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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.

Biking, Trail Running, Triathlon danville, lake chabot, m2, swimming, Triathlon, vineman

Two down, one to go. Yesterday we ran the Lake Chabot Trail Challenge, the 2nd race in the East bay triple crown.

This half marathon was written up in runner’s world a couple of years ago as the best off-road half marathon in the country. I’m not really sure about that, but it’s nice.

The course is a very demanding, hilly loop with some technical ascents and descents. You won’t set a personal record here, but that’s precisely the appeal. The dirt trails you’ll cover are part of 315 beautiful acres surrounding Lake Chabot, about 25 miles east of San Francisco. You’ll run among giant California redwoods and fragrant eucalyptus trees. And each torturous climb comes with its own reward: some of the best vistas in the Bay Area.

In a way this race was a home coming. We ran this on the way to our first marathon two years ago, and it was a our first real trail run. We were shocked at how hilly it was, and how brutally unprepared we were, but at the same time completely elated with our result. This time, much has changed. I finished about a minute per mile faster than that last time, and felt in much better shape afterwards. The course was beautiful as usual and the weather was cool enough this time. The new organizers of the race, the Castro Valley Track Club, added a new level of organization to the event too. Here’s a few random thoughts about what has improved since I ran this two years ago:

1. 13 miles is not a long run these days. I had plenty of endurance left at the end of this. Not enough to catch the guy who ran by me on the final hill, but enough to run the final mile in less that 9 minutes.
2. Hills: I almost love them! I ran or walked by a lot of people on uphills this time.
3. Downhills have gone from weakness to relative strength. You can make up a lot of ground on a steep downhill if you don’t crash, but you can’t be shaky legged from the previous uphill.
4. I passed two people with ironman gear on (really, isn’t that just showing off? see Rule 13), the woman with the purple singlet who taunted me the whole way through Tilden Tough Ten only to beat me, and the crazy woman with the fake tan running with a rat dog.
5. My HR was much lower than it has been in the past for most of this race. In fact, my HR data would tend to indicate I wasn’t actually that stressed running this.

I’ve been contemplating this race a lot over the past day, however, and here’s what I keep coming back to: the lack of elation. Crossing the finish line this time didn’t seem particularly noteworthy. There it was, its numbers ticking up, the time low enough to reflect two years of running and the effort of the past two hours. There were people clapping and someone yelling my name. How did I feel? Glad to not be running anymore, a little like throwing up, and generally wondering why I do this.

Patty didn’t have a very good run either, which is starting to become the norm rather than exception. I lost contact with her walking up the huge hill at mile 3-4.5. When I looked back she was nowhere to be seen. At the top of the hill was the first aid station where I waited for a bit, but she wasn’t coming, so I continued on even though I felt like I wanted to run this race with her. In the end she finished in basically the exact same time she did 2 years ago. Afterwards she declared that she’s given up running, though I might be able to talk her out of that. Even for me, with my list of things which have obviously improved in the last two years , shouldn’t there be some excitement associated with finishing a race? Perhaps those days are gone.

Anyway, while we ponder out motivation levels, we have another race in two weeks, the Woodminster race, then it’s on to try a tri in July.

Race reports lake chabot, Race reports, Trail Running