Gainesville
This is becoming a disturbing trend. IDGAF, for the unaware, stand for "I Don't Give a Fuck," which was completely my attitude today. Again, this felt like one of those workouts I was squeezing in, even though I had all of Sunday free to do it. I just didn't much feel like getting off the couch.
Bike - 60 minutes
2 Lipodrene
I took my bike into the shop Sunday morning at the crack of 2 p.m. and had it back in an hour, realigned and retaped and ready to roll. So when I got home I was actually pretty motivated for the workout. So much so that I decided half an hour down Waldo-Williston would be a good trip. It's a little more hilly than Hawthorne, but not too bad. It was also the site of my worst ride ever last cycle, the one where I couldn't sleep so I decided to ride early, found it freezing cold, and ended up averaging about 15. But that was in February. It was cold. I was perpetually stressing out about my girlfriend leaving. And I wasn't sleeping. And oh yeah, I'm a little better of a cyclist now. So I figured no big deal.
One again, I figured wrong. I knew something was wrong when I was going 24-26 the whole way down Waldo. As I said before, you really don't notice when you have the wind at your back, and I looked for flags or trees or something and everything looked still. But whatever, I just figured this showed how much I'd improved. Notsomuch. I turned around and for some reason just lost all motivation. The trip back is all uphill, into the wind. Not something I'm a fan of. It didn't help that I couldn't drop down into Aero because of the massive wound on my right forarm, and my shoulders were jamming up, still residual from the accident.
Basically, I was pissed, felt like shit, and didn't want to be there. So even though I averaged about 20 on the way down, I was going a steady 13 a lot of the trip back and ended up averaging 17 for the ride. That's 1 mph slower than I did on my 5 hour ride, which included the crash. Not only that, I turned around at 28 minutes, and made it back in 1:05. Meaning the return trip, of about 9 miles, took 7 minutes longer than the trip down. So maybe that road really is that bad, and it wasn't just my poorer conditioning and stress that led to that awful, awful ride back in February. But who knows. Maybe the run would go better.
Run - 30 minutes
Alright, so get off the bike, have another spoiled yogurt PowerGel and do a nice run to the stadium and back. Can't fuck that up, right? Well, again, I started out strong, but by the time I got to the stadium I was fucking starving and didn't really want to run back. Again, just started chopping my steps, and by the time I got to about 11th St., I decided to say fuck it and walk the rest. Just didn't want to finish. I really don't know why. I'm not sure if the accident took a lot out of me, or I just had a shitty attitude today, but workouts like this need to be few and far between
Swim - 12x100. Practice bi-lateral breathing every other set. Do much later or earlier, but not within a few hours of the brick session
1 Lipodrene
I got back around 5 from the wasted Bike/Run and followed the advice on the card. Headed over to the pool about 9 p.m., which was nice because nobody was there. I was supposed to practice breathing every other set of strokes, but after about one lap (50 meters) of doing this, I said "Fuck this." Lung capacity is one thing I really haven't worked on, and since I was in a shitty training mood I wasn't about to push it. No excuse, I just didn't give a fuck. So I went back to normal breathing as I went through the motions to get this done. I didn't even time myself. I didn't care.
I think around set 8 I actually started pushing it, either because I was warmed up, or the Lipodrene kicked in, or because I saw a light at the end of the tunnel, but the last four sets actually felt really good. So at least I ended a shitty day on a high note.
But I can't afford many more bad workouts during training weeks. I got a month of balls-out training to go before I taper, and I need to make the most of it. Sometimes a couple of bad workouts in a row motivates you to crush the next one, and I hope that's the case here. This trend cannot continue.
Showing posts with label bad swim. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bad swim. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
T72 - Flushing and Falling - Swim, Bike (Trainer)
Gainesville
Today's workout was described as "a bit of flushing." I honestly have no idea what he means by this. Like flushing out what? Toxins? Lactic acid? The noxious microbes I swallowed during Sunday's lake swim? Whatever, I'm not overly concerned. After taking a rest day Monday post-race this seemed like a good "back-in-the-flow" workout.
Swim: long day
wu: 500 continuous, then 5 x 50
main: 1 x 1500, RPE 3
2 Lipodrene
This was seriously one of the longer warmups I've ever done, as it's probably about the length of a lot of swim workouts for shorter races. But I needed it. I think the combination of the cloudy weather and my taking a day off forced me into a lazy state. It took me about the full warmup to get into my groove. But as I hit the sprints I noticed myself slowing at the end of every one. I was also pretty lazy on the initial 500. I took the workout seriously, but for some reason the fire just wasn't there today.
Same with the main section. I did ok, but my pace was certainly not what it had been during Sunday's race. I let myself get distracted a lot, usually by the same sorts of things that keep me from sleeping. I guess long swims and trying to sleep are really similar, like there's no noise and you're just there with yourself with nothing new to look at. But it got distracting today and the 1500 was certainly sub-par. Just hope I'm not losing my focus.
Bike - 45 minutes spinning (trainer)
1 Lipodrene
I think from now on when I see workouts of an hour or less labeled "spinning" I'm going to use the trainer. Just makes sense and gives me a bigger window. At any rate, I didn't mention it but I lost a bike shoe in transition on Sunday. No idea how that happened. Probably either someone mistakenly picked it up or I forgot to pack it. Any way you cut it, I had to go to the bike shop and plunk down $144 for new shoes and cletes before I went to the pool. What I hate about new cletes is that they're so tight, so clipping and un-clipping is a lot harder. So it was good to start out on the trainer. Becasue, you know, you never need to unclip really fast on the trainer, right?
The spinning went about as expected. I kept it in the 16-18 range the whole time, going up to about 19 for the last few minutes. I used the iPod, obviously, as I sat out on the deck and watched it rain. Some guy was out in the courtyard with his dog, talking to every girl who came by with their dogs. Really, I didn't know we allowed dogs in my building, and I'm sure Trevor would be livid. At any rate, this cute girl walks out with some little yappy dog and is walking him around the courtyard when all of a sudden I feel myself falling over. On the trainer.
Like I'm tipping over to my left, even though this thing is supposedly bolted straight up. My bike starts tipping, I feel myself crash into the wicker table next to me. A very loud noise I'm sure echoes through the courtyard, which I fortunately did not hear becasue I had my headphones in. Fortunately I am able to unclip quickly before I demolish all of my deck furniture, but when all was said and done I'm standing there leaning on the table with my bike totally tipped over and the cute girl staring up at me like "What the FUCK just happened? How did that guy manage to fall off a bike that wasn't even moving?" Yeah, coordination still not my strongsuit.
The saddest part is, the same thing happened to me a year ago when I got fitted for my aero bars at the bike shop. Tommy, the guy who runs the place, said, "Damn. I've NEVER in all my years seen somebody fall off a trainer. You are the first."
Oddly, when I came in to get my new shoes he said the same thing. "You know, you are the first person to ever come in and tell me they've lost a shoe." I find that one harder to belive.
At any rate, the spinning workout was good aside from falling off the trainer. My insomnia is persisting, though, for whatever reason. I don't even feel stressed about much, but I find myself still unable to sleep. A friend told me it might be the Lipodrene, and I think she may be right. But I'm not making that sacrifice. The next workout is a long brick, and hopefully the lack of sleep doesn't hurt me too much. But I'm still lookin' pretty rough.
Today's workout was described as "a bit of flushing." I honestly have no idea what he means by this. Like flushing out what? Toxins? Lactic acid? The noxious microbes I swallowed during Sunday's lake swim? Whatever, I'm not overly concerned. After taking a rest day Monday post-race this seemed like a good "back-in-the-flow" workout.
Swim: long day
wu: 500 continuous, then 5 x 50
main: 1 x 1500, RPE 3
2 Lipodrene
This was seriously one of the longer warmups I've ever done, as it's probably about the length of a lot of swim workouts for shorter races. But I needed it. I think the combination of the cloudy weather and my taking a day off forced me into a lazy state. It took me about the full warmup to get into my groove. But as I hit the sprints I noticed myself slowing at the end of every one. I was also pretty lazy on the initial 500. I took the workout seriously, but for some reason the fire just wasn't there today.
Same with the main section. I did ok, but my pace was certainly not what it had been during Sunday's race. I let myself get distracted a lot, usually by the same sorts of things that keep me from sleeping. I guess long swims and trying to sleep are really similar, like there's no noise and you're just there with yourself with nothing new to look at. But it got distracting today and the 1500 was certainly sub-par. Just hope I'm not losing my focus.
Bike - 45 minutes spinning (trainer)
1 Lipodrene
I think from now on when I see workouts of an hour or less labeled "spinning" I'm going to use the trainer. Just makes sense and gives me a bigger window. At any rate, I didn't mention it but I lost a bike shoe in transition on Sunday. No idea how that happened. Probably either someone mistakenly picked it up or I forgot to pack it. Any way you cut it, I had to go to the bike shop and plunk down $144 for new shoes and cletes before I went to the pool. What I hate about new cletes is that they're so tight, so clipping and un-clipping is a lot harder. So it was good to start out on the trainer. Becasue, you know, you never need to unclip really fast on the trainer, right?
The spinning went about as expected. I kept it in the 16-18 range the whole time, going up to about 19 for the last few minutes. I used the iPod, obviously, as I sat out on the deck and watched it rain. Some guy was out in the courtyard with his dog, talking to every girl who came by with their dogs. Really, I didn't know we allowed dogs in my building, and I'm sure Trevor would be livid. At any rate, this cute girl walks out with some little yappy dog and is walking him around the courtyard when all of a sudden I feel myself falling over. On the trainer.
Like I'm tipping over to my left, even though this thing is supposedly bolted straight up. My bike starts tipping, I feel myself crash into the wicker table next to me. A very loud noise I'm sure echoes through the courtyard, which I fortunately did not hear becasue I had my headphones in. Fortunately I am able to unclip quickly before I demolish all of my deck furniture, but when all was said and done I'm standing there leaning on the table with my bike totally tipped over and the cute girl staring up at me like "What the FUCK just happened? How did that guy manage to fall off a bike that wasn't even moving?" Yeah, coordination still not my strongsuit.
The saddest part is, the same thing happened to me a year ago when I got fitted for my aero bars at the bike shop. Tommy, the guy who runs the place, said, "Damn. I've NEVER in all my years seen somebody fall off a trainer. You are the first."
Oddly, when I came in to get my new shoes he said the same thing. "You know, you are the first person to ever come in and tell me they've lost a shoe." I find that one harder to belive.
At any rate, the spinning workout was good aside from falling off the trainer. My insomnia is persisting, though, for whatever reason. I don't even feel stressed about much, but I find myself still unable to sleep. A friend told me it might be the Lipodrene, and I think she may be right. But I'm not making that sacrifice. The next workout is a long brick, and hopefully the lack of sleep doesn't hurt me too much. But I'm still lookin' pretty rough.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
T63 - I'm in Kona, Bitch - Swim/Run Brick
Kona
I’ve been in Hawaii for a day now, and since my first day I couldn’t find an open pool that fit my swim schedule in Kailua, I instead opted to go out with Cousin Jill and Eric and their friend Rich and get completely hammered at the bar Jill works at. Which might not have been so rough on training had I known that Hawaiians are not at A/C addicted as Floridians. Cousin Jill and her husband included. So instead of downing some water and being fully recovered when I woke up, I instead continued to sweat and lose water until I woke up at 7 feeling like a jackhammer had been taken to my head while I was roasting in a fire. I took some Advil as a cure. It helped a little as Jill and I flew to Kona arriving early afternoon.
Swim: 500, 5x100, 400, 4x100, 300, 3x100, 2oo, 2x100, 100
2 Lipodrene
The Kona aquatics center is a lovely municipal facility located right next to the old Kona airport in Kailua-Kona. Basically, it’s the city pool for Kona locals, and best of all it’s free. Gave me a little local feel and provided a pretty empty swimming course.
The hangover was readily apparent as the first ten laps felt like they took forever. This isn’t terribly uncommon when I don’t do a warmup, but the lackadaisical swimming continued into the 100s, which all felt really labored. It was about the third 100 where I decided to just go at the pace where I felt comfortable to get through them. The one saving grace of this swim was that I limited my intervals to ten seconds between 100s (really, because I wasn’t going that hard), but I was still doing 100s in lke 1:50. Which is faster than I had done in previous cycles, but is definitely too slow for me now.
So cool as it was swimming past a sign that read “Kona Aquatics Center) and seeing the fog-veiled mountains behind the far side of my lane, most of this swim pretty much sucked. I was not pleased, but was glad to at least get in some extra training in Kona.
Run – 1 Hour
1 Lipodrene
I took an extra gel, changed over in the Aquatic Center locker room, and ran out to the old airport for my run. The airport looks like it should serve as the Ironamn transistion area, as it’s about ¾ of a mile of black asphalt right on the shoreline. The view was amazing, and motivated me a lot to run well. I later learned that the airport neither serves as the transition area, nor is it even on the Ironman run course, but whatever. Running on the shoreline, and then through the town of Kailua-Kona was cool enough as it is. The iPod didn’t hurt either. Shitty as the swim had been, this run went very well.
Although whoever the asshole was who told me I’d love Hawaii because it was like Florida without the humidity was full of shit. I do love Hawaii, but its is humid as fuck here. It’s like Miami in the Spring and early Summer. So I was pretty dehydrated at the end. But all in all a very solid run.
I’ve been in Hawaii for a day now, and since my first day I couldn’t find an open pool that fit my swim schedule in Kailua, I instead opted to go out with Cousin Jill and Eric and their friend Rich and get completely hammered at the bar Jill works at. Which might not have been so rough on training had I known that Hawaiians are not at A/C addicted as Floridians. Cousin Jill and her husband included. So instead of downing some water and being fully recovered when I woke up, I instead continued to sweat and lose water until I woke up at 7 feeling like a jackhammer had been taken to my head while I was roasting in a fire. I took some Advil as a cure. It helped a little as Jill and I flew to Kona arriving early afternoon.
Swim: 500, 5x100, 400, 4x100, 300, 3x100, 2oo, 2x100, 100
2 Lipodrene
The Kona aquatics center is a lovely municipal facility located right next to the old Kona airport in Kailua-Kona. Basically, it’s the city pool for Kona locals, and best of all it’s free. Gave me a little local feel and provided a pretty empty swimming course.
The hangover was readily apparent as the first ten laps felt like they took forever. This isn’t terribly uncommon when I don’t do a warmup, but the lackadaisical swimming continued into the 100s, which all felt really labored. It was about the third 100 where I decided to just go at the pace where I felt comfortable to get through them. The one saving grace of this swim was that I limited my intervals to ten seconds between 100s (really, because I wasn’t going that hard), but I was still doing 100s in lke 1:50. Which is faster than I had done in previous cycles, but is definitely too slow for me now.
So cool as it was swimming past a sign that read “Kona Aquatics Center) and seeing the fog-veiled mountains behind the far side of my lane, most of this swim pretty much sucked. I was not pleased, but was glad to at least get in some extra training in Kona.
Run – 1 Hour
1 Lipodrene
I took an extra gel, changed over in the Aquatic Center locker room, and ran out to the old airport for my run. The airport looks like it should serve as the Ironamn transistion area, as it’s about ¾ of a mile of black asphalt right on the shoreline. The view was amazing, and motivated me a lot to run well. I later learned that the airport neither serves as the transition area, nor is it even on the Ironman run course, but whatever. Running on the shoreline, and then through the town of Kailua-Kona was cool enough as it is. The iPod didn’t hurt either. Shitty as the swim had been, this run went very well.
Although whoever the asshole was who told me I’d love Hawaii because it was like Florida without the humidity was full of shit. I do love Hawaii, but its is humid as fuck here. It’s like Miami in the Spring and early Summer. So I was pretty dehydrated at the end. But all in all a very solid run.
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