had to go by pacing and perceived effort. Not much to say about this one. I was feeling pretty good, though, so I upped the pace for the last 5 min to about 8:00/mi instead of "cooling down." I did do an extended stretching routine after the run. No HR graph for this one.

Morning Ride on 9/19/2006 - Big Gear Climbs

Today was a sport-specific strength-building workout designed to improve my strength on the bike, and hopefully to help me become more powerful riding hills on the tri-bike. For this workout, I designed a custom Computrainer course. It was supposed to give me a 6 mile warm up at a 0.5% grade between L1 and L3 efforts. Following the warm up, I would launch into a series of 8 hills, each at an increasing grade from 4-6%. The goal was to stay seated and maintain a cadence between 50-70 rpms and power output at around L4 level. Unfortunately, I don't think I've quite figured out all of the Computrainer nuances that go along with building custom courses. I thought I'd built a course that was 20 miles long, and should have taken slightly longer than one hour to complete. I think the CT may have used metric measurements, 'cause I ended up doing about 13 miles, and it took me only 45 minutes. No biggie this early in the off season, but I need to figure that one out. :)

On the left, you can see the graph of the ride. As ususal, pink = power, red = heart rate, blue = speed and green = cadence. After the warm up, the hill climbing intervals began. You can see from the graph that I started out too hard. The first 5 or 6 intervals have an average power that is much higher than my L4 effort range (250-291). So, I was actually doing some VO2max work here. In the last 2-3 intervals, power dropped a bit, but was probably still too high. Interestingly, my HR seemed to be a bit low, and never really got solidy into the L4-L5 range. I think this is because the hills were short enough ((1-2 min) that my HR never really had a chance to catch up to my effort before I was in the midst of a rest interval. At about the 34 minute mark, I switched back to a constant 0.5% grade and reduced my effort to around L2-L3 level. At that point, I thought I still had nearly half an hour to go, so I decided to do some high effort 30" spin-ups. Those are short intervals you see at the end. Unfortunately, my workout ended on me before I could finish all the spin-ups. So, I didn't get a cool down and I was short-changed 15 minutes. Next time, I'll make sure I have the right units.

UPDATE

Yep, the Computrainer workout was set to use metric measurements. My first clue should have been the section of the workout file that said "Units: METRIC." :) My second clue should have been the computer screen during the workout, which indicated the course distance at 12½ miles, which is approximately 20 kilometers. Okay... lesson learned.

Run Workout on 9/18/2006 - Tempo Run

Today's run was a "tempo run" consisting of a short warm-up, 20 minutes at L3 intensity and then a cool down of about 5 minutes. This run (like almost all of my weekday runs was done on the treadmill. Some people don't like treadmills, but I find them good for short, targeted workouts. Workouts longer than 1 hour really can't be done on a treadmill, but these short runs are well-suited to treadmills. The godd thing about them is they force me to have a good, quick turnover, even when I get tired. On the down side, running outside is different in that you don't get a constant grade like you do on the treadmill. In any event, I like the treadmill for these short workouts, and it's more convenient and economical (time wise, that is) than running outside for me.

Looking at the heart rate graph on the right, you can see how the workout went. As I started at L2 effort (about 8:30/mi), there was a sharp rise in HR to about the upper 150's. At 10 minutes in, I started the tempo pace (about 7:30/mi). There, my HR increased to the mid 160's until about 10 min. into the tempo portion. From there, you can see a gradual drift upward toward 170 bpm over the last 10 minutes of the tempo interval. My effort didn't really seem to change, but the HR drifted up, probably because of 1) lack of run fitness and 2) I was rather warm. At 30 min., I backed off to an easy pace (about 9:00/mi). Interestingly, my HR stayed firmly at upper L2 to Lower L3.

I think that if I can continue to do these short, but frequent (4-5 days/wk) runs, it'll really set me up to be ready for marathon training in January, which, in turn, will really set me up for the Ironman in September.

Weekend Workouts and This week's Schedule

No training data on this weekend's workouts, 'cause they just aren't that interesting. I was a little time crunched this weekend, and so I only got in a couple of ver yshort, but intense workouts.

Saturday, I did a 45 minute "VO2Max interval" workout on the Computrainer. Warmed up easy at L2 intensity, and then did five very short intervals at L6 intensity. Cooled down at L1-L2 intensity, and then called it a day.

Today was even shorter. I warmed up for 5 minutes and then did 2 x 10 minutes at L4 level and then cooled down for another 5 minutes. Total of 35 minutes.

Next week's schedule looks like this:

	Swim	Bike	Run
Mon	--	--	35' Tempo Run (L3)
Tue	--	1:00 Big gear climbs (L4)	30' Endurance Run (L2)
Wed	1:00 Form and Kick sets (L2)	--	30' Endurance Run (L2)
Thu	--	1:00 Tempo Ride (L3)	30' LT Intervals (L4)
Fri	1:00 Form + Endurance (L2)	--	--
Sat	--	--	1:00 Endurance Run (L2)
Sun	--	1:30 2x20' Tempo Intervals(L3)	--
Total	2:00	3:30	3:05

High Intensity

Moderate Intensity

Low Intensity

Active Recovery

Run Workout on 9/15/2006 - 30 min Endurance Run

This was another easy workout... just 30 min. on the treadmill at Endurance (L2) effort, with no hills or intervals. Like yesterday's run, the graph at the right shows a very consistent effort over the 30 minute course. You'll see that my effort over duration of the workout never gets above 156 bpm. That keeps me solidly in the Endurance Zone. Again, this run was pretty easy, as the goal is to first build up to a frequency of about 4-5 runs per week, 2-3 of which are short, low effort endurance runs, one is a "long" endurance effort run, and one is high intensity interval work done at harder efforts and faster paces. For now, I just want to get my system used to running frequently, but at low volume.

Swim Workout on 9/15/2006 - 2700 meters

I haven't been in the pool for a while, so I decided to make this morning an easy swim. I typically do about 3000-3500 meters in an hour of hard swimming, but since I haven't swum in a while, I decided to take it easy. I did mainly short intervals focusing on form and some speed. Workout was as follows:

• Warm up: 500 meters done as 300 easy swim + 200 kick
• Main Set: 2000 meters done as:
• 20 x 25 drills
• 10 x 50 easy, mod, hard
• 5 x 100 descending
• 2 x 250 moderate
• Cool down: 200 meters done as 2 x 100 easy swim
• TOTAL: 2700 meters

Felt good to be in the pool, but I felt a twinge in my right should every time I took a stroke. I hope there's nothing major going on with that...

Run Workout on 9/14/2006 - Easy 30 min

This was a rather uneventful workout... just 30 minutes on the treadmill at Endurance (L2) effort, with no hills or intervals. The graph at the left shows a very consistent effort over the 30 minute course. I chose to do a short "endurance" workout because I pushed a little on the bike this morning, and I wanted this to be a low level effort, so that I don't push myself too hard. In addition, I've barely run since I decided to bag the Denver Marathon, so I'm keeping the sessions fairly short and very low intensity in order to rebuild run fitness and recover well. As the weeks and months progress, I'll steadily increase the intensity and then the volume so that I'm ready to start marathon training in January for the Colfax Marathon in May.

That's a nice segue into another point about the training program. To make it more fun, and to promote my "training blocks" approach, I've added two running races into a 5 month "run focus" block to try to improve my running using "crash cycles." I'm planning to do both the Platte River Trail Half Marathon and the Colfax Marathon as benchmarks for run training. Hopefully, after 5 months of run focus training, I can then maintain most of that run fitness through June, July and August while I focus on adding a much larger volume of bike training and increase my swimming volume as well.

Bike Workout on 9/14/2006 - FTP Intervals

Today started off with about an hour on the Computrainer this morning. Today's bike workout was, overall, not intended to be too taxing, but to include some spinning drills and a few very short intervals at or near my functional threshold power (FTP) level. The concept here is to start building a FTP "base" so that as the training year progresses, I can extend the length of these intervals and train my body to go harder for longer periods of time. Hopefully, that will translate into being able to go faster over the Ironman bike distance.

I've included another graph of my ride in the picture to the right. It's pretty easy to tell what work is being done and where. The red line is heart rate data, the green line is cadence data, and the pink line is power data. I did this workout on the Computrainer using the Coaching Software and a self-created ERG file. ERG files are a terrific tool that let you pre-set target wattage ranges throughout your workout, so that you know you're hitting the target wattage you want in your workouts. In this workout, I started out with a warm up at about 150 watts for 10 minutes. Then, staying at a load of 150 watts, I did 10 x 30" spin ups where I increased cadence to about 120 rpms to work on leg speed and pedaling technique. The spin-ups are the 10 small "sipkes" you see in the graph at the right. Notice the power and cadence graphs spike here. The HR curve shows increased effort, as HR starts to rise a bit more rapidly.

Following the spin-ups, I did 5 x 2 min at L4 (FTP) effort. These are the wider humps in the HR curve and the "square" waves in the power curve. Notice that I kept my cadence fairly constant at about 90 rpms. The interesting thing to me in this graph is noticing that the HR curve is slightly off center of the power curve. This is because heart rate lags effort by up to a minute and-a-half. So, even though you're working at a higher effort, your HR monitor may not show it for up to a minute or so. This is why being able to train (and race, if you're lucky enough to own a power meter) with power is so nice. You get instantaneous, objective feedback on your effort, and can adjust accordingly.

The workout ended with a 15 minute cool down at L1 effort.

Run Workout on 9/13/2006 - Tempo Intervals

Today's run workout was supposed to be a short (30 minute) interval session focusing on repetitions at "Tempo" effort (L3). Unfortunately, I accidentally hit the "stop" button on the treadmill just after the last interval, and missed my cool down. No biggie. I just decided to cut it short and stretch for my cool down.

The workout was to consist of a 10 minute warm-up, about 12 minutes of interval work (2 minute work intervals at L3 effort + 2 min. rest intervals), and then 8 minutes of cool down. This is not a terribly stressful workout. It is intended to be just a short run to help me start getting back into running, because I haven't run much since I decided to bag the Denver Marathon. From the graph at the right, you can see three little "bumps" in the hear rate graph that represent the 2 min. "work intervals." During these two minute stretches, I ran at a pace of about 7:30/mile to raise my HR to between about 160 bpm and 170 bpm. As my training progresses, these types of runs will include longer work intervals aimed at training my system to run longer periods at this higher effort.

Today's Early Computrainer Ride

Today I officially kicked off my training for next years Ironman Wisconsin with an early morning ride. It was a fairly easy ride on the Computrainer, focusing on maintaining a power/hear rate level at or near the Aerobic zone.

I'm including a graph at the right showing Power, HR, and cadence data from the entire. I rode a pre-built, rolling course that had a few minor hills. Overall, my goal was to keep my effort level in the upper aerobic (L2) to lower Tempo (L3) zone for most of the ride. You can see that my HR (the red line) gradually rises toward the end of the workout. Power data (the pink line) is fairly stochastic, but you can tell overall trends. For example, there's a section at about 5-10 minutes where the power levels are between about 160 and 180 watts. This was a simulated downhill section, where it's hard to keep power levels high. If my speed sensor had been working, you'd see that my speed was relatively high over that 5 minutes as compared with the surrounding sections of the power graph.

There's another section at about 27 minutes to 37 minutes on the x-axis where power output is relatively low. This was a very long descent, where I shifted to a much higher gear in order to try to maintain higher power output. My HR hovered around the upper 140's here until I hit the "bottom" of the "hill" and then started to climb. That's where the power level spikes quite a bit. As the climb continues, you can see my HR climb up to the 160's.

I did manage to maintain my cadence (the green line) between about 85 and 95 rpms for most of the ride. I feel most comfortable at about 90-100 rpms. When climbing in the saddle, I'll drop as low as 85 rpms. Much lower than that, I tend to feel better out of the saddle.

All in all, a good ride. 45 minutes of aerobic activity. Time spent in training levels as follows:

Power:

Zone	Minutes
L1 (0-153 W)	1.52
L2 (154-208 W)	22.07
L3 (209-249 W)	18.30
L4 (250-291 W)	2.62
L5 (292-332 W)	0.35
L6 (333+ W)	0.28
Total:	45.14