Monday, March 31, 2008
Monday gym
Good solid workout with M. I told him we had to lay off on the leg stuff today to allow yesterday's training to sink in properly! Upper-body stuff rather strenuous on the muscles, but very enjoyable...
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Sunday trainer ride
Hmmm, I fear I am going to be terribly underprepared for this race...
I am glad to have the cycle computer working, it is particularly helpful for tracking cadence, pedaling form/efficiency and thinking about benefits and costs of pedaling in different gears. But it is going to be a very long, slow ride, I'm afraid!
So I went this afternoon and bought the first season of Buffy on DVD (amazingly I never have seen a single episode of this show, I am TV-deprived!) and just watched the first four episodes. Three hours on the trainer, at a steady and comfortable pace.
(Have not mastered workings of computer, so cannot tell you average speed for entire ride, but it was I suppose for the most part in the 14s and 15s--easier to keep in 15s if I really concentrated on pedal stroke--and then sometimes in the 13s or briefly the 16s-17s, but the latter only with more effort than I could sustain for a long ride like that at this point.)
HR avg 125--I had thought I would be able to get it steadily higher than this, and I had about ten minutes at the end where I held it in the low 140s and thought about what it felt like (I think on some of those Spinervals workouts I've seen it spike up into the low 160s, but in general it's really noticeably quite a bit lower than run HRs). But really I need more cycling fitness before I can cycle at a higher heartrate, if that makes sense. It would make my legs more tired than is appropriate!
Some pondering (and some pestering!) will be in order re: training tactics. Race is seven weeks from today, call it five weeks of serious training (but with appropriate rest/recovery time), one week of serious taper and one week of further taper/travel. I will have to think about how to get the best bang for the buck out of my remaining training time without overdoing it.
I need to build cycling endurance, strength/speed and road comfort. As many as possible of the long rides should be done in Central Park, but a medium-length park ride and a long trainer ride is often going to be a more convenient or manageable weekly combination than necessarily having the long one properly in the park.
In the repertoire: Spinervals workouts (interval training, high-intensity, builds strength); timid tooling-around rides in Riverside Park (builds confidence in non-scary way, good place to practice various technical stuff, also it's right next door); rides in Central Park (most like real riding--got to get a grip on myself and get comfortable riding bike over there rather than walking it, middle ground would be to ride over in sneakers and then change into bike shoes once I'm there, that I actually think I could handle... it is specter of tipping over at stop light while clipped in that is mentally holding me back!).
It's good that I'm doing this race. The New York City Tri in July is going to be very daunting--I have heard somewhat intimidating accounts of the bike component (sharp turns, fast riding, accident-prone) and that whole race wouldn't have been a good one to do as my first. (People in NY are often very unfriendly, too!) This one is going to be much less daunting in terms of scariness, though it is going to require a large amount of persistence and common sense to make it to the end in a happy frame of mind!
(I am just checking the race website to look at cutoff times and see if there is any danger that I will not have enough time! But no, surely it will be all right, even if I am one of the slowest riders there. Swim cut-off is 1 hr 20 mins after start of last wave, and bike cut-off four hours after that, so really even if the ride takes me an entire four hours which I rather think it will, I should be OK, and my running will be proportionately considerably faster than my riding so I should not have a problem with cut-offs on the last part.)
It will be interesting to see how it goes...
Addendum. Some consultation of last year's race results, sorted by total bike time, suggests to me that it is actually highly improbable that I will not be able to achieve even in a worst-case scenario a 3:30 bike time/16.0mph-type pace. The people riding at that speed are all running very, very slowly--maybe, really, I will be able to ride considerably better in a race situation and by six or seven weeks from now? This was definitely a zone 1/bottom zone 2 ride, if I can push up fitness so that I can stay more solidly in a zone 2 kind of feeling then I will be OK...
I am glad to have the cycle computer working, it is particularly helpful for tracking cadence, pedaling form/efficiency and thinking about benefits and costs of pedaling in different gears. But it is going to be a very long, slow ride, I'm afraid!
So I went this afternoon and bought the first season of Buffy on DVD (amazingly I never have seen a single episode of this show, I am TV-deprived!) and just watched the first four episodes. Three hours on the trainer, at a steady and comfortable pace.
(Have not mastered workings of computer, so cannot tell you average speed for entire ride, but it was I suppose for the most part in the 14s and 15s--easier to keep in 15s if I really concentrated on pedal stroke--and then sometimes in the 13s or briefly the 16s-17s, but the latter only with more effort than I could sustain for a long ride like that at this point.)
HR avg 125--I had thought I would be able to get it steadily higher than this, and I had about ten minutes at the end where I held it in the low 140s and thought about what it felt like (I think on some of those Spinervals workouts I've seen it spike up into the low 160s, but in general it's really noticeably quite a bit lower than run HRs). But really I need more cycling fitness before I can cycle at a higher heartrate, if that makes sense. It would make my legs more tired than is appropriate!
Some pondering (and some pestering!) will be in order re: training tactics. Race is seven weeks from today, call it five weeks of serious training (but with appropriate rest/recovery time), one week of serious taper and one week of further taper/travel. I will have to think about how to get the best bang for the buck out of my remaining training time without overdoing it.
I need to build cycling endurance, strength/speed and road comfort. As many as possible of the long rides should be done in Central Park, but a medium-length park ride and a long trainer ride is often going to be a more convenient or manageable weekly combination than necessarily having the long one properly in the park.
In the repertoire: Spinervals workouts (interval training, high-intensity, builds strength); timid tooling-around rides in Riverside Park (builds confidence in non-scary way, good place to practice various technical stuff, also it's right next door); rides in Central Park (most like real riding--got to get a grip on myself and get comfortable riding bike over there rather than walking it, middle ground would be to ride over in sneakers and then change into bike shoes once I'm there, that I actually think I could handle... it is specter of tipping over at stop light while clipped in that is mentally holding me back!).
It's good that I'm doing this race. The New York City Tri in July is going to be very daunting--I have heard somewhat intimidating accounts of the bike component (sharp turns, fast riding, accident-prone) and that whole race wouldn't have been a good one to do as my first. (People in NY are often very unfriendly, too!) This one is going to be much less daunting in terms of scariness, though it is going to require a large amount of persistence and common sense to make it to the end in a happy frame of mind!
(I am just checking the race website to look at cutoff times and see if there is any danger that I will not have enough time! But no, surely it will be all right, even if I am one of the slowest riders there. Swim cut-off is 1 hr 20 mins after start of last wave, and bike cut-off four hours after that, so really even if the ride takes me an entire four hours which I rather think it will, I should be OK, and my running will be proportionately considerably faster than my riding so I should not have a problem with cut-offs on the last part.)
It will be interesting to see how it goes...
Addendum. Some consultation of last year's race results, sorted by total bike time, suggests to me that it is actually highly improbable that I will not be able to achieve even in a worst-case scenario a 3:30 bike time/16.0mph-type pace. The people riding at that speed are all running very, very slowly--maybe, really, I will be able to ride considerably better in a race situation and by six or seven weeks from now? This was definitely a zone 1/bottom zone 2 ride, if I can push up fitness so that I can stay more solidly in a zone 2 kind of feeling then I will be OK...
Great Sunday-morning run
And may I just say that I was very, very glad not to be doing the Scotland 10K? There were bagpipes, there were runners with Scottish flags painted on their cheeks, I felt approval (I am half Scottish!) but also great relief that I was not going to run a very hard race (a hilly 10K like that is pretty brutal) in horrible crowds of people that would give me fits of misanthropy!
Ran over to meet S. at Runners Grove, then we did almost the whole loop (stopped a little early to avoid crowds at start--they were just about to go off as we were finishing up). I did the whole run rather harder than I imagined--I was five minutes late leaving the house, left only 30 instead of 35 minutes to get over, so I was feeling a little more time pressure than is really enjoyable. And then S. is naturally a considerably faster runner than I am, as I often have cause to observe! Really our paces would match better if I combined my tempo run with some piece of his long run, only I am doing longer training than he is, so I really was working hard!
(This is good. I want to pick up a bit of speed again for the Brooklyn half and for summer running, and it just won't happen if I keep doing most of my runs by myself at comfortable paces. I'm doing relatively low mileage, and that will continue because of triathlon obligations, so I really need to bump up the speeds on a couple runs each week if I am going to make my goals.)
First leg (116th St. to Tavern on the Green): 3.06 miles, avg pace 10:10, avg HR 156, max HR 169
Main circuit: 5.75 miles, avg pace 8:57, avg HR 162 (that is pretty close to half-marathon race pace), max HR 176
Call it 9 miles--that's very decent, I think. It is pretty freezing here, I am actually going to do my long bike ride later on inside, and just make sure that I get outside on the bike even if only for half an hour of easy tooling around every day this week...
Ran over to meet S. at Runners Grove, then we did almost the whole loop (stopped a little early to avoid crowds at start--they were just about to go off as we were finishing up). I did the whole run rather harder than I imagined--I was five minutes late leaving the house, left only 30 instead of 35 minutes to get over, so I was feeling a little more time pressure than is really enjoyable. And then S. is naturally a considerably faster runner than I am, as I often have cause to observe! Really our paces would match better if I combined my tempo run with some piece of his long run, only I am doing longer training than he is, so I really was working hard!
(This is good. I want to pick up a bit of speed again for the Brooklyn half and for summer running, and it just won't happen if I keep doing most of my runs by myself at comfortable paces. I'm doing relatively low mileage, and that will continue because of triathlon obligations, so I really need to bump up the speeds on a couple runs each week if I am going to make my goals.)
First leg (116th St. to Tavern on the Green): 3.06 miles, avg pace 10:10, avg HR 156, max HR 169
Main circuit: 5.75 miles, avg pace 8:57, avg HR 162 (that is pretty close to half-marathon race pace), max HR 176
Call it 9 miles--that's very decent, I think. It is pretty freezing here, I am actually going to do my long bike ride later on inside, and just make sure that I get outside on the bike even if only for half an hour of easy tooling around every day this week...
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Saturday swim
It hasn't been a good week so far for training--everything I've done I've enjoyed, that is, but with a heavy work schedule and the bike out of my hands I've done way fewer hours than I hoped. I just picked up the bike from the shop, and I hope tomorrow will include two good long sessions (run in the morning with S., later-afternoon bike)--I think I should make the bike the total priority over the next five days, and I also think I should count my recovery week from next Friday to the Friday after, to respond to various schedule issues...
A very solid swim this afternoon. I knew I could only stay till 5, so I got there some minutes earlier and practiced somersaulting before we got started with masters swim. I did flip turns on absolutely all the freestyle bits, and though they continue to be slightly horrible (actually quite horrible!) I am making minor improvements. The tuck is happening, a bit, though I'm still mostly coming off much too deep. I am never going to learn them properly if I don't do them...
Warmup:
400 choice (I did 200 free, 100 back, 100 fly down-breast back)
4 x 100 as 25 kick 50 drill 25 swim (I did each stroke in IM order--NB this is a good warmup, I noticed the benefit on the stroke lengths later on)
Main set:
In theory the long freestyle segments were to be done descending, but because I was doing turns, I just did them all at the same fairly comfortable pace.
250 free
2 x 100 IM on 2:15
250 free
4 x 50 1 each stroke on 1:15
250 free
2 x 100 IM on 2:15 (in theory on 2:10, but that is as fast as I can do!)
250 free
4 x 50 each stroke on 1:15 (ditto re: 1:10!)
Then I left to go to the CU triathlon club clinic on transitions. Partly it is moot because I have been obsessively reading triathlon-related stuff for the last year and know a lot of it (in theory at least!) already, partly it is moot because the advice is geared towards the very fast young fellows getting ready for the (Olympic-distance) Collegiate Nationals in Tuscaloosa in April and not towards longer-course racing (i.e. no socks on run--that is never going to be me, neither do I imagine that I will ever have my shoes clipped onto the pedals and be scrambling to get feet strapped in once I am actually riding!), but it still seemed to me very worthwhile--interesting to reflect on this stuff.
Total yards: 2600 (hmmm, that's respectable I think...)
Really I should be able to find this out myself, but perhaps it will be as well to ask those better-informed than I--how does the 1.2-mile swim distance for the 70.3 translate into yards and meters?!? I assume it is regular rather than swimmers' mile, a slightly confusing distinction, which would make it 2112 yards (84.5 lengths in the Columbia pool) or 1931 meters (39 lengths in the 50-meter pool at Riverbank)? Somebody put me right, please, if this is wrong! I must have at least once where I go and do the distance as a straight swim, might be less insanity-inducing to go up to Riverbank for that...
(Swim pacing will be on effort rather than time, but I am guessing it will come out around 2:05-2:10/100 yards based on rough impressions of pool swimming paces, so call it c. 45 minutes? Shouldn't be much more or less.)
A very solid swim this afternoon. I knew I could only stay till 5, so I got there some minutes earlier and practiced somersaulting before we got started with masters swim. I did flip turns on absolutely all the freestyle bits, and though they continue to be slightly horrible (actually quite horrible!) I am making minor improvements. The tuck is happening, a bit, though I'm still mostly coming off much too deep. I am never going to learn them properly if I don't do them...
Warmup:
400 choice (I did 200 free, 100 back, 100 fly down-breast back)
4 x 100 as 25 kick 50 drill 25 swim (I did each stroke in IM order--NB this is a good warmup, I noticed the benefit on the stroke lengths later on)
Main set:
In theory the long freestyle segments were to be done descending, but because I was doing turns, I just did them all at the same fairly comfortable pace.
250 free
2 x 100 IM on 2:15
250 free
4 x 50 1 each stroke on 1:15
250 free
2 x 100 IM on 2:15 (in theory on 2:10, but that is as fast as I can do!)
250 free
4 x 50 each stroke on 1:15 (ditto re: 1:10!)
Then I left to go to the CU triathlon club clinic on transitions. Partly it is moot because I have been obsessively reading triathlon-related stuff for the last year and know a lot of it (in theory at least!) already, partly it is moot because the advice is geared towards the very fast young fellows getting ready for the (Olympic-distance) Collegiate Nationals in Tuscaloosa in April and not towards longer-course racing (i.e. no socks on run--that is never going to be me, neither do I imagine that I will ever have my shoes clipped onto the pedals and be scrambling to get feet strapped in once I am actually riding!), but it still seemed to me very worthwhile--interesting to reflect on this stuff.
Total yards: 2600 (hmmm, that's respectable I think...)
Really I should be able to find this out myself, but perhaps it will be as well to ask those better-informed than I--how does the 1.2-mile swim distance for the 70.3 translate into yards and meters?!? I assume it is regular rather than swimmers' mile, a slightly confusing distinction, which would make it 2112 yards (84.5 lengths in the Columbia pool) or 1931 meters (39 lengths in the 50-meter pool at Riverbank)? Somebody put me right, please, if this is wrong! I must have at least once where I go and do the distance as a straight swim, might be less insanity-inducing to go up to Riverbank for that...
(Swim pacing will be on effort rather than time, but I am guessing it will come out around 2:05-2:10/100 yards based on rough impressions of pool swimming paces, so call it c. 45 minutes? Shouldn't be much more or less.)
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Thursday swim
A mentally tough week, due to some combination of work stress (this time of year is very busy in the academic world, lots of evening obligations!), general tiredness and lack of time for training.
(I still haven't picked up my bike from the store post tune-up! It was briefly a relief to have it out of the house, then a stressor!)
But I had a super-enjoyable swim this evening. Not a serious workout in any sense, but I felt like I was thinking fairly sensibly and making good choices.
(It is so hard, though, to know whether an easy workout comes via common sense or via rationalization!)
So... swimming thoughts.
1. I love swimming! I haven't swum since Saturday, since I had a Tuesday work conflict with masters swim and I am very busy right now with one thing and another and lane swim hours are highly restricted and horribly crowded and generally kind of impossible. But I really feel I can hardly afford to have four no-swim days in a row, it is so beneficial for my mental health. I must revisit the notion of a quick half-hour swim in the last half-hour the pool is open during the evening (i.e. sort of 8:55-9:30pm) on a day I can't otherwise swim. Masters swim is very frustratingly scheduled Tues-Thurs-Fri-Sat so that missing Tuesday really seems awful! Very bunched-up in the week...
2. It is not rationalization to say that at this juncture I can either work on freestyle technique or on flip turns but not both at the same time. My stroke feels radically different after last week's technique work, it is exciting to me! It is Rod Havriluk by other means--the coach who was filling in last week had a totally different vocabulary and set of priorities, but in retrospect it gives me a new and more vivid understanding of the Havriluk MONA cues from the January clinic and what I learned there.
3. So: what? Well, all fairly idiotish obvious things I should have known already, only the thing about swimming is that there are so many different things to think about that it is easy to forget the obvious! If I boil it down...
Serious streamline off the wall. Good-quality kick using actual muscles and getting some real speed. Really streamline arms (with hands locked together) and tighten core muscles and keep legs together--it will sound absurd, but I think I really just forgot about all this for some months, I am sure my legs were just hanging around any old way! Amazing how much faster and stronger this feels.
Serious body rotation, also with a view to streamlining and maximizing pull. Cue: think of ear going to bicep on each side and on every stroke. Concentrate especially on the non-breathing side (and it is striking to me both how much more--well, symmetrical would be an exaggeration--but near-symmetrical this makes my stroke, and also how much more easily I can contemplate bilateral breathing when I'm doing the stroke in this way). Really turn onto the side and get a good strong pull--I am feeling the catch much better on both sides, but especially and strikingly on the left-hand non-breathing side...
(I must say I thought it was feeling very good, considerably more powerful and with less effort.)
I did the warmup: 200 choice (I did 100 free and 100 IM), 150 free drill (50 right arm, 50 left arm--serious drown-thinking during that stretch!--50 catchup), 200 build free, 150 free drill (in theory as above, but I cheated and did 100 thumbsies-salute instead of evil right-arm left-arm thing), 200 build free.
I did the first mini-set: 6 x 75 as 25 kick/50 build, 25 with first half fast, with 10 seconds rest after the 75 and 5 seconds after the 25.
And then I withdrew myself from the workout and spent the last fifteen minutes practicing somersaulting with floaty devices of one kind or another and really thinking about turns. I am a slow learner on this stuff, I get places pretty well and in a pretty timely manner when it comes down to it but only by extreme dedication and diligence rather than quickness of apprehension. I decided to resign myself to it, there is no point wishing oneself otherwise...
I couldn't really figure out how to use the kickboards for floatishness, but a pair of pull buoys worked pretty well. I turned over and over, and started to get a better feel for it--at any rate this was the first time when I really could say that I felt my feet fly up into the air in that obnoxiously and ostentatiously kickish way the natural-born flip-turner achieves! And then I did some slow lengths with turns, and it is starting to come together. Coach Amy was watching & helpfully observed at the end that it seemed like I didn't really have much of a tuck, so that I went over OK and then slowed almost to a standstill once upside-down. This will be the next bit to weave in, but it is fine if it only comes slowly, I will get there in a little while...
(Can't swim tomorrow. I am thinking on Saturday that I'll go fifteen minutes early and do my somersaulting during the last bit of open lane swim, then just do an hour workout rather than 90 minutes--because there is a transition clinic organized by the CU triathlon club at 5, and it seems to me I might benefit more from this than from mildly increased swimming fitness! My bike time is going to be very slow--I have not had a good week bike-wise, it is just full of mental obstacles for me. But I think I should be able to get mentally organized so as to have a very minimalist set of tasks to accomplish in transition--mission for next week's triathlon-related shopping is to get a new pair of goggles or two, since the seal on the ones I've been using is definitely going, and also a pair or two of really good triathlon shorts that I can wear for training and will be comfortable for the entire race. I have already tested out various crucial garments and the plan is in the early stages of coming together...)
Addendum. Total yards: only a meager 1500 plus a couple hundred more plus turning practice, but more to the point than obsessing about yardage...
(I still haven't picked up my bike from the store post tune-up! It was briefly a relief to have it out of the house, then a stressor!)
But I had a super-enjoyable swim this evening. Not a serious workout in any sense, but I felt like I was thinking fairly sensibly and making good choices.
(It is so hard, though, to know whether an easy workout comes via common sense or via rationalization!)
So... swimming thoughts.
1. I love swimming! I haven't swum since Saturday, since I had a Tuesday work conflict with masters swim and I am very busy right now with one thing and another and lane swim hours are highly restricted and horribly crowded and generally kind of impossible. But I really feel I can hardly afford to have four no-swim days in a row, it is so beneficial for my mental health. I must revisit the notion of a quick half-hour swim in the last half-hour the pool is open during the evening (i.e. sort of 8:55-9:30pm) on a day I can't otherwise swim. Masters swim is very frustratingly scheduled Tues-Thurs-Fri-Sat so that missing Tuesday really seems awful! Very bunched-up in the week...
2. It is not rationalization to say that at this juncture I can either work on freestyle technique or on flip turns but not both at the same time. My stroke feels radically different after last week's technique work, it is exciting to me! It is Rod Havriluk by other means--the coach who was filling in last week had a totally different vocabulary and set of priorities, but in retrospect it gives me a new and more vivid understanding of the Havriluk MONA cues from the January clinic and what I learned there.
3. So: what? Well, all fairly idiotish obvious things I should have known already, only the thing about swimming is that there are so many different things to think about that it is easy to forget the obvious! If I boil it down...
Serious streamline off the wall. Good-quality kick using actual muscles and getting some real speed. Really streamline arms (with hands locked together) and tighten core muscles and keep legs together--it will sound absurd, but I think I really just forgot about all this for some months, I am sure my legs were just hanging around any old way! Amazing how much faster and stronger this feels.
Serious body rotation, also with a view to streamlining and maximizing pull. Cue: think of ear going to bicep on each side and on every stroke. Concentrate especially on the non-breathing side (and it is striking to me both how much more--well, symmetrical would be an exaggeration--but near-symmetrical this makes my stroke, and also how much more easily I can contemplate bilateral breathing when I'm doing the stroke in this way). Really turn onto the side and get a good strong pull--I am feeling the catch much better on both sides, but especially and strikingly on the left-hand non-breathing side...
(I must say I thought it was feeling very good, considerably more powerful and with less effort.)
I did the warmup: 200 choice (I did 100 free and 100 IM), 150 free drill (50 right arm, 50 left arm--serious drown-thinking during that stretch!--50 catchup), 200 build free, 150 free drill (in theory as above, but I cheated and did 100 thumbsies-salute instead of evil right-arm left-arm thing), 200 build free.
I did the first mini-set: 6 x 75 as 25 kick/50 build, 25 with first half fast, with 10 seconds rest after the 75 and 5 seconds after the 25.
And then I withdrew myself from the workout and spent the last fifteen minutes practicing somersaulting with floaty devices of one kind or another and really thinking about turns. I am a slow learner on this stuff, I get places pretty well and in a pretty timely manner when it comes down to it but only by extreme dedication and diligence rather than quickness of apprehension. I decided to resign myself to it, there is no point wishing oneself otherwise...
I couldn't really figure out how to use the kickboards for floatishness, but a pair of pull buoys worked pretty well. I turned over and over, and started to get a better feel for it--at any rate this was the first time when I really could say that I felt my feet fly up into the air in that obnoxiously and ostentatiously kickish way the natural-born flip-turner achieves! And then I did some slow lengths with turns, and it is starting to come together. Coach Amy was watching & helpfully observed at the end that it seemed like I didn't really have much of a tuck, so that I went over OK and then slowed almost to a standstill once upside-down. This will be the next bit to weave in, but it is fine if it only comes slowly, I will get there in a little while...
(Can't swim tomorrow. I am thinking on Saturday that I'll go fifteen minutes early and do my somersaulting during the last bit of open lane swim, then just do an hour workout rather than 90 minutes--because there is a transition clinic organized by the CU triathlon club at 5, and it seems to me I might benefit more from this than from mildly increased swimming fitness! My bike time is going to be very slow--I have not had a good week bike-wise, it is just full of mental obstacles for me. But I think I should be able to get mentally organized so as to have a very minimalist set of tasks to accomplish in transition--mission for next week's triathlon-related shopping is to get a new pair of goggles or two, since the seal on the ones I've been using is definitely going, and also a pair or two of really good triathlon shorts that I can wear for training and will be comfortable for the entire race. I have already tested out various crucial garments and the plan is in the early stages of coming together...)
Addendum. Total yards: only a meager 1500 plus a couple hundred more plus turning practice, but more to the point than obsessing about yardage...
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Wednesday run
3.5 miles easy. It finally seems like spring outside--lovely...
(Due entirely to my own time mismanagement, I didn't pick up the bike this afternoon from the store. It will have to be tomorrow, and I will fit in as long a ride as I can--Friday is going to have to be a day off due to work commitments.)
(Due entirely to my own time mismanagement, I didn't pick up the bike this afternoon from the store. It will have to be tomorrow, and I will fit in as long a ride as I can--Friday is going to have to be a day off due to work commitments.)
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Grumpiness
Unwanted day off from training. No time to fit in a swim. Evening work commitments today and Friday rule out masters swim, and I won't be able to squeeze a quick one in tomorrow, either, because of this. Despair!
Ah well, I will swim Thursday and Saturday, that will have to be enough for this week--and with the bicycle out of my hands there really is no way to do anything about that. Oh dear--this time of the school year is difficult...
Ah well, I will swim Thursday and Saturday, that will have to be enough for this week--and with the bicycle out of my hands there really is no way to do anything about that. Oh dear--this time of the school year is difficult...
Monday, March 24, 2008
Monday run
in three segments.
Part I: Over to park, then south along the main loop. Leg muscles all rather stiff and tired; couldn't seem to warm up. (This morning's workout, Saturday's bike ride or some combination thereof?) Decided to do middle loop only; stopped at Boathouse to use bathroom and accidentally stopped watch also.
Part II: Miraculously, legs felt great when I started up again! Reminder: sometimes it takes as long as thirty-five minutes to get going properly, don't be alarmed. Ran back uptown and over the 102nd St. transverse en route to LBS to pick up bike.
Part III: Bike has not yet received tuneup. Will get it Wednesday instead. Meanwhile, no bike ride tomorrow am--which means I might be able to squeeze in a short technique swim during midday lane swim hours tomorrow, if I get up early to do class prep. Ran the rest of the way home from the store.
6.78 miles total, 70:07 total run time (10:something pace, faster for second leg than for others). Second half super-enjoyable, first half not so much...
Part I: Over to park, then south along the main loop. Leg muscles all rather stiff and tired; couldn't seem to warm up. (This morning's workout, Saturday's bike ride or some combination thereof?) Decided to do middle loop only; stopped at Boathouse to use bathroom and accidentally stopped watch also.
Part II: Miraculously, legs felt great when I started up again! Reminder: sometimes it takes as long as thirty-five minutes to get going properly, don't be alarmed. Ran back uptown and over the 102nd St. transverse en route to LBS to pick up bike.
Part III: Bike has not yet received tuneup. Will get it Wednesday instead. Meanwhile, no bike ride tomorrow am--which means I might be able to squeeze in a short technique swim during midday lane swim hours tomorrow, if I get up early to do class prep. Ran the rest of the way home from the store.
6.78 miles total, 70:07 total run time (10:something pace, faster for second leg than for others). Second half super-enjoyable, first half not so much...
Monday gym
A very good one with M. These Monday sessions have the most unfailingly positive effect on my mood--it is strange, I do not have much of an impulse to make it to the gym on my own, but I very much like all the stuff I do there, and of course it makes it all very pleasant and easy having somebody concentrating so hard on getting you to do stuff. I guess it's just that it doesn't really have a hold on my imagination--triathlon training is another story!
A lot of good regular stuff (planks, pushups, a good V-raise variant, the usual kind of combinations of upper- and lower-body exercises), plus one quite evil new one I had not done before. You stand on one leg, holding a medicine ball in both hands, then lean forward (chest up) as you extend the other leg behind you.
(JMD: "A yoga-type lady would have her leg really straight and horizontal to the ground." M.: "Yep.")
Then you raise and lower the ball, then return to a standing position but without touching the foot to the ground. We were doing 2 x only through most of the stuff today, but I had to plead for a third round of these ones, they were so delightfully evil.
(M.: "I never heard that one before!")
A lot of good regular stuff (planks, pushups, a good V-raise variant, the usual kind of combinations of upper- and lower-body exercises), plus one quite evil new one I had not done before. You stand on one leg, holding a medicine ball in both hands, then lean forward (chest up) as you extend the other leg behind you.
(JMD: "A yoga-type lady would have her leg really straight and horizontal to the ground." M.: "Yep.")
Then you raise and lower the ball, then return to a standing position but without touching the foot to the ground. We were doing 2 x only through most of the stuff today, but I had to plead for a third round of these ones, they were so delightfully evil.
(M.: "I never heard that one before!")
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Postscript
I forgot to mention the most amazing thing--as I was nearing the north side of the park, I saw an elderly fellow of indeterminate ethnicity carrying a most handsome Russian Blue-type cat over his shoulder!
I saw this fellow and cat once before, the fellow was trudging up the bottom of Harlem Hill and the cat was yowling. You definitely hear that cat before you see it, it was the same thing today, and all the little kids walking by were delighted and mesmerized!
It wears a harness, and it holds onto the fellow's shoulders and back rather as a monkey would...
I have a strong suspicion that they must take a daily constitutional together. It would be appealing if more people took their cats for walks. I hope I see them again soon!
I saw this fellow and cat once before, the fellow was trudging up the bottom of Harlem Hill and the cat was yowling. You definitely hear that cat before you see it, it was the same thing today, and all the little kids walking by were delighted and mesmerized!
It wears a harness, and it holds onto the fellow's shoulders and back rather as a monkey would...
I have a strong suspicion that they must take a daily constitutional together. It would be appealing if more people took their cats for walks. I hope I see them again soon!
Triaspirational Saturday
OK, it was a mental triumph--the serious long-distance triathletes will be slightly laughing as I say it, because really there was absolutely nothing epic about it (except the epic procrastination leading up to it, and the epic internal struggle that preceded me making it out the door with the bike), but I really had a good bike ride this afternoon...
All round it was a seriously triaspirational day. This week of spring break has been guilt-inducingly useless as far as either work or real relaxation goes, I am still completely exhausted and stressed out, but I feel fully back on track with training, and in fact I am now confident I can do this race in May. It might indeed be that I am the least confident bike rider in the whole thing, but probably there will be some others who are not very confident either, and it seems to me beyond a reasonable doubt that I will not be the slowest runner or the most fearful swimmer, so I will count my blessings...
A lovely run this morning with training partners L. and S. I'm still not back up to long ones, but that's fine, there's quite a bit of time still to add miles on the long one. 6.43 miles (the lower five loop in the park, plus an extra bit en route to brunch!), 10:00 average pace, average HR 150, max HR 164.
(I must make sure to run with S. at every opportunity, since he is moving back to the UK at the beginning of the summer! He is a great fast runner--he hasn't been running regularly, business travel has disrupted his training, but he is just naturally enough faster than me that all my training works nicely as an equalizer! Ditto I.'s baby stroller--she is a phenomenal athlete, she'd never be running with me otherwise!)
And after much hemming and hawing and fretting I did indeed make it out for my bike ride this afternoon. I walked my bike over to the park, then changed into bike shoes and rode four loops--25 miles. It was very slow, more because of nerves than of any fitness-related issues, but it was quite enjoyable other than the aching hands, wrists and upper back from tense death-grip! I really feel the benefit of the trainer rides--I'm comfortable on the bike and my leg muscles are very strong.
2:02:28, 25 miles, avg HR 131, max 160
(Somewhat hilly, and fairly windy--but really it's the brake-clutching and excessive caution on even mild downhill inclines that is making me so slow! I will be able to go a lot faster than that when I'm even a bit more comfortable. Cycling friend R. is confident I should be able to do 16-17mph almost right away, on current fitness, but really he is just making that number up out of thin air!)
Oh, and though it was almost 7:30 by the time I was finished and leaving the park on foot, I found that the LBS was indeed still open, and have dropped the bike off for a tune-up and to get the computer fixed. I can pick it up on Monday at three o'clock. I must confess that as well as feeling a rare sense of triumph at having made myself do this slightly nerve-racking thing that I've been putting off, I do also have a strong sense of relief at the bicycle being out of the house--now I really can take tomorrow guiltlessly off!
All round it was a seriously triaspirational day. This week of spring break has been guilt-inducingly useless as far as either work or real relaxation goes, I am still completely exhausted and stressed out, but I feel fully back on track with training, and in fact I am now confident I can do this race in May. It might indeed be that I am the least confident bike rider in the whole thing, but probably there will be some others who are not very confident either, and it seems to me beyond a reasonable doubt that I will not be the slowest runner or the most fearful swimmer, so I will count my blessings...
A lovely run this morning with training partners L. and S. I'm still not back up to long ones, but that's fine, there's quite a bit of time still to add miles on the long one. 6.43 miles (the lower five loop in the park, plus an extra bit en route to brunch!), 10:00 average pace, average HR 150, max HR 164.
(I must make sure to run with S. at every opportunity, since he is moving back to the UK at the beginning of the summer! He is a great fast runner--he hasn't been running regularly, business travel has disrupted his training, but he is just naturally enough faster than me that all my training works nicely as an equalizer! Ditto I.'s baby stroller--she is a phenomenal athlete, she'd never be running with me otherwise!)
And after much hemming and hawing and fretting I did indeed make it out for my bike ride this afternoon. I walked my bike over to the park, then changed into bike shoes and rode four loops--25 miles. It was very slow, more because of nerves than of any fitness-related issues, but it was quite enjoyable other than the aching hands, wrists and upper back from tense death-grip! I really feel the benefit of the trainer rides--I'm comfortable on the bike and my leg muscles are very strong.
2:02:28, 25 miles, avg HR 131, max 160
(Somewhat hilly, and fairly windy--but really it's the brake-clutching and excessive caution on even mild downhill inclines that is making me so slow! I will be able to go a lot faster than that when I'm even a bit more comfortable. Cycling friend R. is confident I should be able to do 16-17mph almost right away, on current fitness, but really he is just making that number up out of thin air!)
Oh, and though it was almost 7:30 by the time I was finished and leaving the park on foot, I found that the LBS was indeed still open, and have dropped the bike off for a tune-up and to get the computer fixed. I can pick it up on Monday at three o'clock. I must confess that as well as feeling a rare sense of triumph at having made myself do this slightly nerve-racking thing that I've been putting off, I do also have a strong sense of relief at the bicycle being out of the house--now I really can take tomorrow guiltlessly off!
Friday, March 21, 2008
Lavish Friday-evening posting
Well, it was a good solid triaspirational day, I feel less out of sorts than yesterday for sure. (Still sleep-deprived, though!)
I had a lovely run in Prospect Park with former swimming teacher I. and the twins. That jogging stroller is a behemoth! Wind advisory today, too... Each twin is 17+ pounds, plus the weight of the stroller--we only did the park loop, but I. was working very hard! Call it 3.5 plus .5 jog over to the park.
And then a very good swim this evening. It is not really admirable, in fact it is downright childish, but I swam the workout as hard as I could. The coach was watching very closely, and I was determined to show her that I am a fully competent swimmer who does not need the zipper drill explained to me as though I have never heard of such a thing before! My freestyle has clearly benefited from the work I did earlier in the week.
(I prefer a more, well, joyful style of self-motivation--but hey, whatever works!)
Warmup: 500 free, kicking on side (6-3-6) every 3rd and 5th length.
Main set:
8 x 25 free on :10 rest, dropping one stroke with each successive length (I got from 20 down to 16 but no further; not bad, though. I did two extras by accident, I did not have my glasses on and only had the first couple bits of the workout, so had not yet comprehended the ladder pattern)
50 fly-breast on :05 rest
100 IM on 2:10
150 back-free by 50 on :05 rest
200 free on 4:00
150 free-back by 50 on :05 rest
100 IM on 2:05
50 back-free on :05 rest
(Then in theory a second time through that, but I had to truncate and just pick up with the first 100 IM--so 100, 150, 200, 150, 100, 50, plus 200 cooldown, mix of free and double-arm back.)
I was damned if I wasn't going to make all those intervals, and indeed I did. I was working very hard! (But also concentrating on getting good streamline off the wall and really rotating esp. on non-breathing side. No flip turns--it is that OR technique, and this was a good technique week.)
2500 total. Very respectable, and a high-quality swim also. No dallying by the walls!
I also had coffee first thing this morning with cycling friend R., who gave me a stern talking-to about how I needed to get over my fear of riding outside! He had some very sensible ideas. I've got to make this happen. One aspect of my procrastination on this is embodied in the fact that I never got any cold-weather cycling gear, and I have found myself slightly stymied this week by how cold and windy it still is here. It was right not to do a long bike this afternoon--I was knackered, and it was freezing. But I will skip swimming tomorrow afternoon and bike instead, for as long as I can, with a view to really just making this bike thing start happening. I am contemplating a "21 in 21" self-challenge, but I think it might lock me on an unsuitably inflexible plan. Better just take it day by day.
At any rate it must be my absolute priority to get out there on the bike, even if it's just for forty minutes of tooling around in Riverside Park...
I had a lovely run in Prospect Park with former swimming teacher I. and the twins. That jogging stroller is a behemoth! Wind advisory today, too... Each twin is 17+ pounds, plus the weight of the stroller--we only did the park loop, but I. was working very hard! Call it 3.5 plus .5 jog over to the park.
And then a very good swim this evening. It is not really admirable, in fact it is downright childish, but I swam the workout as hard as I could. The coach was watching very closely, and I was determined to show her that I am a fully competent swimmer who does not need the zipper drill explained to me as though I have never heard of such a thing before! My freestyle has clearly benefited from the work I did earlier in the week.
(I prefer a more, well, joyful style of self-motivation--but hey, whatever works!)
Warmup: 500 free, kicking on side (6-3-6) every 3rd and 5th length.
Main set:
8 x 25 free on :10 rest, dropping one stroke with each successive length (I got from 20 down to 16 but no further; not bad, though. I did two extras by accident, I did not have my glasses on and only had the first couple bits of the workout, so had not yet comprehended the ladder pattern)
50 fly-breast on :05 rest
100 IM on 2:10
150 back-free by 50 on :05 rest
200 free on 4:00
150 free-back by 50 on :05 rest
100 IM on 2:05
50 back-free on :05 rest
(Then in theory a second time through that, but I had to truncate and just pick up with the first 100 IM--so 100, 150, 200, 150, 100, 50, plus 200 cooldown, mix of free and double-arm back.)
I was damned if I wasn't going to make all those intervals, and indeed I did. I was working very hard! (But also concentrating on getting good streamline off the wall and really rotating esp. on non-breathing side. No flip turns--it is that OR technique, and this was a good technique week.)
2500 total. Very respectable, and a high-quality swim also. No dallying by the walls!
I also had coffee first thing this morning with cycling friend R., who gave me a stern talking-to about how I needed to get over my fear of riding outside! He had some very sensible ideas. I've got to make this happen. One aspect of my procrastination on this is embodied in the fact that I never got any cold-weather cycling gear, and I have found myself slightly stymied this week by how cold and windy it still is here. It was right not to do a long bike this afternoon--I was knackered, and it was freezing. But I will skip swimming tomorrow afternoon and bike instead, for as long as I can, with a view to really just making this bike thing start happening. I am contemplating a "21 in 21" self-challenge, but I think it might lock me on an unsuitably inflexible plan. Better just take it day by day.
At any rate it must be my absolute priority to get out there on the bike, even if it's just for forty minutes of tooling around in Riverside Park...
Thursday swimming
Hmmm, this has been a mentally trying week of swimming for reasons I cannot fully explain! There was an impossible wax on, wax off quality to the business this evening which I did not at all have the fortitude to embrace or appreciate at the time--I gave over my background processing resources to the problem at the opera this evening, though, and think I have slightly brought my head around to the facts of the matter.
(One fact is that all three of the triathlon disciplines require extreme fortitude of one kind or another! Never more than during an injury in which one cannot do the thing at all, so I am not complaining, I think, just perplexed!)
So I got some coaching this evening on stroke stuff. It was intensely demoralizing to be given what was basically an insane remedial workout. I again felt like the village idiot of all swimmers.
(I think it is good for me to have this sort of thing periodically, so that I remember what it's like in the classroom for students who don't feel comfortable or to whom I might blithely suggest some major and fundamental retooling of approach/skill set as they tackle some significant project like a dissertation chapter! Really I am a believer in playing scales, taking things utterly to pieces and learning how to put them back together properly, stringent line editing, all sorts of crazily specific exercises of one kind or another, etc. etc. in the fields I actually know something about, so I should not be surprised that one might have to go back to basics in a most horrible way for swimming also. I sort of knew this already, but it is the kind of thing one unfortunately has to learn again and again...)
There was a noticeably beneficial effect on my freestyle stroke by the end of the session. Quite striking improvement in feel.
Here's what we worked on:
Streamline off the wall.
Body rotation.
More specifically, a lot of work with that drill (WHICH I have not done since the fall, making me acknowledge that I probably should go back and have a couple sessions of Monday-night swimming, it's freestyle-specific and very technique-oriented, in fact I was just e-mailing with the coach the other day to tell him I had not dropped off the face of the planet & he said come by any time, so I guess I will do just that) of 6-3-6. 6 kick on side in good streamline, then three strokes, then 6 kick on other side.
Notes to self. Do not kick from knees, kick from hips. Core! Zipper drill to keep elbows in correct position. It is possible to combine zipper with 6-3-6 despite feeling of brain about to explode... Really keep biceps tight to ears off wall, glutes tight. Look to 10 o'clock, 2 o'clock--be especially careful on non-breathing side. High elbows!
In short: galling but intensely useful.
(Unfortunately I have now had a very long day out of the house and with much human contact which, though each individual item was very pleasant in itself, mostly undid whatever relaxation might have been starting to happen yesterday! I am going to have two good solid training days over the next two days, then take Sunday off so that I can go to New Jersey for Easter festivities. I had figured out I should skip swimming tomorrow because it gives me more flexibility for a long bike ride, but now I feel I cannot afford to and that if I skip swimmming it will be from internal cowardice and shrinking rather than from common sense, so I fear I am internally locked in on that now. I also now have a very stressful amount of school-related stuff that I haven't made progress on this week, and that would not seem to me more likely to get done even if I seriously cut back on training-related activities for the next couple days, so it is going to be a scramble to make it through this coming week, but should be a bit more tolerable by the week after.)
(What I really need is a pause button that will let me just stop everything for four or five days so that I can let the fortitude build back up again!)
(One fact is that all three of the triathlon disciplines require extreme fortitude of one kind or another! Never more than during an injury in which one cannot do the thing at all, so I am not complaining, I think, just perplexed!)
So I got some coaching this evening on stroke stuff. It was intensely demoralizing to be given what was basically an insane remedial workout. I again felt like the village idiot of all swimmers.
(I think it is good for me to have this sort of thing periodically, so that I remember what it's like in the classroom for students who don't feel comfortable or to whom I might blithely suggest some major and fundamental retooling of approach/skill set as they tackle some significant project like a dissertation chapter! Really I am a believer in playing scales, taking things utterly to pieces and learning how to put them back together properly, stringent line editing, all sorts of crazily specific exercises of one kind or another, etc. etc. in the fields I actually know something about, so I should not be surprised that one might have to go back to basics in a most horrible way for swimming also. I sort of knew this already, but it is the kind of thing one unfortunately has to learn again and again...)
There was a noticeably beneficial effect on my freestyle stroke by the end of the session. Quite striking improvement in feel.
Here's what we worked on:
Streamline off the wall.
Body rotation.
More specifically, a lot of work with that drill (WHICH I have not done since the fall, making me acknowledge that I probably should go back and have a couple sessions of Monday-night swimming, it's freestyle-specific and very technique-oriented, in fact I was just e-mailing with the coach the other day to tell him I had not dropped off the face of the planet & he said come by any time, so I guess I will do just that) of 6-3-6. 6 kick on side in good streamline, then three strokes, then 6 kick on other side.
Notes to self. Do not kick from knees, kick from hips. Core! Zipper drill to keep elbows in correct position. It is possible to combine zipper with 6-3-6 despite feeling of brain about to explode... Really keep biceps tight to ears off wall, glutes tight. Look to 10 o'clock, 2 o'clock--be especially careful on non-breathing side. High elbows!
In short: galling but intensely useful.
(Unfortunately I have now had a very long day out of the house and with much human contact which, though each individual item was very pleasant in itself, mostly undid whatever relaxation might have been starting to happen yesterday! I am going to have two good solid training days over the next two days, then take Sunday off so that I can go to New Jersey for Easter festivities. I had figured out I should skip swimming tomorrow because it gives me more flexibility for a long bike ride, but now I feel I cannot afford to and that if I skip swimmming it will be from internal cowardice and shrinking rather than from common sense, so I fear I am internally locked in on that now. I also now have a very stressful amount of school-related stuff that I haven't made progress on this week, and that would not seem to me more likely to get done even if I seriously cut back on training-related activities for the next couple days, so it is going to be a scramble to make it through this coming week, but should be a bit more tolerable by the week after.)
(What I really need is a pause button that will let me just stop everything for four or five days so that I can let the fortitude build back up again!)
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Swim lit
At the Times, Gretchen Reynolds has an interesting article about Olympian Ryan Lochte's swimming regimen.
I should do some backstroke with a pull buoy, I forgot what a good drill that is...
Hmmm, if I were a fact-checker, though, I would suggest that there are several misleading things in there--unless it is, basically, sarcastic, this does not seem to me helpful advice! Can she really have understood the context for the distance/speed suggestion she makes?!?
I should do some backstroke with a pull buoy, I forgot what a good drill that is...
Hmmm, if I were a fact-checker, though, I would suggest that there are several misleading things in there--unless it is, basically, sarcastic, this does not seem to me helpful advice! Can she really have understood the context for the distance/speed suggestion she makes?!?
Even if you’re a fitness swimmer, incorporate competition and goal-setting into your routine. You don’t necessarily have to sign up for races, but aim to reach the far wall a smidgen faster than you did the day before, or try to break a minute in the 100-meter freestyle, a good benchmark for speed.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Unscheduled day off...
... which was entirely for the best. I feel as though I am finally psychologically entering back into the land of the living!
Due to rain, twins-in-jogging-stroller run with I. rescheduled for Friday. We will hope the weather improves.
No trainer ride this evening--I was getting hair cut and highlighted, and now it is time to eat dinner and start winding down for the evening. I have to make several fairly respectable fund-raisingish work-type appearances over next few weeks and I thought respectability would certainly be augmented if I could fit in a hair appointment over the break!
(It came out very nicely. At the end, A., who has cut my hair for the last couple years here, said: "What do you think?" JMD: "I think I look like I should be going to a party!" A. [looking, assessingly]: "Honestly, you should be going to a party!" In fact I am very happy I am not going to a party, but my hair does indeed look as though it should be out socializing somewhere fairly high-class...)
Due to rain, twins-in-jogging-stroller run with I. rescheduled for Friday. We will hope the weather improves.
No trainer ride this evening--I was getting hair cut and highlighted, and now it is time to eat dinner and start winding down for the evening. I have to make several fairly respectable fund-raisingish work-type appearances over next few weeks and I thought respectability would certainly be augmented if I could fit in a hair appointment over the break!
(It came out very nicely. At the end, A., who has cut my hair for the last couple years here, said: "What do you think?" JMD: "I think I look like I should be going to a party!" A. [looking, assessingly]: "Honestly, you should be going to a party!" In fact I am very happy I am not going to a party, but my hair does indeed look as though it should be out socializing somewhere fairly high-class...)
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