Week of July 15-21, 2013

Week of July 15-21, 2013

Monday the 15th - Lunch Run
My wife had the morning, so I slept in.  But I did head home and hop on the treadmill at lunch.  It took a few minutes to change and get the fan set up, so I only had time to run 2.5 miles, burning 268 calories, in 31:35.  It was a very slow pace, but easy and aerobic.  I also went to bed with about a 305 calorie deficit.


Tuesday the 16th - AM Ride/Run Brick and Lunch Gym
I was going to do the usual routine and bike 27 miles with the three big hills.  But I decided to do a bike ride/run brick.  A brick just means you do two exercises back to back, to more closely simulate race day.  The most common is bike to run, versus swim to bike, as the first mile you run after biking a decent distance takes some getting used to. 
I left the house at 4:45am, and biked my usual route but only climbed new Indian Hill.  This is much easier than climbing Given, Old Indian Hill, AND Kugler Mill.  Everything was going fine, and after the climb up Indian Hill I turned right onto Drake and was eating a Clif Bar with one hand - just coasting along.  I went down the first roller and before I knew it there were giant steel construction plates across the road, right at the bottom when your speed is highest.  Hitting these with only one hand on the bars, going maybe 25 mph, nearly sent me to the ground. 
I finished the ride uneventfully after that, and at home changed into my running shoes.  I ran my usual 3.2 mile route but my iPhone registered 3.4 miles.  The ride was 23.9 miles in 1:31:39, avg speed of 15.6mph.  The run was 3.4 miles in 33:19, avg pace of 9:56mm.  Remember that I don't have a HR monitor now, and my new watch won't arrive until Thursday, so I was just cruising along.  I didn't know how fast or slow I was going. 
At lunch, I went to the Rec Center and worked out with weights, hitting back and biceps.  I probably did 15 sets of 10 on three machines.  I snuck out early, after only 30 minutes of fast sets, and headed to Chipotle for a 900 calorie burrito.  I was craving calories and I knew my plain turkey sandwich meal of 450 calories would leave me hungry in the afternoon.  These cravings lead to either an apple or a trip to the vending machines (Snickers!).  I think I burned about 900 calories on the bike ride, and another 500 calories on the run.  1,400 calories plus my usual, oatmeal for breakfast, Chipotle for lunch, and my plain turkey sandwich for lunch meant I will be leaving 520 calories in the hole for the day. 

Here is the Strava data for the ride and run:



Wednesday the 17th - AM Swim and Lunch Run
I slept in today.  It's weak, I know.  My two swimming partners couldn't make it, and I got about 4 hours of sleep Monday night.  So I enjoyed sleeping in.  I actually went to bed at 7:30 last night, and slept until 6:30.  Great night of sleep.  I notice that Monday nights have been rough getting to bed.  I hope that trend doesn't continue.
At lunch, I came home and ran for "400 calories" on the treadmill.  This was about 4 miles, in roughly 45 minutes.  I ran in the 11:19 to 12:00 ran, slowly going slower as the run went on.  My fan was on me at full blast, which made a great help.  I watched part of the movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower.  Great movie.  I highly relate to the main character, though I was always tall so didn't get picked on. 
When I came home I saw a package on my doorstep.  I am expecting my new GPS watch, the quick release kit for said watch, and a new ultra bright bike tail light.  Sure enough, it was my awesome new GPS watch: the Garmin 310XT.  It took about 10 seconds to set up the user profile.  It's bigger than the 210 I had, but smaller than the 305 I had last year (which was stolen while getting a signal on the porch of our Hilton Head condo!  Still pissed about that.).  Tomorrow, I will be running on the treadmill in the morning, so I won't get to go out with it until Friday AM.  Should be fun.

Thursday the 18th - Lunch Treadmill Run
My wife and I went back and forth on who would workout Thursday and Friday, and I ended up sleeping in both days.  I watched my calories and ran "400 calories" at lunch, which was about 45 minutes and nearly 4 miles.  I had my Garmin 310XT though, and realized that to run with a heart rate in the 140-148 bpm range I wasn't running fast enough.  My pace here was around 9:54 to 10:10 as the run progressed, and my aerobic HR float kicked in.  This means that as I run 10:00, let's say, after a while my HR will slowly creep up.  If it's 145bpm at 10:00, after 30 minutes it might get to 146 or 147.  This, I believe, has something to do with conditioning and the more conditioned I am the longer I'll be able to hold the 10:00mm/145bpm.  Either way, it's great having a HR monitor again and the 310XT is a bad ass watch.


Friday the 19th - Rest day
Not only was today a rest day, but I went to a pizza place with some co-workers to talk about training and races.  One of the guys with us has done 9 full Ironman races, so he is great to talk to about training and nutrition.  I wound up eating half a large Dewey's cheese pizza with banana peppers and mushrooms - so good!  This is probably 1500 calories or more.  Terrible day. 
Also, my wife got us an overnight babysitter, so we went out for drinks and dinner.  We ended up eating tacos at Bakersfield in OTR.  I couldn't believe how different OTR is.  The Bakersfield fish taco rocked.  We also checked out the new casino in Cincinnati, the Horseshoe.  My wife played some slots for a minute.  Willie Nelson was playing a concert there, which was cool.  We went to a comedy show at 10:30 and didn't get home until 12:30.  So, I was probably asleep by 1.


Saturday the 20th - AM Bike/Run Brick
I met 2 Cincy Express guys, 1 BAM guy, and his friend at Lunken Airport at 6:15am for a 6:30am ride.  The four of us were all triathletes and planned to ride 40 miles out Route 8 and then run 5-10 miles around Lunken.  One of the guys has a 56cm Felt B-16 that he let me roll around the parking lot on.  This thing is sweet!  Full carbon fiber frameset with Shimano Ultegra components.  It felt light, though I didn't crank hard (my cleats didn't fit the pedals) so I couldn't speak to how it flexed.  Though I'm sure it's awesome.  What a great bike.  They run around $2k new, and about $1500 used on eBay.  Very cool bike. 
The 5 of us left Lunken and headed west on Kellogg Avenue downtown, crossed the Purple People Bridge, and then headed east on Route 8.  The pace wasn't going to be crazy, roughly 17 mph.  Going out Kellogg we kept pretty easy.  Crossing the bridge and going through Dayton, Kentucky, we didn't push too hard.  Once we got outside of Dayton, we pushed it a little.  We were doing 20-22 mph on the mostly flat Route 8.  It was a great pace for the group, as we all stuck together well.  The day was windy, but otherwise it didn't get too hot for our ride.  One of the people needed to get back by 9am, so we headed out 18 miles and turned around.  To make it 40 some of us rode another 5 miles around Lunken and ended at a 41 mph ride.  The average speed was 17.1 for the 41 miles.  This is great because on March 30th I did this same route with some Cincy Express guys and they actually dropped me on a 26 mile out and back.  I was glad my bike progress has improved to the point that I can do 41 now without getting dropped. 
After the ride, I changed and started running a loop around Lunken.  It was about 9:30 by this time, and the heat and humidity was pretty rough.  After about 2.5 miles, I noticed my HR was 177 bpm at about 10:00mm.  Though I felt fine, I slowed down and eventually walked on and off for the rest of the run.  The heat, humidity, pushing harder than I'm used to on the bike, getting about 4 hours of sleep, and drinking lots of beer last night all could have helped in my poor run today.  But I think the main problem is that I haven't been running much lately.  My 3 miles lunch runs on a treadmill just aren't cutting it.  I think it's much easier to run on a treadmill, so my hiding from the heat isn't the best training.  Although, I felt much better after a recent 60 mile ride at about 15 mph average.  For my half Ironman race in September, I'll keep the pace around 15/16 so I can save my legs for the run.  I ended up running 5 miles at about 12:30mm.  Sucky run.
I'm still learning the new watch, so the bike and run are combined here in the Strava data:



Sunday the 21th - Lazy Sunday (rest day)
Nothing planned for today.  Just a relaxing day with the family.  My legs are fine though.  Yesterday's brick didn't beat me up too much.  I'm making progress!  A year ago, I would need a week to recover.