BlogOctober 1, 2007 Kona Training Week 4 Overall this was quite an eventful week! I'm pretty happy with how everything's going and am more and more excited to head to Kona every day. The body feels good, fit, less-injured, and strong. I feel like I've adjusted physiologically to sleeping at altitude and after one more week I will give up the tent to sleep at sea-level for 6-7 days before the race! Awwwhhhh, I'm looking forward to it! Sleeping in there is like training and you get quite dehydrated. Also, sleep quality isn't as good so my mid-day nap has been spent outside the tent. This seems to help. Monday, September 24th -Woke up tired today! (must be the tent) Hopped on the Cybex Elliptical for 25 minutes to get the "stuff" out of my legs. -1 hour of therapy and strengthening exercises with Nate Koch at Endurance Rehab. -2000 yard swim! Yes SWIM!!! With two arms! This felt pretty strange after a month out of the water but thankfully I had no shoulder pain. Alex M. was in the lane next to me, even though I was swimming easy I couldn't fathom swimming his speed. Unfortunately, he was going easy too! I ended up doing 3x500 very easy DPS and then 5x100 on 1:30. On my hundreds I was holding 1:18-1:20 without pushing it. Not too bad, better than I had feared. Tuesday, September 25th -Another tent night, I feel good after an easier day yesterday, shoulder feels well. -Tuesday morning ride fixed gear, halfway through my good friend Shane Arters did a massive face plant so after the ambulance arrived we turned around and headed back. About 30 miles total. Shane got a bunch of scrapes, a concussion, and some broken-but-not-misplaced facial bones. He will live to fight another day. These 60 rider group rides are great for fitness but dangerous! We can't be too careful out there! -2000 yards at Cactus Masters, had Johnnie look at my stroke, I'm doing "ok", guess I'll be happy with that for now. Did a couple hundreds around 1:15 near the end of practice. Wow flying, I'm getting faster... Trying to take care of the shoulder -Rode a thirty minute easy spin with the Glendale Community College Triathlon 101 group. About thirty athletes here. Mark from Tri Family Racing was nice enough to invite Marc Rubin and myself to come help out these new triathletes. It was awesome! Unfortunately, two of them collided Head-On (apply directly where it hurts) during our "mock-triathlon" on the bike path. Both of them appeared to have some fairly serious injuries. Both took rides to the hospital via ambulance. This is crazy, I've been riding for 15 years and on not one ride have I ever been there when somebody needed to ride the ambulance. Today, two accidents of this nature in ONE DAY! With three victims! Again, safety, it's far underrated. Wednesday, September 26th - I had my best run workout of the year today! We headed to the track for eleven miles total running. The workout was 6x1 mile repeats on 9 minutes, between the finish of each mile I got an easy lap jogging in. I was hoping to descend this set so after cracking 5:00 minutes on the first mile I knew I would have my work cut out for me. Mile 1- 4:58 Mile 2- 4:59 Mile 3- 4:55 Mile 4- 4:54 Mile 5- 4:50 Mile 6- 4:40 Running this fast with heavy training shoes makes me VERY HAPPY. Taking time out of the water and focusing on more running has made me faster, just what I need for Kona! On the sixth repeat ex-4:08 miler Brad Stocker wanted to "Pace" my first and last lap. Unfortunately, he went out in 1:03, I blew up big time! In the middle of the repeat I attempted to recover for the final lap with Brad. Thankfully, he seemed to be quite fatigued still from his 1:03 and we ran a 1:08 instead, much better! -Swam in the evening for about 2500 yards. The shoulder is improving! I did 9x200 descending and was getting down to some more decent times and able to push myself without pain! Man, how I've missed swimming! Thursday, September 27th -Tent night, Gainey group ride on my new bike. Followed it up with another 20 miles. My new ride feels fast, I'm happy with it. -3000 yards easy swimming and drilling, the shoulder feels pretty awesome! Friday, September 28th -Training less and less now with the big day approaching, still sleeping in the tent though. Swam 2500 with Marc, did an hour of therapy/lifting with Nate at ER for my shoulder. I did 5x100's around 1:10 pace, things are coming back. I just have to keep swimming and not have it flare up too much. Saturday, September 29th -Slept in the tent, at 15.4% oxygen, I think this is right around 8500 feet. A group of us met at the running track at 5:30 AM and rode the hour down to the Splash and Dash race. This event was a 600 meter swim followed by about a 3 mile run around Tempe Town Lake. I started out easy and away from the crowd as I'm not in "battling" form. I found myself leading with one other swimmer (Brandon Taylor) around the first buoy. I hopped on his feet and drafted easily the remainder of the swim back to shore. Jeremy and Dave do an awesome job putting these things and I love the new cement transition area, it's definitely an improved setting! It was important for me to do something a little competitive involving swimming to let myself know that I can still swim, and have it not hurt too much. Brandon swam in college and I've exited the water with him in MANY splash and dashes in the last year. I'm truly ecstatic that I was able to swim with him today. 5 miles running total. -6 hours total riding on the fixed gear bike with Marc. The legs are tuning up nicely! Sunday, September 30th -Slept in the tent, followed by the Pro-Con ride with all the Scottsdale Bros... I was messing around with the new bike a little bit but got it situated by the time we really got going. I tried to stay in the wind as much as possible and was fairly successful at that. Pro-Con ride is basically the Rio-Verde loop with the Jomax climb added. It's about 65 miles and usually includes a decent shoot-out up 9 Mile Hill. Eric, Bill, Dave, Todd, Steve, and myself didn't disappoint as we went about trying to crack each other on this climb. I guess our time up it was one of the best anyone had ever heard, although we did have a favorable wind. My legs feel great, I tried out my tri shoes, they gave me blisters, which is why I'm hoping my feet build up a little before race-day. Also, I wore my new LG aero helmet, I liked it, not too hot. -2000 yard easy swim at DC Ranch. A little pain in the shoulder, maybe brought on by Jim Casey swimming circles around me a lane over. It's ok, I just have to stay wet. Thanks for reading, cheers Weekly Totals Swim: 6 hours Bike: 9 hours Run: 16 miles X-Train: 2.5 hours 20 hours total training « Back to Blogs |
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