I'm back

I don't know why, but for the past 3+ months I've forsaken my beautiful blog.  Probably because nobody reads it.  I got frustrated when nobody read my ramblings, but I'm over it now.

If you're reading this, and you're not me, you may wonder what I've been up to.  I've been running and biking of course.  Much less outdoor biking than I had intended, but cold does that to you.  Up until about 3 weeks ago, my training was painfully inconsistent.  I wish I could pin down a good reason, but it was probably just laziness.  Once you take a day off, it's easy to keep doing it.  Especially when you're first getting in shape, minor muscle injuries pop up often, and I let them get to me.  Fortunately, I've been able to whip myself back into shape, and I've been consistent for over 2 weeks now.  Below is my weekly mileage since I started training in August.  The mileage below is the sum of my biking mileage and 4 times my running mileage; I find it gives a decent overall picture.  As you can see, it's not exactly an ideal training routine.  Time will tell, I'm mostly out of chances to take a significant break and still be in shape for the NJ devilman triathlon on May 3.

I've also recently begun trolling the Runner's World triathlon forum.  They're fun to talk to, and the monthly training contests they have are quite helpful - it's that much more motivation when you have a 'team' that needs your mileage to compete.

Falling back into my dailyish update:
I started off this week with a long run of 11.2 miles.  It was slow (10 min/mile), but it's good that I'm getting that distance in.  If I can continue with my base growth until May, I'll have a month to focus on getting my speed down before Providence HIM.  That Clearwater qualifying goal is looking harder than it did initially, but I'm going to cling to it as best as I can.  Tomorrow is a bike hard day - I may do a max HR test, depending on how I'm feeling.  I'm long overdue for one, and I haven't the slightest idea where my max lies.  Thursday, I plan on going for a tempo run.  I'll probably return to the local, hilly 5k course I measured and see if I can beat my times from the previous two weeks.  My first race is in less than two months (trail 5M), and I'd love to be fast for it.

Snow

Happy Tuesday.  I think I'm back at school.  I'm living at home, going to work, but this weather isn't New Jersey.  It snowed for about 4 hours today, and it was relatively hard.  I've never heard of snow this early in NJ. It's already washed away by rain, so oh well.

I woke up this morning, planning on having my long run.  After seeing the cold rainy weather, I opted to make it my other hard running day - the tempo.  Since my tempos are still pretty short, I braved the dreadmill, and it worked out pretty well.  It felt like my LT is somewhere around 165-170 for running, I'll do a stress test in a few weeks, but for now, good enough.  Next week is a rest week, so it doesn't really matter short term anyway.

Rewinding a bit, this weekend was training only - I opted to not do the Trick or Trot.  After my experience with the Deal 5k, I'm going to hold off racing for a bit.  I get too carried away for my legs.  Saturday's weather - nice in the morning, rainy in the afternoon.  Obvious choice was a morning ride.  Unfortunately, my elbow pads broke (again), so it got cut short to 12 miles.  Went to the bike shop, they said I'm the first person to break a second set, they gave me a free replacement, and a free extra for each side, just in case.  I love my LBS.  Afternoon ride on the trainer - shoot me now.  It's amazing how much I apparently don't try when I'm riding outside, because it's not nearly that hard.

I've decided that I'm in good enough shape to survive making Saturday and Sunday doubles, with Saturday as my long ride.  Not trying for Sunday long run yet though.  That meant that Sunday was a double - 21 mile bike to start.  19.3 miles per hour - my fastest average yet, by .5 mph, and I was sore :-).  Nice to see I'm improving.  After that, a 5.1 mile run, nothing spectacular, around 8 min/mi pace.

Monday I tried warming up on the trainer before unhooking to ride outside in the cold early morning darkness.  It was a brilliant idea, I felt far better than normal.  I think I'll continue doing that on cold days.  An easy 21 miles, minimal wind, 18.3 mph.

Week ahead: long run, light bike, long bike/easy run Saturday.  Weather sucks for tomorrow, so I'll probably make that my rest day and Thursday my long run - that also conveniently minimizes injury potential.

Next planned race: Manasquan Turkey Trot, 11/22.  5 miles, goal: 32.5 minutes.  A tad ambitious, but I'll be happy if I get it.

Cold

First of all, thank you Google Chrome for crashing after I wrote a beautiful blog post.  As is always the case when this happens, the second one will be shorter and far less interesting.  Such is life.

The past week has brought on the first of what I will call "Winter Biking".  It's strange - while at school, zero degree weather was common, and I never thought twice about it.  Now that I'm riding at 5am, 40 degrees bothers me.  The first part of the ride especially is miserable - I need to work out a way to deal with that.  Layering was my first idea, but carrying the extra clothing is a pain.  I may set up my trainer in my garage, warm up on it, then pop my bike out and go outside once the blood is flowing.  Once I'm warm, I can handle being outside without a problem.

I got new neoprene booties to put over my shoes - they make a huge difference.  My gloves, however, are not cutting it at all.  I went to my LBS to get some, but they had nothing warm in my size.  I'm thinking lobster mitts, they seem warmest.  I'll try my luck at EMS - they generally have a decent selection, and for gloves, I'd much rather try them on than buy online and hope.

Also, I discovered Cliff Shot Bloks.  Soft gummy bears - except they're blocks, and they're apparently good to eat for energy.  Heavenly.  They're just too messy to not keep in the package, a small drawback.  Next I need to try those jelly bean sport beans.  Less messy, and everyone loves jelly beans.

I really need to get over this cold weather phobia thing.  I'm running too much and biking not enough.  Unacceptable.  I must excel at Providence!

5K Run Thru Deal

Saturday, I decided to just go for my long ride, despite the race the next day.  I cut it down to 27 miles, but it was windy.  By windy, I mean 28mph southbound, 15mph northbound.  Perhaps it was a little more work for my legs than I would have liked, as I saw the next afternoon...

Sunday was the Run Thru Deal race.  It's a relatively old race which I first did in 6th grade.  It used to be a 5 mile race, this year they changed it to a 5k to encourage more people to do it.  For my current training schedule, it worked out well, as I can't race a 5 miler well yet.  Weather was perfect, maybe a tad hot, but I'm a sucker for a beautiful day.  The only problem I had with the whole thing was the course length - 3.24 miles.  That extra .13 is noticible when you watch your time.

That's the start of the race - not too large.  In the center just to the right (viewer's left) of the center line is me, with the grey and red shirt, and next to me without a shirt is my friend Paul, who I planned on running with.  We went out well, hitting the mile mark at 6 minutes (below), which put me in 5th place, with the top 4 about half a block ahead.  It felt really easy for me, and I wanted to break away for that pack, but I knew I'd regret it.  I told myself to wait till the 1.5 mile mark, then see how I felt.  I think Paul noticed that, at the water stop at 1.5 miles, he told me to go for it, and I did.  I picked up the pace, and still felt golden.  Then all of a sudden, I felt like crap.  Paul passed me back by mile 2 (6th place), and was a full minute ahead of me by the finish.  Three other people also passed me, none of whom were near us at mile 2.  Final time: 20:50 (about 19:55 converted to real 5K distance).

This is us at the mile mark.  I was quite disappointed with how badly I died, but know that I shouldn't be.  I've only really done one hard/fast run workout, and it was less than 3 miles, part of a brick.  I have a long way to go before I'm fast again, and it's not something I'm looking to rush.  My next big race is Providence in July, and it's base building season.  I think the cause of my frustration was how well I did at the start.  For the first mile and a half, I began to believe that I was in shape and fast.  Next time I'll know to be smarter about it.  I should've worn my HR monitor, would've been interesting to watch.

Despite my disappointment and 9th place finish, I ended up winning the 18-29 age group, which was a nice surprise.  I got a red sweatshirt, with a small embroidered "Deal 5k" in blue.  I don't wear hoodless sweatshirts often, but I suppose it's nice.  I also particularly liked the hot dogs after the race, of which I had three.  The beer usually would be welcome, but I really wasn't up for it.

This morning was an easy bike ride, 18.5 miles.  When I got up, I realized how much the race had actually taken out of me.  My legs are quite sore.  I still managed to keep my ride average speed over 18mph (barely), so no complaints.

I found an old bike light in my car - a 2 C-battery halogen cateye.  I mounted it onto my bike - it was surprisingly bright, though a little too focused for my taste.  It's still an improvement, so unless its battery life turns out to be atrocious, it'll probably be a permanent fixture for my night riding setup.  

Week Ahead:  Brick tomorrow, with intervals on the bike leg, and an easy run.  Off Wednesday, probably a trip to the gym, as I didn't lift this weekend.  Thursday, long run.  Friday, easy brick.  Saturday, early long ride, then likely a trip up to Connecticut to watch my school's water polo team in the championship tournament (I played goalie for them).

Next race:  Trick or Trot, Sunday, October 26th.  4 miles.

Tempo feels like death

Since I didn't do much on my rest day yesterday, I really wasn't that tired last night.  No surprise, but I still went to bed early, around 9:30.  Woke up at 12:30, and wasn't tire at all.  Bummer, I had nothing to do, had to be quiet, and just wanted to sleep.  Killed about an hour and a half on my compuer, then got three more hours in before morning workout.  

This morning was a brick - 17.3 light bike, then 2.9 tempo run.  The 17.3 felt great.  For the first time all week, it was warm - I wore my tank top instead of my windbreaker.  I averaged about 18.7 mph with minimal wind.  That's 5 miles longer and 1 mph faster than my 'tempo' earlier this week.  Temperature probably has something to do with it.  The whole time, I couldn't help but think about some of the stats I had looked up the previous night.  The winner of Kona (tomorrow by the way) will average around 25 miles per hour on the bike.  Considering that the primary force fighting your progress is wind resistance, which increases with the square of your speed, that means that, for 112 miles, they'll be putting out 75% more force than I did for 17 miles.  It's probably less when you account for a lighter bike, faster wheels, and a more agressively aerodynamic position overall, but I definitely have a way to go.

I've recently increased the quantity of ab work I've been doing in an effort to strengthen my lower back, making long rides in the aero position more comfortable.  The downside to this is some obvious short term core soreness.  Coming off the bike into the run, my lower back was very tight and sore.  On top of that, it was my first real fast run.  I wanted to die.  I wanted to cry, stop, fall over, etc.  I'll develop a base over speed any day.  But it ended up being a great workout, despite its deliberate shortness.  A few more weeks and I'll be in heaven for these hard runs.  For now, I'm just praying I run well on Sunday (5k run thru Deal).

Tonight is a sad night for me.  A friend of mine with whom I swam in high school just passed away.  He was visiting his friends at college, and it seems he asphyxiated on his vomit, although none of the articles in the paper say so.  Tonight I'm going to his wake.  I've had people close to me die before, but never someone my age that I was friends with.  The only bright side to the story (if there is one) is I'll likely get to see a lot of my fellow swimmers that I was friends with in high school, and havn't seen since.  Sad that it takes tragedy to bring people together.

When I wrote the title of this post, it hadn't yet crossed my mind to mention this friend.   Weird...