Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Jealousy of fish and chafpples

I've been reading one or two other tri blogs from people who are fish. And I'm really jealous of them. I really wish I was a fish. I don't know why since it's the shortest leg of a triathlon, but I just wish I could swim like the dickens. Because of that, I'm probably going to join a masters swim program soon. I really think I can make huge strides in my swimming by swimming with people much faster than me. I'm going to try T3 first. Yes, I do currently train with Texas Iron and this is kind of like going to the dark side, but I know a couple of people that participate in both. Also, I've dropped in to a few of Texas Iron's swim practice and I was already one of the fastest people in the pool. I remember one day I actually was the fastest and from what I here, T3 has some of the fastest swimmer triathletes in Austin with them. I'll check it out for a week. Then, I'll try the Longhorn Aquatics maybe.

This morning, I did about 2600yds in Stacy. It was kind of slow, but I'm just now getting back into it. I was able to do it no problem though and I'm not hurting at all. The only thing that is missing is my speed in the water. I was actually lucky to get to Stacy this morning since it seemed like everyone on the road was trying to kill me. I guess that is one thing that I miss when I'm leaving my house at 6:00 in the morning instead of 7ish like I did today.

I went running on Sunday and got a chafpple (chafed nipple). It's 3 days later and that thing still hurts. Ouch.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Sophia, Sunshine, and Cycling Gods

Well, today was the first time I took out Sophia, my Cervelo, since November. Since then, I totally torn down the bike and rebuilt it. Let's just say that I didn't put it back together quite right. The front derailleur wants to shift down to the little chain ring all the time. When I'm in my aerobars I pretty much have to keep my hand on the bar end shifter because it wants to slowly drop down. Also, I can't pull the shifter up all the way either. And my handlebars aren't on straight. And I did a very shitty job on my handlebar tape. Other than that, the bike is fine. The rear derailleur works like a champ.

The weather in Austin has been awesome lately. Actually, it's a little warm because it jumped from high in the 50's to high in the 80's. It almost completely skipped oven the 70's which is perfect riding weather. Either way, it was sunny out and I went on another 30 mile lunch ride today. IT was great being back on Sophia and getting in the aerobars and just going hard and fast. I used to think that I was faster on my road bike, but I felt much stronger today on the Cervelo. It was windy as hell and the bike was squirrely from the crooked handle bars, it being a tri bike which isn't fun in a crosswind, and I'm not used to steering in aerobars. I kept getting blown all over the place which made the ride interesting especially when big garbage trucks buzzed me. I just did the 30 miles at a hard pace and I noticed that even when I was going strong, my heart rate wouldn't get as high as it would on my road bike but I was going much faster. This is good.

I did have one problem. I got a piece of glass in my tire and had a flat. I changed the tube and got out my CO2 to fill it up. It was empty. OK, I'll just get my spare cartridge. It was empty as well. Wow, I'm such a dumbass. Well, I'll just call some people at work and try to get a ride back to work. It wouldn't be that big of a deal since it was beautiful outside and relatively close to work. Eh, it was still a good day since I got out for at least 45 minutes. I started calling people and about the 5th unanswered phone call, I saw another cyclist coming down the road. I waived him down and told him my situation. He hand a hand pump and after about 4 minutes of pumping, I was back on my way. Then, as I was about to get back on my bike, another cyclist rode by as well. The cycling gods wanted me to ride today and I sacrificed a package of chocolate covered donuts in their honor after I got back with the ride.

Overall, I had a great ride today. Unfortunately, I was at work at 5:30 this morning and didn't leave until 8:30 tonight so I didn't get in a run. I'm about to hit the sack now and get up for a swim tomorrow.

Man, it was just a great day to be alive and ride and I'm very happy about that.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Heavy on my feet running

I did a 7 mile run aronud Town Lake today. The weather was great at around high 50's and there was a lot of scenery out as well. Very nice and sunny.

The run started out a little rough. I would just describe it as heavy on my feet. Yes, I'm up to about 190 lbs, but I've been in shape at around 185 lbs before and I don't feel as bad as I did today. I just feel really, really heavy and slow. I'm not light on my feet at all and I don't get the feeling that I'm flying when I'm running fast. It may be because I'm running slower since I'm trying to get back into running. Hell, it could be because I'm somewhat heavy right now unlike what I first thought. The run started out bad but then it got better. My training program had me doing a run today and to build throughout the run where I start pretty easy and then end doing a pretty significant clip. The first 4.1 miles was done in 34:05 with an avg HR of 145bpm. The final 2.9 miles was 23:47 with an avg HR of 161bpm. The first lap was a pace of 8:20min/mile which is somewhat faster than what I've been running lately especially with an avg HR of 145. The second lap was at a pace of 8:12min/mile. Now that I'm looking at those numbers, the first lap was pretty good compared to the pace on the second lap. I felt like I was going a lot faster on the 2nd lap. Hmmm, this is interesting. My body was feeling OK. My hamstrings felt tight and my knees were hurting a bit as well. My knees have been bothering my lately. Not bad, but I can feel them hurting a bit, especially in my patelar tendons on both knees. Overall, the run was great even though it started out rough but finished awesomely.

After that, I went and swam 1000yds at Deep Eddy. Wow, it was cold. First time I've been in the Austin area cold water swimming holes since before IMFL. I got warmed up after about 200yds and was actually feeling pretty good towards the end. I think it helped my legs feel better because they haven't been bothering my that badly today. I guess that's a good sign. Then, I came home and had one of my smoothies that I look forward to having on the weekends. Yummy.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Sunburnt in February

I love Austin because of the title of this post. I decided to screw work on Thursday and went for a ride during lunch. My work is kind of the outskirts of town and within 10 minutes from the parking lot at work, I was in an area where there are very few cars and plenty of open road. I've done this loop before I like it a lot. It's also part of the Tuesday Nighter route. Well, I did it and it was windy as usual. I tried to go pretty hard and caught a nice tailwind on the way back in to work. I got a total of 30 miles in so it was a great, tough ride. Also, I was quite relaxed at work after that. I was in the sun for almost 2 hours and I didn't put any sunscreen on my arms. I ended up getting a nice little sunburn from the typical sleeveless bike jersey. Now that I got one burn in for the year, I'll be covering up with sunscreen every single ride.

Later that night, I came home and did the 3.1 mile ride around my neighborhood. Did it in 26:45 so I was about 10sec/mile faster than usual. At first, it was tough but it got a little bit easier later on in the run.

Friday morning was a swim at Stacey. I actually swam for about 50 minutes and got in about 2200yds. I did some drills and the fins I have caused a sore spot on my toe that's itching like crazy right now. It's on the last toe bone between the joint and the toenail so it's in a bad spot. It was a good swim though.

Saturday was another ATC ride. It was a smaller group and once again, I got dropped almost immediately. My heart rate is either at 140 or 175 on these rides and it's tough for me to get into different zones. It was also very, very windy which made it more difficult. Did a 30 minute run afterwards and both the ride and the run just hurt today. I felt really slow on the the run. Had 3 breakfast tacos afterwards and successfully denied myself a 4th one which I wanted very badly. The weather was amazing today and it was almost 70 degrees at the start of the ride. Right now, it's around 76 degrees and very sunny. Perfect winter day in Austin.

For the rest of the day, I think I'm going to take it easy. The last 2 weekends have been busy with house work and I just want to sit on the couch with the windows open and do nothing. Maybe I can find someone to go get some beers with me and sit on a patio all day long.

Ok, time to do nothing.

Shoe mileage: 202 miles

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Wednesday Update

Well, let's get my fan club caught back up with my training. Monday was a core workout and I was a little sore afterwards. Tuesday was a fartlek run at the Austin High track. Did a 15 min warmup and then 8x400 fast, 200 easy. I was shooting for 1:45/400 and I hit it. My heart rate was in the 170-175 range each time so I could've gone a bit faster. Since this was my first speed workout since Christmas, I wanted to take it slightly easy today. Did another 15 minute cooldown run back to the car.

I meant to work out today, but I forgot my towel so I couldn't swim this morning. Then, work got in the way of going to the core workout so I did jack shit today. I feel fat and lazy and I'm trying to break my sweet tooch so if anyone has any advice, let me know. Sweets, especially chocolate, seems to by my last bane of weightloss and healthiness.

Ok, back on track. I have 3 hours scheduled out of my work day tomorrow to go ride my bike. It should be sunny and 80 degrees tomorrow and that's too perfect to pass up. Work can suffer for a day.

Overall, I'm feeling pretty good right now. I'm really, really tired because I've been working out more and harder lately and my body is requesting more sleep to adjust. I slept 7 hours last night and was completely exhausted today. I'm about to go to bed now and that'll give me 9 hours for the night. My ankle is slightly sore for some reason, maybe from the speed work last night, but my body is Ok. My knees are very, very slightly achy, but they wouldn't bother me if I wasn't being so mindful of my body.

Ok, time for bed.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Weekend Update

Well, it's been awhile since my last update. Well, that's because there isn't much to talk about. Monday, I fully intended to go to the core workout. Work got in the way. I meant to bike on Tuesday. Work got in the way. Wednesday, I meant to do a bike ride and that didn't happen because of work. See a trend here? On Wednesday, I realized that I had worked out only once in the last 6 days. That changed on Thursday when I got up and ran the 3.15 mile loop around my neighborhood. The extra rest must have paid off because I clocked that loop at 26:42 with an avg HR of 147 and max of 159. I felt great during the run, too. Didn't get to ride my bike later that day at the Texas Iron workout. I showed up, but forgot my trainer at home and they didn't have any spare trainers. Sucks, because I really wanted to ride.

Now, I haven't been working out all week. And I've been eating a decent amount of crap due to V-Day and stuff like that. Well, I weighed in at 190 surprisingly. After my run today, I should be under 190 tomorrow.

Saturday, I did the ATC ride. Like the last time I went on an ATC ride, I had a flat at the begining. Totally sucks, but I got some practice at quickly changing my tire and I made the start of the ride in time. I got my ass kicked again. I got dropped even before I hit Southwest Parkway. I tried hanging onto a group and whenever I looked at my HRM, my heart rate was around 170. I was suppose to do a base ride that day. Oh well. I just kept going and kept hurting but I never gave up. Got done with the ride and did a 30min brick. Nothing special. Hurt, but felt decently well. A little tired since I went so hard on the bike before. However, I think this is good considering that I'm doing sprints and Olys the first half of this year.

Oh, bike ride was 30.8 miles at an avg speed of 18.6mph. Avg HR was 151bpm and max of 180bpm. 52% of the ride my heart rate was in the 157-175 range. Wow. The brick was 28:28 with an avg HR of 157bpm, max of 168.

Today, I did a run around Town Lake. There was almost no one out there because a lot of people were doing the half and full marathon. Did a full 7 miles today and I felt fine. A few small aches and pains but nothing that really registered as a potential problem. Total time was 1:00:43 with an avg HR of 148, max of 164. First 4.1 miles was 34:36 at 145bpm and the second 2.9 miles was 26:07 at 152bpm. What's great is that my pace was 8:40 and I'm happy about that. It felt good today. I've also been working on picking up my knees when I run. When I started running again, I shuffled a lot. My coach yelled at me about it and I've been trying to correct it. It really gets my hip flexors on fire but that's a good thing.

I'm trying to get back into swimming, but it's just too cold. I just need to suck it up and and get my butt in the water.

One more thing, personally, I try to strive to see how low I can get my pulse and my blood pressure. It's another to be competitive among other triathletes. However, we forget the dangers of low pulse and low blood pressure. Here is an email from my coach:

Hi Guys,

I'm not sure how much you may of heard but I had a fall last Sunday at the
long supported run and had to go to the hospital. At the time it was
diagnosed as low blood pressure which caused me to feint and smack my head.
I went home with 3 staples, a concussion and a nasty headache.

Yesterday (Thursday) I had to go back in to the hospital because I thought I
was having a stroke. I lost feeling/control in the right side of my face
quite suddenly. At the hospital, a second CT scan showed a small contusion
on the left frontal lobe of my brain and a fractured skull behind the right
ear. The fracture had allowed blood to pool around a nerve that controls the
side of my face and thus my symptoms.

I am back home but not quite back up to speed. I am on steroids (I'm
juicin!) to promote the healing and reduce the swelling but time is the best
cure. I will be working on schedules and what not in the coming days but I
would ask for your patience with me as things may be a little slower than
normal. I have a large backlog of e-mail which I will be working through and
I promise you a response. if you have sent me an e-mail in the last 36 hrs
the chances are its sitting unopened in my inbox.


I've had issues getting lightheaded from time to time and this is something that to any well trained athlete. I know my blood pressure is about 104/58 and it keeps getting lower as I work out more and let work bother me less and less. This is just a reminder to everyone to be careful and watch your vitals and low as possible always isn't the best.

Shoe mileage: 189 miles

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Bike Tire Fun & Run

Well, I didn't get to ride yesterday. I was busy working on my house and I got a lot of stuff done so it was worth skipping my workouts. However, I still have some interesting bike stuff to talk about. Remember how last weekend I flatted on the ATC ride? Well, here's a pic or two of why you should always check your tires after you get a flat.





You know what's crazy. I didn't notice this little knobbit until Thursday for the trainer workout. So, after I flatted last weekend, I rode on the tire with the tube sticking out for a good 7 miles or so and I didn't have any mishaps. I'm quite surprised that it lasted without another incident. I want to save the tire, but this picture shows the damage and I will probably have to get another tire.



I had another fantastic run today. Partly cloudy and around 50 degrees. I was wearing my REI Power Stretch and I got really, really hot. I ended up having my gloves off and the zipper on my shirt unzipped all the way. That thing is very warm. I did about 6.1 miles like last Sunday. Total time of 56:05 with an avg HR of 151, max of 166. The first lap was a time of 26:03 with heart rate of 148. Second lap was 26:31 with an avg heart rate of 155. Something was odd. Maybe one of these days I'll get in a run where I eat and drink beforehand instead of just getting up and running. Eh, it was awesome either way.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Good News

Good news. My weight is now down to 189.5. I'm under 190! I lost 4 pounds in the last 11 days. I guess this keeping track of your calories and exercising thing works. Who woulda thought that. And to celebrate, I went out and ate pizza and drank beer last night.

I swam on Wednesday. I think it was the first time in over a month. I really need to get back into swimming and that's one of my goals for this month. I only did about 1600yds. I was fine and I just need to start doing hour long sets again. That afternoon, I actually got out of work on time and made the core workout. My abs are still a little sore today from it.

Thursday was a great day. I ran during lunch with one of the guys from work and I ran "naked". No heart rate monitor, no iPod, no watch. Temperature was great at about 58 degrees. I did 3 laps which was 4.5 miles and it felt great. That night, I did the spin workout with Texas Iron. My knee was hurting at first and I decided that I need some rest from running for a few days.

Friday was a rest day.

I'm feeling more fit. I have more energy as well, too. I'm absolutely starving all the time though. My body is holding up pretty well, but my knees are starting to give me slight trouble from time to time.

Well, that's it for today. I still need to get more workout in for the day today though.

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Tuesday Fartlek

I did a fartlek run on Tuesday. Ran a total of 4.5 miles in 40:53. As usual when I'm getting back into running, I can't get my heart rate that high and keep it there. It's just something that'll come with more speed work and training. One problem that I had yesterday was that it felt like I was going to bonk about 30 minutes into the run. I just had no energy at all. I went to lunch afterwards and ate everything in sight, it seemed. I run during lunch and at the time, it was sunny and 62 degrees. Absolutely gorgeous.

I did yoga on Sunday. It was great as usual. Unfortunately, my hottie yoga teacher has a ring on her finger. Damnit.

I'm having issues with the Strassburg sock that I got. It's putting pressure on some of my toes and it actually started to hurt this morning. I may look at another option to help out my leg problems.

Shoe milage: 164.5 miles

Sunday, February 4, 2007

Nice run

First of all, kitty vomit on the carpet isn't a pleasant thing to come home to after a workout.

Also, I used to go to Chipotle a lot after workouts because there food is good and I thought it was healthy. Well, go to Chipotle Lovers and plug in your typical burrito and see what you find out.

I went for a nice run today. It was suppose to be somewhat chilly but the weather was great for running. Somewhere in the high 40's but warmed up to the high 50's in about an hour. I did 6.1 miles in 57:06 for about a pace of 9:20. I definitely run slower at Town Lake because of the crushed gravel trail. I felt like I was running much faster than 9:20min/mile though. It's frustrating because I used to do 8:00min/mile for 10 miles with an avg HR of about 150-155bpm. Today's avg HR was 145bpm with a max of 162. However, it felt like my heart rate was 150+ bpm for a long time. I felt fine though. I'm still a little sore from the tough workout on Thursday though. As usual, my left piriformis was cramping afterwards. Sucks. I need to do some work with my TP Massage ball today.

I bought a Strassburg sock yesterday to help out with my left heel and Achilles issues. I slept with it on for about an hour last night and I then I took it off. It was just weird with it on. Maybe I'll get used to it eventually.

One thing that I forgot to mention yesterday. I really noticed the difference in bike components on my ride. On my road bike, I have Shimano 105 components but on my tri bike, I have Ultegra. When I was shifting under strenuous load on my road bike, it didn't shift very smoothly at all sometimes.

Odwalla has a new flavor of bars called Strawberry Pomegranate. Very tasty.

Shoe mileage: 160 miles

Saturday, February 3, 2007

My butt hurts

Well, I posted about the speed and strength workout on Thursday night with Texas Iron. Well, I've been sore the last 2 days because of it. My butt really hurts as well as my hamstrings and my groin. It feels nice to be sore again, though.

It was butt ass cold this morning. I got up and weather.com said it was 28 degrees. I wasn't going riding in that shit! I decided to ride later in the day when it warmed up to about 50 degrees or so. Still cold, but much better because I didn't have to wear every piece of clothing that I own. Did 33 miles in about 1:50. I really don't like riding later in the day because there are too many other cars out on the roads. Even in the 2.5 years that I've been in Austin, the traffic has gotten much worse. I was buzzed 3 times today and got honked at by at least 2 different people. Not very friendly today, the locals weren't. But I was still out there enjoying it.

Went for a 2.5 mile brick afterwards in 21:21. I'm about to take a shower and head to bed now. I'm tired.

Thursday, February 1, 2007

Test Results

I hate shaving my legs.

I've been working a lot lately and I was worried that it would cause my blood pressure to go up because of all the stress. Well, I went to the nurse at work and my bp is 104/58. Not bad at all. Also, I might have posted this before, but I find it strange that my resting HR is actually lower now than it was during training for IMFL. It's about 50 now and it was about 54 then. Not much different, but still different.


Back in December, I went and did a study at UT. Well, here are my results back:

Mass - 87.8 (I'm a tubby bitch)
VO2 (watt) - 377
VO2 (mL/min) - 4702 (I think this is OK considering that I have mild exercise induced asthma.)
VO2/kg(ml/kg/min) - 53.6 (Could be higher if I wasn't a tubby bitch)
VO2hr(bpm) - 190 (Wow, this is new for me. Usually, I can't get it that high.)
LT (watt) - 225 (I'm pretty happy about this.)
LT VO2 (mL/min) - 3097
LT HR (bpm) - 148
LT (% of VO2) - 65.9% (Hopefully, I can increase this substantially this year)
Sweat Rate (L/hr) - 1.6 (This is pretty high.)
Sweat sodium loss (mg/hr) - 1839 (Ok, this is really freaking high. My maxed out InfinIT formula is only about 1/3 of my sodium loss each hour.)
Sweat sodium loss (mg NaCl/hr) - 4715
Hct (% of red blood cells) - 43.5% (I don't know if this is good or not.)

Tonight's workout was a 15 minute run that consisted of 8 minute warmup and 3x1min fast, 1min easy. It was a core workout where we do 5 exercises around a lap of the track and then run strong another lap. Most of the exercises were OK except where we had to hop up a flight up stairs with our feet together. I did it too fast the first time and it was a mistake. Immediately after the stair hops, we were suppose to run but I look down and my heart rate was 175+. That hurt. Did that loop group twice since I'm easing back into things and then 1/2 mile cooldown.

Feel good now and I'm about to go to bed.

Shoe mileage: 151.5 miles
 

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