Wednesday, April 30, 2008

April Base Training

Well.....As you may know I got my first real overuse injury. I decided I was being stupid about my training as I had:

1) sprained my ankle at the beginning of the month forcing me to drop the carlsbad marathon.

2) Gotten a Terrible Flu in February, likely because I came back to fast from my injury.

3) Got a cold AGAIN in March, probably because I rocked the Death Valley Century, got cocky, and hammered to hard right away.

4) Entered a 200mi. bike race in March after all of the above.




So I decided to take April as a base period, heal up, build my base, and get my well being back to par. I gained a few pounds this period (about 5) it seems for some reason. Probably cause I slacked on the nutrition when I was sedentary with my knee injury. I think I did a great job, and topped it off with an incredibly well executed brutal half marathon after which many people were suffering heat stroke. I felt pretty good (except for incredible soreness from all the hills).


My averages for the month Bike = 30 mi per week, Run = 10 mi per week, and swim = 2.5mi per week. This is the base I will build from these next two months. I plan to get a running V02/LT Test Friday, and of course the wildflower will also serve as a nice basis for comparison. I'm including a nice chart with my training durations across the month, as well as my training percentage. Next up I will plan on extending my running base in May, and start focusing on Z3 and light Z4 intervals on the bike and swim so in June I can hammer the run and peak early July for the July 20th Vineman 70.3!

Sunday, April 27, 2008

La Jolla Half Marathon 2008


Heat Wave!

Results for the La Jolla Half Marathon are already up. Looks like my performance was about average for today (or just a few seconds over). I'm happy to say that I took it easy, and while I did the first mile in 9:30, I quickly settled into a more manageable 10:30 and took it easy on the uphills to save my strength.





We saw temperatures from 80-95 during my time running the event. It was HOT! My final time of 2:22:02 was a 10:51 Average, which I'm pleased with considering there was over 1K of climbing on the course, and the temperature factor of course. I recall 1:06 at the 6 mile mark (right before Torrey Pines) which is 11 min/mi. and after taking my time going up the Torrey Climb I was at 12:00/mi. This means I saved plenty of energy, and hauled ass the second half to achieve my final time. I know a lot of people were not prepared, because it's my guess that I passed about 500 people walking the last two miles, including lots of folks who started at the back of the first wave.


Next up.... Wildflower is may 3rd. 1.5K/40K/10K with about 1500' of climbing on the bike, and about 500' on the run. It's a tough course, but with my new lower bike gears, and quite a bit more fitness I'm expecting to cut well over an HOUR of my time from last year. I'm assuming a 19m.p.h. bike speed will give me enough energy to really attach the 10K and get it close to an hour for a total time under 3 hours, which would be about 1:15 less then last year. Impressive improvement unless you consider it was by far my worst performance of the year.

Friday, April 25, 2008

Shark Attack

It's been a buzz this morning. I got to work late today after going to the padres game last night to people talking about a shark attack. Dear Lord! The I read the article and it said the attack happened to a GROUP OF SWIMMERS FROM A LOCAL TRIATHLON CLUB! Of course I've been training for the upcoming 10K B2B Swim and have started doing the occasional Friday club swims, but luckily skipped out this week as I went to a Padres game last night.



It's good to be alive. I guess it's good to get shaken up a bit from time to time, but what a whirlwind. I've been going back and forth between adrenaline and sadness as the story unfolded, and I can only take small solace in that it wasn't someone I was close with who died this day. It is still a tragedy however, and my thoughts and concern are with the family and friends of David Martin, who passed away this morning in one of only 1 or 2 shark related deaths in San Diego in the last 50 years.


Here's a link to the latest news coverage. The beaches from Solana Beach to Encinitas have been closed, and I admit I'm kinda happy we canceled our Sunday swim this week.