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.