3 miles easy

treadmill 3 miles

30 minutes

minor pain under left kneecap at abt 1.5 miles. removed lift from right heel and knee pain dissipated. need to keep an eye on that. might need to remove lifts when running on treadmill.

have Dr Nancy check leg lengths on next visit.

skip a day. then 4x800

Sunday's run had my left foot arch bitching a little (in addition to all the other leg bitching) led me to skip Monday's 3 miles.

Tuesday:
4x800
1st 800: 6:00/mile pace
2nd 800: 6:18/mile pace
3rd 800: 6:15/mile pace
4th 800: 6:11/mile pace

overall 5.5 miles and 48 minutes of running (includes warmup and cooldown)

during the warmup and the interstitial cooldowns I noticed my right foot wasn't striking properly on the outside edge. Worked on that during the entire session. Right ball of foot sort of .... something... as a result of stride modification efforts.

Sunday 12

Was supposed to do 11 today, but whilst planning my route on google maps i laid out a 12 mile route. oops.

12 miles
1:40:14
8:20/mile

slightly bitchy IT band on the left. and the gluteus on the left. right upper calf at the knee (outside) also minor bitchy. am pleased to have kept an 8:20 pace.

end of rain and Xmas: 5 miles

5 miles in 41:56
wasn't really feeling motivated. possibly due to all the grey weather and rain we've had since mid-day on Xmas. possibly due to not getting my ass up to do my Thursday pace run.

ran after eating tacos (1.5hrs). minor amounts of bitching from the body regarding scheduling the food before the running, but my first trip towards Richardsons Beach Park was met with a super slow driving old fart and a rain squall. So I diverted to fish tacos (fried Mahi-mahi from Aloha Luigis) and waiting a bit and the weather turned the corner to sunny and nice. Had a brief swim after. Worked very briefly on arm stroke (4 times 25-30 meters).

hills, registration confirmed for Boston

3 x hill workout. for whatever reason that was a tough workout.

akalina farm gate to enlightened ones driveway.

Received confirmation from the Boston Athletic Association regarding my entry into the 113th Boston Marathon. So it looks pretty darn official. Time to start figuring out how to mesh marathon and triathlon training regimes together because Honu Half Ironman is about 6 weeks after Boston.

3 miles easy

the usual route starting from and returning to Richardson Beach Park.

3 miles
23:00
7:40/mile

first run since the marathon (not counting minor amounts of running around while coaching soccer). felt good. minor amount of IT band bitching from left knee area. interesting muscle tightness on interior quads (both legs). obviously it's time to resume stretching as well.

2009 race goals

2009 race goals:

Boston Marathon: finish faster than 3:15
Honu Half Ironman: qualify for Kona Ironman and finish faster than 5:00
Kona Ironman: finish without hurting myself

based upon my run @ CIM I feel like I can blow out my old PR for Lavaman (olympic) and Honu (Half Ironman). I need to work on improving my swimming and biking as I have given them much less attention than my running since the 2008 Honu Half Ironman.

more data points:

split formatting:
swim pace T1 bike pace T2 run pace

2008 Lavaman splits:
29:11 1:50 3:17 1:12:54 20.4 0:58 47:29 7:40 (2:33 overall)

2008 Honu Half Ironman splits:
36:52 1:51 5:27 2:49:02 19.9 3:00 1:59:04 9:06 (5:27 overall)

3:14:46

race day was cool, overcast and almost foggy. perfect running conditions.

26.2 miles. 3:14:46.

I have pulled off a Boston Marathon qualifying time at my first ever marathon.

This is beyond my expectations based upon the number of missed workouts (approximately 50%).

Now it's time to put together the Boston Marathon training plan. =)

last pre-race run

ran for about 30 minutes with a buddy from high school. Fell & Stanyan past the new museums and up to Stowe lake (Golden Gate Park, San Franfrisco) and back. Easy pace. 2-3 miles I'm guessing. Slight bitching as usual from the psoas/hip region on the right hand side.

arrival in CA. 4x400

traveled to CA on Monday. as usual travel is a pain in the ass, but imagine how much more of a pain in the ass it was back in the days of sailing ships.

ran 4x400 today. I have no proper idea what the pace was like as I wasn't running on a proper 1/4 mile track and wasn't keeping track of my interval times. If you glued the 400's together they might have resembled a sub-6 minute mile. Psoas muscle slightly bitchy. will stretch twice per day from now until the race on Sunday.

slacking

week ago Sunday: 4 miles in 28:14 (early morning, cool, sunny)
yesterday (aka Saturday): 4 miles in 29:15 (noon, hot, sunny)

long gap

long gap in posting....

yesterday: 10 miles race pace
sustained: 7:43 for 10 miles. 17 seconds slower than required race pace

today: 20 miles easy
sustained: 9:30 for 20 miles. things started to hurt pretty good around mile 17. unlike the last 10/20 weekend I did not have to stop and walk during this Sunday's long run.

it's unclear to me if I have an extra 17 seconds per mile to give for the full marathon distance. It will be interesting to find out in three weeks.

Kona Hills workout

7 x hills

approx 3 minutes per uphill

done on dirt/gravel trails in Kona Mauka off Kaloko Drive.

some of the trails are bloody steep. I did not feel totally spent at the end of the workout. I didn't feel as if I could really do full effort running on loose, steep ground (as opposed to running on asphalt).

swam @ Kehaka Kai afterwards. Then got dinner from a hole in the wall sushi joint in Kailua town (back at the ass-end of an alley, ono grinds, mostly locals)

101 posts: 5.2 easy

5.2 miles, easy pace
46:45
24:48 @ 2.6miles (9:25/mile)
21:57 2nd half (8:45/mile)
8:56/mile overall

I decided to deliberately pick up the pace for the 2nd half. "pick up the pace" being a somewhat generous term in this case.

leisurely suffering: 12 miles easy

12 miles
1:56:31
57minutes and change at the turn around
did the 2nd half at the same pace as the first half

6 miles, race pace

6 miles starting @ Richardson Beach Park

46:21
7:42/mile
22:10 @ the halfway point (7:23/mile)

seemed kind of tough to do that the day after a 6x800 workout, but what the heck.

6x800

6x800 drill

first 2 800's @ 6:00/mile
3rd @ 6:15/mile
last 3 @ 6:40/mile

5.5 miles easy

Richardson Bay to Aloha Petroleum sign and back again

approx 5.5 miles
40 minutes
7:16/mile

i was not trying very hard and I'm really surprised at the result.

8 mile

Homestead road. top to bottom and back again.

8 miles
69 minutes

Sat Oct 11

9 miles in 1:12:45
pace 7:54/mile
did this at noon on a hot sunny day

Thu, Fri Oct 9/10

did not run

Wed Oct 8th

5.2 miles
7:49 pace

Tue Oct 7

6x800 intervals
3 minutes fast
3 minutes slow
overall did about 5.2 miles in 60 minutes

mechanics

one aspect of my training that I haven't addressed thus far are the biomechanics of my running form. So tonight I've been using YouTube as a research vehicle to learn about efficient running. Not too surprisingly I've got some things to work on.

1: foot plant: should be mid foot or forwards. why? planting the heel, as I have been doing, increases the impact and braking action of your stride. Planting the mid-foot or ball of the foot reduces impact and braking action, thus reducing stress injuries and increasing efficiency. The outer edge of the foot should be the first part of the foot to contact the ground to further decrease impact.

2: stride length: the front stride should not extend very far in front of the body. Doing so will increase the tendency to plant the heel and lower overall efficiency.

3: back kick: lift the foot sooner than is typical by keeping the toe pointing more forward than down. Also increase the height of the back kick to decrease the effective lever length of the leg and therefore makes it easier and more efficient to swing the leg forward for the next stride

4: upper body: stay loose and relaxed in the shoulders, neck and back. focus on keeping the shoulders down and driving your elbows backwards.

5: never let your arms cross your midsection or you'll be wasting valuable forward energy in a side to side fashion. Don't let your elbows go forward past your abdominal area.

6: smile! this helps keep you relaxed and decreases perceived pain, effort and fatigue. All of which are important factors in keeping yourself moving quickly and efficiently.

wednesday & thursday

Wednesday: day off
Thursday: easy, hills, progression (treadmill except for hills)

2miles @ 8:00/mile
10 x hill sprints @ approx 10 seconds/sprint (tractor shed to the bump in the path)
0.5 miles @ 8:00/mile
0.5 miles @ 7:47/mile
0.5 miles @ 7:30/mile
0.5 miles @ 7:03/mile
0.25 cooldown

34:26 for the pace running.

sprints took about 10 seconds each plus the jog back to the bottom of the hill.

back in the saddle, hills

2 miles @ 8:34/mile
10 hill sprints
1.5 miles @ 8:34/mile
0.5 miles @ 7:19/mile
0.25 miles @ cooldown backoff

monday, tuesday, wednesday

Monday: 3miles easy, 24:26, 8:09/mile, Richardson's almost to Onekahakaha and back
Tuesday: was supposed to be a hill workout. didn't happen
Wednesday: currently shaping up to be a late night treadmill workout. probably will combine the hill workout and the 3-4 miles of easy pace that were slated for tonight.

I'm happy to see the road workout @ easy pace has dropped to the 8 minutes/mile mark. This has me more upbeat about making my 7:19/mile or better that I'm aiming for @ Sacramento.

sunday long run

13 miles

1:56:00

8:55/mile

picked up the pace a small amount for the last few miles. and I mean a small amount

9mile pace run

9 miles @ race pace
race pace = 8.2mph aka 7:19/mile

ugh

total mileage 10.15
total time: 81:03

was not really into it this morning, but did the work. time to go reward myself with a swim before my ART appointment.

skipped Wednesday, double up on Thursday

i'm feel like I'm playing catch up and am sore all the time. So I've been opting for more rest days and then combining easy runs with speed work. So far so good.

Today was a workout that included:
Wednesday's 4 miles easy pace
Today (Thursday's) 40 minute tempo run.

Done in the following order:
3 miles @ 6mph (aka 10minutes/mile)
40 minutes done as follows:
4 minutes @ 6mph
4 minutes @ 6.5mph
(repeat until reaching 9mph)
3 minutes @ 9mph
4 minutes @ 8mph
4 minutes @ 7mph
5 minutes @ 6mph
1 miles @ 6mph

by the end I was getting bored, but in the final 4-5 minutes I actually managed to focus on foot technique and notice some interesting things about how my feet were landing. As a result I feel like I was able to achieve a smoother more efficient stride during the last 4-5 minutes. So that was cool.

and the 3 minutes @ 9mph were tough! as were the 4 minutes at 8mph that followed them. I guess I was getting tired.

dinner was raw avocado, cucubmer, tomatoes and cooked sausage, onion, zuchini and garlic pan friend and finished with a beer reduction.

time to clean up the kitchen, shower and go to bed.

BURP!

skipped Monday, penance Tuesday

I had my head firmly up my ass on Monday. I skipped my workout. I didn't do much of anything all day except finish reading a novel and take the dogs to the veterinarian.

So on Tuesday I did the Monday and Tuesday workouts.

Monday workout: 4 miles easy pace
Tuesday workout: 6 x 800yard @ 9mph (supposed to be 10mph, aka 6 minutes/mile)

I started out with 3.5 miles at 6mph. easy enough. Then I cranked the treadmill to 10mph and ran for 3 minutes. Jeebus and a milkshake!

Let me explain intervals the way my training plan has them laid out. Speed intervals are done at a pace determined by your race pace mapped onto the 800 yard interval in minutes instead of hours. So my goal at the Sacramento marathon is 3:10 or faster. This maps onto the speed interval as 800 yards at 3minutes 10seconds or faster. once you finish the interval you do half the distance at walking or jogging pace. Then repeat the cycle.

So anyway. I did the first two intervals at 10mph. I was practically going off the back end of the treadmill (it's got a motor and when you tell it to go a set speed it revs up the motor and you'd damn well keep up!). At the tail end of interval #2 my pulled ass on the left and the entire leg down to the calf started to tell me that perhaps I should back off a bit. So intervals 3-6 were done at 9mph. Much less bitching and whining from the left leg. And as it turns out when I did the math afterwards 9mph for 800yards is perfect if i'm targeting a 3hr race pace. So I'm stoked I did the entire workout and at the desired pace.

but i am still looking ahead to Saturday and 9 miles at race pace with some amount of "What the fuck am I thinking?"

dinner consisted of 1/2 lb of raw tuna, a bag of sprouts, carrots, beer and some chips. I might go downstairs and attack the avocado later if i'm still peckish.

putting in the miles

today's schedule workout: 17 miles, easy pace

actual:
Sunday swim clinic saw me putting about 1200-1500 meters on the odometer first thing. Then I got out of the water, changed, ate a little bit of trail mix and started running.

mileage: 17.3miles
route: Richardson's Bay to Honolii gulch and back again. fairly flat with several very moderate and tiny climbs. Honolii gulch had some down and back up again, but mercifully it was almost all in the shade
time: 2hours 35minutes
pace: 155/17.3 = 8.95minutes/mile = 8:57/mile
pain: moved around in my legs. most persistent was left knee IT band area and left calf upper central just below the knee. feet were pretty cranky by the last 3/4 mile.
weather: sunny and awesome. 80's. Apparently it dumped rain on Richardson's for a few minutes while I was out running.

amusing moments: saw Jake Bierman of Bierman home inspections as I crossed the singing bridge on my homeward leg (he is in my business networking group). Ran into Leslie and Emma Rose just as I was 50 yards from the Richardson's parking lot. They were headed to a birthday party. Leslie said to me, "STOP RUNNING! Go swimming! It's HOT!" She cracked me up. Also ran into Erin on the beach after my run. Or rather I swam briefly, began stuffing my face with bananas, apples and trail mix and noticed Erin sitting about 25 yards away talking to someone. As I finished eating she went in for a swim so I followed her out and swam underwater until I was near her and said, "Boo!" It turns out she is also a runner so we may schedule a few mutual runs in the coming week or two.

Oh yeah. They closed A Bay yesterday afternoon an hour or two after I had my swim there. Apparently the sharks got bored at Hapuna and wanted to see if there was anyone to be eaten at A Bay. Happily I was miles away by then.

14 foot tiger shark says, "No you AIN'T swimming!"

Today's workout: 7 mile run, easy pace

actual: 7.6miles
pace: 8:45/mile
body complaints: left calf, left outer quad, left knee (IT band), right scapula

and yeah. seriously Hapuna Beach was closed today due to a 14 foot long tiger shark that has been hanging out in the bay the past few days. So while I ran one of my regular spots (Hapuna - Puako) I had to drive down the road a ways to A Bay (@Waikaloa) and swim there. Did another mostly arms only swim. Estimated to be 400 meters. Swam to the black and white striped buoy that is always offshore in A Bay and back to shore. And yeah while I was out there I considered how it would take the shark @ Hapuna about 3 minutes to swim down the coast, find me, and eat me, but he didn't.

Afterwards I had an ART appt in Kona w/Dr Nancy. Good stuff having your workout complaints worked on almost immediately after you're done working out.

All in all a lovely day.

rest day, brief swim

Friday is the rest day in the marathon training regimen I am following. So of course I went for a swim @ Richardson's Beach. Two laps, arms only, concentrating on technique. On the return leg of lap 1 I noticed that I seem to be more able to flip from side to side as I make each stroke (having your side downwards is faster than swimming with your chest parallel to the surface of the water). So I tried to pay attention to this new conciousness of flipping from side to side and began to have a somewhat surging feeling to my strokes.

I'll be interested to see my times @ the Sunday swim clinic after that brief two lap experiment of side flipping and no legs.

8 miles running tomorrow
17 miles Sunday

the right foot is angry. the left knee is merely a tiny bit sore.

Labor Day Race Results, 3min pace run

Official Labor Day 5K Race Results show me coming in 11th with a time of 19:41. Only 3 seconds slower than the 10th finisher. The 10th finisher who ran the entire race pushing a stroller with a 1 year-old in it..... I'm just shaking my head at that one.

Today's training:
3miles @ race pace
8.3mph
overall ran for 27:51 and did 3.5 miles. That includes 3 minutes warm up @ 5mph and 2 minutes @ 6.3mph.
soundtrack: Audioslave (good heavy metal for exercise)

legs: left knee moderatly bitchy, right foot painful after the run in the area behind the middle toes and in front of the arch. Seems to be between the big toe and 2nd toe.

other oddities: yesterday after my run I noticed that I had a rash or hives on my right side abdomen near a recent abrasion scar. Today the rash/hives have spread to the right quad/groin and left groin..... weird. The only thing I can think of that I have changed in the past few days is my anti-persipirant. Time to completely clean up my diet or sumpin....

Wed run

day 3 of the marathon training.

4 miles.
36:49
slow run. never broke 7.3mph
ran on the treadmill

my legs are still sore from the race on Monday.

left ass, ham, quad, groin and knee all bitched in a minor way about how they thought it would be a much better idea to lie in a hammock while I poured beer down my gullet.

The goal for the upcoming marathon is to run in 3hrs 10minutes or less and qualify for the Boston Marathon. For months and months and months I've been doing the math and thinking that I had to run 7minute 0second miles. It turns out that I was wrong. Instead of doing the math in my head during a bike ride or while driving around in my truck I did it using a calculator and was rather surprised to see that what I really need to run is 7minutes 20seconds per mile. Yay for math errors in my favor! I took the trouble to do the math because tomorrow's training run is 3 miles at Race Pace. 7:20 boils down to 8.2mph. Which will be kind of a bear, but we'll see how it goes. And now it's off to dreamland.

swim - n - run

Our equipment for work didn't arrive in time so I took the morning off and went swimming @ Richardson's Bay. Did four laps between the beach and the reef. Wasn't terribly fast and spent most of my time concentrating on technique.

In the afternoon I did about 25 minutes on the treadmill. It was supposed to be a 40 minutes tempo workout, but I was pretty beat from the race on Monday and decided that discretion was the better part of valor and stopped early. My left knee has felt a touch bitchy since the race and the muscles in that leg were complaining moderately during the run. Pace was 5mph (12 minutes/mile) except for the three minutes that I ramped up to 7mph and back down again.

I still haven't seen any official race results from Monday so..... i'll post that info when I see it.

Other noteworthy item is that I pissed off my pulled ass muscle a little bit when I did my sprint to the finish during the race. I really must remember to keep the effort level dialed down a few notches from "all out" regardless of what I am doing. Otherwise this pain in my ass just isn't going to heal....

Big Island Road Runners Labor Day 5K/10K

Today I formally began training for the Sacramento Marathon. I'm using Hal Higdon's website and doing the advanced II schedule. Starting late of course so I jumped ahead to week 8.

Since today was supposed to be a 3 mile run it was very convenient that the Big Island Road Runners were holding their 5K/10K road races today. 5K is just barely more than 3 miles so I ran that race. I'm not sure of my exact time (I'll post it once I get race results), but it was somewhere around 19:20-19:30 for 5K. I came in somewhere around 10th overall and might have even been the first finisher in my age group. Once I have official results I will modify this post.

Assuming for the moment that I ran the race in 19:20 then I was able to do 6:22:53/mile. Which makes me pretty happy. :)

more notes on back pain

So yesterday's road ride led to a minor amount of pain-in-the-back or as it should more properly be called "pain-in-the-ass"

No big surprise here, but what seems to be going on is that I am re-aggravating the pulled gluteus medias injury from a few months ago. Sooo..... as one of my favorite sports training books likes to point out, "More reps at lower effort often leads to better results than fewer reps at higher effort." So less standing up and pedaling on the uphills. More shifting down into an easier gear. Less sprinting and pushing myself into oxygen debt. More cruising along at higher cadence.

We'll see how this all works out in the sphere of running because so far I haven't noticed any correlation between running and back/gluteus pain.

Today I might go running if the weather doesn't just dump in the late afternoon.

Monday: road sprint

My back felt considerably better on Monday. I spent most of the day working on my internet job (I run a Wireless ISP) and luckily enough when I decided to knock off for the day we were in between rain showers. So Dad and I hopped on bikes and rode to Concord center. Dad opted to return home from there (he rode a long ride yesterday) and I continued on to Carlisle center. Pace was fairly brisk especially the return from Carlisle center to my Dad's house when I was pushing a bit harder.

Mileage: 16 miles
Time: 52 minutes
avg speed: 18.46 mph
terrain: mostly flat
weather: 65 degrees, overcast

for those who enjoy gore, here is a link to the Sprocket Injury gallery

Sunday: pain

The leg injury from Saturday did not bother me one bit on Sunday, but my back was more or less completely seized up. I took the day off (not like I had much of a choice).

It's truly amazing what kind of hateful garbage the mind will dredge up towards the end of a long day of being in pain. I watched Gladiator before bed and for whatever reason I was more in tune with the insane emperor Commodus than the protagonist Maximus. Ice, pain killers and anti-inflammatory drugs are probably a good idea. Early and often.

and on Saturday, bloody sprockets

I went down to Holliston, MA today to do a little mt biking in a trail system that is affectionately called "Vietnam." Lots of great single track with granite slabs, boulders, baby heads, stream crossings, sand, mud, etc etc etc.

We rode for about three hours. Pace was easygoing. My guide, a fellow whom I know as Splat, had his 11 year old along so that meant lots of rest stops while the young'un caught up to us old farts.

The highlight of the ride was when I rode up a sloping granite slab and stalled at the transition to the flat top. I put down a foot and then slid backwards and sideways down the slab puncturing my calf twice with the big ring on the front sprocket. I could see some of the white subdermal tissue and knew I'd done a really nice job sticking the sprocket into my leg. Being as we are mt bikers we did nothing for the injury and kept riding for another hour and a half.

I got home and cleaned up. It is a nice little injury. It won't win any awards, but it does sting nicely and will probably leave a divot in my leg where I cut away the triangle of skin that was hanging loose.

and on Friday, he rested

mostly because on Friday morning he accidentally caused an outage @ work and so he wasted the nice part of the day herding cats or electrons or ether.

now it's 5:45pm in Boston and there is a band of thunderstorms coming in. so today I don't work out.

tomorrow i get to ride in Vietnam (well Holliston, MA). A nice set of singletrack mt bike trails out near Interstate 495. Technical and fun!

here comes the thunder! boom boom boom!

swimmer swim swimmy

novelty abounds. i went swimming. it has been ages and ages since i've been in the water and it was pretty obvious.

where: YMCA pool Waltham, MA
distance: 500 yards maybe more, maybe less
time: when I paid attention to the clock I was doing 100 yards in abt 1:30
felt like: a rather out of shape, soggy noodle
quit because: my right calf cramped up

A rather lackluster workout, but I think it was the first swim workout that I've done in about three weeks. As I vaguely recall the last time I went swimming and was wearing my "workout" hat it was the week after July 4th. Or maybe the weekend after the July 4th holiday weekend. So that is right about 4 weeks.

Mostly worked on my form. Didn't really concentrate on speed. Had a lot of trouble pacing myself so that I wasn't constantly going into oxygen debt. Never put together more than 100 yards without a 20-40 second rest. For whatever reason pools seem to encourage the "stop and hang on the wall" behavior. Swimming in the ocean doesn't encourage this. Some of my friends suggest that this is because the ocean has no walls. These friends are clearly insane. It's because the walls in the ocean are all either A: underwater or B: also called cliffs and are constantly being pulverized with waves. In neither case can you drape an arm on the wall and relax. Also the ocean is full of sharks and we all know that predators seek out the old and the infirm to eat (probably because predators are just as lazy as I am) so if you swim steadily and healthily with a youthful air about you, well then you won't be eaten by predators of the seas.

philosophy riddle of the day:
Does the existence of the YMCA provide proof for the existence of God? please put your answers in the comments section.

another run, decent pace even.

I tried to post this last night but blogger was having an outage.

The weather was grey, rainy and chilly but I finally decided that running seemed the least sucky of the outdoor training options. This was the 2nd run since foot injury. The foot seems completely fine.

distance: 9.4 miles
route: 300 Virginia Rd to 1200 Lowell Rd in Concord, MA and back again.
time: 76 minutes
pace: 8:05/mile
effort level: moderate. was mostly concentrating on having good form

I was quite happy with the faster pace as compared to last week. I didn't feel like I was putting more effort into the running but ended up going considerably faster. tres cool!

I felt pretty tight afterwards. did some stretching. mostly tight in the hamstrings (no surprise there). during the run I had very little IT band bitching out of the right knee. I could obviously use more time doing leg stretches. :)

In other news I arranged to get access to a local semi-private pond for swimming. Will hopefully have decent weather tomorrow morning so that I can get in some long overdue swim training. I tried connecting with the local Masters swim program at Hanscom AFB, but the organizer guy doesn't check his email or didn't bother to get back to me. Either getting connected to the masters swim organization or the YMCA would be a good idea for having access to a decent pool regardless of my location in the USA. Need to figure out what each option will cost.

two days off

Saturday really took the gas outta my tank. Plus my back has been way too bitchy since two weeks ago when I started moving around Ohia trees back on the farm in Hawaii. So two days of rest.

Tomorrow I will either hop on the bike for a road ride or go do a swim workout. Probably the latter as it will likely be easier on my back.

rain in Vermont

Rode two days this weekend in Vermont. Both in the Northeast Kingdom region and both in East Burke, VT.

Friday:
daytime and night time rides @ Kingdom Trails cross country. Probably didn't do more than 12 miles total. Got plenty muddy and only slight jacking of the back injury due to having insufficient lighting and slippery roots in the dark.

Saturday:
ride #1: 2200ft climbing on the Toll Road to the top of East Burke mt. 49 minutes. 4.9 miles. tiny gear the entire way. pain. pain. pain. glorious pain.

ride #2: several hundred feet of climbing. maybe even one hundred. then a flat. and partial demolition of my rental bike's rear brake whilst trying to reassemble rear end

ride #3: post burrito lunch and bike shop repair of brake. abt 13 miles. abt 1200 ft climbing. pain. pain and more pain. plus exhaustion. good fun. followed by a lovely dinner at the Pub Outback. and ice cream. and beer. and sleep.

first run since injury

Today I did my first run since dropping the antenna mount on my foot and almost breaking it. It went pretty well.

8.66 miles (approximated using google maps pedometer application)
80 minutes
9:14 per mile
pace: relatively leisurely
foot pain: negligible with none on the site of my injury

after about 30 minutes I noticed that I had loosened up and was able to drop a bit lower in my hips and run a bit faster or bouncier or something. I was pretty glad when I got back to the house, but probably could have kept going for a few more miles before any of my body's complaints became more than minor annoyances.

i did not bring anything to eat or drink on this run. weather was 70's and moderately humid. sunny at the start, but overcast by the end. mostly ran in the shade.

The route I took was from my Dad's place on Virginia Rd to the Battle Road trail which is part of the Minuteman National Park. Battle Road trail provides lovely running on a trail made of sand and gravel. All road crossings are on minor roads except for the entrance to Hanscom Airfield which is actually a subway under the road. Despite the heavy rainfall around this are in the past several months the trail is in pretty good shape with some minor erosion on a few slopes and the only puddles on the trail were in the subway. A few sections of the trail are on boardwalks over wetland areas. Most of it is through forested areas with a few spots at the edges of fields. Very little of the trail is directly on the road (which is nice because the road is Highway 2A and is fairly busy with traffic).

training resumes

the stench of my camelbackpack as I walked into the bathroom was somehow comforting. stale sweat and the woodsy traces of rides past wafted to my nose as i staggered to the sink so that I could brush my teeth.

today I rode for the first time in three weeks. a combination of injuries and a hectic work schedule have been conspiring to keep me away from my usual dose of endorphins and dammit that's sick and wrong!!!!

today's ride:
Concord, MA to Arlington, MA via a short road section and then twelve miles on the Bikeways trail (at least that's what I think it is called, old railroad right of way going from Bedford to Cambridge). Overall ride was estimated to be about 33-34 miles.

at first I was underwhelmed by the prospects of the ride. my choices for loaner wheels here in Concord are:
1: Giant hybrid "mountain" bike that is decent and was new last year, but still it's kind of "Meh"
2: Motobecane 12 speed road bike with fenders, reflectors, friction shifting, platform pedals with toe cages. Probably 1990's vintage, but could even be late '80's. Also very decent "Meh" factor, but the rear dropouts are practically horizontal so a SS conversion is doable. Plus my Dad has declared this bike "abandoned" so I can do w/e I like to it.

I decided upon option 2 because if the Toll Road Race happens at MFest this weekend I need a laughable road bike to use. So out came the tools and off came the fenders, the reflectors, the kickstand, the oddball mounts for pump and god knows what. Having no idea how to properly set up the brakes I guessed and put up with a small amount of brake rubbing (I had to loosen the brake bolt to remove the fenders and then having no idea how to set things up properly I faked it until it seemed usable).

Get on bike. Ride down street. Realize that the seat is much too low. Go home and do more wrenching. Seat still too low, but eff it, "Let's RIDE!!!"

Hating the friction shifters and the toe cages I rode to Bikeways Source (bike shop in Bedford, MA located at the Bedford end of the Bikeways trail). Purchased spd pedals and a pump that fits in my camelbackpack. Forgot to purchase tubes or a patch kit. As they were out of pedal wrenches to sell they were kind enough to loan me their deluxe pedal wrench with cushy handle from the shop and I swapped the platforms w/cages for SPDs. MUCH happier!!!

Now more or less properly equipped (sans tubes or patch kits) I got on the Bikeways and cranked along. Started hating the friction shifters less after I got the feel for their idiosyncracies. Round about Lexington I started to get tuned into the bike and picked up the pace. Was very much enjoying passing people on newer and more expensive equipment (because that is ALWAYS gratifying). Just after Lexington center I came up on this roadie on a nice bike who was going at a decent pace, but not killing it. I decided that it was time to KILL IT! Cadence up and BLAMMY! Happily the roadie took the bait and I towed him almost all the way to Arlington. I hope he enjoyed the drafting. At Arlington I turned around and headed back for Concord. Yet again I came up on a roadie with nice equipment in Lexington. Or he passed me. I cannot quite recall. I was pretty spent at this point. I hooked up on his draft and after we got out of the center we mutually hammered on this nice long stretch. Eventually he ate me up, but at the next road crossing I caught him at the traffic light and we spent the last few miles going to the end of the line chatting and taking it fairly easy. His name was Don. 57 years old and still killing it on the bike. Probably never see him again. Just one of those wonderful things about biking. Random friends you meet out there in endorphin land who would probably give you a tube or a patch because you were too boneheaded to remember that you needed to bring any.

and while i'm not sold on friction shifters I no longer hate them and I see how you could actually become quite good at automagically finding your shift points if you used them regularly.

a week off and then a race

I took the entire week off from training and exercise. The first few days after the Honu Half Ironman I was pretty sore.

This morning I went to Hilo to run in the Hawaii Road Runner Club's 5k race from Coconut Island to the singing bridge and back again. The race went pretty well for me, but after a week of sloth and not nearly enough stretching the IT band on my right leg was tight. At about the halfway point in the race I started getting the knee pain that this causes. Overall I finished the race 6th out of about 40 or so participants and ran it in 20 minutes 24 seconds (i may have the seconds portion wrong). I had fun and after the race I caught up with some of my buddies and talked story.

Afterward I came home, ate some food and had a nice nap. And yes I did some stretching too. :)

lots more awesome and ridiculous tri photos!

Awesome photos from our photographer, Mom!

Tammy's official photos

Todd's official photos

Team Boom King ROXORGZ!!!

more triathlon photos

pictures of lunacy in action

plus Tammy's mom has pictures on her flickr. Tamma should link them (I would but it ain't my Momma's photostream)

post-race journal

Pre-Race
swim: this is the portion of the race that I felt least prepared for. I gave lip service to my swim training. Maybe managing a swim per week during the last three weeks before the race. Never stepped foot into a pool or other facility where I had any way to measure time and distance

bike: I devoted the bulk of my training time, energy and cash to bicycling. Upgraded from my somewhat ancient road bike that is too big for me to a brand new triathlon/time trials bike made of carbon fiber and lightweight components. Learned a fair amount about numb nuts and how to try and avoid it. Spent hours on the road and on the trainer spinning my pedals.

run: I felt like I had devoted a good amount of time and energy to my run training, but based upon race results and looking back on my training I think I lacked appropriate focus. My run results were the biggest letdown of my day when held up against my goals.

Race

Swim: 2nd ever competitive swim event. "deep water" start, meaning you are in water 6 feet deep at the starting line. Knowing little to nothing about how to seed myself I chose a spot about midway between the two starting buoys and swam to the front of the pack to wait for the cannon. After the cannon went off I worked my way through the initial scrum of thrashing arms and kicking legs and settled into my swim. I sighted every 20-40 seconds for the buoys and didn't veer off course much for the first three legs of the course. I noticed that my tri-shorts were ballooning in the back and acting like a brake. Le sigh. I should have done some swim workouts in my race gear.... durh. Somewhere during the third leg some of the faster swimmers (or those with more endurance) began to filter slowly past me. After the third turn I got a bit off course as I couldn't see the next buoy in the glare from the morning sun. Probably burned 20 seconds or so with the extra leg I added to my course there. After correcting course and turning that corner I continued swimming my way to the last buoy and turned for the beach. Just as I got to the archway at the edge of the wet sand I heard Todd's name called as he passed over the timing mat ahead of me. So I felt pretty good about my swim being that close to Todd (swimming is Todd's strong suit and I probably wouldn't have been nearly as close if he hadn't been hit by a car the previous day while doing his last pre-race bicycle ride). 1:56/100m

Swim-Bike Transition:
I chose to swim without my tri-top on despite the pain-in-the-ass factor of trying to get a tight top on over a wet torso. This was a mistake. Next triathlon I either use a one-piece triathlon suit or I wear my shirt during the swim. I pounded 4-6 shots of Hammer gel from my transition kit. Threw on the rest of my gear and still took over five minutes to do my transition. Granted there were a few hundred meters of running from the beach to the bikes, but I need to work on my swim-bike transition and see if i cannot get the time down closer to 3 minutes.

Bike:
Massive awesome bike ride. Having done plenty of rides on the course prior to the race was incredibly helpful. Having a strategy (keep the cadence high) and sticking to it was also incredibly helpful. I had two equipment problems during the race. First one was when the sponge blew out of the top of my sippy-cup water bottle. I went back and picked it up, but later someone pointed out that I didn't need to do that because it happened at an aid station (there was a referee right there so I was trying to avoid getting a penalty). The second problem was when I hit a pothole on the final turn in from Queen K highway to the Mana Lani Resort. I ejected a water bottle and some other gear from my equipment behind my seat. Again I turned back and picked up the stuff I could see to avoid getting a penalty. Also my sippycup style water bottle in the handlebars had a failure of its attachment system. Next time I add the rubber bands to the velcro for extra attachment power. I spent the last mile or two of the bike ride holding things together with one hand and cruised into the transition area. Probably lost ten to fifteen spots to the two equipment issues. But still it was an awesome ride and I was able to average better than 20mph under windy and hot conditions. Drank tons of water during the ride. Failed to keep to my nutrition schedule (every 30 minutes eat some hammer gel). I think the failure to keep to my nutrition schedule contributed to being pretty beat during the run.

Bike-Run Transition:
Not terribly bad. Not terribly good. I almost wiped out coming into the bike rack area due to running too fast in bicycling shoes while pushing my bike (they make you dismount before you get into the transition area). Narrowly missed falling over onto some very expensive bicycles. Apparently the volunteers will put all your gear into your bag for you after you leave so I burned a little time stuffing my bike gear into my transition bag. Not a big deal, but good to know for future Ironman events. I chugged about four or five doses of Hammer Gel after putting on my shoes. Probably not the best idea.

Run:
Ouch! The run was long. The run was hot. I started out feeling pretty good, but soon after the first little uphill I started to feel a bit barfy. Not nauseous. More like the massive dose of sugar gel and water that I imbibed after putting on my shoes wanted to come right back up and decorate the pavement. The key is probably to stay on your nutrition schedule during the bike so that you can just keep that schedule flowing through your run instead of trying to play catchup at the tail end of a long hard day. I took advantage of almost every aid station for water, gatorade, sponges or orange slices. I quickly abandoned one of my two flasks of Hammer Gel (probably around the 3 mile aid station). I should have tossed the other one too as all it was doing was bouncing around on my lower back. Didn't really notice it until around mile 10 and threw it out at the 11 mile aid station. No problems with knee pain or ileo-tibial band tightness. Around 11 miles my soas muscle on the right side began to hurt. From mile 11 to mile 12 the ache progressed to sharp pain. Between mile 12 and 13 the pain got pretty darn intense. During this whole progression I also began to get all emotional, bordering on tears. There wasn't much left in the tank. I was running on fumes. Every little distraction helps during this time. A volunteer cheering as I crossed the road, a random spectator with cheerleader pompoms and a boombox, coming upon the guy with number 846 (I wore 847). Anything to distract myself from the agony. And finally the finish line. I took off my running cap so the finish line photographer would get a good shot of my mohawk. Crossed the line and yeehaw!!! I was done. Nowhere near my goal of 7-7:30 per mile, but hey. This was the longest run of my life done after one of the longer bike rides of my life and the longest swim of my life. 8:51/mile. Next time I hope to have that under 8:00/mile.

I'm impatient for the search driven results to get posted to the ironman703hawaii.com site. I want to dig in the numbers a bit deeper than you can on the ironman.com site.

Another photo! More later!

Here's me between the bike and run!

first photo

Honu Results

Tammy found a link where you can look up individual athlete results. Linky

My informal scan of the Sunday sports page seems to indicate that I was the 10th finisher from the Big Island. But my survey of the results page was definitely a bleary pre-breakfast affair.

more later.

Honu Half Team Boom King Results

Benjamin: 5hrs 27minutes
Todd: 5hrs 53minutes
Tammy: 6hrs 56minutes

Benjamin earned a slot for the Kona World Championships in October and turned it down.

Eventually the 2008 results will be posted at this website: Honu Half Ironman

I will post more about my race experience later. At the moment all my gaskets are blown.

I'm not sick!

Ready to race! Day after tomorrow! AIEEEE!!!

just a few days left...

And I'm trying not to freak out. Not about the race -- about the fact that I spent most of yesterday and last night feeling like I was getting sick! That is NOT okay. NOT AT ALL. I took a nap, I drank lots of water + juice, I tried to go to bed early but because I took a nap it was hard. I slept kind of fitfully because I was worrying about being sick and not being able to do the race. I just got up about an hour ago, and I can't tell yet what's going on! My throat feels a little funny, and I'm a little spacey and my head feels weird, but the headache is gone... NO SICK! NO NO NO! Any recommendations for warding off illness besides vitamin C and drinking lots of fluids?
Anyway, I guess I'll talk about some training:
So Monday we did a mini brick, which was just so frickin' easy in comparison to what we've been doing this whole time. We went to Puako, and "warmed up" by snorkeling -- it is AMAZING there. MUST do it a whole bunch more! Rode for an hour, from Puako up to the highway and turned around at the road to Waikoloa village. Wind going south was kind of intense, but when I turned around and was suddenly very strong and speedy. Go figure. Stayed in z2-z3 most of the time, and did 10 minutes at z4. Super fast transition considering we had to put our bikes in the car, and a 20 minute run through Puako -- sure wish I could feel this fresh and strong running after a 3 hour ride! Run was z3 the whole time.
Yesterday I wasn't sure if I should swim or not, because you're NOT supposed to if you're getting sick. I went anyway, just to see how it felt and getting in the water and swimming was ok. However, I had NO stamina for the fast intervals we were going to do, so I just stuck with an easy 1000 yards and got out when Todd did.

And since y'all have posted your race goals, I'm going to do the same, and keep acting under the assumption that I won't be sick!!

I would LOVE to do the entire race under 6:30, but I'm expecting more like 6:45. It's hard to say, and so much relies on how much faster I ride during the race vs. just riding the course. I was pretty fast at Lavaman, so we'll see! I guess it also depends on conditions like chop in the water and brutal wind. Here's hoping for none of that!

swim: 43-45 minutes would be great, and reasonable, assuming I don't go off course, there's no crazy chop, and there isn't an infuriating cluster of people on all sides of me the whole time like Lavaman's pain in the ass swim!
ride: I know I can do it in 3:30, but I'm really hoping for 3:15-3:20.
run is really the big unknown here. I've never actually run 13 miles, the closest I've gotten is about 9.5. I'd love to do it in 2:10, but considering the distance, the heat, and the BIKE RIDE, I don't think that's likely. Anywhere between 2:20-2:30 is fine by me.

last week, this week, race goal and deep thoughts

did another 30 minutes on the trainer today. same as yesterday. last one is Tuesday then she goes into the shop for pre-race tuneup.

getting a good feel for proper aero posture on the new bike. tried out the sippy cup water bottle setup. may need some gizmo to stabilize it as my aero bars seem a tiny bit too wide for it. mounting and dismounting bike with water bottles behind the seat is interesting. the usual "leg over the saddle" technique often ends up with a water bottle flying off into space.

doing tons of stretching in an attempt to avoid IT band tightness and knee pain during the race. one last ART appt on Tuesday at 6:30pm. have done two or three stretching sessions per day the past few days plus hourly stretch for the oblatus quadratus (or w/e it is called).

last week I did the Saturday brick. 1hr 30min bike. 40minute run. followed by ART session.
Friday was a brick. 1hr 15min bike. 44minute run. slight knee tightness
Thursday I had my first ART session. Boy that is intense stuff. Deep tissue work while you move the muscle. drove home and stretched before doing an hour or two on the trainer bike.
Wednesday I think we rode in Kona but I don't remember.

Race Goal:
5hrs and an Ironman Kona slot
realism factor: in the realm of possibility
40minute swim: realistic (I swam 1:50 per 100meters @Lavaman)
2hr 24minute bike: might not be realistic (this is the same 20.5mph as Lavaman)
1hr 40minute run: probably not realistic (this is 10 seconds per mile faster than I ran at Lavaman)

deep thought for the day:
If you're in the top 1% at something there are still 61,000,000 people who are probably as good or better than you. (assumes a world population of 6.1 billion and that I've not buggered the maths)

end of taper wk 1

Wanted to wrap up what I did last week for the sake of complete-ness!

Thursday was an hour z2 run, nice and mellow, just cruised out towards Pololu and back. My leg was feeling pretty good. Heat wasn't an issue because there is a nice breeze here in the afternoon! There are a few hills on this run so I took those pretty easy. Ran about 5.5 miles.
Friday was supposed to be an easy swim at the pool, but Todd decided he was going to swim 42 laps, which was almost exactly the race distance, (1.2miles) so I thought I'd do it too. It was great to get an idea of exactly what that distance feels like. It took me 44:10, which I would be happy with in the race. I was swimming with less effort than I assume I will at the race, but I was also in a lane where there was no chance I'd swim off course, and conditions were nice and flat, obviously. We'll see how it goes! Swimming that distance felt fine, though, not especially exhausting.
Saturday was our last brick. Compared to the previous weeks, this one felt like nothin'! We were supposed to ride 1:45, but I ended up going for 2 hours. First went south towards Mauna Lani, turned around, and headed north, through Kawaihae and then towards Mahukona. Turned around about halfway between mm10 and 11. I think I went a little over 33 miles total. Everything went smoothly, and when I timed particular sections I was right on track. Next time I'm on that course it will be in the race! EEeee!
Next was a 50 minute run, again at a fairly mellow pace. It was hot but not terribly so, and I had enough water and gu and felt fine the whole time. My hamstring ached a little but stopping to stretch seemed to help.
Sunday we took it easy and went snorkeling at Kapa'a near here. No intense swimming, very mellow. FIVE TRAINING DAYS LEFT!

taper plan question

my taper plan is/was:
ride 30 minutes race pace each day on the trainer through Tuesday morning. then take bike into shop for pre-race tuneup. swim tuesday.

then sit on my fat ass till raceday. maybe go for a walk Tuesday night with my running buddy in Kona after ART appt.

what is the logic behind continuing to abuse your muscles at race pace vs. letting them rest and recover for the last few days before the race? wouldn't the recovery time allow healing to occur and thus make you nice and fresh/fast for the race itself?

i did find an abstract from an NIH study regarding the benefits of doing a pre-race exponential taper plan. is that what we are doing? if so you should have used the word "EXPONENTIAL!" so as to get me excited. If we combine math (it hard) with triathlon training (it hard) then we get (it hard) to the 2nd power. And thus exponentially faster. Which we shall need to be if we want to beat Chris McCormack who finished the Honu Half Ironman in under 4 hours last year. Jeebus Crutchcakes!!!! I'm gonna be effing ecstatic if I can pull off a sub-five.

final taper week calendar

Ok BoomKings, after consulting the two different tri training books I've been using as the basis for our training schedule, I think I've cobbled together a reasonable last taper week schedule. It's posted to the google calendar already.

The core of it is three "bricks" of varying intensity on M W F this week. Monday is a short brick that simulates a longer brick by tacking on a Z4 effort at the end of the ride. Wednesday is a "split brick" with a run in the morning and a ride in the afternoon. (Each includes a little RP effort acceleration.) Friday is a teeny tiny brick: a 30' ride in the morning followed by a 15' run.

Tuesday and Thursday are swims. The Tuesday swim is especially important, so don't slack!

We should try to emulate race conditions as much as possible this week, so try getting out there at the appropriate time each day (except Wednesday). Friday we'll probably have to do the tiny brick in the morning in Kapa'au since we'll be dealing with checkin later that day.

taper week 1

After Saturday's brick, it was time for some serious chillin'. Sunday we were planning to do nothing, but got so hot it was time to go swim at Mahukona. It was supposed to be a mellow snorkel swim, but got caught in a fairly intense current on the way back and ended up swimming way harder than I wanted to! HEY!
Monday we did nothing much except hike down to Pololu and play in the waves there a bit. Seem incapable of doing NOTHING active around here.
Tuesday was a 55 minute run with 20 minutes at low z4. Ran towards Hawi and back. My body was VERY resistant to getting my heart rate up. When I was running 'easy' I was going SO slowly.. nothing hurt, and I had enough food and water, and I wasn't too hot, but I felt just lethargic and like all I wanted to do was stop! At about 30 minutes I turned around, and a cooling headwind gave me some energy, which was good because I needed to start my 20 minute higher intensity section. Ran pretty hard and felt much stronger during this part.
Wednesday morning I got a new back bike wheel : enough of this broken spoke bullshit! Then went to Hapuna to swim and ride.
The swim was nice, about 40 minutes with 4x4 minute higher intensity intervals. Worked on form and felt pretty good.
Then it was time to ride, again 55 minutes with 20 minutes z4. Rode south from Hapuna to about the Waikoloa and back. Had the same experience with the run the day before -- my body just DIDN'T want to get going! It was made more difficult by a tough headwind the first 25 minutes or so. Again, however, once I turned around and started my higher intensity section I still wanted to stop but at least I was able to pick it up and ride stronger. The tailwind helped! Got back much faster than I went out, and felt more energized. rode about 15 miles.

last weekend's BRUTAL BRICK

So this was our last big brick before the TAPER, and it's as close as we're going to get to doing the actual race until race day. Started out with 'ride the entire course', so we did! The course is a total of 56 miles, starting at Hapuna, heading south to the Mauna Lani, and then all the way north to Hawi and back to the Mauna Lani. We simulated this last 4.5 miles by going south past the Mauna Lani at the beginning (since we were returning to Hapuna.) The ride went pretty well for me -- I just bought a water bottle with eye-pokey straw (not really, just looks that way) which sits in my aerobars, and having water so easily in reach was really nice. Felt pretty strong and right on track all the way up to Hawi and back down, but at some point I started to feel pretty worked, maybe 10-12 miles from the end. It was disturbing to me to feel so drained, nothing was hurting, I had enough "food" and water on me, and it was hot but not TOO bad. I couldn't figure out what was going on, but I just couldn't get it going.
Sure enough, when I returned, I'd broken ANOTHER spoke! This time I didn't even hear anything. It made me feel tougher (if frustrated) to have done the whole ride with god knows how many miles of my rear brake rubbing against the wheel. I finished the total ride in 3 hours 33 minutes, and I KNOW I'll do it faster in the race, especially without broken spokes!
By this point it was about 11:45, and brutally hot. The idea for the run was to do 1:45, which I suppose I did, but I only got to the end of Puako road and back since I had to stop and walk for about 12 minutes, all told. I also took a detour to a small beach to try to put some water on my head (managed to dunk my shoes by accident, as well), and another to the Puako boat ramp to drink some water out of a hose faucet. No pain in my leg, or if there was, I didn't notice, because of the misery I was feeling being so hot. FINALLY got back and was SO relieved to be done. Thank god for visions of aid stations with ice and buckets of cold water for me to dump on my head at the race, EVERY MILE if I want!

taperizing

rode bike trainer twice yesterday. 1 hour each. once in morning once in evening. will do another hour tonight.

last Saturday had a decent swim followed by a very crappy bike ride (including my first keawe thorn flat). I passed on the run altogether in favor of bodysurfing (first time i've seen decent swells at Hapuna in months). During the swim the water was so cloudy you could hardly see the bottom of the bay (typically it is very easy to see the bottom and guide your swim using the lines in the sand).

Thursday I did a 50 minute bike ride followed by a 1hr40minute run. bike ride was marginal. run was good but i could hardly walk afterwards due to stabbing pain in the right knee most probably due to a tight IT band. lots of stretching to do. Plus a massage the next day from Trish helped a great deal.

Mon-Wed I didn't work out due to having a cold.

Taperz

Sorry I haven't had time to figure out an official taper schedule. The general rule is: maintain frequency while reducing volume. As far as volume goes:

This week: 60-70% of last week's volume
Next week: 30-50% of last week's volume

Last week we had pretty big volume so...

Tammy and I just did easy ocean swims on Sunday and Monday.

Last week of intense training! Wed, Thurs, Fri

Wed: First thing was 1:30 bike ride with 35 minutes at z4. Rode down to Mahukona and past. I knew something was up because it took me about 5 minutes longer to get to Mahukona than usual, and it's all downhill. Well, so guess what -- I turned around to climb back up, and NO WIND! That's why it took so much longer to get down -- I wasn't getting a push. I have never gotten back from Mahukona so fast. It was so quick I was only 25 minutes in to my 35 minute z4 when I got to town, where it's no longer safe to be in z4! I slowed down, rode to the other end of Kapa'au, and completed my z4 interval out on the other side towards Pololu and back. Did about 25. 5 miles and about 1:30.
Later, 'master's swim'. It was really still and muggy all day, and maybe that was why I felt so lethargic after the ride and getting into the pool, I don't know. It took me a while to get going, but eventually I did. Swam a total of 2350 yards, with a grueling but invigorating main set of 6x200 high intensity intervals. Whew!
Thurs: run at Puako 1:40 all z2. This time I wore a camelbak to make SURE I had enough water. It sure is great to have as much water as I want! Wearing the gear was somewhat annoying but overall it was a nice strong run. Ran 9.5 miles in 1:39, which is a bit faster than Tuesday. My leg didn't bother me at all until about 40 minutes in, and when I stopped to stretch it cleared up again. Started to get tight again during the last 15 minutes or so of the run, but still, getting SO much better!
Friday: easy swim. 35 minutes or so at the pool, about 1500 yards, some pull buoy, kickboard, and single arm drills between laps. Felt great to swim because it's STILL so muggy and wind-free here!

swim and run, Monday and Tuesday

Monday was an easy swim, and I totally lagged getting to the pool, so ended up only having about 20 minutes to swim as they were about to close. Still, it felt good -- I worked on form a lot, and did some drills, ended up swimming about 1000 yards.
Tuesday was 1:30 run day with :35 minutes at z4. There has been no wind in Kohala these last two days (WTF?!?) and I ended up going out at noon so it was REALLY hot. The run actually went pretty well anyway, although my z4 was not very fast because of the heat -- my heart rate was up pretty high without even running that hard. Felt really great until I ran out of water, and started to feel dehydrated -- about an hour in. Luckily, within 10 minutes I'd reached Kohala Coffee Mill where I was able to refill one of my bottles. Within a couple minutes of running, I felt restored, and ran strong all the way home. So obviously what I need is water, and apparently more than I can carry! I drank a total of 32oz in 1.5 hours. This won't be a problem during the race, thankfully, because of the aid stations, but Friday I am probably going to try and run with a camelbak. In any case, I did 9 miles in 1:37. As for my leg/knee, it did GREAT, just a little bit achey a couple times, and stopping to stretch it out helped. Yay!

i'm sick

poop on a stick
i'm sick
head with a cold
makes me feel old
crappy and achy

le poop.

i didn't get my workout in yesterday. we'll see if i get anything in today or just sit here like a lump of nasal congealeality.

easiER brick sunday

So to wrap up our 'recovery' week, we did a brick that was way less intense than the last 3-4 weeks, although still fairly challenging. Today was a 2 hour ride, all zone 1-2, so I started out trying the little bit of the race course we haven't really been practicing on too much by turning right at the hwy instead of left. Biked to Mauna Lani and turned around, only 4.5 miles, but the whole 9 mile out and back to Hapuna took almost 40 minutes! Lots of harsh headwind with crosswind gusts with some steep rollers made this part of the ride really annoying and slow. It got better once I reached Kawaihae, and I went north just past mile marker 9 and turned around. Heading back I felt pretty good and strong, and overall my return to Hapuna was fairly windy but not nearly as bad as the earliest part of the ride.
Run was 1hr, made it to the Puako catholic church and back, about 5.6 miles. It was supposed to be low intensity as well, like z1-2, but I really struggled this time. It looks like I didn't drink enough water on the bike, and even though I brought plenty with me on the run and I was drinking as needed, I think it may have been too late! I was fine for the first 35 minutes or so, but then I started to feel queasy, especially after eating some orange hammer gel (I have now given this flavor to Todd, can't handle it.) Then I started to have some overheating problems and just felt like crap. It was REALLY hot, but was it any hotter than previous weeks, or was it just me? In any case, walked during the last mile during one of the steeper hills so as not to overheat entirely/puke. When I was finally approaching the parking lot, I thought to myself, if this is how I feel on race day at mile 6, I am not going to be able to finish! Must be sure to finish BOTH water bottles on the bike, I think that's my lesson for this brick. I think it was windy enough on the ride that I wasn't that hot, and was also distracted -- wasn't paying attention to how I needed to be drinking more.
Afterwards, swam around lazily in the ocean for a while, and floated on my back, and felt a million times better.

my new, awesome swim goggles!

In case anyone is interested in which goggles I ended up with (I know of at least one person!) here they are:
Aquasphere Mako goggle

These have very soft silicone all the way around the lens, including an extra little flap along the outside of each, which are supposed to really prevent leakage. I seem to have a strangely shaped face, or something, because I swear I've tried like 8 different styles of goggle and they ALL leak! I tried on a number of goggles in the store, and these fit my face the best, which is the other really important thing (obviously.) There was another pair there I tried on, that also had this extra no-leak flap, in case the makos don't fit your face as well:
Blue Seventy Vision goggle
The thing I liked about those goggles is that they actually come in sizes small and large -- imagine that! But it ended up that the makos just fit my face better.
By the way, I don't know what makes the Aquasphere mako 'starter' goggles, according to their site. For those who are "just starting out" and can't afford to buy fancy REAL SWIMMER goggles? Mind you, these "economical starter goggles" were $17. Interestingly, I can't find any goggles on their site that are clearly the upgrade step, ones that seem to be for, you know, the experienced swimmer who is ready to throw down MAJOR BUCKS for the "goggle the pros use!" or something. Maybe pros don't use Aquasphere!

Substitutes for "masters swim"

From the tri book I've been slowwwly reading: these might be a good substitutes for the masters workout, since we don't have masters groups at any of our local pools:

Long interval workout: 3450 yards total
WU:
100 drill, 100 kick, 100 drill, 100 kick ("drill" is something like single-arm, catch-up, etc.)
MS:
6x400 at T-pace (i.e. 1km time-trial pace) with 40 seconds RI between. Try to negative-split the second 200 with more perceived effort
CD:
100 drill, 50 kick ez
500 swim with good form

Medium interval workout: 2350 yards total
WU:
3x100 descending times
4x50 kick descending times
MS:
6x200 fast with 50 kick ez recovery between 200s
200 kick steady
CD:
200 ez swim

The purpose of the "masters swim" in our schedule is the same as the interval runs-- it's for speed. The problem with doing long open water swims is that you don't really get good speedwork unless you're meticulous about tracking interval times and perceived efforts (since it's difficult to judge distances).

le sunday brick-ED edition

my recap from the end of last week:
swam Thursday. felt like crap afterwards. took Friday and Saturday off. Had a massage Friday and could hardly walk from all the muscle soreness that swam up about two hours after the massage.

Sunday brick:
2 hours bike
1 hours run
15 minutes swim
wind was intense and annoying during the bike and run. swim was surprisingly easy despite all the sandblaster strength wind at Hapuna Beach. did the entire thing in z1-z2. got nice and uncomfortable from the bike size/seat issue. Ye GODS it suck ball!

Having had a few days to consider my Wednesday intense run interval insanity I conclude that it was a BAAAAAAAD idea. It's taking me far too long to recover from that one workout (hence taking Friday and Saturday off). Felt pretty low energy and saggy during today's brick. I'm gonna keep it on the lower end of the intensity scale from now till race day.

today's moment of Zen:
car, wall of death, lion

Recovery week recap

I didn't really feel like any of this week's workouts were epic/interesting enough to warrant an individual post, so here's a summary of everything I did this week!
Monday: meant to ride the trainer for at least an hour, but right as I tried to set up a movie to watch on my Mac mini it totally tanked. Subsequent frantic attempts to reboot and freakout ensued. No riding for me!
Tuesday: a full-on rest day, but Todd and I did do some snorkeling at the gorgeous beach at Mauna Kea. The water felt so great I had to punch it a little bit, but for the most part I took it really easy. Was surrounded by like 6 honu at once. Todd saw two free swimming octopuses! When all this is over, we are SO going back there to lounge and snorkel!
Wed: 30 minute run with 10 minutes at race pace. This run felt super short! Felt a little low energy and light-headed -- I think low blood sugar. Ran a little over 3 miles. A little tightness in my left leg but not bad. Stopped to stretch a little and kept going. This doc is really helping me, I think!
Thurs:
Master's swim first. I kicked ass at this one -- the pool was FINALLY open when I wanted to go! Swam 400 warmup, 6x200 race pace with 50s in between, and some cooldown laps, totaling 2300 yards. The race pace bursts were pretty hard -- I'm trying to work on my 'catch' (the part of the stroke where your arms pull back underwater) and have modified my stroke a little, which I can definitely feel! Made my triceps super tired -- hoping it will also make me FASTER!
That evening, 45 minutes easy ride on the trainer. Watched Slaughterhouse-5 (a GREAT film) but as Todd mentioned, it is really hard to keep up the intensity on the trainer because it's fairly boring and because I want to RELAX while watching a movie. But if I'm NOT watching anything, I will stop entirely from the boredom, so I guess I need some entertainment. I'm so glad we have a trainer now though, even if its boring -- need some breaks from the wind out there on 270, really our only option for riding from home. Sweat like CRAZY on the trainer, even with windows open and fans going! Reminds me that it really is rather warm and humid here.
Fri: 30 minute run z1-2. A little achey in the knee and hamstring but I stopped and stretched and it went away. Felt good to just chug along and not worry about speed too much. Ran about 3 miles again.
Sat: easy swim. We were in Hilo so went to Richardson again. Just as I went out it started to pour, and it was really choppy with some pretty tall whitecaps (for swimming in) at the opening of the reef. Once I got past them I was just being buffeted about like crazy, and it was super annoying, so I went back in to the protected area and swam around there for a while. There was somewhat of a current, so even though I didn't go that far I kind of got that treadmill/endless pool effect going. I bought some new goggles Friday, and I'm so excited because not only do they not leak, I can actually SEE through them, not just underwater, but in the air! Shit yeah! It made it easy to spot some awesome unicornfish and wrasses. Ended up only swimming about 20 minutes because Todd forgot his goggles and was all sad and drenched on the beach, so I went back in and lent him my goggles so he could take a turn.

thursday: swimmel

the schedule said "master's swim" which always makes me want to puke. So I went swimming at Richardson's again. I swam out farther than I had before across Reed's Bay. All told I was in the water for about 35 minutes and rarely had a good groove going. The water was somewhat choppy and I am probably a bit fagged out from yesterday's sprint interval run. After the swim I had trouble getting warm. Ate some Korean food in the chilly network operations center where I work during the day. That didn't help me warm up at all. Went home and took a nap afterwards. Tonight I climb on the trainer for 45 minutes of watching the Simpsons and zone 2.

It's really too bad that swimming pools are always chlorinated and full of swimming jocks. I dislike chlorine and swimming jocks in equal measure. And this is probably why I want to puke when I read "master's swim" on the training calendar.

Zen photo gallery of the day:
Chilean Volcano Lightning Show
(kudos to Uncles John and Bates for this)

tue: rest; wed: "easy" run

hooray for Tuesday rest day.

and then there was Wednesday....
run, easy
distance 5.2 miles
time: 39 minutes
intervals: 3 miles done at or below 6 minute pace
why: i was curious what I had in me
reward: swim at Richardson's, burrito @ Aloha Luigis, candy bars

quote of the day (from bikesnobnyc): "For one thing, singlespeeders know a lot about how to achieve a straight chainline. They also know where to get good weed."

Trainer home theater

I rode on a trainer for the first time ever yesterday. It took a little while to get the trainer (CycleOps Fluid 2) set up properly, but once it was, it was sooo easy to keep the spin in zone 1-2. What a relief! No more wind and hills on easy ride days.

I watched "Master and Commander" which was good because it kept my mind off the fact that I was staring at a wall. Also, I think it would have been hard to keep up any kind of intensity on the trainer because you don't have any motivation. ("What, no hill? Why bother going into Z4?") So for the easy days the trainer works great, and it might work well for short sprint internals (a la a coached spin workout, maybe with a spin training DVD), but I don't think I'd enjoy doing longer hard training rides on the trainer.

biggest brick EVAR

Well, it was certainly the longest and hardest brick I've ever done.
For our first section, we were to ride three hours and spend an hour of that ride at race pace. I wanted to do almost the whole course by turning and heading down to the Mauna Lani from Hapuna and then back up the way the course actually is, but unfortunately I discovered the night before that I'd left my running shoes at home, so instead, I got to bike all the way to Ainakea! This actually turned out to be almost the same mileage as the other boom kings did, but I believe it may have taken me longer because the headwind from Puakea Ranch (about 3 miles uphill from Mahukona) all the way through Hawi and Kapa'au was pretty harsh. This particular ride was different and special for me because I got aerobars on Friday, and was able to try them out for the first time. I really love how much they get me out of the wind, and especially how they give me a different position for my shoulders to hang out in on these longer rides. I was really comfortable in them almost right away, going downhill and on straightaways and shallow uphills, although I did notice I got a bit swervy a couple times because steering from out there is just different.
The first part of my ride (the way I break it down in my head) was Hapuna to Mahukona, which I did in 57 minutes, 4 minutes faster than the week previous. About 25 minutes into the ride I started my 1 hour race pace, which left me right about at the top of the hilly section when my time was up. The journey through town to my house and back took a bit over 30 minutes, and then I turned around and headed back to Hapuna. I used the aerobars enough in the wind that my neck and triceps started to get sore, in the 'hey I'm not used to working this hard!' kind of way. I'm sure I'll get used to it.
About 2:30 into my ride, I felt a bit hungry and realized I was out of gel-food. Dang! Started to feel pretty low energy, and I think it slowed me down a bit, although I never fully bonked. Next time I think I'll bring a clif bar too, since I scarfed one down as soon as I got back to the car! Total ride time: 3:08, total miles ~50, which puts me at about 16.4mph average.
Then it was time for 1:20 run with 35 minutes at race pace. As is usual when I run after riding for so long, I only had a momentary twinge in my knee and then my leg felt fine the rest of the run. I was still a little lightheaded from not eating in time for the the first 10 minutes or so, but then felt pretty strong all the way into Puako, and made it all the way to the end of the road for the first time! However, when I turned around it was pretty hot and the wind had died down, so I started having a bit of trouble with heat. I powered through it, as this time I'd actually brought enough water, and managed to pull off my :35 at race pace coming back through Puako. Right about when I was done with that section I had to stop and walk a couple times because of heat, but I still made it back in the same amount of time it took me to go out. Total run time 1:25, and the distance to the end of the road in Puako is almost exactly 8 miles, so that puts me at about 10.5 min/miles. Still would like to be faster than that, but it seems like every time I do this run I do it a bit faster than the last time.
The last mile was REALLY hard. I was TRASHED when I got to the beach. But a quick swim in the ocean and a big Mexican meal in Kawaihae fixed me right up. Feeling fine today, and feeling like a badass in general. GO TEAM BOOM KING!

Tam Friday and Saturday training days

Friday run: I was going to go on a good long run -- the schedule said 1:30 at zone 2 but I was going to go as long as it took me to get closer to Pololu than I ever had previously. It's about an 11 mile round trip, and the closest I've gotten is about 9.25 miles or so -- I was aiming for about 10. Unfortunately, my left leg started out tight and my hamstring kept feeling crampy, enough that I was afraid I was going to injure something, so I turned around about 25 minutes out and walked some and only ended up running about 40 minutes. I was MAD!
Later that day I went to see this doc for the first time, though, and I feel much more optimistic about things now. I also learned that its probably not necessary to stop and turn around when my leg is feeling like it was on Friday, just to stop and stretch for a bit and then keep going. Apparently it is a good thing that the pain/tightness/discomfort kind of jumps around. It doesn't seem like anything is really injured, just tight and off-balance in various spots, so I'm going to do all the therapy homework I was given and keep seeing the doctor.
Saturday was an easy swim day, and we all went to Richardson's to swim for half an hour. It was about 4:30 and fairly choppy, and I ended up not getting such an 'easy swim' out of it when I tried to come back in to Richardson and almost ran aground on very shallow rocks! I ended up having to backtrack quite a bit (if you can do that in the water?) and swim back out into the open water and then go out and around some rocks to the one right place to enter, where its actually deep enough! This was made much more difficult by my goggles, which are tinted blue and starting to lose their coating so I actually couldn't see well enough in the air to figure out where I was going. I had to tread water while getting sloshed around in the waves and pull my goggles OFF to sight -- annoying! Getting new goggles. Ended up swimming kind of hard, got back in after 35 minutes.

Sunday: triathlon-ish

I've decided to turn the Sunday Brick training into Sunday triathlons. Today I actually remembered all of my gear and got to Hapuna Beach early enough to grab a swim before Tammy and Todd arrived. Overall I am well pleased with today's results (aside from the continued crotch numbing on the bike, more on this below)

Activity: Swim
Location: Hapuna Beach Park
Distance: 1000 meters swimming
Time: 24 minutes
Conditions: glassy until about minute 19. Then it got breezy and the water had a very light chop
Tide: seemed pretty low
Time/100 meters: 2.4 minutes (i think, but i am kind of fried and may well be doing the math wrong)
Notes: Due to clear, calm conditions I was able to sight along the lines in the sand on the bottom of the bay and did not have to poke my head out of the water. Hopefully this sort of condition will exist on race day.

Activity: Bike
Route: Hapuna Beach Park -> south to entrance of Mauna Lani Resort -> north to Oopolu Road near Hawi -> south to Hapuna Beach Park
Distance: 50.7 miles
Time: 3 hours 3 minutes (including 3 minute stop to adjust seat)
Conditions: relatively calm until Mahu Kona area. Stiff headwind to Upolu Airport Road. Nice tailwind back to Mahu Kona. Crosswind from Mahu Kona until Lapakahi
Speed: 16.7mph
Notes: This was my first long ride with the borrowed aero bars (many thanks to Hilo Bike Hub). Using the aero bars went OK but on the northbound leg I had a not so pleasant moment a mile or so south of Lapakahi Park when I realized that I had absolutely no sensation at all in my genitals. After moving around my "equipment" and riding a mile or two things seemed to go back to normal. Worst case of numb pecker I have ever had. Last week I had moderate oddball tingly sensations later in the day after our training session. Overall situation is moderately troubling. I believe this is due to body position and the bike frame being too large for me.
Food/Water: consumed one flask of Hammer Gel and the usual two bottles of water/engineered drink stuff.

Activity: Run
Route: Hapuna Beach Park -> end of Puako Road -> return to Hapuna Beach Park
Distance: 8.0 miles
Time: 1 hour 12 minutes
Conditions: alternating overcast and sunny. not terribly hot
Speed: 9 minutes per mile
Notes: running downhill has been causing me some moderate knee pain. During this run I tried moving my vision from the hill in front of me to a spot further down the road. This seemed to make the downhill running pain free. A few moderate blisters on the ends of the 2nd toe on each foot.
Food/Water: I carried a smallish water bottle in my hand for this run (the last few runs at Puako I have definitely been dehydrated by the end). It wasn't horribly annoying to carry and being able to stay hydrated seemed to help me run fairly strong all the way to the finish (aside from a few moments where I almost felt like I was getting a hamstring cramp and/or a strain in my right achilles area). Consumed two Hammer Gel packets during run on the outbound leg.

friday: runzorz z0

did the usual run from Richardson's to Liliokalani park. 1hr 30 minutes. actually came in at 1:34. I was in "low and slow" gear the entire way and going via my usual route along Banyan Drive I got to the corner at Suisan and the bridge. Slightly farther than I got on Wednesday doing my 1:05 partial Z4. I'd estimate I was in Z1/Z2 the entire way. My right leg is alternating between knee pain (outside lower) and muscle tightness pain (interior hamstring). Generally I attribute this to a tight t-band (is that what it's called Tammy?) that runs from the hip to the knee. more stretching may fix this.

i also swam @ Richardsons after for a few minutes to cool down. Might have swum for 20-30 minutes if I hadn't left my damn goggles in the truck and been too lazy to go get them. oh well.

tam tri trainin' M-Th

Well, sort of. Not much to report from Monday and Tuesday except my EXCUSES...
Monday: My bike was useless with broken spoke, and I had far too much work to do anyway, so no training.
Tuesday: I took some time out to go to the pool, but the pool was closed. AGAIN. Todd went to swim at Mahukona, and I worked.
Wednesday: I finally got back into it! Ran from Richardson Ocean Park to Banyan Drive + a bit of running on Banyan Drive itself, which is nice and shady and cool. 1:15 total, about 7.5 miles. Spent 30 minutes around low z4 as our workout required, and it felt pretty good. Hot, but not as bad as Puako. Was almost bowled over by the smell of cooking noni at the noni extract factory, but managed not to puke. My leg ached a bit for part of the run, but wasn't bad at all.
Thursday: Morning ride to Mahukona and back, about 19 miles. Brutal headwind and gusts on the way back up, so the ride took a bit longer than it usually does, about 1:10 or so. Did 30 minutes at low z4, which was easy enough to attain biking uphill into a headwind. I feel like I have typed this before.
Later today it was time for a "master's swim", but GUESS WHAT?! The pool was closed, this time "lifeguard ill". Likely story. Off to Mahukona again... we sure are getting a lot of open water practice! We were kind of annoyed because it is really time for some serious interval and speed work which is much harder to do when you're in the ocean what with waves and surge and chop and wind and stuff, but at least we got to swim. I did my best, swimming regular speed about 20 minutes and then doing 4 3 minute intervals of higher intensity with about 1-2 minute recovery swimming in between. Intervals were hard, but I'm really glad I was able to focus enough to get them in. Ended up swimming about 50 minutes total.
Tomorrow: long run!

ben: wed & thurs

yay. blogger ate my last attempt to post this one.

Tues: did not work out. lame lame lame

Wed: 1hr 5 minutes run. Richardsons Park to Liliokalani Park and back again.  about 35 minutes in zone "4"; 7 minutes of swimming. 20 minutes of sitting on beach.

Thursday: 1hr 37 minutes bike. CD Wizard in Hilo to Ainaloa Drive in Puna (near Pahoa). about 35 minutes in zone "4"; first ride with borrowed aero bars on my bike. bike still does not fit properly; aero bars are interesting, but on this bike frame I feel like I can get more aerodynamic in my drop bars. 

map link for the Thursday ride: (google maps and blogger don't like to play nice; apologies for not having a map link that centers the entire ride in the frame properly)

View Larger Map

Sunday brick: hard! hot!

This was our most difficult brick to date, mostly because it was the longest so far; all told, about 3:45 of training. We started at Hapuna with a 2:30 ride to Hawi, where we all turned around at the spot where the actual Honu Half turnaround will be. We were supposed to do 35 minutes at race pace at some point during the ride, but at about five minutes in I encountered Todd and Ben helping out the poor woman Ben mentioned who'd taken a big spill on the side of the road. I was a little bit annoyed because so far I'd been keeping a really great pace and was just ramping up, but she really needed us, and I hope someone would stop their workout to help ME on the side of the road!
After a bit we all continued, and I got my pace going again. Got to the turnaround in 1:25, which put me right on target for returning to Hapuna at 2:30 (those last 10 miles are a slow steady climb and then a super speedy descent.) I was making great time all the way back and feeling strong, even though I ate all my gel (next time, carry more!) and drank all my water (need to find a place for another bottle on my small-framed bike!) Then, I heard a twanging sound in my back wheel, thought I could have broken a spoke but nothing seemed to change so I figured some random road crap had just bounced up through my spokes and made a loud noise. HOWEVER, riding those last 8 miles was a total SLOG, and yeah, coming up out of Kawaihae is kind of an unpleasant and hot little climb, but I started thinking what is WRONG with me? I didn't feel especially tired, or weak, or dehydrated, so I started suspecting that my back wheel was tweaked. Sure enough, I got back to Hapuna (in 2:38, damn it!) and I had broken a spoke and my back brake was totally rubbing against the wheel! Got in some extra strength training and didn't even mean to. At least it wasn't ME.
Since I've been concerned about my left leg I decided I wasn't necessarily going to run that far, and headed off to Puako planning to play it by ear. My leg actually didn't really bother me at all (maybe because all my muscles were totally warmed up?) and I ended up going out about 1:05. We were supposed to run 1:10, so it was close. The plan was to do 25 minutes at race pace, but at about 20 minutes into the run the heat started to become REALLY noticeable. I ended up doing 20 minutes at a higher intensity, but still didn't end up going that fast or hard because the heat was really affecting my heart rate. Then, I ran out of water, AGAIN, so the last mile or so I ran/walked, trying to keep from dehydrating. Must ALSO figure out a way to carry more water on the run! This run was brutal, but not as brutal as the last time we did this same route, and I made it farther in the same amount of time. Came back so dehydrated I thought I might kill someone for their water, found Ben locked out of both our cars, so we went and spent $4 on 32 oz of water (that's how they getcha!) which was blissfully cold. On the way over to the food stand I drank the entire water fountain.
Todd made it back (having even more problems with heat and dehydration than me) and the healing waters of Hapuna saved us all from heat exhaustion, but not from total loopiness!
All in all I feel like I totally kicked ass this Sunday, and for the first time I can actually comprehend finishing a half-ironman. I slept hard Sunday night, but I didn't even feel sore or trashed the next day. Woooo!

Note to self: going to Costco and trying to shop after a training day like this is a BAD, BAD IDEA.

e-z bike

Hilo Bike Hub to Kaloli drive on a borrowed Cannondale triathlon bike. about 23 miles. held my heartrate around 145-150 for the entire ride. overall ride time 85 minutes. short of the training regime's 120 minutes. oh well. the borrowed triathlon bike was very nice. 

why the borrowed bike:

1: my bike frame is too big for me to set the bike up properly

2: a triathlon bike could help me shave time off my race results due to better aerodynamic characterists

3: i want to reduce the chances of damaging my perineal nerves due to having a bike frame that is too big for me. ie. on Sunday I gave my self a case of numb nuts. 

start hard, blow up: Sunday Brick

i took the entire week off. excuses include: busy with work and school, vog in Hilo and Sulfur Dioxide levels in the "not so safe for breathing" range.

So today we do our weekly brick. Today is the first of the "train the race course as much as possible" series that we are probably going to do from now until race day. Of course I forgot all my swim gear and showed up late. What a douche I am!!!! 

TnT showed up at 8am and we got our shiznit together and rode out of Hapuna. I immediately forgot to turn right and do the short loop down to the Mana Lani. Durh..... But I was working on my cadence (keep it high and effort in the moderate and lower range, concentrate on repetition instead of strength) and it was going well. Todd dropped me a bit south of Lapakahi park, but soon enough I came over a hill and there was Todd, a female biker with some nice road rash wandering around in the road and some dude in a rental SUV. Luckily for Team Boom King we were just there to help. Apparently the bloody lady, Kerri I think was her name, just found herself on the ground attached to her bike. The SUV didn't hit her he had stopped to help when he saw bloody biker lady. So Todd and I helped the lady regain her bearings and evaluate damage. Soon enough Tammy showed up and Team Boom King did what we could to help Ms. Roadrash adjust her seat and bars. Then once she seemed to be sorted out we resumed our ride. Todd and I went to the Honu Half turnaround at O'opolu (spelling?) and back to Hapuna. We nailed the timing right around the 2:30 mark we were slated to do on this Brick. Tammy showed up soon after. Then we got our asses on the run to Puako and back again. It was hot. Effing A hot! Plus we had just completed a 50 mile bike ride. I did not reach the end of the Puako road this time around. But I did nail the run timing almost exactly at 1:05 as per the training menu. 

Then I sat around next to the locked cars wishing I had been smart enough to leave a bottle of water in the bed of the pickup. Todd had the keys. And of course he showed up last. Luckily Tammy had a few buxorz and bought us each a bottle of water. LIFESAVER TAMMY!!!!

Then a dunk in the ocean. Some post training endorphin/fatigue laughing fits on the beach and lunch at Tako Taco for me. TnT went southward to CostCo(w).

I'm concentrating on time and miles instead of pushing myself into arbitrary heartrate/effort zones. I did this entire brick at a 150-178 heartrate as measured by my borrowed heart monitor. I rarely felt like I was pushing my heart or respiration. Mostly I'm trying to avoid a knee blowout while I continue to build my base and slowly shave my times per mile.

Friday run, Saturday swim

On Friday we were supposed to do a long endurance sort of run, so I decided to run a little longer than our workout sheet said because, well, I'm not that fast a runner and it takes me longer to go farther than some OTHER people I know. I ran towards Pololu and back, turning around at the 28 mile marker. I didn't push too hard but inadvertently got some intervals in anyway because there are three gulches and a few other hills in the direction I went. Felt really strong the whole time, and even felt like I could have gone a bit more when I got back home. However, my left leg is still bothering me -- doesn't hurt in any particular place for too long, but it aches in the hamstring, then in the IT band, then the knee, then the shin... the whole thing is just kind of unhappy. Definitely planning to see someone about it now -- this will NOT get in the way of Tammy's first half! Anyway, ended up running about 1:37, and went a little over 9 miles.

Just got back from our Saturday 'easy swim'. It was easy in that I didn't push very hard, but again we went to Mahukona and again it was choppy with a current. I got slapped around for a while, got a little dizzy, but kept at it and it actually felt pretty good. Mostly because I wasn't fighting the waves, I just went with it, letting the surge dictate my rhythm. Swam for 32 minutes. Ready for big brick tomorrow.. I THINK...

Wed-Thurs-Fri suck run

My running has been sucking this week. Wednesday I was supposed to do roughly 25 minutes in Z4 but I just could not kick up my heart rate that high. I think the problem was that I swam long that morning, and didn't eat enough afterward. My heartrate just refused to rise into Z4 on the run no matter how hard I pushed.

Friday's run was problematic as well. I was trying to heat-train, so I ran at about 2PM. I found that for the first 40 minutes or so I could keep my heart rate in Z2 if I ran everything but the steepest uphills. However, on the return trip, I found my heart rate kept jumping over Z2 on even the mildest uphills. So I ended up walking a good deal of the hills on the way back.

Thursday morning's bike went well, if a little long (miscalculated how long it would take to return home). The swim went OK, but I didn't swim quite as far as I did on Wednesday (not too surprising).

Next week I want to time the swimming right so that I don't wreck my interval run, and hopefully this will carry through to my long slow run.

Top Ten Baby!

It looks like they re-ranked the male 35-39 results from Lavaman and....Ben is now #10!

RUN-BIKE-SWIM (not slackin' anymore!)

Wednesday was for running, and also got in some heat training. I ran from home towards Halaula, turned left on the old mill road, and headed all the way down an old track to the lighthouse, along the cliff trail for a bit, and turned around. Had to pause for a minute at the lighthouse to look for tropicbirds, then my 25 minutes low z4 began, which was no problem to reach as it was hot, almost no breeze, and uphill. Total run time 1:07, about 6 or so miles. Didn't overheat, but I definitely felt the heat affecting my performance.

Thursday AM ride was supposed to be 1:30 also with 25 minutes low z4. Not too much wind today, rode the regular route from home past Hawi and down the coast, turning around at about mm11. The wind of course picked up on the way back up the hill towards Hawi, making it take a little longer than I expected, total ride time 1:34, about 25 miles. I had a harder time keeping it in low z4 -- on the bike I tend to space out a bit and forget to push it when I'm going uphill -- how lame is that?!?

That's okay, I made up for it later with a pretty awesome swim. Pool reopens tomorrow but today we had to do the equivalent of a 'master's swim', so we went to Mahukona again. I ended up swimming for 51 minutes, with two different 10 minute intervals of higher intensity. Got somewhat choppy towards the end. Again, hard to say how long I swam, since I sure wasn't swimming in straight lines.... maybe 1.3 miles? Saw a bunch of amazing pyramid butterfly fish!