PR demolished!!

Yesterday I ran for a sub-7:10 min/mile pace for 5 miles demolishing my old record of 7:58 min/mile (for the same distance)! What made it even more surprising is that I did it on less than 3 hours of sleep. I attended a wedding the night before and had to wake up at 3am for a flight to get into the city by 7am and make it to the starting line by 9:15am.

For the duration of the race I focused on my form and it seemed that I never pushed myself beyond my limits, ending the race with the seemingly perfect amount left in the tank. I have to say that I’ve never paced a race this well before.

Afterwards, I grabbed some grub with a bunch of friends who had joined me for the race. After lunch I went home and started doing chores around the house. I didn’t really feel tired at all, so I moved from one errand to the next. At 5pm I decided to take a quick nap before dinner.

When I came to it was 10pm. I was totally knocked out of the past 5 hours!! I realized for the period after the race I must have been operating purely on adrenaline. I quickly whipped up some dinner and promptly went back to sleep- knocking myself out again, this time from midnight till 6.30am - for a grand total of 11.5 hours of sleep for the evening.

Thus concludes a highly successfully triathlon periodization cycle. My first ever, and if this is any indication, a start of many fruitful cycles to come. I will be taking a day off, and will slowly transition into the next cycle which will peak again in late August.

Oh JOY!

No rest for the wicked

The countdown has begun.

4 days till the race. Ideally, I should be tapering fulltime now, however I can't resist pushing it a bit. All this time off is getting in my head... I feel like I'm brimming with nervous energy, all of which is seeking release.

I was supposed to go for an easy run today and I ended up doing a 22 minute tempo run. The moment I stepped outdoors my legs tore off its shackles and sprinted, literally, for freedom.

The good news is that it felt great. A year ago, the pace I'm was hitting today would have left me a lot more out of breath that I was. In retrospect, even though physiologically running hard today was probably not a good idea, the confidence boost it gave me probably more than made up for it.

Ok. Back to the serious business of resting!

One more peak!

So this first "peak" of the season is aimed at two events- 1) The bike FTP test I took last week. 2) The 5 miler I have at the end of this week. Even though there is no swimming involved in this peak, I really feel that the results of these two events will really reflect upon my training for the past 4 months. They aren't triathlons, nor are they really big 'A' type races by any stretch of the imagination, but I truly need to do well to give me the confidence to push my training to the next level.

The results of my first test went above and beyond my expectations. My FTP jumped a solid 16% in 10 weeks from 202 to 234. I couldn't be happier with those results.

Now I have a week till the second test and I'm starting to feel the pressure again. My PR for the 5 miler is a 39:52 (about 7:58 min/mile pace) set last year around the same time. I'm really hoping to break 38 minutes (~7:45 min/mile pace) next week. In my hearts of heart, I know, just KNOW I can do it.

Considering the results of my bike test, it seems that the principles I've been applying to my training *should* be working. The hard work has been done, now I just need to calm my nerves and go out there and reap the rewards.

Another Loss

Arthur C.Clarke, arguably the greatest science fiction writer of all time has passed away. The world has lost yet another great mind.

I remember devouring his Space Odyssey series…powering through 2001 to 2010 to 2061. The ideas he wrote about blew my mind wide open. I was taken on a pretty wild journey, made more real by the fact that everything he wrote was based on true scientific principles. I distinctly remembered being even more thirsty for his writing, following up Space Odyssey with the Rama series. And boy, did it not disappoint. Without spoiling the plot, the series opened my eyes up to a whole new perspective on stellar systems in general and ours in particular (a highly recommended read!)

At the time I made a mental note to read the rest of his novels (which thankfully are many, he was quite a prolific author). Until now I’ve been putting it off, but now I’m set on purchasing his latest book, slated to be released later this year- Last Theorem. Which is probably something about Fermat’s Last Theorem.

I will have to credit him and Carl Sagan for fostering my (and probably millions of other’s) curiosity towards the cosmos.

RIP.

234!!

That's right. 234 is my new FTP!

That's a 16% jump in 10 weeks! I couldn't be happier with the results. At this rate, it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibilities to hit 280 by the end of this year.

If anything this test has given me the extra motivation to push myself harder through training. How bad can pain and suffering be when it can bring this much joy? (albeit slightly delayed)

My First Peak

So I’m finally reaching my first “peak” EVER and I’m super psyched.

The culmination of my sweat, blood and tears since November will be in full display tomorrow! Well, at least in the bike leg. My bike class is having a 40 minute FTP test to see how much we have progressed in the past 10 weeks. Honestly, I have no idea what to expect but I’d be lying to myself if I said I wouldn’t be disappointed with anything less than a 10% improvement. My initial test put me at 202.

225 is my goal for tomorrow.

There, I said it. Now the pressure is on me to produce the results.

My Body Hates Me

I realized yesterday, the morning after my tempo run, that my body is not built for endurance running. At least not at the competitive level.

I woke up with searing pain in my upper abdominal area. Whenever I would clench that muscle (sitting up from bed, sitting up from a chair) I would get a nice dose of nausea and stomach cramps. At first I thought it was appendicitis, but I figured the pain would then be on the right side not the left side. Referring to my trusty Trigger Point Therapy Workbook I searched for a trigger point that referred pain to the upper abdominal area.

BINGO.

I found the culprit below my ribs, right on top of the painful area. Pressing into that muscle wasn't as painful as with some of knots on my lower leg but it did induce a really uncomfortable, borderline nauseating feeling. Fortunately, the pain subsided by the time I got to work. What a relief.

I remember the first time I took the intensity up a notch I came down with outer ankle pain a day later. Fortunately for me I had bought my first trigger point book by then (The Pain Free Triathlete) and I managed to massage out the pain.

However the problems did not end there. The next time it was behind my ankles (trigger point was mid calf area), then next came lower back pain (psoas), the next was shin cramps (muscles running down beside the tibia) and now with me massaging all these muscles daily, I was hit with the upper abdominal pain (adding yet another muscle group to the list I have to manage).

My point is that my body is definitely not naturally built for this kind of running. If not for trigger point therapy, I wouldn't have made it past the first ailment. I probably could not have just joined the track team and excelled. But science is truly the great equalizer. Knowing that I can manage this pain naturally, I feel like nothing can stop me now.

Back with a Bang!

Prodded along by the nagging of my number one fan, I have made it back to the world of blogging! :)

These past few weeks were definitely not wasted weeks. After getting sick in early February, I sorta got thrown off track and my blogging lost steam. The good news is that I stuck to my training plan and now I'm in a solid build phase leading up to my bike class test next Saturday and a nice little 8k towards the end of March.

I realize that peaking for these events are pretty pointless but I couldn't keep basing. I NEEDED to see the fruits of my labor. I NEEDED to add speedwork. Especially for a person who's planning to focus on Olympic distances I had to get some intensity in.

With that said, I'm feeling pretty good about my run leg. I was able to do a 20 minute tempo run at 7:30 min/mile pace. I remember destroying myself trying to hit a 8 min/mile pace in an 8k race last year, so this is a huge improvement. I'm excited.

As for the bike portion- I have no idea how much I've progressed. I have yet to ride outside. And the computrainer classes kept me working at certain percentages of my FTP, so I really have no way to gauge my improvement- thus far. The weekend after next is our end-of-class FTP test and I'm hoping to have at least a 10% improvement (203 to 223).

But swimming... ahhh swimming. The apple of my eye, my pride and joy...
My progress in this discipline has been above and beyond my expectations. It was only in November that I waddled along at 1:55/100 pace. It was only in December that I decided to pick up bilateral breathing. It was only in January that I started incorporating flipturns. Now those skills feel like second nature and I'm cruising along at 1:35/100 pace in my warmups. I was hoping to be at this point by the end of this year, but I may have to revise my goals. If I can drop my cruise intervals to 1:25/100 by the end of this year, I would be estatic!