Bike 4/30

I met JHS at Marymoor for our goal: 100 miles, a "century" ride.

We did it - actually we did 101.3 miles in 6:53. Yeah, not exactly blazing... we did average about 15 mph for 90 miles (6:05 for 90 miles) and then kinda look it easy for the last 10. T1 and MM joined us after we were about halfway through, at 45 miles.

JHS and I rode the out-and-back on Lake Sammamish (19 miles) - since we wanted to avoid the heavy Issaquah Saturday afternoon traffic. Then we did an out-and-back to LogBoom park (26 miles) along the flat SRT. We me up with T1 and MM and took them along Lake Sammamish and LogBoom again, and then finished up with a 10 mile round trip back along the SRT.

Getting back to Marymoor so many times was great - we could fill up water, and the little Subway in the first parking lot is now open, so I took advantage and had some cookies and later a bag of salt & vinegar chips. Other than that I had a Clif bar and grande mocha for breakfast, 12 gels on the bike, 2 bottles of PowerBar Endurance, 1.5 cookies, the above mentioned bag of salt and vinegar chips, lots of water, and a strawberry milkshake afterwards. Needless to say, I was ravenous for some real food!

I found I need to hit the restroom and stretch a little about every hour. I need to do more yoga! ;) Also, I found I really like the PowerBar Tropical Fruit flavor. It is different enough (perhaps no aftertaste?) than the Gu Tri Berry that it doesn't bother me.

JHS' post

JHS writes about the lack of time. I can totally sympathize; in my regular blog I wrote:

I don't think training for an ironman is that hard, ASSUMING you have realistic expectations, and possess basic triathlon (swim/bike/run) skills. What is proving difficult is finding the time for it all. As the adage goes "90% of ironman training is just showing up every day. The rest are details." Pushing yourself, avoiding injury, resting, and doing it again the next day... this is the hard part. Every day it is a struggle to find the time to train.

That's just the way it is. Right now, I'm not feeling too burned out, despite my upcoming move and associated hassles. But I know that after this, I am very likely to stick to a maximum of the half-iron distance.

I see a half-iron as 99% of the fitness benefits and 99% of the fun, at only 50% of the time training. Heck, since injury likelihood while training for an iron is much higher, perhaps the half-iron is actually > 100% of the fitness benefit.

Swim 4/29

One of the lifeguards congratulated me on my black eye. ;)

I started out with a 4x100 warmup using fist gloves. No time, because I can't hit the button on the lap counter while wearing the gloves. I estimate 10 minutes. The next set was 1x400 - I swam at a harder intensity than normal, and did 7:15. Then I tried 1x800, at a relaxed, sustainable pace, and did 16:15. (I'm going to up my long set every week to something like 1x1600 or even 1x2000!). Then I finished with 4x100 cool down, in 8 minutes.

So, a total of 2000 yards in 41:30.

Bike 4/28

I had to take my Trek off the trainer, to clear up my den for the carpet cleaner. As I was doing that I realized I hadn't been on the Trek in a while, and it was feeling neglected. So today I went out for a hilly ride (60 Acres, Hollywood, 520/ORR) on the Trek: 24.8 miles in 1:43.

Besides, I have a minor gearing issue to fix on the Cervelo - it jumps around the 21 and 19 cassette.

Run 4/27

I hit the Redmond Watershed in the morning, eager to do 5+ miles, especially since my HRM is back. I packed up some sports drink in two fuel belt bottles, and started in. The run went really well, but as I finished the outer loop I decided not to push it and stick with 5 miles today (in 53 minutes, at a mostly aerobic heart rate).

I'm planning to run on Sunday, and do more mileage then. Time to start getting my weekly runs up there - twice a week at 5 to 8 miles, or 2:00 to 2:30 of running.

Swim 4/26

I swam 2000 yards: 2x100 warmup, 3x500 main set, and 1x300 cool down. All this took 42 minutes, and I felt pretty good. I found my seal mask and used that so as to not irritate my eye - which is fine, at this point it is more "colorful" than painful.

When I got back to my house to shower, I found a package - my HRM is back! All it needed was a new battery. I think I'll keep using the ring lap counter, because I always want to know how many laps I swam.

Week 16

Apr 18 - Apr 24

	Time
Swim	1:15
Bike	10:05
Run	0:48
Strength	0:00
Weight	141.4 lb
Body Fat	14.8 %

Swim and bike are coming along nicely, but I'm lagging on the run.

Cumulative Training

	Time
Swim	15:50
Bike	93:38
Run	24:03

Rest 4/24

I intended to run 8 miles this morning, but I just could not fall asleep last night - I was wide awake past 2:30 am. As I thought of errands I needed to run during the week, I wondered if the caffeine in the Gu I had was partly responsible for my insomnia. Hm... Anyway, I got up around 10 and by then it was too late to head out to the trail and get the run in - I was meeting a friend at 12:30 to watch the Mariner's game!

Later at volleyball, I unfortunately was the victim of a hard spike that left me no time to react. Now, I have a black eye:

Volleyball injury


I sat out two games and iced it, and will continue to do so. I only mention this because I might wind up putting off swimming until the swelling goes down, because I imagine wearing goggles will hurt big time. I do have a seal mask somewhere, and if I can find it, I'll use that.