Gainesville
No, I have not been neglecting the training blog. I just have a lot of extra days in my training schedule before the Ironman, and given my recent run of shitty workouts and my right forearm still missing some skin, I thought this would be a good time to use a bunch of them. Also didn't hurt I had the opportunity to go to the UM-Virginia Tech game in Blacksburg, which is a 10 hour drive from here. And I wasn't about to do my longest run ever on some strange course in the middle of nowhere where it was cold and they had hills. So I opted to do my long run Thursday before I left, and save the long bike for the day after Yom Kippur.
Run - 3 Hours
2 Lipodrene
1 Salt Tab
I know at some point I'm going to have to do a long run without the iPod, but today was not to be that day. I even made a new playlist called "Final Ironman Training Mix" that basically combines all the songs I don't skip on my other playlists. At any rate, I ran the campus loop in just over an hour. It was hot, but it was nice to see that even though I was feeling a little sub-par, the heat is still a source of energy, rather than kicking my ass as it had early on in training. First loop, went well, although I chopped steps up the hill. I still felt strong through most of it. I wasn't bounding, but again I realized this was going to be at least 18 miles, so I needed to pace myself.
Then I started the first of 3 and a half down-and-backs to the stadium. Some might think this gets a bit monotonous, but I vastly prefer it to being far away from an aid station, and it breaks the run up nicely. The first one I flew, getting it done in about 28 minutes. This was a faster pace than I was running on the loop, which I found encouraging. Although there are also no hills, which may have played a part. I got back to the Saturn aid station the second time, took another salt tab and another Lipodrene, downed some Gatorade and hit round 2.
My stomach was starting to hurt from all the gels and sugar in the sports drinks, but it went away within about a mile of each lap. I also think this is something I'm going to have to get used to, as I feel like a 12-hour day whose dies consists of only Cliff Bars, Gels, Powerade and Water may lead to some stomach discomfort. At any rate, lap 2 went a little slower, but I still felt like I could run more. I was taking my gels every 45 minutes, and wasn't lacking for energy.
Took my 3rd salt tab here. By round 3, my legs were starting to tire. I realized that this was a much shorter run than the Ironman run (I would have been at about the halfway point here) and I hadn't even biked. But I also realized that the race will be a different mental condition too. I still felt as if I could run, and really only got tired when I stopped. By iPod froze just before round 3 too, which I didn't even notice. Like I got pissed when it froze (2 hours seems to be all it can do without fucking up) but the last 5 miles went by fine without it. This was also encouraging, since I can't use it in the race.
At the end, my legs were tired, I was tired, but I wasn't flat out done. Partly because I started the run at 4, so by the time I hit about 2 hours the sun was going down and it had cooled off (also not unlike race day) but also because I paced myself. By my calculations I did about 18 miles in 3 hours, which is the pace I want to run. God knows if I'll do that race day (doubtful) but I was happy with the effort on this run. I didn't exactly crush it, but it didn't crush me either. I wasn't exactly up for more at the end, but I didn't collapse in a heap either.
After this run, I took 4 days off. I'm sitting here Monday and I feel basically 100%. So the 5.5 hour bike ride tomorrow should be a good test. The arm is healed up for the most part, and I'm ready to go for a solid final month.
Showing posts with label iPod fail. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iPod fail. Show all posts
Monday, September 28, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
T78 - It's Called Being Resourceful - Run, Swim
New York City
I think the best part about Ironman training is the fact that even on vacations, you have to make sure you get in your training. Such was the case on Thursday. When the good folks at Delta decided to move my flight back from 8 a.m. to 6 a.m., I was a little pissed I would have to get up at 3 to catch my flight. That all being said, I realized this would also give me an opportunity to get in my second-longest workout of the week during my first day in the city.
I found a gym on 43rd and 9th called The Manhattan Plaza Helath Club, that featured an Olympic-sized pool and full cardio equipment. It also had a locker room and showers, so it gave me a place to store my luggage all day, in addition to providing a training ground for my run and swim. All this for only $25, which thought was a pretty good deal for training and bag storage. The weather was absolute shit (another reason to never live north of I-10: It sometimes gets cold before Summer is even officially over) and since I had to do 2 hours at Tempo, I thought it might be fun to do 150 minutes on a treadmill.
Run - 150 minutes tempo (Treadmill)
15 Minutes RPE 2-3
2 Hours RPE 4-5
15 Minutes RPE 2-3
2 Lipodrene
I have to say, this was kinda fun. Yeah, the MPHC treadmill was dinky and looked like I could break it with one step that was too hard. And it looked out on a cement path between the cardio rooms and the pool (so nothing to look at but E!'s look at the top 10 Best and Worst Celeb. Beach Bodieas) but I used the iPod and even my slow run I was doing at 6.0
I opted to do like I would at home on this treadmill, doing an hour first, then three half hour sets with brief breaks (like under a minute) for Powerade in between. The breaks all ended up being shorter than expected, which was good. The first hour flew by, as I cranked it up to 6.6 after the first 15 miuntes. Then I maintained at 6.7 the rest of the run, dripping sweat everywhere and getting a few odd looks from the daytime crowd at this gym. No matter. I kept to my gel pattern of every 45 minutes, and aside from the iPod freezing with 25 minutes to go, the run went well.
The one issue I had was that I had so much adreneline going from the music and the ease of runing on the treadmill, that when the iPod broke, I just was like "Oh, fuck this..." I kept my speed up to the final 15 minutes, where I then speed-walked for about 5 minutes before going into a slow trot at about 5.2. I was a little disapointed in my premature cooldown there, but I think this is probably a product of my using the iPod more than anything else.
I was slated to meet with a couple of editors from Cosmo for lunch at 1:15, and oddly I saw one of them on the E! special talking about how bad Tara Reid looked in a swimsuit. It was a little surreal, I have to say, to see someone you were about to go and visit on TV while you get in your morning run, but I can't say it didn't give me a litte extra push.
Swim: Warmup - 6x75
Main - 3x700
1 Lipodrene
Lunch went well, as I rushed through my shower and got a cab up to the Hearst building for lunch. The food at their cafeteria up there is amazing, but knowing I had a long swim that afternoon, I opted for a light sandwich so I wouldn't die on the swim. I got back to the gym about 2:30, put on my jammer and walked over to the rooftop retractable roof pool deck they had. Immediately passed out for about 45 minutes ona deck chair. I'd been up since 3, for chrissakes.
Anyway, I was lucky enough to get my own lane for the warmup and about half the first set. Then some girl came in to swim with me, which was fine. But then another person came in the lane. And another. Fucking ciricle swimming. Then I remembered I was in New York City, not Gainesville. You want your own swiming lane? At 4 p.m.? Ok, you want your own 1-bedroom apartment too? Hou 'bout your own subway car? There's 18-fucking-million people in this city, and 4 swimming lanes. Good luck with that. I accpeted the unfortunate fate of circle swimming and sucked it up for the second set and half of the third.
I was swimming well when I could get some speed up, but I was constantly having to pass people, and then tread water so I didn't run into someone coming the other way. Much like New York, just constantly dodging people. So I guess the swim went well, such as it was. But not being able to really get in a groove was frustrating. You can't just knock people out of the way like you can during a race. Or when you're going fore a subway.
I think the best part about Ironman training is the fact that even on vacations, you have to make sure you get in your training. Such was the case on Thursday. When the good folks at Delta decided to move my flight back from 8 a.m. to 6 a.m., I was a little pissed I would have to get up at 3 to catch my flight. That all being said, I realized this would also give me an opportunity to get in my second-longest workout of the week during my first day in the city.
I found a gym on 43rd and 9th called The Manhattan Plaza Helath Club, that featured an Olympic-sized pool and full cardio equipment. It also had a locker room and showers, so it gave me a place to store my luggage all day, in addition to providing a training ground for my run and swim. All this for only $25, which thought was a pretty good deal for training and bag storage. The weather was absolute shit (another reason to never live north of I-10: It sometimes gets cold before Summer is even officially over) and since I had to do 2 hours at Tempo, I thought it might be fun to do 150 minutes on a treadmill.
Run - 150 minutes tempo (Treadmill)
15 Minutes RPE 2-3
2 Hours RPE 4-5
15 Minutes RPE 2-3
2 Lipodrene
I have to say, this was kinda fun. Yeah, the MPHC treadmill was dinky and looked like I could break it with one step that was too hard. And it looked out on a cement path between the cardio rooms and the pool (so nothing to look at but E!'s look at the top 10 Best and Worst Celeb. Beach Bodieas) but I used the iPod and even my slow run I was doing at 6.0
I opted to do like I would at home on this treadmill, doing an hour first, then three half hour sets with brief breaks (like under a minute) for Powerade in between. The breaks all ended up being shorter than expected, which was good. The first hour flew by, as I cranked it up to 6.6 after the first 15 miuntes. Then I maintained at 6.7 the rest of the run, dripping sweat everywhere and getting a few odd looks from the daytime crowd at this gym. No matter. I kept to my gel pattern of every 45 minutes, and aside from the iPod freezing with 25 minutes to go, the run went well.
The one issue I had was that I had so much adreneline going from the music and the ease of runing on the treadmill, that when the iPod broke, I just was like "Oh, fuck this..." I kept my speed up to the final 15 minutes, where I then speed-walked for about 5 minutes before going into a slow trot at about 5.2. I was a little disapointed in my premature cooldown there, but I think this is probably a product of my using the iPod more than anything else.
I was slated to meet with a couple of editors from Cosmo for lunch at 1:15, and oddly I saw one of them on the E! special talking about how bad Tara Reid looked in a swimsuit. It was a little surreal, I have to say, to see someone you were about to go and visit on TV while you get in your morning run, but I can't say it didn't give me a litte extra push.
Swim: Warmup - 6x75
Main - 3x700
1 Lipodrene
Lunch went well, as I rushed through my shower and got a cab up to the Hearst building for lunch. The food at their cafeteria up there is amazing, but knowing I had a long swim that afternoon, I opted for a light sandwich so I wouldn't die on the swim. I got back to the gym about 2:30, put on my jammer and walked over to the rooftop retractable roof pool deck they had. Immediately passed out for about 45 minutes ona deck chair. I'd been up since 3, for chrissakes.
Anyway, I was lucky enough to get my own lane for the warmup and about half the first set. Then some girl came in to swim with me, which was fine. But then another person came in the lane. And another. Fucking ciricle swimming. Then I remembered I was in New York City, not Gainesville. You want your own swiming lane? At 4 p.m.? Ok, you want your own 1-bedroom apartment too? Hou 'bout your own subway car? There's 18-fucking-million people in this city, and 4 swimming lanes. Good luck with that. I accpeted the unfortunate fate of circle swimming and sucked it up for the second set and half of the third.
I was swimming well when I could get some speed up, but I was constantly having to pass people, and then tread water so I didn't run into someone coming the other way. Much like New York, just constantly dodging people. So I guess the swim went well, such as it was. But not being able to really get in a groove was frustrating. You can't just knock people out of the way like you can during a race. Or when you're going fore a subway.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
T59 - A Personal Record Put in Perspective - Run
Gainesville
Run - 2.5 Hours
2 Lipodrene
Today was the longest I've ever run. Ever. In my life. And not that I needed to go all codependant on this workout to get in the 15-or-so miles I'd be doing, but I had mentioned that I was doing this run the other day to Justin, and he is training for the Space Coast Marathon, and wanted to come along. Fine. He well knows that he runs faster than me, so he'd have to pace himself accordingly.
I decided that much as I like training with the heat, a run this long needed to be done in the evening. So I got a good parking spot for the Saturn Aid Station right by the run-in on the first floor, and hit the road about 5. Justin waited a while so that he'd catch me at the end (he runs a slightly longer loop as well). I used the iPod as I did a lap of the campus loop. Started out striding well, but the heat started getting to me by the hill on 2nd and I found myself chopping steps there. Justin caught up to me right around the stadium, and flew ahead to finish the loop in the Jefferson parking garage well ahead of me. My iPod, which had been skipping a lot during the loop, finally froze about ten minutes from the end of this loop. Annoying, but you can't use those thigns on the Ironman course, so good to do a run this long without it.
Justin had run a little faster than me, obviously. So when I got back to the garage he was definitely still in recovery mode. I started talking to him and he said "You shouldn't be talking right now. You obviously didn't run hard enough." Yeah, probably. But I had another 8-9 miles to go, so I prefer to think I was pacing myself. I had a gel and suggested we get going. he did not like this suggestion, but I guess this was my way of pushing him. He kept the pace a little faster than I wanted as we began the first of three trips down to the Stadium and back. I lagged a little behind for some of it, but it was good having someone to talk to.
I really enjoy doing the half-hour loops after the big campus loop, because I'm never more than 15 minutes from my next turnaround, and every half hour you get an aid station at the car with Powerade and gels, and a little chance to rest. I don't even look at it as pussing out either, becasue on the course you actually get one of those every mile, and they have more stuff. It also makes the run mentally a lot easier. Oh, and it's flat too. But so is the IM course.
By lap 2 to the stadium, my legs started to hurt. I mean, I guess at the 12-mile mark, that's to be expected. But I realized this is what pretty much the whole run is going to feel like in November. Best get used to the pain. Lap 2 was, again, a little faster than I would have run otherwise, and I kept stride well. I think we got called "fags" by some guys driving by in a car at one point. I just looked at them and said "Really?" Ok guys. I can't even take anyone like that seriosuly at this point, my guess is they probably would have fallen out halfway into the first loop.
Lap 3, Justin decided to run ahead at his own pace, and looped around and caught me at the stadium as I turned around. I still kept the pace we'd been running when I ran alone, and at the end Justin had been clocking it and said I'd kept 10-minute miles the whole time. Which, slow as that sounds, is about my goal for runs like this. Yeah, I'm fat. Leave me alone. And on the way back, a carload of girls stopped on 13th (right where that girl stopped me and asked for my number last year) were whistling and hollering at us as we ran by. I think they were cute. So I guess running with your shirt off invites different reactions from different people.
All in all, the longest run of my life went pretty well. Yeah, the iPod fucked up. Yeah, it hurt. And yeah, I wasn't setting any land speed marks. But I never felt like I wanted to die, I never thought about quitting, and if I'd been forced to I could have run more. And I think that is about what I should expect at this point. I kept to the gel-every-45 rule, even when I took one with 15 minutes to go. And I downed 64 oz. of Powerade as well as about half a bottle of water. Couldn't get enough fluid for a humid day like this, but the nutrition and hyration worked well today. We got back to the apartment and had some giant Muscle Milk shakes. Protein after a run that long, probably a good idea.
This was a solid way to end the first half of training for the Ironman. Yep, this workout marks he halfway point of the training cycle, and I don't think I could ask it to have gone better. But like I told Justin, I'm glad I have 3 months until race day. Because there's no way I coulda done 11 more miles. After a 112-mile ride. Really puts stuff in perspective, ya know?
Run - 2.5 Hours
2 Lipodrene
Today was the longest I've ever run. Ever. In my life. And not that I needed to go all codependant on this workout to get in the 15-or-so miles I'd be doing, but I had mentioned that I was doing this run the other day to Justin, and he is training for the Space Coast Marathon, and wanted to come along. Fine. He well knows that he runs faster than me, so he'd have to pace himself accordingly.
I decided that much as I like training with the heat, a run this long needed to be done in the evening. So I got a good parking spot for the Saturn Aid Station right by the run-in on the first floor, and hit the road about 5. Justin waited a while so that he'd catch me at the end (he runs a slightly longer loop as well). I used the iPod as I did a lap of the campus loop. Started out striding well, but the heat started getting to me by the hill on 2nd and I found myself chopping steps there. Justin caught up to me right around the stadium, and flew ahead to finish the loop in the Jefferson parking garage well ahead of me. My iPod, which had been skipping a lot during the loop, finally froze about ten minutes from the end of this loop. Annoying, but you can't use those thigns on the Ironman course, so good to do a run this long without it.
Justin had run a little faster than me, obviously. So when I got back to the garage he was definitely still in recovery mode. I started talking to him and he said "You shouldn't be talking right now. You obviously didn't run hard enough." Yeah, probably. But I had another 8-9 miles to go, so I prefer to think I was pacing myself. I had a gel and suggested we get going. he did not like this suggestion, but I guess this was my way of pushing him. He kept the pace a little faster than I wanted as we began the first of three trips down to the Stadium and back. I lagged a little behind for some of it, but it was good having someone to talk to.
I really enjoy doing the half-hour loops after the big campus loop, because I'm never more than 15 minutes from my next turnaround, and every half hour you get an aid station at the car with Powerade and gels, and a little chance to rest. I don't even look at it as pussing out either, becasue on the course you actually get one of those every mile, and they have more stuff. It also makes the run mentally a lot easier. Oh, and it's flat too. But so is the IM course.
By lap 2 to the stadium, my legs started to hurt. I mean, I guess at the 12-mile mark, that's to be expected. But I realized this is what pretty much the whole run is going to feel like in November. Best get used to the pain. Lap 2 was, again, a little faster than I would have run otherwise, and I kept stride well. I think we got called "fags" by some guys driving by in a car at one point. I just looked at them and said "Really?" Ok guys. I can't even take anyone like that seriosuly at this point, my guess is they probably would have fallen out halfway into the first loop.
Lap 3, Justin decided to run ahead at his own pace, and looped around and caught me at the stadium as I turned around. I still kept the pace we'd been running when I ran alone, and at the end Justin had been clocking it and said I'd kept 10-minute miles the whole time. Which, slow as that sounds, is about my goal for runs like this. Yeah, I'm fat. Leave me alone. And on the way back, a carload of girls stopped on 13th (right where that girl stopped me and asked for my number last year) were whistling and hollering at us as we ran by. I think they were cute. So I guess running with your shirt off invites different reactions from different people.
All in all, the longest run of my life went pretty well. Yeah, the iPod fucked up. Yeah, it hurt. And yeah, I wasn't setting any land speed marks. But I never felt like I wanted to die, I never thought about quitting, and if I'd been forced to I could have run more. And I think that is about what I should expect at this point. I kept to the gel-every-45 rule, even when I took one with 15 minutes to go. And I downed 64 oz. of Powerade as well as about half a bottle of water. Couldn't get enough fluid for a humid day like this, but the nutrition and hyration worked well today. We got back to the apartment and had some giant Muscle Milk shakes. Protein after a run that long, probably a good idea.
This was a solid way to end the first half of training for the Ironman. Yep, this workout marks he halfway point of the training cycle, and I don't think I could ask it to have gone better. But like I told Justin, I'm glad I have 3 months until race day. Because there's no way I coulda done 11 more miles. After a 112-mile ride. Really puts stuff in perspective, ya know?
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