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!

Feel like I'm slackin!

Monday was supposed to be a 2 hour low intensity ride, but got an important phonecall in the Hapuna parking lot (!) and ended up only riding for 45 minutes. At least it was better than nothing! Rode towards Waikoloa from Hapuna. I feel like it helped stretch out my tired legs from Sunday's brick to get out there and ride easy. Kept the intensity down and the cadence up until the last 2 miles or so heading back to Hapuna, when the headwind of doom started pummeling me and I got really annoyed.
Tuesday was supposed to be a swim. I was headed over to wet side so I went to Laupahoehoe public pool, which is really nice, btw, but was closed for lunch when I got there. Should have known! No swimming for me! That's TWO days I should have been swimming that I didn't (Saturday was the other, for those paying attention,) which makes me MAD. Last night I did a bunch of strength exercises though, with fitness ball and bands, so at least I feel like I did something.
Wednesday: Time for some SERIOUS heat training when I run in a few hours -- it is HOT today. More on that later.

Wednesday split Aquathon

Monday: 30 minute ride near home in the morning, 1:30 in the afternoon out by Hapuna with Tammy. Tried to keep it in a low gear, roughly Zone 2, but winds made that difficult.
Tuesday: Sat around waiting for United Airlines to deliver Carrie's bag. Did a little upper body strength and stretching. No swimming for me.
Wednesday: swam about 52 minutes at Mahukona (about 1.4 miles: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=1829630). Later today I'll run in the HEAT. Found my HR monitor watch so I can punish my heart all scientific-like.

my own version of the Sunday brick, by the Tamnocerus

As opposed to those guys, who went all the way to Kawaihae and back, I did the sensible thing (or perhaps the wimpy thing?) and stuck to the workout's suggested 2 hours. I knew the wind coming back up from Mahukona was going to be really difficult, so I turned around at 50 minutes and got home in 1:15. Getting really used to dealing with crosswinds, which are almost always present on this route. Felt pretty strong, timed my 30 minutes at race pace on the way up that Mahukona hill, but coming around the curve of the island and heading east got slammed with an intense headwind which slowed me way down. Total ride about 2:05, about 32 miles or so. (note: 18 miles the first hour and 14 miles the second! See: headwind and hill.)
Pretty fast transition at home (although I wasn't timing it) and went for an hour run out and back on Pratt Road. I felt very warmed up and no tightness in my legs in the transition from bike to run -- I guess I'm really getting used to that too. Ran about 20 minutes, then did 15 minutes race pace. I think I actually was running a little harder than I should have for at least part of it -- by the time I got near the end of the 15 minutes I HAD to slow down, while 'race pace' is supposed to be something I can sustain, not a sprint! In any case, it was hot but manageable, my left leg was tight but not painful, and I feel like I did pretty well. Again about 6.2 miles in about an hour. Phew!

Felt a little queasy and kind of like I'd done a triathlon in the morning for most of the rest of the day!

Boom King video up @ axis-media.tv

15 minutes of fame commences now

video

der Sundae trainingz. plus pre-brick slacking

Sundae Sundae Sundae!!!!!

mode: brick
bike: 2hrs 20minutes. Kapa'au to Kawaihae and back again.
distance: much further coming than going (see uphill headwinds from Mahukona to Hawi)
run: 59minutes
distance: slow and lazy

conclusions: I'm going to do the Honu course on Sundae brick days from now on. Not that we can run at the Mana Lani (as they get crazy when people run around on their golf course), but Hapuna swim, bike to Hawi and then run Puako is a close approximation. I'm a believer in knowing the course you are racing as much as possible.

knee: does not like the downhill running. the last bit in Kapa'au from the highway to Chez BoomKing is baaaad

Thursday and Friday I diverged from the prescribed training regimen because my legs were saying, "Hey buddy EFFFFFF EWE!!!!" I did swims at Richardson's beach both days. Nothing intense. Just keeping the swimming brain awake.
and now your moment of zen: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZA1NoOOoaNw

in which another boom king runs in Hilo, and skips Saturday swim

More heat training for us malahini! Started at Richardson Ocean Park in Hilo, and ran back towards town for about 30 minutes. Felt hot but it was okay! Another 30 minutes back. Tried to keep my heart rate down but it was difficult -- I still think the heat is stressing my body, even though I never felt that I was actually overheating. I haven't overheated since the week before Lavaman -- I'm getting used to it it! My angry knee/leg was not happy, but mostly just tight and not painful. Total run was probably about 6.2 miles. Need to speed it up just a little bit more -- if I can make 6.5 mph for the whole Honu half-marathon portion, I'll finish in 2 hours, which is my goal. Is it a reasonable goal? Hard to say. Swim at Richardson's after the run was the ultimate restorative.

Saturday swim was cancelled at Hale Stellanovae because Todd was afraid he might have been getting sick, and I needed some serious nap. Gotta know when to fold 'em. Did I really just say that?! What I meant was, it's good to listen to your body and skip a workout now and then.

Reverse bike route + Pratt Road run brick

40.4 mile ride (Hale Stellanova in Kapa'au to Kawaihae and back): 2:20 total
1:05 run with 0:15 at race pace (mostly on Pratt Road-- trail running with dirt, gravel, grass)

The ride was tougher than scheduled, with both long uphill and heavy headwinds on the return to Kapa'au. (The crosswinds on the way to Kawaihae were a bitch.) Still, it IS an actual part of the course, so good training for the race, and we kept up a decent pace.

Legs felt tight coming off the bike and starting the run. This week, however, my stomach felt OK and I was able to push pretty well. Warmed up for 15, pushed for 15, cruised home 35. I think it helped that the first part of Pratt Road is mostly downhill.

IWABK runs LSD in the heat

Ran at Richardson:

1 hr , roughly zone 2 (<164bpm for me). The goal was Long Slow Distance today. Had some difficulty keepy heartrate down and out of Zone 3 (164 - 172). Ran out and back to Harrington's.

I feel like the heat training is starting to kick in-- I didn't feel incredibly overwhelmed by the heat , even though it was fairly warm today. Then again, we ran at 11:30AM and not 1PM.


Followed by epic eating at Korean food land, and then Ruben's Mexican food land.

Thursday ride... and then Thursday swim!

This morning Todd and I rode the northern end of the Honu Half bike course for 1 hour 30 min. Not much wind at all so it was less speedy than it usually is to ride downhill towards Mahukona, but much faster to get back up (more often than not the wind is against you on the way back up, it SUCKS!)
I spent 20 minutes at z4/race pace, and in total rode about 24 miles.

At about 3:30 Todd and I checked the pool, but the pump is still 'broke' so we headed back out to Mahukona, this time to swim! It wasn't windy at all, but very choppy. It made the swim really pretty annoying and I felt a little dizzy, but I powered through it anyway. Swam about 40 minutes, with 1 8 minute and 1 4 minute higher intensity swim. No way of knowing how far I swam, but based on my usual pace let's say just about 1900 yards.

RAWK!

how to crash blogger

i wanted to edit that last post, but blogger blows chunks when I try to load that google maps code in the editing frame. sooooo.... no editing posts that have html frame embeds?

anyway. I wanted to also define IWABK. It's an acronym for "In Which A Boom King". post ride endorphins make me strange. Ask TnT. They have to put up with my post ride endorphin freak show every Sunday. =)

IWABK rides a bike

mode: le bicyclette
duration: 1hr30mins
route:
View Larger Map
distance: 27miles
elevation: 1500feet
avg speed: 18mph
notes: cranked the entire ride in my big front ring. was surprised how much of the ride I was able to stay out of my biggest rear cog. left arm bitchy. need aero bars or some way to relieve pressure on arm...

wednesday run workout

Todd and I have decided we need to really work on dealing with heat during running, so I meant to go at like 1pm but ended up leaving at 2:30. It was still hot but not as bad as it's been out at Waikoloa or Puako lately... every little bit helps, I'm thinkin', though.
Ran 1 hour 7 minutes, with the first 30 or so at a fairly slow pace and then about 20 minutes at 'race pace'. Slowed down again for the rest. Ran a loop that was half on the road and half on gravel/dirt track, about 6.2 miles. Felt kind of lethargic and my leg was hurting a bit, but I got it goin eventually.

"masters swim" swim workout

So, since we can't actually GO to a master's swim workout because we're too lazy to drive up to Waimea at 5 am on whatever day of the week they hold it (fuck that!) we're forced to come up with our own version of a master's swim workout. Which of course is less intense because there's no coach and you're not surrounded by faster swimmers who will run you over and/or give you annoyed looks if you slack off. But in any case, here's what I do instead on that day, which is an amalgam of some workouts our old tri coach gave us.

note: swim workouts tend to be described in terms of 100's. Our pool up here is 25 meters across, I believe, so 100 would be across the pool and back twice, which is two 'laps'. A 50 is one lap.

warmup: 3x100 of this pattern: 25 freestyle 25 breast stroke 25 backstroke 25 freestyle
then, 500 freestyle at a fairly easy pace
then I do some drills:
100 kickboard
15o pull buoy
150 single arm drills
then another 500, this time alternating 50 easy and 50 sprint (or at least pretty hard)
cooldown 2x100 same as warmup, free/breast/back/free

that adds up to 1900 meters total. Unless of course our pool is actually 25 yards across. I should find out!

in which a Boom King buys a watch, and runs, and swims

having no watch makes working out an interesting guessing game. so I bought a watch. 

today:

mode: run you lazy fucker

duration: 1hr 6mins

location: Richardson's to Suisan and back again

comments: i tried to push myself into the imaginary zone 4 for the last 20 minutes. but i don't currently have a heart monitor so I have no idea what zone I was living in.  Sunday I will borrow a heart monitor from TnT. Should make things interesting. I hope it has a robot voice and says things like, "You are no longer in Zone 4. Run faster you lazy beyotch or I will start using the taser." Sadistic robot coaching being the ultimate goal of all this technology.

extra credit: swam for 7 minutes (yes you read that right SEVEN minutes without stopping!!!!) @ Richardsons Beach. Felt much better than my pool workout. Probably I was pushing too hard at the pool yesterday. Plus the chlorine makes me a neurotic quitter baby. 

sample track workout

The long course program we're doing basically has three runs per week: an interval run early in the week, a long slow run later in the week, and then, of course, there's the brick on the weekend.

As an alternative to the fairly simple interval workouts this program calls for (e.g. 60 mins run, with 20 mins in Zone 4), you can do a track workout. Below I've pasted a sample track workout from the GGTC track program this week:

4/15/2008
Warm-up followed by drills on upper deck.
2 x100 strides on straight; jog the curves.

Main set
6 x 800s descending in 2 groups of 3. All recoveries are stairs followed by SLOW jog/walk down.
#1 @ base
#2 @ base minus 5 sec/400 (10 seconds faster for 800)
#3 @ base minus 7 sec/400 (15 seconds faster for 800)
Extra 400 easy jog/walk after #3
#4 @ base minus 5 sec/400 (10 seconds faster for 800)
#5 @ base minus 7 sec/400 (15 seconds faster for 800)
#6 @ base minus 8-10 sec/400 (16-20 seconds faster for 800)

Long Course athletes will complete one additional 1200 at base + 5
sec/100 (15 seconds slower for 1200).
Cooldown, static stretch replenish fluids, eat (within 45 minutes)
approx 1-1.2 gram CHO/kg of body weight plus 10-20 grams protein.

Short Course interval total: 4800 meters
Long Course interval total: 5000 meters


We don't have a track in Kapa'au but we could use the grassy area circling a baseball diamond as an alternative. 

Tuesday swim: TnT

We planned to swim at the pool but apparently the pump is broken, so we went to Mahukona instead. I decided to wear a mask and snorkel and Todd just wore goggles. This means a much easier swim for me since I could breathe normally... I wanted to try out my new mask, and it was supposed to be an easy swim. I should probably stop doing that, though -- I can use as much practice as I can get at actual swim breathing. We each swam for about 35-40 minutes. It was bright and sunny, but super windy and choppy which made it kind of tiring. I saw a pair of gilded triggerfish!

tuesday training: swim

mode: swim

distance: 7 or 8 laps @ sparky pool in Hilo (700-800 meters?)

time: 22 minutes

yeah. i pooched it. didn't ever really hit my stride. felt like crap afterwards. increasingly I am coming to believe that chlorinated pools and exercise are a bad combination. hopefully the ocean won't be so bloody rough next time we have a swim day.

it's official

We are now ALL signed up for the Honu Half, a real half-ironman race on the west side of the big island May 31st. That's just about 6 weeks from now. EEEEEeeee!
Ok so actually we're all in pretty good shape -- each of us kicked ass last weekend at the Lavaman olympic distance triathlon at Waikoloa. It was thecrab's first race, and he's clearly a natural!
This will be my first half-ironman, and I'm more than a bit nervous when I think about the distances: 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, and 13.1 mile run. Especially those last two. What I really need to do is to not think about the big picture right now, and focus on day-to-day training. If I do it right, the race should be perfectly do-able! With that in mind, here's what I did yesterday to kick off training for the Honu Half in earnest: a bike-run brick.

We started at Hapuna Beach Park, which is where the Honu Half will actually start. No swim practice for us though! Starting at the beach parking lot, we biked north for one hour or so, and the return took about the same amount of time (I know that seems obvious, but it doesn't always work like that, depending on the wind!) The winds were pretty intense but not so bad during the ride except for one part leaving Kawaihae, about 2 miles of under 10mph because I was going uphill right into the wind, YUCK! Most of the ride went pretty well, however, and I felt okay to run next. That was about 30 minutes out and back towards Puako, fine for about the first 40 minutes, but then I started having some trouble with overheating. I managed to push through it, but the run was pretty brutal: hot, dry, and desert-y terrain with big gusts blowing dust into my eyes. After that, a heavenly cooling soak and brief swim at Hapuna made me feel WAY better.

my stats for the day:
bike: ~2hours, made it to Mahukona and back, ~32 miles.
run: Hapuna parking lot through Puako and back, ~1 hour and ~ 6 miles.

woo!

Sunday April 13, 2008

mode: brick

bike distance: approximately 36 miles

bike duration: approximately 2 hours

bike course: HBP to Kawaihae, coastal highway towards Hawi

bike profile: rolling terrain, windy

run distance: approximately 8 miles

run duration: approximately 1hr 5minutes

run course: HBP to end of Puako Road

run profile: mostly flat with a few small hills

start: Hapuna Beach Parking lot

friday april 11, 2008

mode: bicycle

intensity: moderate/high

distance: approx 40 miles

climbing elevation: approx 3000 feet

equipment: Trek 1000

stops: Hilo Bike Hub, 45-60 minutes

overall duration: approximately 3-4 hours