Phantom Lake run

Starting back up... just a little bit.

I ran with the Eastside runners this morning, 5 easy miles near Phantom Lake in Bellevue. It took me about 58 minutes, as the course included two big hills to climb. This is a nice run as it is partially on gravel trails.




You can see my heartrate spike during the two hills!

What I really need to do is bike. I got the spinervals DVDs in but haven't watched them. Good news is that JHS announced a weekly winter bike ride, but I'm not sure if it starts tomorrow. I'm planning to bike on next Sunday the 17th, as I want another rest week.

Bike stuff I still need to take care of:

• Get my training/rain bike back from Pace Cycles. He does good work, but damn he's slow.
  
• Get a bike fitting for my Cervelo.
  

Combining swimming and strength training

I plan to strength train. Since the gym with a pool is a bit of a drive, I'd also like to combine the session with strength training. Lately, I've been thinking of the order of workouts: swim then lift, or vice versa? Since it is good to stretch before strength training, I decided I would swim first and then strength train. This way, the swim would loosen and warm up my muscles, and if I were tired, I'd just use less weight.

This opinion is also the general consensus on a thread at TriNewbies. There are many reasons, some of the best are:

• Never swim with poor form; overdoing the strength training before the swim might result in poor swim form
  
• Save your best workouts for swim/bike/run workouts; strength training is secondary
  

Tracking Nutrition

I'd like to track my nutrition. I'm not sure if I would keep it up permanently, but I think tracking nutrition for a few days or weeks would be very illuminating. I think I eat OK, but I'd like to track it and find out.

I have a friend, SM, who once recommended Balance Log. SM used it to help lose some weight, using the very simple plan of running a calorie deficit - burning off more via exercise than taking in through meals. I'm not planning to lose weight, I'd just like to find out if my mix of carbs/fat/protein is good enough or could use some adjustment.

BalanceLog doesn't have a PocketPC version, but maybe they will create one. I checked on Handango and downloaded a few diet trackers for the PocketPC, and I plan to try them all out.

A PocketPC version would be handy for spot checks on food items, but realistically I'd prefer to use a PC version. Of course, one that works on both and can sync would be the best choice.

Sacramento Half-Marathon

Today's half marathon went OK. Early in the race I decided to run at my friend's pace and we wound up finishing around 2:23.

This run was very "easy" for me. My heart rate was mostly between 135 and 150 for the event, which is 55% to 67%. I'll check when I get home and can pull the data off the HRM to the computer.

The race was an out-and-back, and we passed midpoint at 1:07 or so. Thus, we split 1:07 for the first half and 1:16 for the second. Not ideal, but I wasn't setting the pace here, I was running with my friend and she had to slow and walk a few times over the last three miles. No biggie, I still gathered valuable data! I decided I could use this as a baseline for my aerobic run on flat terrain.

That means for the first half, where we only had one bathroom break (I'll estimate to be 2 minutes), we did a 10 minute mile. This sounds more like it than the 11 minute mile I did on the SRT. Plus, my heart rate was lower than normal - when running along aerobically, I try to hover around 155 beats/minute, while here it was 10 beats/minute lower for extended periods.

Anyway, it was fun and I think Bev appreciated me not leaving her behind. It was worth it to finish together.