I woke up in the middle of the night- checked my phone and it said 3am. It annoyed me that I wasn't able to sleep through the night but I figured that if I let it bother me sleep would be even harder to come by. The good news is that the next time I woke up it was 5:54am. The fact that I didn't end up tossing and turning trying to get back to sleep buoyed my mood a bit.
I sprung out of bed to check the weather. Uh-oh- we have a storm coming in later this morning. I have till about 10am before it started to sleet. Time to break out the Yaktrax. I love that thing. I can't believe I just discovered it this year.
Anyway, I knew that my run route would be blanketed in white this morning so I made sure to bring the camera along. (What made it even better was that the trail was empty, almost totally devoid of people). Below is the clip I took during my outing. The clip is really shaky so if you're prone to motion sickness you may want to pass. Reviewing my filming work made me realize that those "Blair Witch" kids must've had really steady hands.
I felt great post run. I think that I may have fully recovered from my heel issue. woohoo! As cooled down in my apartment I put on "Where the Wild Things Are". I was planning to head straight to the pool after a 15 minute stretch, but that movie ended capturing my attention. There was something about the kid that struck me... maybe it was his loneliness or his ability to build worlds in his head and live them out. Anyway I ended up watching about an hour of that movie before I was able to tear myself away.
The pool was surprisingly... populated. There were a few families there, and a few lanes had to be doubled up. I shared a lane with this triathlete who recently turned pro. I remember swimming next to her a few years back and she was lapping me over and over. I'm proud to say that she didn't lap me quite as badly this time around :)
My pool splits are cause for a reasonable amount of optimism for next season. Today the focus was on reaching and really activating my core muscles. I had renewed determination to stick to the 'ideal' stroke no matter how much my delts burnt. In the end I was able to do only 2200 yards included warm-up and cooldown, but I was content. The goal is the be able to hold this pace and from for 1500 meters. Which I think is very possible. The thought of my swim next season just thrills me.
Ok, gotta go make some spam masubi for the weekend.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
New Beginnings
It's been over a year and a half since my last post. At that time I have yet to have done a single triathlon. Now I have 9 races under my belt. How time flies.
Before I get too deep into my daily rumblings I feel that it would be appropriate to fill in the blanks of the past year: My first triathlon was in May 2008. I finished in what I believed was a respectable top 20%. I went on to do a few more sprints and Olympic distance races. My times improved consistently throughout the year, and ended up with an Olympic PR of 2:29 and USAT ratings for the year at around 77.
2009 introduced a slightly different method to how I trained. Instead of focusing on how far I can push myself on a mix of volume and intensity (totally arbitrary), I decided to go easy for most of my workouts and have one or two really tough workouts a week. This 'breakthrough' workout approach was based on a book by ex-pro triathlete Brad Stearns. In retrospect I think this shift in methodology allowed me to take my bike leg to a whole new level. However it wasn't as effective for the run and swim due to the following reasons: 1. Running too hard was a sure fire recipe for injury, at least for me. 2. Swimming hard is pointless unless you swim right. My technique is still pretty below average and until that is taken care of, flailing my way to a 1:30/100 pace is totally counter productive.
With that said, I have to say that I am content with what I accomplished in 2009. This is despite falling short of my 2009 goals of getting a 2:15 olympic PR and a USAT rating of 83. My olympic PR ended being 2:18 and my final USAT rating was around 80.6.
For 2010 my goals are to break 2:10 and hit a rating of 84-85. This would set me up perfectly for my trip back to the motherland in 2011 to compete with the national team. My guess is that a 2:07 would give me the buffer I need for a comfortable win.... but that's putting the horse before the cart. The immediate goal breakdown is as follows:
1. sub 24 min swim
2. sub 1:01 40k bike leg
3. sub 42min run leg. (now this is probably one of the more ambitious goals, since I secretly do believe that an injury free season could drop me to the 40 min range and possibly a Boston Qualifying marathon later in the year).
So those times along with about 3 minutes in transitions would equate a 2:10 Olympic. There I said it.
More on recent training news soon.
Before I get too deep into my daily rumblings I feel that it would be appropriate to fill in the blanks of the past year: My first triathlon was in May 2008. I finished in what I believed was a respectable top 20%. I went on to do a few more sprints and Olympic distance races. My times improved consistently throughout the year, and ended up with an Olympic PR of 2:29 and USAT ratings for the year at around 77.
2009 introduced a slightly different method to how I trained. Instead of focusing on how far I can push myself on a mix of volume and intensity (totally arbitrary), I decided to go easy for most of my workouts and have one or two really tough workouts a week. This 'breakthrough' workout approach was based on a book by ex-pro triathlete Brad Stearns. In retrospect I think this shift in methodology allowed me to take my bike leg to a whole new level. However it wasn't as effective for the run and swim due to the following reasons: 1. Running too hard was a sure fire recipe for injury, at least for me. 2. Swimming hard is pointless unless you swim right. My technique is still pretty below average and until that is taken care of, flailing my way to a 1:30/100 pace is totally counter productive.
With that said, I have to say that I am content with what I accomplished in 2009. This is despite falling short of my 2009 goals of getting a 2:15 olympic PR and a USAT rating of 83. My olympic PR ended being 2:18 and my final USAT rating was around 80.6.
For 2010 my goals are to break 2:10 and hit a rating of 84-85. This would set me up perfectly for my trip back to the motherland in 2011 to compete with the national team. My guess is that a 2:07 would give me the buffer I need for a comfortable win.... but that's putting the horse before the cart. The immediate goal breakdown is as follows:
1. sub 24 min swim
2. sub 1:01 40k bike leg
3. sub 42min run leg. (now this is probably one of the more ambitious goals, since I secretly do believe that an injury free season could drop me to the 40 min range and possibly a Boston Qualifying marathon later in the year).
So those times along with about 3 minutes in transitions would equate a 2:10 Olympic. There I said it.
More on recent training news soon.
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