A pretty quick summery of last week which was dominated by tired legs from the Century ride. Back to around 8.5 hours of training because our bike ride on the weekend was cut short by a broken spoke so we went for a run instead. Nothing beats bike riding for adding lots of volume.

Above is a picture of running at Lake Chabot.

Swim

1hr 50min (4600yds)

Tuesday’s swim was supposed to be 8×100 then 8×50 but I completely skipped the 50s. I didn’t even realize that until I was recording my lap splits. The 100s were messed up by other swimmers too as the lanes were packed. Oh well, I was still tired from the weekend so was good to get some swimming in. First 100 was 1:33, but most of them were 1:45 or so. Didn’t really care about pace, just wanted to get them done. Did these with a pull buoy.

Thursday’s swim wasn’t too much better motivation-wise, but at least the pool has some room and my main set was interruption free. 75 and 50s. Averaged 1:41/100yards for the 75s, but sadly was kind of dragging for the 50s.

Bike

3hr 30min (51 miles)

Just the M2 class and a rather short ride on the weekend for biking last week. Strangely the M2 session was really good.

Threshold set: 2x3min at 90%, 3x2min, 4x1min, 2x30sec. Started around 235 for the 3mins, 240-245 for the 2 min. Not sure after that…
Strength mini-set: 3 x 1:30 @ 75rpm climbing cadence. Did around 280-285 for these. Not too bad.
Activation set: 4 x :15, very high watts (those were the instructions, not what actually happened), very high cadence. 400-500watts.

Normalized power for the hour: 198 watts.

(riding along the coastal hwy near Pescadaro)

Our ride on Saturday was going to be around 40 miles, perhaps more if we felt okay. We never had to decide that because Patty’s back wheel broke a spoke at around 20 miles in. She waited at a gas station while I rode the 10 miles or so back to the car. That did enable me to get a 30 min harder effort in while heading back up Hwy 1 which was kind of fun. Average for this section: 21.6 miles/hr. Too bad that a) I can’t ride that fast for longer, and b) there was a bit of a tail wind. Fun while it lasted though.

Back in town after I rescued Patty we went to the bakery and ate bear claws and then went out to see the goats (and eat their cheese) at a local farm. Yum. Next time we’re just going to skip the ride and start eating.

Sunday we went to see the start of the Tour of California. We’ve become quite the followers of professional bike racing.

(tour of california start in Santa Rosa, CA)

Run

3hrs 44min (18.1 mi les)

(running near Bass Cove in Lake Chabot)

Above is our weekend run after we returned to Oakland from the failed bike ride. Three hours, 14 mile trail run around Lake Chabot in the evening. This was probably way too long, but we took it easy and walked the steep parts. In the end it took us about how long it usually takes us when we’re in trail running shape. Legs felt strong and my HR stayed down the whole way so I felt pretty good about this run and the state of my fitness in general. Also, nothing beats a long trail run.

Other than that we just did a jog up Strawberry Canyon on Thursday, nothing too stressful.

So that’s it. Not the biggest week, but it’s progress.

This past week saw us complete our second century ride. Since I’ve attempted 4 organized rides I’m now at a 50% completion rate. Previous two DNFs were a broken off rear derailer and the whole Death Valley wind storm last year. More below on this event. The rest of the week was pretty solid. My body seems to be ok so far with this level of weekly effort since I got through all my planned workouts and was still generally functional.

Swim

1hr 48min (5000yds)

Tuesday

Tuesday’s swim was better than it has been in the previous few weeks. Maybe backing off biking and running a little the previous weekend was better. My arms felt stronger and my legs less heavy. Tuesdays are still a little transitional in that I’m really still just recovering from the weekend.

The set was a ladder, 25 up to 175 and then back to 25 (in 25 yard increments). My first 75 was my fastest ever pace: 1:31/100 yards. It’s nice to see a little ray of hope in each swim. The paces general ranged through from 1:40 to 1:50 depending on the length of the interval.

Thursday

The dreaded 2500 yard straight swim rolls around again. Well at least all I have to do is swim and press my watch lap button each lap. Once I’ve done 50 laps I’m out of there. No drills. No rest intervals. Simple. For the first time I was under a minute per lap for this length swim. 2500 yards took me 49 minutes. That’s the same time as I swam 2112 yards at Boise last year. Of course that was mostly because open water swimming is a whole other thing, a thing I can’t really do. Hopefully at Vineman the river setting won’t test my sighting skills like swimming 3/4 a mile out into a choppy freezing expanse of a lake, but I still should go work on that someday.

Bike

8hr 6min (125 miles)

Wednesday

Another session at M2 and another downward spiral. It’s good to get an hour or so of training in mid-week when I apparently am having trouble getting out on my bike, but I’m a little tried of these spirals. Here’s hoping there’s something new this week. Perhaps something a little sub-threshold.

Still, the workout went well. I got there early so I got some extra time spinning. Here’s the HR graph for the workout.

(Heart Rate during downward spiral at M2)

Saturday – Wine Country Century – 100 Miles. 4600ft gain. 7 hours

Saturday we drove up to Santa Rosa in glorious weather to take part in the Wine Country Century. There was apparently 2500 people in this thing, so we never felt very alone. Not all of them were doing the century.

The first section headed out through some farm land and typically awfully surfaced roads. As we’d started right at 7am we were periodically passed by stronger group riders. Not too stressful though, they were friendly and didn’t really swarm around us like in the first part of the Davis ride. We started to get into some rolling country after a while and then worked our way up the Grafton Rd grade which was actually the highest hill on the course. The road is never very steep though and we kept it pretty easy because 100 miles is still a long ride and this was early days.

At the top of that hill the 200km riders headed towards the coast while we descended towards Monte Rio on the Bohemian Hwy though the redwood trees. Nice descent. I thought we’d probably be overtaken a lot along here but it was okay. Either our down hilling was up to par (unlikely) or we just got lucky not to have to deal with much overtaking on the twisting road.

In Monte Rio we pulled in at the first rest area which was filled with people. It was really hard to imagine where all those people came from, I couldn’t even find a rack spot for my bike. Awesome aid stations on the whole ride though, this one featured hot tortillas that there were fillings for, as well as the usual array of cookies and fruit. I ate two cookies, breakfast of champions, as well as one of the tortillas with nothing inside it. And maybe a strawberry.

We left and headed briefly back along River Rd to Guernville and then turned back into the Redwoods. It was cold in this section after the stop and I wondered if leaving my arm warmers behind was such a good idea. Of course later in the day it was baking hot, so I didn’t really need them but it was chilly and I couldn’t really stop from tensing up from being cold. We took some pretty untraveled back roads and climbed a couple of short but much steeper hills, the second of which actually set a new (in the wild, I’ve done better than that at M2) 1 min power record (330 watts) as I sat in behind a strong looking rider and let him pace me up the steep final pitch. We passed people left and right as people wobbled all over the place. The whole climb was only 5 minutes fortunately and took about 250 watts average. The worst part was actually the descent, the road was in bad shape and at one point Patty was braking so hard I didn’t think I was going to stop myself from skidding into her as I couldn’t really get a lot of stopping power on the rough surface.

After these steep guys the terrain started to calm as we left the coastal hills back east and then north up towards River Road and on to the second rest area.

(Just after the 2nd aid station – Natural Light Photograph)

Soon after the second aid station, more than 4 hours into the ride and the major hills behind me, I decided it was time to get down on my aerobars and put in an hour or so of medium-hard effort to see what would happen. The results were mixed. It was excellent fun and only two people passed me in almost 30 minutes: one guy going fast on a tri bike who I was never going to keep up with, and another guy on a road bike who I followed along behind most of the way to lunch. The bad was the section didn’t end up being all that fast, about 16 miles/hr, because the trip up west side road was into a head wind and actually sloped uphill, although it rolls up and down. My power was around 175 for the first 30 minutes (NP 190, heart rate 160-165bpm), about where I wanted it, but then started to drop off. Eventually I started to get passed which at this stage of the ride (around 60 miles in), means either everyone else sped up or I’d slowed down. Obviously the latter is the correct answer. I took a Gu and then things picked up again and I put in a little more solid effort to get to lunch. My feeling is that the first 30 minutes was still too high an intensity for me 4 hours into the ride. I’ll have to see how things go the next month or so and try again. I need to find a workable intensity which enables me to eat and drink okay, avoids any cramping (my left quad had the beginnings of some cramping right before the lunch stop — dehydration might have been a factor there), but lets me progress through the course in a reasonable time. Also looking at the power graph, I think I hit the early hills too hard. I should have kept my power under 200-210 and not spiked my power do much going into them.

(perhaps mile 60 was the place to eat, not 66)

The lunch stop was pretty welcome. My shoulders and some spot between my shoulder blades were crying out for a break. I hung out on a tarp until Patty turned up then we sat around at a picnic table eating and drinking. They had little roast beef sandwiches between two pieces of flat bread that were really good. I may have had another cookie too.

For the last 30 miles Patty and I rode together. With the light downwind conditions it was easy enough to move along, but weren’t really flying either. 16 miles along was the final rest stop which had coke. Is there anything better than cold coke 86 miles into a century (in 85 degrees)?

From that aid station we headed south down though the Chalk Hill area towards the finish in Santa Rosa. The hill itself didn’t seem so bad, I passed a bunch of people on it and thought, like the writing on the road near the top: “What hill?”. Anyway, over the top of it and down the other side.

A picture of Patty coming down from Chalk Hill, pretty happy to have no hills ahead of her, I suspect:

From there it was basically a roll back into Santa Rosa and the finish.

A fun time was had by all.

Run

2hrs 42min (15.2 miles)

Tuesday and Thursday

Ran both days after work, but we kept it really easy and just ran around 3 miles easy each day. Thursday is usually a hill run but decided against that to save the legs for the bike ride.

Sunday
9 miles (1.5 hours)

I was a little uncertain how this run would go after the Wine Country Century the day before, but it went great. Ran along the trails: Sequoia Bayview and West and East ridge trails out and back. Stopped for a few minutes at a bench overlooking the hills, illuminated by the early morning sun and had my Gu. A cute dog came up to me, looked up at me, then his ball at my feet, then up at me again. Charades: 3 words, third word. I’m looking at it. Um… “Ball?” “Throw the ball”. I threw the ball. The dog was happy and so was I.

Anyway, I needed to run back and I worried whether I’d come crashing down, but instead the legs felt good with little sign of the day before and I ran back without taking any walk breaks. Good way to wrap up a great training week.

Total: 12hrs 36min.

Total about 9 hours.

A slightly lighter week of training this week as we backed off the bike distance in preparation for this coming weekend’s century ride in the wine country. We probably don’t need to taper for a ride next week exactly, but it felt good to reduce the distance a bit and actually get something done with the rest of our day.

Swim

2hr 01min (5000yds)

Tuesday

It was swarming at the pool. The swim team was taking up 3 lanes and were themselves dealing with 4 a lane at least. There was craziness in the slow lane. In the end I moved lane twice and didn’t really manage to put together the best swim session. Plus, my arms felt tired. Still, I got in the distance and my main set (more or less), before joining a 4 a lane circle swim to see out the rest of the yards and blowing off my drills.

300yd Warmup
400yd 3-5-7-3 drill
10x75yds on 20sec RI (swimming about 1:45 pace)
10x50yds on 15sec RI (though the RI was really variable)
600yds easy/cool down/circle swim hell.

Thursday

Main set:
2x200yd; 4x100yd; 2x200yd

I usually don’t like 200s. Too long to really push, too short to cruise. But today I had a pretty good swim. The first two 200s in 1:47/100yd and 1:49/100yd. The second two in more like 1:53/100yd pace. The hundreds were not as good as last week, 1:44-1:48.

The good news was I didn’t feel too smashed afterwards which is a really good sign because more than speed, that’s the goal. Also, not so many people in the pool for a refreshing change, I even had a lane to myself for a while. I still hugged the lane marker because it feels weird to swim down the black line. In addition to a generally better swim I had a slight break though with bi-lateral breathing today, in that it was actually pretty workable today. I’m going to keep practicing this for some of every session in the hopes it will improve my stroke overall. On the dark side, I still have too much of a pull buoy dependence though. My legs like that. I give my legs what they want.

Bike

4hr 35min (73 miles)

Livermore

Wednesday

M2 class was another downward spiral. Actually, I was pretty confused at one point so the specifics are a little lost, but the general idea was a decreasing length of over 100% effort like last week but instead followed by recovery at 90% for 2 minutes. Still pretty hard. It was an interesting exercise because you’re screaming for a recovery after the hard effort, then have to deal with the lactate buildup while still pedaling a pretty concentrated effort. Amazingly that works and the recovery gets easier as you go on. If you get the power right you can do this in the real world, for example at the top of a climb, say 110-120% effort for 5 mins of a climb, then 90% effort across the top, then fully recover on the descent.

Saturday

Kelly had her science fair in the morning so our long ride had to wait until midday. It was hot already, were hungry, and when our pump decided to just let air out of Patty’s tires, not in, we were almost ready to just pack the bikes back on the roof of the car and go home for a run. Using a hand pump we got her back in business and headed out towards Livermore for a 50 mile round trip.

Not a bad ride, but warm and we were were kind of glad to be done. Feeling generally faster and more powerful.

Run

2hr 15min (13 miles)

Tuesday

Quick run at Clark Kerr including running up the hill. More of a recovery run than anything.

Friday

Thursday’s run didn’t happen because I was at work until late. So Friday at dawn I ran 3 miles on my hill loop. This was pretty much as good as running feels, which makes me think I’m probably about to be injured. I took it nice and steady but still arrived home in the best time I’ve run in years. I feel like I’m finally getting over the injury last fall and getting some running speed back.

Sunday

The good, the bad and the ugly with this run. My legs didn’t feel so good after the bike ride, it was warmer than I’m used to running in (which we call “good training”), and we ran on pavement which we almost never do. But the good was we ran all over the place in Oakland, from the lake where people were actually out in bikinis, to people buying tamales out of the back of a pickup truck near the swap meet, to a weird street we ran down on the water front filled with artists and fences made out of bike pieces and UFO sculptures (5th ave marina **), to Jack London square, through China town and a temple swarming with Buddhists and filled with good smelling food and incense, to the Oakland Museum were we ran up the steps like Rocky, and back to the lake.

** The reviews on Yelp of 5th Ave Marina, which I’d never heard of before are awesome:
“Avast, ye mateys. This here be th’ most rickety, barnacle crusted haven in all o’ Dead Man’s Estuary. ”
“Great place for a bonfire.”
“Beware, zombie dogs from the sea.”
“this place is unsafe…”

Training last week has finally settled down after the week in Utah and the week before that which, missing it’s weekend training, was pretty minimal. Last week I managed to get in all my planned workouts, plus an extra run. I’m still pondering how to get another bike ride in, but for now this is sort of working with the rest of my life.

Swim

1hr 53min (5000yds)

Back in the pool twice last week. Tuesday’s session was kind of a regression. My arms seemed tired, perhaps from the Sunday bike ride or just general fatigue from the trip and all the driving. It was time for another straight swim of 2500 yards. This one didn’t go as well as last time, I spent more time at the wall because I felt out of sorts, or because I needed to change lane or other people were entering my lane etc. And then the pool spa started to smoke out the pool with some horrid electrical burning smell which did nothing for my swimming either. So in the end I got in the distance, but it was kind of a mess.

Thursday’s swim went better, at least at the beginning. I swam a 100yd in 1:37, which is a good 5 secs than I’ve swum one before. The other 7 100s were all under 1:45, so this was exciting. About 5 seconds faster for each 100 than a few weeks ago. Hopefully this will translate up to longer straight swims. I’d really like to be able to continuous swim closer to 1:55/100yds.

Bike

6hrs 51min (96 miles)

Monday
Sports Basement trip #1. Took bikes in to get serviced and have them install my new crank and pedals. Running Ultegra throughout now, and hopefully the end of my click noise on each down pedal.

Tuesday
Sports Basement trip #2. Picked up the bikes. Patty’s bike needed a new chain and her front brakes are almost done. Mine needed a new chain as well and they replaced the BB too though I’m not sure if it was damaged or if they just did it for compatibility with the new crank. I’m kind of glad they did anyway.

Wednesday
Back to M2 and did a Downward Spiral. No M2 himself, but still a good class. A downward spiral in this case is: 2min at 100% watts (CP10), 1:45, 1:30… down to 15sec, each with better watts, each with equal time easy spin rest. Then repeat the whole thing a second time after 5min recovery. I was a little skeptical I was going to make it, but the second time through was actually better than the first. Some M2 people have been posting their workouts on Strava and it’s frightening how high their power is for this set. Ouch. Oh well, I can only train at my level, knowing that they are riding 400 watts while I’m doing 250 isn’t really that helpful to me, other than knowing why they are competitive in their age groups or Cat 1 racing, while I’m just hoping to get through a 112 mile ride unscathed.

Saturday
For our long ride we headed back up to Healdsburg to ride some of the roads of our upcoming century ride (in 2 weeks). Here’s the details:
– Miles ridden: 75
– Elevation gain according to Strava for 75 miles: 3756ft
– Elevation gain of the full 100 miles according to website: 3300ft.
– Time left home: 6:05am
– Hours gone from home: 11
– Hours moving: 5:40
– Number of bottles ejected and lost: 1 (Chalk Hill descent)
– Times I completely ran out of water: 2
– Temperature at the end of ride: 89 degrees.
– Number of cracked aerobar arm rests: 1
– Condition of the roads: not good
– Length of snake on Graton climb: 5ft (alive)

Sunday
Sports Basement trip #3. Had them adjust my derailers and brakes a little. Replaced the bike bottle. More carbo-pro. And Patty and I got new bike shorts which we hope will help us with the 100 mile ride. Apparently bike shorts are supposed to last 6 month to a year and be good for about the number of miles = $$ you spend. e.g. $30 bike shorts good up to 30 miles. So I should be good for 135 miles. Biking is expensive.

Running

3hrs 53min (20.4 miles)

(running above Berkeley)

Lots of running this week, relatively. Felt good. I miss running.

Tuesday
We met after work and ran around the track a bit before chatting with the LMJS Tuesday track group for a bit. It was their first time at Clark Kerr where we are every Tuesday and Thursdays. It was nice to see them again. We declined their invitation to do quarters with them, instead we ran up the street hill nearby and looped about the bottom the campus. A pretty easy run. Felt good to run the legs a bit after the Sunday bike ride and all the time driving.

Thursday
Did the full Strawberry Canyon loop, although not running too hard. It was pretty warm out and the legs generally felt good.

Sunday
Then Sunday I got up early and ran 1hr 30min on Sequoia Bayview though to Skyline gate, then on another 10 minutes to make it 45 min out. Stopped an had a Gu and a drink then ran back. Again it was warm and people were already on the trail. Lots of dogs and the mountain bikers were just getting going. Legs were tired but it got better as I went.

Patty had stalled on her run all day so by evening she wanted some company so we dropped Kelly off with her grandparents and went up to Redwood park Steam trail and ran out and back for an hour. It was stunning up there. Warm like summer, lush green like winter. Forget me nots out everywhere. By then my legs were quite a bit stiffer than earlier in the day so I took it super easy. Also, my inside heel was letting me know it was there, a problem I had a couple of years ago. I wonder if my new pedals need the cleat loosened up? Anyway, it went away so something to keep an eye on. 2.5 hours for the day, 8 hours of running/biking for the weekend.

Totals for the week: 12hrs 41min

I would say training is going well, but I’m not sure that’s true. I’ve been active, but I knew these past two weeks were not going to follow a schedule so whatever that means for progress I’m willing to live with.

Totals for last week: bike 70 miles, run about 2 hours, swim 1 hour.

Instead of routine we’ve been in Southern Utah hiking and camping, so that’s what this post is mostly about.

Great Basin National Park

We drove out Hwy 50, “America’s loneliest Road” through Nevada, stopping along the way only for lunch, gas and a chocolate malt in the cute but run down old school American Hwy towns. Just before the Utah border we stopped at Great Basin National Park and camped for the night. The campground had only just opened and patches of snow still lay about. It was freezing during the night, maybe mid-20s, and by morning I was accused of stealing a blanket from my daughter. I deny it.

(Great Basin National Park)

We had a lazy and slow beginning to the next morning as we sat around the fire and warmed ourselves up. Luck went our way when we finally got moving and turned up at the visitor’s center and got invited to join a 10am tour of the caves. We’d called the day before and the tours were sadly full, but this tour was just added that morning. That set the tone of continued good luck throughout this trip.

The tour itself was great and both Patty and I saw a lot more of the caves than we had on previous visits and Kelly loves that kind of thing.

Capitol Reef National Park

Our first stop in southern Utah was Capitol Reef, one of our favorite places.

Here’s some photos of the run Patty and I did on Monday morning there: from the campsite up to the Fremont River Overlook. With the altitude it was a pretty hard run, I’m not sure I’ve breathed so hard since I was in high school (Strava).

(Running in Capitol Reef)

After running we took the scenic drive and stopped at Capitol Canyon and walked to “the tanks”. It was a short hot walk, but the tanks themselves were cool. A series of rock pools that were mostly dry. I’d like to see them filled and flowing from one to the other.

(Capitol Canyon)

We camped on the grass in the walk-in section of the main park campground which was a nice location. Unfortunately someone else was listening to (perhaps) 1950s sitcoms until 1am in their tent (?!). There’s always someone to ruin a night’s sleep.

(Capitol Reef)

San Rafael Fold

Our next destination was the San Rafael fold directly north of the Goblins State Park. The park itself is nothing very exciting, kind of overrun with kids and dogs, and the people who work at the entrance station are some of the most unfriendly and unhelpful people we’ve come across (three separate encounters). Our focus was instead to the north in the BLM land where we dispersal camped and then hiked the Little Wild Horse slot canyon loop.

(Camping near Temple Mountain)

For me the hike was the highlight of the trip, with miles of slot canyons to walk through. Sometime we need to go back and explore this area more.

(Little Wild Horse Canyon)

It took us 3hrs 45 mins to complete the 8 mile hike. Kelly really enjoyed this, not a single complaint was heard though I think she was pretty happy to be done and guzzling an ice cold coke we had in the cooler for just such an occasion.

Moab

To break up the camping we stayed Tuesday night in Moab at a rather unexciting motel, but didn’t really spend a lot of time in the town itself. Wednesday morning I got up and went swimming and knocked out about 2500yds in probably the nicest pool I’ve ever been in at the brand new Moab Rec Center. Huge windows face out towards the red rock cliffs lit up by the rising sun, reflecting the light all across the pool surface. It’s going to be hard to face the Y this week. The swimming itself seemed a little bit of a struggle at the higher altitude but I also eventually realized the pool was 25m not yards, so I wasn’t going as slow as I feared. At least I think it was 25m!

After that Patty and I took turns running and discovered a river road heading south along the Colorado River (Strava). I had to stop and take this picture and contemplate how I can move to Moab and do runs and swims like this all the time. Still working on that plan without much forward progress.

(Running along the Colorado River)

On the way out of town we stopped and walked up the Mill Creek trail to a local swimming hole. It was a hot day but we didn’t see any swimming going on. We made Kelly a deal that if she jumped off a rock into the creek we’d buy her a sushi dinner. She took the bet so I guess sushi is in the near future. She deserved one anyway for the hike the day before, but she was so uncomplaining I never even got to use that carrot.

Canyonlands National Park

We made our way down the Canyonlands as the winds picked up. By the time we got there the winds were gusting up the 50 miles and hour. We decided to camp anyway and it worked out okay even if it was kind of a noisy night and dust and sand would occasionally whip up under the fly and shower down on us.

(Camping just outside of Canyonlands)

The next day it was calmer but thunderstorms were rolling through the area. Our original plan was some 4WD fun up Salt Creek with some side hiking, but it turned out that the Salt Creek drive was impassable, so instead we set out for a 10+ mile hike around a loop within Needles, up Big Spring and back on Elephant Canyon. This was some hard hiking for 10 miles, constantly climbing between canyons, through cracks, over obstacles, and even two ladders. It took us just over 6 hours to finish and we experienced it all: sun, rain, wind and hail and a lot of spectacular rock along the way. In the end both Patty and I were pretty much exhausted, not to mention our poor daughter. She had a few dark moments in the middle, but she pulled through on what was certainly her hardest hike to date.

(Hiking in Needles)

(Kelly says 10 miles)

Trip home

After another night in Canyonlands we headed back home via Natural Bridges National Monument (where we just drove the scenic road), and a long trip through Navajo country to Flagstaff. The next morning we continued in a snow storm back west and made it home is a rather epic drive.

Complete set of photos here.

Swim

2hrs (5000yds )

I made it back into the pool two times last week. Every time that happens I feel like I’m making real progress towards my training. I’ve started to see actual progress in the numbers too. For one, I can swim 2500 yards twice a week and my arms only feel a little like falling off. Secondly, my 100 yard splits have improved in both speed and steadiness. I used to be able to swim 1:52 or so early in my set, but after 4 or 5 100s it was back to 2:00+. I’m now down around 1:45-1:47 for the whole set.

Tuesday: 2500yard in the pool

Tuesday I did 8x100s then 8x50s for my main set. The 100s were clearly a lot better than last year so I was pretty excited. Interestingly my 50s weren’t too much faster than the 100s, even perhaps slower. I think this points to a couple of things. The first is that when I try to swim faster, I often go slower because I’m less smooth. Yet another counter-intuitive element to swimming like how my kick makes me go slower. The other thing is I really don’t like 50s, they are more anaerobic than I particularly enjoy while having my head under water most of the time so I fall back to my 100s pace/effort too easily.

For drills I’ve been working on 3-5-7-3 breaths to work on my underwater breath out and general lung capacity while swimming. It’s also good to try to breath on my bad side. These are both fairly clear limiters so I might as well chip away at them during drill time.

Thursday: 2500yard in the pool

Thursday I was running late so swam at 8am instead. The pool was pretty much empty but at 9am just as I was getting out it was being cleared for some group class, so I guess 9am is a hard limit on lap swimming. Good to know.

The set of 10×75 followed by 10×50. The pace was pretty similar to Tuesday, but my arms were tired by the time I was done. I don’t think I should increase my swim distances for a while.

Bike

5hrs 37min (84 miles)

Wednesday: M2 Cycling Class (1hr 10min)

On Wednesday it was back to M2 with a pretty similar workout as last week. I think I went a little hard early on and was generally a mess by then end.

Sunday: 60 miles (4hrs 30)

Sunday we headed out to Clayton to do a loop of Mt Diablo, starting off with the Morgan Territory road climb. Since we’ve ridden this loop a few times before it was good to try an calibrate our fitness against the past couple of years.

(heading off for our ride in Clayton, CA)

The ride ended up being pretty hard. My normalized power was 180ish so that’s quite a bit higher than previous trips around the mountain and pretty solid for a 4 hour ride for me. Part of that was that Livermore valley was fairly windy and so there was some good hard pushes in there that kept the power up. I also pushed up Collier Canyon pretty hard into a head wind and had some fun riding by some people (it took a few minutes of 300+ watts to take out two cyclists but it was worth it, I’m usually the one being overtaken).

(peak power graph)

By the time we reached Danville, about 40 miles in, Patty had more or less had enough. Her new saddle is not breaking in quick enough and she was tired of fighting the wind. I decided to go ahead and get the car while she rode to Sports Basement. She ended up riding about 54 miles, so probably could have just ridden it in anyway.

In the end I had a pretty good ride. Power agent reports it was a new 30min and 1hr power record, plus I think it was probably a NP record too, so I’m hoping this means my cycling legs are on their way back.

Run

1hr 56min (10 miles)

The week was dominated by extremely wet running opportunities.

Tuesday: missed

Tuesday’s run was aborted because a few miles in Berkeley simply wasn’t worth going out in the middle of a storm. We instead sat in Peets across from the Claremont Hotel and watched a river of water pour off the tennis courts.

Thursday: 3.2 miles hill

Kelly didn’t go to gymnastics as she has her parent’s ability to get injured. Plus, I think she’s tired of it and isn’t really making much progress despite 6 hours a week there. I know I look for improvements continuously so I can imagine it’s probably getting to her a bit. She seems to generally enjoy it though and doesn’t want to give up on it, so we’ll see how it goes between now and the summer.

Anyway, that left us scrambling for a run, so we met at home and did a quick run up Park Blvd and back down the canyon.

Saturday: 1.5 hours (about 7 miles)

On Saturday we headed out in another storm to Redwood Regional Park. Driving there we could see the storm front moving across the Bay towards us — a wall of blackness. It started to rain as soon as we got out of the car and by the time we returned we had run an hour and a half in pouring rain, shin deep puddles and lots of mud, plus the temperature had dropped down 10 degrees. It was a run to remember.

(Redwood Park in the Rain)

In other running news I have a new running watch. Two years after killing my Garmin I have the FR70. The main aim is to get a HR reading off my Garmin HR strap which I use with my Powertap. That way in a race I can get a HR value on my watch when I get off my bike and start running. It also has a foot pod so I get some measure of pace and distance. It is supposed to be as accurate as GPS, though uncalibrated it was about .2 of a mile different from the cell phone GPS track I made. I’m inclined to think the watch may be more accurate because running in a canyon under redwood trees in a storm is possibly the worst case senario for a GPS device. Anyway, I hope to calibrate it at the track to improve it’s accuracy and then will do some more comparisons.

Total

9hrs 33min

(flooded conditions on the trails in near Lake Chabot)

It’s been awhile since I updated training, so here goes.

First, there’s really too much to update, so I’m skipping over most of the details. In the Fall I was injured for all of October with a calf injury but recovered and ran my first 50k trail race in Marin at the North Face Endurance Challenge. It was a great experience and made me want to run a 50k every weekend. Now four months later I have yet to run another one and have moved back to Triathlon training. Hopefully we’ll be back at that in the late summer and fall.

In January I ran the Epiphany run, which for me turned out to be just over a marathon distance from Skyline Gate to the Lake Chabot marina and back on the trails. Patty had knee (IT) trouble which has plagued her ultra running so turned back. I ended up running part of the outward journey was a guy we know from the Endurables. After that our next goal race, a Coastal Trail Runs race in Marin sold out on us, so after flailing around on our plans for a while we returned to cycling and to begin getting ready for our spring and summer goals:

1) May 5th – Wine Country Century- 100 bike ride in Sonoma County
2) July 28th – Full Vineman – 2.4 mile swm, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run.

Yes. I’m signed up for my first Ironman.

Kelly says “You’re going to end up in hospital daddy”. I hope not, but it’s certainly got me back training and especially got me back in the pool.

Swim

1hr 47min (4700 yards)

Tuesday: 2200 yards

Warmup, drill work, and a main set ladder: 25yd up to 175yd and back to 25yd on 30sec

I’ve been back in the pool and have a new routine of getting out of the house early to swim before work. That’s much more reliable because if I try to swim in the middle of the day something usually comes up and I push it and push it until there’s no more lap swimming. So far the swimming is actually going fairly well. I’ve been swimming about 2200 yards, working my way through a series of sets like this one. This is the same set I used last year so it’s interesting to compare lap times.

In the set I averaged about 3 seconds a lap faster that when I did this not far out from Boise last year (first 25yds was in 24 sec, 50-100yd in mid 1:40s/100yds, and the 175 was just under 2:00/100yds. So it’s earlier and I’m swimming faster. At least that’s not a bad sign. For Vineman I really just need to swim the distance and get out feeling like going for a bike ride.

Thursday: 2500yd straight swim.

Got into a pretty good rhythm and felt strong through this. That was super-encouraging as really the swim is my biggest worry. The woman I was sharing the lane with was knocking off laps at about the same rate as me, you know, rather than someone doing frog kick with a snorkel and pool noodles wrapped around their waist, or something, so that really helped. I wanted to tell her she was the best lane buddy ever, but that seemed excessive. Swam the 2500yards, 50 laps, in 50 minutes, which is not especially fast but felt at least sustainable.

Bike

4hr 54min

Wednesday: Cycling class

Back to the M2 bike classes. It’s still the easiest way to get in over an hour of riding mid-week while having someone push me a little harder than I like. This is my one high intensity session on the bike for the week. I’m hoping with a few years of cycling behind me now I’ll see some real improvement this year, but this first session just made me feel like I’ve got nowhere on the bike. My power levels felt about where they were 3 years ago. But that will improve, right?

Anyway, this week’s workout was something like this:

4x(2:30@90%watts on 30sec rest) (~200watts)
3:00@110%watts (~225watts)

4x(2:00@90%watts on 30sec rest) (~200watts)
2:30@110%watts (~235watts)

4x(1:30@90%watts on 30sec rest) (~200watts)
2:00@110%watts (~238watts)

Saturday: 43 mile bike ride out of Danville.

The usual route, out towards Livermore and back. This week added bonus fun of dodging a winter storm coming though the Bay Area instead of the usual pelletons of team cyclists. In the end we probably picked one of the only semi-dry areas around that morning and only got misted on a bit in the first hour. Turned out to be a nice ride.

Run

2hr 16min (12 miles)

Tuesday – skipped.

Missed run because Patty had to go out and I felt too tired to come home and run.

Thursday – 40min hill run (700ft gain)

Ran up Strawberry Canyon in Berkeley to The Hill. We hiked to the top of that, and then returned along the lower firetrail back to the Cal stadium and then along the streets back to Clark Kerr. Since Patty and I now meet in Berkeley on Tuesdays and Thursdays to pick up Kelly from gymnastics, those days are now locked in to running either the hills behind campus (Strawberry Canyon or Claremont Canyon or both) or running on the track.

Sunday – Watched and cheered at the Oakland Marathon as it came by near our house, then did a fairly easy 1.5 hour trail run (about 1000ft gain) in Lake Chabot, pictured above. Wet and muddy fun.

So that’s it. Another week done.

Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho

Driving out to Boise

Relaxing in Boise

Sawtooth Mountains

Craters of the Moon

Back in Boise

A few weeks ago I took part in my second Half Ironman distance race in Boise, ID. I thought I should at least post some photos and write down some thoughts. So, here it is:

Most people seem surprised by why I would go to Idaho for a race but Boise is a cool town with good crowd support, and it’s not that far a drive from the Bay Area. It’s a place we love to visit, race or no race. As a bonus we like to camp in the mountains around Idaho that it seems the rest of the world has yet to discover. Many parts of Idaho could be National Parks, but fortunately they are not. Boise is kind of like our Hawaii. The place we go to relax, eat good food, and not do anything in particular.

PRE-RACE

I was the usual disaster of nerves before this race. Actually for weeks leading up to it. Somehow running doesn’t get me stressed like a big triathlon. Still, I knew where I was going this year and what needed to be done. The line to register was insanely long but it went smoothly. I got my bike ready and took it out to Luck Peak Friday afternoon to check in. The wind was blowing and it looked like a thunderstorm could soak us any minute. A guy I talked to in transition was from Boise and said every training ride but one that year had been in the wind no matter what time he tried to work it. Ah, the Boise wind. I’m thinking that will always be a factor here.

The next morning I got up and had plenty of time to get ready since the race started at noon. We headed downtown and to drop off my run bag. This is how the transition looked:

Of course when I got there that afternoon during the race it was completely filled with bikes and I had a hard time finding my bike spot. After that we went back to the hotel for half an hour or so and I got all my things together, all packed into multiple bags to try and stay organized, then headed up to the reservoir. We parked below the dam easily and had a picnic on the lawn. At 11am we made our way up to transition which gave me about 30 min to get ready. All I had to do was add my computer, get my tires pumped up and fill my aero bottle. This time I didn’t lose anything!

(body marking)

(matching race numbers)

SWIM (1.2 miles)
Time: 49:10

When it was our wave’s turn, we leaped off the dock and into the freezing water to await the start. At something between 51 and 53 degrees (depending on who you asked) it was colder than anything I’d swum in before. My hands froze and ached so I lifted them above the water. Looking around, everyone else was doing the same thing like we were all doing a tread water test. I tried to dip my face in the water to get used to it, but it was hopeless. It turns out low-50 degree water is much more unpleasant that high-50s water.

(drowning in lucky peak reservoir)

When our wave finally got to start I started to swim, but had to stop almost instantly. I’d breath, put my head back into the water and feel like I’d taken no breath at all. I looked up and started to breast stroke and realized about a dozen people around me were also breast stroking to regain their composure. It was like a panic attack but I didn’t actually panic. I was just so cold and it was taking my breath away. On top of that, water seemed to be getting in my goggles, water was getting up my nose, and I was trying to swallow half the lake. Clearly this was not going too well. I was less than one buoy down the course and I started to look around for a boat. Maybe if I bailed out we could spend the day doing something more fun that drowning in a freezing cold Idaho lake. How was I going to swim the whole course like this?

After alternating between drowning and breast stroke for a bit I finally started to breath again and make some progress on the swim course. My sighting was a total failure in the chop and seemed to be using much more energy than I was used to. I noticed the sun was right in my eyes too when I breathed on the right. It had a halo around it which I contemplated for a bit and decided it was my goggles though I’d never noticed that about my goggles before. Oh well, a mystery, but I could use it to sight. So each breath I’d make sure the sun was in the same place and then about every 20 breathes I’d make sure I was still in good shape as far as moving up the line of buoys. That seemed to work fairly well.

On the return stretch I got into an ok rhythm. I was actually swimming pretty straight but would stop occasionally to check where I was going. Out there was a pretty confusing mess of buoys and waves and people. Even when you could see where you were going it didn’t always make sense. At one point the course cut in close to the rock sides of the reservoir and I instinctively put my food down on it. It kind of stung and I wondered if I’d cut my foot on it. Also, had I gone so far off course? No, I was swimming a line about 20 yards off the shortest line and still headed for the second turn buoy so I was ok. Back to swimming.

The final turn was the so-called short leg back to the boat ramp. My stroke was going ok by now, but I still decided to stop occasionally and make sure I was swimming the best path. There was a lot of people stopped in the water around here or holding onto boats so navigating through all that was a challenge. At one point I restarted my swim with a frog kick and my calf cramped up painfully. So painful I thought I’d torn it or something. I wondered how I was going to bike or run with a torn calf. What a weird way to end my day. But it subsided and I didn’t feel anything more from it the rest of the day. Something new I guess. Turns out lots of others had calf cramps too.

I made it to the boat ramp and was pretty glad to get out. The people around me didn’t look too good so I imagined neither did I. 49 minutes was only 2 minutes faster than last year when I swam with one arm! That was a little disappointing. I needed to work on my open water skills because that is a clear limiter with my swimming now. Maybe ice breaking skills too.

T1
Time: 6:36

Transition was mostly uneventful except I tore my bib and took maybe 30 seconds trying to make a new hole for it. In the end I just tucked it into my shorts and got out of there. This is probably my favorite photo from the day. I look like I’m racing a triathlon:

BIKE (56 miles)
3:13:09

It was a relief to get on the bike. Time to have some fun. I’m more of a land person than a water person so as long as the bike kept working (please, please, no more flats!) I was pretty comfortable with this. We spent a lot of time since Boise last year biking, keeping it as our dominate long workout each weekend. In October we rode our first century. In February we trained for the Death Valley Spring century and suffered it out in 30 mile/hr head winds all day.

I divided the course up mentally and had a plan for each section. My strategy was based mostly on what I’d learned from last year and what I’d worked on the previous 12 months.

Last year the wind tore everyone up and being new to the biking world really struggled into the wind. Instead of pushing the pace I fixated on my power. Some people went by me, sure, but I was doing the right thing by watching my power and hoping for a break back into town. My pre-race plan was to ride 150 watts for the first hour and then increase from there. In fact, I did that (I rode 149 watts avg the first hour), so that was right on even though I hardly used my big ring the whole way out. So far so good, but at about an hour and a half I climbed a hill and after that my watts went down the tube. My average watts by the time I was done with the bike leg was around 110. I coasted it home and really it was all I had.

This year I’ve concentrated on endurance. I decided I wasn’t using the power I had so we went through two cycles training for 100 mile rides. By the winter I rode for 7 hours with over 160 watts average (mostly into a headwind). I’d shown I could do it and that if I could translate that into a 3 hours of HIM level effort I would be much improved.

So my plan was to go harder earlier on than what I’d think of as even pacing. My reasoning was the last year the course had significant headwinds on the way out of town so I’d try and get through those sections the fastest before the afternoon winds picked up. I wondered if this was wise. This year I felt like if I kept to 170 watts on the way out I’d be able to hold it together for the return journey with my better endurance. Or, I’d at least see what happened and learn something to take to my training to come.

But enough plans and power meters and hopes and dreams.

Out on the bike this time was seriously fun and the P2C was pretty much awesome. A big difference was I never felt uncomfortable on the bike this year, my position is so much better and feels powerful. At the time (and especially compared to last year), I really felt like I could ride a HIM bike leg and race a bike in general. I passed probably around 100 people on the bike, but unfortunately I was only catching the age group ahead of us, the twenty-something woman, not the rest of my age group. If I was a 20-something woman I’d have been pleased with my increased position but I knew it was a bad sign. At the time wondered how much faster I needed to go. About a mile/hr it turned out. Most of my age group rides shockingly fast. Sigh.

Finishing up the bike ride the guy next to me coming into transition described the course as the bike ride from hell. I couldn’t have agreed less, he must live somewhere flat. I felt my bike ride rocked. I’ve been learning how to ride a bike fast for only 18 months and I think it’s starting to come together. It’s no flat course, nor was it without wind, but I rode the flat parts over 20 miles/hr, the down hills 30+ and with the climbs and the no-pass zone etc averaged about 17.5 miles/hr. I’ve never really ridden a bike that fast for so long, so in that way it’s progress and I’m now in sight of where I need to be. After taking 4 hours last year, I hoped to get my bike down the 3:30, and in the end rode under 3:15.

Still, I have mixed feelings about my bike ride because of my age group position, which was bottom 25%. That was a lot of training for a mediocre result. Fortunately most people just think it’s awesome I finished, but I would really like to do a little better than that and feel like I was racing with my age group pack. So what to do…

1) Looking at the power graph I think I can already ride faster, with no more training, just some more experience. I was suckered into feeling at the time that my speed was good enough. I’m going fast, right? Why go faster? Save it for the run. When I’m doing 20 miles and hour but my power is dipping, I should be going faster. Everyone else is.

2) My power graph reveals holes, the places where I backed off. In one long section I rode behind a woman on a cool looking bike. It was a gradual uphill section. Why did I ride 130 watts the whole way along this section? I think I was feeling relatively fine and was kind of over passing people. I think the reason was that in my head the woman in front of me looked like she was moving along strong at a time when I was starting to feel the fatigue appear and I was content to follow her. 15 mins later I got wise and passed her and never saw her again. It’s important not to get suckered into too slow a pace.

3) My power is wavy when the course rolls. I should be on the power more going downhill or when the terrain eases up. It might be just a few moments but it creates real dips in my power and I could be going faster. Working to smooth out the power on the rollers should be a focus for the next year. I know how to keep my power down but have a harder time keeping it up when the going gets easier.

4) Maybe more endurance.

T2
4:12

Last year someone grabbed my bike and took it to its spot and handed me my transition bag. This year I was totally on my own and for the life of me couldn’t find my bag. There was thousands of bikes in transition by the time I arrived, and I knew the lamp post it was across from, but I still couldn’t find it. Eventually a volunteer came over and helped me.

After that it went smooth. Changed shoes, took an expresso Gu, put on my hat and headed out of there.

RUN (13.1 miles)
Time: 2:25:23

I was pretty excited with my bike split, especially since it was 47 minutes faster than last year. My legs didn’t feel so bad though they were certainly heavy for the first couple of miles. I was ready to finish this up strong. But then something happened, slowly, and my splits got longer and longer. My first two miles went by in 19 minutes, which wasn’t too bad and then I started to feel ok running. After that: 10:00s, then 11:00s, a 13 min/mile or so…

So what happened? Why did I run 25 minutes slower than my open half marathon time? Aid stations, and my paranoia about getting down food and water so that something bad didn’t happen further into the run. Perhaps I should have swallowed what I could and kept running. Instead I would take forever to get what I needed and basically try to look after myself at each stop. Standing by the last drop trash cans trying to down the last of a cup of water is probably a waste of time. And with an aid station every mile this really added up.

While this problem is perplexing, here are a few thoughts for reference next time:

1) I suspect I came off the bike dehydrated. That always seems to be a downward spiral that causes my stomach’s lack of interest in taking in food or liquid. The solution to that is fairly easy: drink more on the bike. As it was I drank almost 60oz in 3 hours.

2) I should consider only water and getting as much of it as possible down, but if its not down by the last drop, keep running. Maybe one cup for a swallow and one cup for cooling if needed. Stay away from the Powerbar stuff they have now. Then replace calories with Gu (or blow it off if needed — I could probably get by with 2 Gus but this time tried to take in 4 to see if that would help). I should also practice taking cold water while under stress.

3) The expresso Gu followed by multiple caffeine Gus maybe isn’t a good idea under race stress. Try non-caffeine next time.

Anyway, the run was cooler this year and Patty reported I looked pretty good this time. I caught a few people in my age group (and lots that weren’t of course). Again plenty of people were walking so I went by them. At the end, in what was maybe fitting, my finish was overshadowed by someone in my age group flying past me to take another spot away. Sigh.

TOTAL TIME: 6 hours 38 min.

(finished)

Western United States (click for larger view)

Northern California (click for larger view)

Bay Area (click for larger view)

The program to extract this data from your iPhone backup data is here.