Week 8 Recap

I considered titling this post as Bringing the Pain because that's what I actually did to myself. Pure punishment was dealt over 8 hours in the form of 7500 yards swimming and 37 miles of running. That's right, no biking this week due to fears that my hamstrings couldn't handle it.

The effects of my first 16 miler were felt way into Week 8. The level of fatigue was compounding with each run. I ended up taking Wednesday and Thursday off as a result. On Friday I dusted off the running shoes and resumed training feeling 80%. Then Saturday's race-paced 7 miler followed by three hours of tackle football did me in. When Sunday afternoon rolled around I forced myself to get out there and run.

Sunday was 43 degrees with a chilling 10 mph wind so it felt more like below freezing. I suited up, stretched good, and started off well. After four miles I began to feel a dull ache coming from both femurs. I thought maybe I was going too fast yet I was right on pace. I tried to ignore it but by mile five I realized there was a problem. I had just dropped a 10:18 mile split. Eww... Since I was now five miles from my car I persuaded myself to try running back. After some light stretching I got back at it. My next two miles felt reasonable and were only :15 off pace. It was at this point I told myself I needed to go the distance. The dull ache eventually faded and I was able to gut out the run without an injury to anything but my iPod. You'll be missed.

Some time ago I asked my buddy Scott if he'd rather do a 70.3 or a marathon. To my surprise at the time he answered the triathlon. After Sunday's 17 mile ordeal I'd have to agree. I can't imagine having to run an additional 9.2 miles.

2008 Off-season Plan Revised

Just like I mentioned during my initial post concerning the 2008 Off-season plan; sometimes life gets in the way. An avid reader of the blog would know I was lucky enough to take a vacation to France and Germany during the holidays, thus suspending training for a while.

I've re-worked a huge portion of my original plan to show the new schedule, which leads up to the Shamrock Half Marathon and then the Smithfield Sprint Triathlon. You'll notice there has been some substantial changes to the biking and swimming portions but I've held rather firm to the running plan.

Week 7 Recap

When first recording the song The Distance I doubt the band Cake realized the level of empowerment it can instill in an endurance athlete such as myself. I ran a new PR of 16 miles on Sunday and was driven by the continual thought, "he's going the distance." With two partially swollen knees and a stiff groin from Saturday's soccer game/mud bowl, I almost stayed home to heal knowing I had MLK Day off of work. Instead I braved the small injuries, 27 degree weather, and a fresh snow covering to get the long run in as planned. I'm glad I did because the 13 miles of Yorktown Battlefields I ran on were beautifully glistening in the sun all afternoon. This kept my thoughts entertained with something other than the fatigue welling in my legs.

The rest of Week 7 was rather uneventful. I skipped my 5 x hill workout and replaced it with 4 x Yasso 800s due to daylight issues. I like speed work. Also, I did manage to hop on the fluid trainer for a total of 40 sad minutes. I've got to start somewhere, right?

Total volume for this week: Swim - 6200 yards, Bike - 10.2 miles, Run - 37 miles, all in roughly 8 hours.

Week 6.1 Recap

After the two week vacation from training I thought I'd take it easy during my first week back. To do so I ran and swam short distances every other day without paying too much attention to pace. During the workouts my legs felt great. However I didn't open it up knowing full well what punishment awaited me next week in the form of a 16 mile run. I didn't want to over do a thing and risk hitting a big week injured. To close off the solid week I put in an easy 12 miler, if there is such a thing.

I was pleased with the week's efforts and put another 30 miles running and 7100 yards swimming in the books. All of it in 6 1/2 hours. Although I maintained an easy pace for each run I consistently dropped 30 seconds off my normal pace without feeling it. It seems the break was just what I needed to re-energize the legs.

During this past week I finally spent some time fitting my new TT bike. And I'm excited to announce that Week 7 will include some long overdue biking on the fluid trainer. The training should give me a good chance to catch up on my Tivo'd Mythbusters.

Europe Training

Sure, call me naive for thinking I would run while vacationing in Europe. You'd be right because I didn't even give it serious consideration. My constant need for sleep kept me all warm and inside. The freezing temperatures outside weren't helping my motivation either. Sure I was losing fitness but I didn't care.

I underestimated the amount of jetlag I'd incure flying six hours to Germany from the Atlanta, GA airport. Not only that, the six-hour time change was brutal. Probably the most prudent way to handle the travel without lasting effects would be to sleep as much as you can on the transatlantic flight. But that can certainly be difficult when the posterchild for Satan's spawn is sitting behind you doing everything possible to annoy you.

Once I landed in Germany the sun was up and the day had begun. There was only time for a quick nap before heading out to view the country. I spent the remainder of the vacation playing catch-up with my sleep. And then to boot, I was fighting off the beginnings of a cold. Running 16 miles was last on my list.

With two weeks basically lost I'll need to adjust my off-season plan considerably. I figure I'll take an easy week to get back into the swing and then pick up with Week 7 on January 14th.

Oh, and I missed the sign-ups for White Lake Half. Grr... We'll see how the wait list goes.

Week 6 Recap

I had been looking forward to Week 6 since I knew I could relax on mileage and would have an opportunity to run more speed work on the track in the form of Yasso 8s. I also had enough use-or-lose vacation time to take before Jan 2008 to take most of the week before Christmas off. This meant I could sleep in and then workout at convenient times.

The week started off nicely with a terrific session at the track. Higdon's plan called for 5x800s at 6:00/mile pace. This proved to be quite easy and a real confidence builder. My swim plan was to take the extra time available to me and gently up the total volume to 8000 yards.

Training was going well until I began to feel chills and body aches on Friday afternoon/evening. On Saturday I didn't have my usual soccer game. I thought since I had a good night of sleep I might as well run an 8k at race pace. Hal Higdon asked for 7 miles but I didn't think my body was up to the task. It turns out I was right. Once I finished the run (in good time) I had a resurgence of the illness I had felt the day before. It worsened over the next two days only to break for Christmas. Needless to say my training for the remainder of the week was shot.

Due to the flu I only logged 17.5 miles of running and 6200 yards of swimming in just over 4 hours. I know... Pitiful.