Gettin' in Shape

Last weekend we were down south for a sprint triathlon, the St. George Running Center took care of us and got us everything we needed.  Thanks for the help Steve!  I'm going to go back through and update the blog to include all of my April training.

I had a couple of days off.  It felt good to get back going again.

My brother and I did the swim in Salem pond.  We're getting ready for the Salem sprint triathlon.  I don't know if the guys fishing on shore were to happy with us.

I missed a few days of training.  It felt good to get back into it.

Fun race, great weather, and Racetri puts on good events.  I was a little wore out for todays race due to the 47 mile ride yesterday.  I'm in the middle of training for the Utah Half which is still another 10 to 11 weeks away.

I had a tough week training.  Earlier in the week I had a stomach bug that messed me up and I didn't get going until later in the week.   

My two brothers came down and we rode around West mountain.  Mike just started riding since the Utah Summer Games so he went the first 7 miles and then turned back.  Jeff went the whole distance.  It was interesting to see how much less power input is needed when you draft off the rider in front of you.  

19.5 mph average for the ride

8:55 min/mile average for the run.  I was trying for something more in the 8:34 range but felt this was Ok being my first run this year past a 7.5 mile distance.  

For the swim I was suppose to get in 3050 yards but the lights at the Orem Fitness Center went out and they shut down the pool.

18.3 mph for the ride.  At 58.75 miles my front tube and tire both blew out so I had to have my boy come pick me up in the truck.  I still had another 2.25 miles left to get back to the house.

This week is a recovery week and I'm looking forward to a break in the long mileage put in last week.

With a young mens activity this evening I wasn't able to get a swim and a run in today and the swimming won out over the running.

I was pushing for a good overall pace and ended up with 20 mph average for the ride.

No workout for today.  After work I drove up to Canyon Bicycles and spent a couple of hours sizing up different Tri bikes.  I ended up getting a Cervelo P3.  It will be ready to pick up later in the week.  I'm excited to try it out.

Another ride around West Mountain, it felt a lot hotter than usual.

I got the mileage in this morning with three of my brothers that are also in training for triathlons.  It was a nice change from the regular routine.  I was suppose to swim today as well but I couldn't work it in.

First ride on the new Tri bike and I had a 22.4 mph average for the ride.  The extra 2 mph must be due to the more aerodynamic bike and body position.  I was excited to see such a large increase in speed.  It will be interesting to see if this increase also translates to the long rides.

21.9 mph average for the ride.  I'm still getting used to the shifting and braking on the new bike.

I'm feeling the mileage this week.  It's the second to last build week before the taper.  8:13 min/mile average for the run.

20.7 mph average for the ride.  This was the longest ride I had to get in before the race on the 15th on next month.

9:03 min/mile average on the run.  Today was the first time I'd ran with a hydration belt.  It wasn't that bad and was much better than running and holding a bottle in hand, which is what I've done on past longer distance runs.  I wasn't feeling very good today so I skipped on the swimming.

21.5 mph average for the ride.  A little slower than expected. It could be partly due to the windy conditions.

8:33 min/mile average for the run.  I skipped the swim for today.  My shoulder has been hurting a little bit so I'm giving it a break.

20.5 mph average.  It was a windy out there today.

Today was a brick with the run directly following the ride.  22.1 mph average for the ride.  8:27 min/mile for the run.  I felt good through both, probably because of the break in training.  I didn't get my swim or run in yesterday. 

3.1 of the mileage was running the Mark the Great race in Benjamin.  What a turn out, it was a fun event.  I set a blistering 8:57 min/mile pace for the race.  I ran with an 11 year old and a 9 year old, two kids of a good friend Ryan Sorensen, who also ran the race with his two younger kids. In addition to the 5k there were other shorter distance races for the kids.  It turned out to be a good family event.

Tempo run for today broken into three intervals.  

-Warm up: 1.1 miles at a 9:14 min/mile pace.  

-Threshold: 3.1 miles at a 7:41 min/mile pace.  

-Cool down: 1.1 miles at a 8:57 min/mile pace.  

With other stuff going on I couldn't get the swim in for today.  I may try to get a bike and swim in tomorrow.

Today's mileage was mountain biking around Fish lake.  My oldest son and I were up there for a couple of days.

Fish lake mountain biking miles again.  We also did a 3 mile hike from the south end of the lake about 1/3 of the way up the East side.

Back from Fish lake I had a run and swim for today but only got the run in.  8:04 min/mile pace for the run.  I was feeling pretty good which allowed a faster pace.  It's probably from having a couple of days off from running.  It's now been over a week or maybe two since I've been in the pool.  I better get in gear.  Next week is a taper with the Utah Half race on Saturday.

21.8 mph average

Easy miles at a 17.1 mph average.  Yesterday was also a pretty laid back swim and running sprints.  Tomorrows race day.

It's taken me forever to finally get this race report up.  I've been busy at home trying to get a building project finished and we're finally down to the last step of getting the walls painted.

This was a bit of a crazy race due to the wind at the beginning of the race and rain showers in the bike and run legs.  Aside from that I had a great race and was happy with where I ended up.  I was shooting for a 5:30:00 time and ended up with 5:15:50.  (This was due in part to the swim being shortened.  I took 56th out of 174 male participants and 14 place in my age division.

Swim: time of 20:43.  The 6:45 a.m. start was pushed back to 7:30 due to the wind.  It kept blowing the turn around buoy out of place.  They finally decided to leave the buoy out and shorten the swim by only swimming one lap.  This shortened the swim from 1.2 down to .7 miles.  I figured if we would have swam the extra .5 miles it would have added another 15 minutes to my overall time placing me around 5:30:00.  The swim was in semi choppy water with 8 - 11 inch waves in our face swimming out and moving with us swimming back.  I felt good on this leg of the race.  Because I was swimming without a wet suit (Utah Lake is fairly warm) I got in the water a little late and started in the back of the pack.  Positive road kill for the swim.  My brothers that were on shore watching said I passed quite a few other swimmers on this leg. 

T1: time of 2:13.  This was a fairly fast transition and I passed a number of people on the run to the bikes.  I think this was because I didn't have a wet suit on.

Bike: time of 2:44:57.  I felt really good on the bike and was happy with my time.  I ended up with a 20.37 mph average which was good for the conditions.  There was a constant wind blowing from the Northwest and during the last 6 miles a thunderstorm came through and dumped a fair amount of rain.  This is the section where I fueled up, eating a peanut butter and honey sandwich and an energy bar.  They were carried in a bento's bag attached to the top rail of my bike.  Road kill for the bike was a positive 4 - 5.

T2: time of 4:48.  Very slow transition.  Due to rain at the end of the bike all the running gear was wet and took longer to get on.  And from biking on wet roads, all all kinds of small gravel and dirt flung up and stuck to my feet and ankles which had to be cleaned off.  Also, my T2s tend to take a little longer because of the brace I wear on my right ankle.

Run: time of 2:03:07.  I felt pretty good on the run.  I was trying for under 2 hours but still felt good with the time.  The bike portion of the race was cold due to the rain and low temps, I finally felt warmed up after the first 1.5 miles of the run.    It rained a couple of times on the run but not to hard.  If anything it was nice not having to run in hot weather.  Road kill for the run was a negative 9 - 10.

It was a fun race overall and I may sign up for it again next year.  For me this race was a stepping stone towards a bigger goal of competing in the new St George Ironman in May of 2010.  One thing this race did was give me confidence in the training guide I'm using, Triathlete Magazine's Essential Week-by-Week Training Guide.  Not having done this long of a race event in the past, I felt the training guide did a great job of getting me ready.  I followed the level 3 training for Half Ironman distance.

Trying to get back into training after having a few days off.  20.7 mph average.

Treadmill miles, my afternoon was tied up with other things.  With the Utah Half over with, I jumped into week 14 of a 16 week training to get ready for the Yuba Tri where I'm doing an Olympic distance race.

21.8 mph average.  

 For you bike riders out there watch out for animals in the road.  Last week my brother hit a dead raccoon laying on the side of the road while getting in an early morning ride, 4:40 a.m.  It threw him over the handle bars and he dislocated his shoulder and broke his collar bone.  This week while at the should doctor the physicians assistant asked if he hit a dog.  Apparently they see a lot of people that go over the bars from hitting dogs.

Swimming speed work at Springville pool.

22.3 mph average

7:41 min/mi average

I ran on the treadmill today due to the smoke outside.  I forgot to look at my average pace before turning the treadmill off.

21.9 mph average

Still swimming at the Springville pool through the rest of this week.  Next week the Orem Fitness Center should be opened back up.

21.4 mph average

8:13 min/mi average for the run.  This was my last build week.  Next week is a taper with the Yuba Tri on Saturday.  

22.4 mph average

7:54 min/mile average

20 mph average.  Easy miles today as part of the taper in preparation for the race this weekend.

Easy swim for today.  My two younger brothers and I did the swim in Utah Lake to get more open water swimming in.  We also wanted to test out the wet suits before the race this Saturday.

With race day tomorrow, today was a short and slow ride. 

We had a great time at Yuba this year.  I competed in the Olympic race and two of my brothers Jeff and Mike and my sister Jerri Ann competed in the Sprint race.  The weather was great and the water was nice.  We all had fun.  Also, Jerri Ann and Mike took first place in their age divisions which was awesome.

There were 44 men total that competed in the Olympic distance race with 9 in my age division.  Milliseconds chip timing has me down as 16th place overall but one of the guys ahead of me only ran the 3.1 mile course and didn't do the additional 3.1 out and back for the Olympic racers so this bumped me up to 15th place.

Swim: time of 28:43.  I was 6th out of the water.  I felt pretty good on the swim.  I think the new De Soto wetsuit helped out a bunch.  It's thinner up through the arms and doesn't seem to tire me out as much.  The water was really calm and with only 62 racers in the Olympic there wasn't a lot of bumping and hitting into the other swimmers.

T1: time of 1:29.  10 racers faster than me on this transition.  I debated having my shoes left clipped on the bike but decided against it because I hadn't practiced.  No major problems everything went smooth.

Bike: time of 1:11:59.  I also felt really good on the bike.  (8 racers had a faster time.)  It was a bit cold for the first 20 miles but then warmed up.  I was a little nervous about the hilly course and took it a little easier than I could have.  (I wanted to ride the bike course before race day but I couldn't make time to get down there.)  When I got off the bike I was feeling good for the run.

 T2: time of 2:28.  Painfully slow transition with 58 racers having faster transition times.  This is mostly due to the lace-up brace I wear on my right ankle.  I need to do some strength training with my right ankle and see if I can tighten it up.  For some of the shorter distance races I my try and race without the brace.  Also, because I had the brace on I didn't run without socks.  This is something I also want to try.

Run: time of 54:45.  I felt good on the run.  My min/mi average was 8:50 which was Ok but not the greatest.  20 racers had faster times.  Running is the area where I have the most opportunity to get faster.  I hope Hawk can teach me something.

After the race and later that day I wasn't in too bad of shape and felt pretty good.  It worked out, in that, I'm starting the Ironman training on Monday and I wont start out all sore and beat up.

8:10 min/mi

Bike miles were on the trainer.  With the shorter daylight hours it's getting harder to get the workouts in out on the road.

Short brick workout for today.  22.9 mph average on the bike.

I missed the bike ride for today.  Tonight and the next 3 Thursday nights I'm in a community education class on running technique that Ken "Hawk" Harper is teaching.  A buddy at work mentioned the class so I got signed up for it with him.  The first class was really interesting.  He gave us some background about himself, showed us the proper chest out/arms tight with feet landing flat underneath style.  We looked at our shoe wear and filmed our current running style and body position.  I'm anxious to see if I can adopt this style and how it can improve my running.

My little brother Mike and I ran down to St. George for this open water swim competition in the Sand Hollow reservoir.  It was a small event; we later found out this was the first year it was held.  There were only 30 - 32 swimmers that competed in the mile swim.  (Due to everyone's fast times we estimated the course to be somewhere around .75 miles long.)  We had fun and my 3rd place overall finish got me a free entry into the Scofield reservoir triathlon next year.  Mike took 3rd overall in the half mile race and also got a free entry into the Scofield Tri.

After the swim we went and ran a 3.5 mile section of the Ironman marathon route.  We started on Bluff Street at about 1250 N, turned onto Red Hills Pkwy, and finished at 1000 East which is the turn around point for the marathon route.  I had a 8:06 min/mile ave.

22.3 mph average.  Nice ride today.  Body is feeling good, maybe because of the day off yesterday.

Tonight was the first good run I had testing out the technique Hawk taught us last Thursday night in running class.  I was faster than normal with a 7:47 min/mi average.  For foot strike I already run landing flat footed, so mostly what I concentrated on was keeping my chest out, arms and hands back, with hands close to my chest.  This position felt like it was making me or forcing me to go faster.  I was a little more worn out than normal after the run.

21.7 mph average.  I definately worked my legs in yesterday's run and I could really feel it on the bike.  My calves and quads were pretty sore.

Hawk's boy Golden took us trail running tonight for our running class.  We were up on the Orem bench, I think running on the Bonniville Shore Line trail.

I'm back to swimming at the Orem Fitness center with their summer service shut down finished.  In the mean time I was swimming at the Springville pool.  The one thing I noticed is that Orem seems to used a lot more chemical in their pool.  On the bike I had a 22.7 mph average.

Treadmill today; 7.2 mph average with a 1% incline.

Brick workout for today.  20 mph average on the ride and 8:06 min/mi at 1.5% incline for the run.  It was cold and windy but I still went outside for the bike ride. Before too long it's going to get dark too earlier to get any rides in outside.  The wind and cold weather clothing seemed to add a lot of drag to the ride.

6.5 mph average running on the Bonneville Shoreline trail.  It was a nice change from running on the road but felt like it worked my joints harder than a road run.  For the swim I had a one mile time trial and came in at 30 minutes for the mile.

I've been sick the first part of this week with a stomach bug and aches and pains and so have skipped the workouts.  Today I felt about back to normal and hope to resume training tomorrow.

Tonight in our last running class we ran 1 mile timed with a .5 mile warm up.  I came in at 5:55 minutes for the mile.

With a couple of weeks off it felt good to get back into training.  

Today was a mile swim time trial with 200 meters of warm up and 200 of cool down.  For the time trial I came in at 29 minutes.

Ran on the treadmill.  I forgot to look at my average pace.

This past weekend I picked up bike trainer I can use during the winter.  I finally got it set up and rode on it for the first time today.  20mph average.

I swam with my brother Mike today.  For a few laps we followed each other and got the feel of drafting off of each other.  I did notice there was less effort that was needed to swim at the same speed.

Still getting used to the bike trainer.  The sprint intervals in the pool has me a little more sore than usual.

On the treadmill with 1% incline, 8:00 min/mi pace.

On the treadmill, 8:00 min/mi. 

Treadmill milage at 8:06 min/mi average.  

Brick workout for today.  45 minutes on the bike trainer and a 10 minute run at 7:30 min/mi.

180 watts for an hour on the bike.  Fartlek intervals in the pool.

Long bike ride with short recovery run.

On the treadmill, 8:37 min/mi.

Bike trainer miles.

Treadmill, 8:20 min/mi for the run.

On the treadmill, 8:13 min/mi average.

Still getting used to the bike trainer.  I moved my road bike seat over to the tri bike and found it's much more comfortable.  

Treadmill again, 8:07 min/mi average.  

An hour and 20 minutes on the trainer with 8 x 20 second power intervals.

Treadmill miles with an 8:03 min/mi average.  I finally got a 10k time under 50 minutes.  Not very fast for most but a decent non-race time for me.

Brick workout: 190 watts on the bike trainer for 45 minutes which worked my legs harder than I thought.  I had a hard time on the run immediately following the bike.

Bike trainer, 185 watts for an hour.  Speed intervals for the swimming.  I'm looking forward to next week which is a recovery week.

Slow pace recovery run for today.

1600 meter time trial between the warm up and cool down for the swim today.  I finished the 1600 in 28:30 matching my fastest time for a mile.  My last mile at 28:30 was during training for the Utah Half last summer.

On the treadmill again for the run with a 1% incline.  I finished with an 8:13 min/mile average pace and was drentched with sweat by the end.  I should have used body glide on my inner thighs.  My shorts gave me a pretty good rash.  I think I need a bigger fan to move more air to help stay cool.

I had a one hour ride on the trainer today with power intervals worked in.  I need to get the software for the bike trainer loaded on my old PC.  This will give me spin scan, bike courses, and the other training goodies that should help me get more out of the rides on the trainer.

Short run for today.  I went a little harder ending with a 7:54 min/mi pace.  Every fourth week in my training program is a recovery week with shorter workout times.  I try to push a little harder on these weeks.  Due to a family activity I missed out on the swim for today. 

No training today.  16 hour day at work.

No training, another 16 hours at work today.

short hill climb intervals

Long day at work, no training.

Last long day at work.  

speed intervals

2 hours 45 minutes on the bike trainer.  This was a hard one.  I ran out of gas 2 hours in and slowed way down.

80 minute run.  My legs were a bit wore out from the bike the day before.

1 hour 10 minutes biking short hill intervals

40 minute run with speed intervals

40 minute foundation run with 5 sprint intervals tacked onto the end.

Brick workout with the run directly following the bike ride.

1600 meter time trial for today's swim.  I came in at 28 minutes; 30 seconds quicker than my fastest at this distance.

 I haven't blogged or logged training for the last 2 1/2 weeks.  With Christmas over and year end stuff at work wrapped up, I finally have time to go back and get the blog up to date. 

Short hill intervals for the bike ride today.

45 minute run for today w/ 8 x 30 second fartlek intervals mixed in.  Toward the end I wasn't far from 6.2 miles so I went a little extra to get to the 10k mark finishing in 48:22, a new fastest time for this distance.  

Speed and drill sets at the pool.  While doing the kick sets toward the end of the workout my legs started cramping up pretty bad.  I'm not sure if it was from the speed intervals performed just before the kick sets or from something else.