recovery week

This really was a recovery week. I was too tired to workout on monday. Tuesday I had ever intention of working out, but ended up going to bed at 8:30p beat. Wednesday... hmmmmm just plain o' lazy. thursday, we had a workout at track.. fun times. it was a smaller group than usual. I think most were recovering from practice weekend. we did some strength training at this workout.. I am a little sore. Need to get back into the core strengthening and pushups. today is a rest day, tomorrow we swim and bike. looks like it's going to rain......

a weekend at Lake San Antonio

march 24-26th was a training weekend down at the course at Lake San Antonio. The weekend started off with us heading down there early friday for a morning ride. There were 3 of us riding the Long course ride(56 mile). This is a challenging ride and was a good reminder of what race day will be like. It's a beautiful ride, rolling hills and a nasty hill at mile 41... It's long and mostly painful. On this day the funny part was after the nasty hill there is about a 1 mile descent. As we approached this descent, a semi with a trailer behind comes up and is slowing going down the hill. We weren't able to fly down the hill but as we rode, the driver of the semi looked in his mirror and signalled us to pass him.... yeah right, that's not happening.....
Saturday was a swim and a bike day. It started raining at 5am, that set the one for the morning. The swim was cold, and this surprised a lot of people. As we transitioned to the bike, I couldnt feel my toes. I rode the Olympic ride and ended up riding at the tail end of the group. I really enjoyed talking to a couple of the participants on the team.
Sunday, was a run day... ouch, painful. I struggled through the run, actually go into a zone around mile 7. The run turned out ok. I know I have work to do. this is a recovery week, so the workouts will be scaled back.

swim practice - IronTeam style

this evening I decided to crash the Iron Team's coached swim workout. They are the Iron Team for a reason. I had a great workout. One of the coaches spent a lot of time working with me on my technique. There are so many things that I need to work on. Glide when you bring your right hand into the water, high elbow and dont drop your shoulder when going through your stroke, you left hand is going over the midline... those were some of his comments. In the middle of the workout, I was spent, but after getting over the hump, I was ok. It was a fun workout.

seems like forever.......

I mean that in a couple ways. This morning it seemed like forever since I had worked out. I missed the workout on monday and tuesday for various reason. It's also been forever since I last updated my journal... here we go. Over the weekend we had a wetsuit clinic, and a short ride. I didnt get to participate in either, because I was the SAG(support and gear) for the bike ride. Sunday, we run at the Stanford dish. Did about 6 miles, nice clear day, blue sky, great views from the top of the hill.
This morning I decided to spin, since I missed yesterday's ride. 65mins on the trainer, then on to work. felt great :) big weekend coming up, we are heading down to lake san antonio for practice weekend.

shamrock shuffle

Happy St. Patrick's day to all. Yesterday at work we had a 5k run as part of the St. Patrick's day festivities. No, we didnt have to run drunk, or with green beer... just a quick 3 miles. There were about 77 participants, lots of fun. finished the run with a time of 22:50. today was a rest day, I love rest days.

spinning on a swim night

Run 5 miles with Donna yesterday morning. last night was a swim night, but because of a little mix up I ended up spinning on Michel's bike trainer. I am glad we have a trainer now and will be able to do some workouts at home or with others at spin workouts. We have track practice tonight, but I will not be going. Going to run at lunch today..... :)

9 mile run... you crazy

This morning, the long course pro were supposed to do a 9 mile run... nah, not happening. I contemplated not going to the run, but it didnt seem like there was enough support staff. I run at Los Gatos high School. The turn out was low, blame that on the weather. Run the first half with Berend and Nicolas. I spent the 2nd part of the run with Amanda. We talked about practice weekend and what to look forward to for both practice and race weekends. I am glad I run with her, I havent spent much time getting to know her. nice easy 4 miles.

50 mile ride

On saturday I started off with the long course group with the intentions of doing a 40 mile ride. Started off a few minutes late, with every intention of catching up to the main pack. We(Carlos and I) started off the ride at a casual pace. Warm up then work towards the main pack. We warmed up, and at around mile 14-15, we caught up to Jen. We rode most of the ride with her, talking her up hills. Berend was kind enough to stop at most corners and make sure that we made it through. We stopped around mile 20 to wait for Rialena, she made a wrong turn early in the ride and ended up behind the main pack. Since we were running late we had to head back in to the school cutting the ride short by 10 miles. Rialena was bummed that she wasnt able to the full ride for a second week in a row.
The second ride, I was sweeping the elite riders who were doing a 20-23 mile ride. This was a fun ride. Part of the ride I was riding with Jamie, then with Barbara, and ended up with Phylis. I had a good time riding with the girls, but I was beat at the end... food please....................

and it rained on the pyramids

Track last night was cold and rainy. Started off slow with a 2 lap warm-up followed by quick announcements and on to the workout. The workout was a pyramid - here is the breakdown

for the ascent, we were running at L2
200m
400m
800m
1600m

for the descent, we upped the pace to a L3
800m
400m
200m

cool down.

Took a little while for legs to warmup even after the warmup lap. I couldnt wait to get done with the 1600m run. Run most of the workout with Berend. He keeps a good pace throughout the workout. Bev & some Iron Teamers crashed our work out. Only Bev braved the cold to workout - better yet with the pro group.

After the workout, most of us went to a fundraiser at Baja Fresh. I love food fundraisers, especially after a workout.

kick from the hips

Last night, I met up with Beverly at the campbell pool for a swim workout. The workout turned out to be fun and eye opening at the same time. Michele wasnt feeling well, so she didnt make the swim. We started off with a 400 yard warmup which amazed Bev, being that the Iron Team only does 100 yard warm ups but 400 yard drills(ouch). Sometime during the warmup I lost count and so did Bev, so we kept swimming and swimming. I had to stop and let Bev know, and found out that some times she loses count of how many laps she has done :) we had to do 4x50 kick drills - kick drills always get the better of me, but today I saw some progress. the idea is to keep your leg straight and kick from your hip...... well, I think I finally have it down, but boy were my leg tired after the workout and some muscle around my hip, that I had no idea exsisted....... I was baxhausted(extremely exhausted) after the work out. today, stretch as much as possible and look forward to track..... I love track

5 slow miles

Did a slow 5 mile run with Donna this morning. We took it easy, just a little low on the energy this morning. Donna asked if we were going to do intervals, hmmmmmmm, not today. Interesting conversation during the run. One of our co-workers runs the same route we run regularly and yesterday he run 20 miles(4 loops), just to see how his legs felt. We laughed about the fact that there was a time we(Donna, G and I) used to do 1.5 loops and we were pretty done after the run. :) ahh good times.
Tonight's a swim work out 2400 yards(a little over 1.2 miles). I'd like to see how I feel after that work out. Race day is 58 days out, not like I am counting(someone else posted this somewhere)..........

nutrition is key - 4 cal/min

this morning before leaving the house I asked Michele what the nutrition guys said about eating a full clif bar. "Dont stuff the whole thing in your mouth, eat it slow" How slow??? Needless to say, it took me 15 mins to get to the gym, at the rate I was stuffing my mouth, that equated to 1/2 a cliff bar. The workout today was a 70min ride with five 6 min higher intensity intervals. I felt great on the warm up, and the first 2 intervals. at the 30 mins mark, my legs cried no more. I stopped, worked on my abs(Donna said I was just going to sit on my butt).
I dont think the feeling I had in my legs had anything to do with my nutrition morning. It was more of the after effects of this weekends workout. Running the 1 mile hill at rancho on sunday, though I felt great, took it's toll on my quads.

babysitting last night was fun. Justin was incredibly behaved. Michele was giving him a part 2 lesson on Sudoko.

4 calories/min is the rate at which your muscles absord nutrition - interesting, huh

single gear riding

Saturday's workout was a 30 mile ride, followed by what I thought was a very long swim. The ride started off well, with a group of about 12-15 people. At about mile 12 I decided to hang back and ride with Michele, as she was not having a good ride. She was ready to turn back and head in, but I urged to keep riding. I am proud of her for riding out the rull route, she did great though she was feeling well. Good job Baybuh :) During the ride I worked on riding in the same gear(no shifting) up the whole ride. trying to simulate having a single gear bike. I could feel it in my legs after the workout, but it built strength for the climbing and leg speed on the down hill.

Sunday, we had a captains run at rancho. The attendance was high, and everybody enjoyed the run. Donna crashed the run, so her, myself, Berend, Sabine and Nicolas did the upper wildcat loop - total 7 miles. I felt great through the whole run, but was super tired when we were all done. Breakfast at the Original Pancake House is always a great after a weekend of working out.

Tonight... babysitting and hopefully a swim

out too fast and hanging by a tread

Last nights track work out was mile intervals with a 400m recovery. There were 4 total intervals for the workout. The goal of the work out was to work on being consistent from mile to mile and negative split(a negative split is when the second half of the mile is faster than the first) within the mile. the first mile went well, faster than I thought and this may have been a result of not warming up. The second mile went well, about 5 sec faster than the first but I remember thinking - can I keep up this pace for another 2 miles. Mile 3, the first 400m ouch, this is hurting, 2nd 400m, I feel like I am fading, 3rd 400m - when is this going to end, but then I hear heavy breathing behind me. Someone is behind me keeping pace, I have to keep the pace. The last 400m of mile three, the 2 guys behind me take over and I struggle to keep up with the faster pace. Still finished the mile faster than the previous two. For the last mile I almost felt like I was running a marathon and at mile 20(this is usually referred to as the wall - the body shuts down and just your mind is left to carry you for the last six miles). I just kept thinking, if I can make one more step I am doing good..... just one step after another....... hang on you can make........ I made it..

mile splits
1 - 7:06
2 - 7:01
3 - 6:56
4 - 6:43

ps. added a little more details at the request of Shveta :)

trying not to drown

Last nights swim work out... it was a struggle to finish, but I made it all the way. I was beat at the end of the workout, but it was good. The goal is to get comfortable with the longer swims and not work as hard.... I am getting there, slowly but surely....

tonight is track. I am guessing we are doing some sort of ladder workout.... looking forward to it :)