How Hard Can It Be? Year 2

[Veronica]

I have 22 weeks until Barb's Race - my HIM. Two weeks until I start "training."

I had all sorts of grand ideas about what I was going to do through the winter. Most of them didn't happen. Whatever... I am still in better shape then I was last year at this time.

Last year I did Barb's Race as a fundraiser. I don't think I'm going to do that this year. My pool of potential donors is pretty small and I don't like hitting them up every year.

I've been thinking about my goals for the race. I expect I'll still race Athena. I weigh 154 right now. The Vineman people cut off Athena at 145. While i can certainly picture where I could take off ten pounds, I don't see THAT happening.

Last year I unbelievably placed third. I won the swim for the group, with a time of 34:34. That's good enough for me right now and I don't plan on focusing much training time on the swim again.

I placed 4th on the bike with a time of 3:37. I definitely want to improve there. I was 4th on the run with a time of 3:07. I think I ran maybe 1 out of the 13.1 miles. So lots of room for improvement.

Who knows what this year's field will be like, so I'm not even going to think about placing again. Although I was only 4 minutes behind second and 37 minutes behind first.

I think I'd really like to get the total time under 7 hours. I think most of the time will have to come off of the run and a bit off the bike.

The time change is coming , the weather is getting warmer and I'm getting into a training frame of mind. Finally.

Veronica

[Wahine]

Good luck with all your training!! You should be able to reach that sub 7 hour goal! I have no doubts.

Looking forward to reading about your progress.

[eclectic]

Good luck Veronica!

This will be fun to follow you through training and completion. I think you have a very good plan in motion.

I am w/ you on the swimming - It would take me a lot of work to speed up a little bit and to me that is not the best place to use my time and energy as my run is REALLY bad!

It sounds like you have the swim under control - as was said "you don't win on the swim but you can lose on it"

Again Good luck and keep posting

[Veronica]

Every weekend I write out a very ambitious training plan for the week with workouts both before and after work. The plan has at least two days of running, two days of biking, one day of swimming, 3 days of yoga and two days with my personal trainer. That's 10 workouts Monday through Friday. Weekends I use for a longer ride with Thom and a longer run. My training week runs Sunday to Saturday. Monday and Tuesday I generally follow the plan. Life tends to kick in by Wednesday and Wednesday through Friday generally turn into just one workout a day or sometimes none.

Why do I write such ambitious plans?

Well... there are three disciplines to triathlon and I'm really good at only one of them. Because I am a mediocre, at best, runner, it takes priority. Between runs I always schedule in a yoga session. I think the thirty minutes of stretching I get between runs helps to keep me injury free. I haven't gotten an injury yet, so that must be true. Now I hope I haven't jinxed myself.

I love/hate my personal trainer sessions. The best part of working with a trainer is that we never do the same thing. She changes it up every time. That's also the worst part; it's never easy. About twenty minutes of every session is spent on Core work - abs and lower back. The rest of the time varies, lower body, upper body, agility... She is always thinking of new ways to torment me. :-) I don't know how much it actually helps with my racing, but I enjoy it and I love having muscles.

You would think cycling would be what I'm best at; but it's not. Last year at Barb's Race, I came in third overall, about 4 minutes behind second. My swim, second transition and run were all faster than the second place finisher. She beat me on the bike and in the first transition. I can say that placing isn't all that important; but it is fun and I'm a competitive person. The thing about biking is it's easy for me to go out and just ride. I can do it for a long time (remember the double centuries) and not work very hard at it. But that is not how you get faster at biking. Intervals are what make you faster. I don't like to do intervals. I especially don't like to do intervals outside. Outside, I want to just ride. That's where Coach Troy and his magic Spinervals DVDs come in. I try to do two of those a week - typically one I like and one I don't. The DVDs I don't like usually involve shorter sets at a super high intensity - kind of like sprinting. I am not a sprinter. I prefer the videos where the sets are longer. The intensity may get just as high, but I have longer to get there.

Then there's the swimming. In college I was not a super fast swimmer and I'm still not a super fast swimmer. Realistically, I could take three to five minutes off my swim time from last year's race if I set aside the time to really train for swimming. But that's just not a big enough gain in overall race time for the effort I would need to put in to achieve it. If I can actually run the entire 13 miles this year, I could take off FORTY minutes or more from my overall race time. It doesn't help that the pool chemicals bother my sinuses for a few days after each swim either.

So every weekend I write out the ambitious plan. If I can't follow it, swimming is the first thing to go, followed by biking. Everything else, I try very hard to stick to. Without the plan it would be too easy for me to just do the bits I like and that are easy.

How did I do this week?

Three runs, 2 outside and one on the treadmill, 2 yoga sessions, 1 hour with the trainer - she was sick the day of my second session, and 4 bike rides, but three were outside. The weather was just too nice this week to want to ride the bike in the trainer. I had one day when I did nothing.

I wonder what next week will bring.

[redrhodie]

Wow, that is ambitious! I'm glad to hear you took a rest day. I don't train for anything, and I need 2 rest days to recover !

Was the woman who beat you on the bike segment on a comparable bike to yours? Sometimes, it's the bike, not the rider.

[Wahine]

That's a great first week V. Good luck with your program.

I'm in the same boat as you on the bike... I can go for a long time but I hate pushing into the red zone. My solution was to try bike racing this year and getting a riding buddy that kicks my butt very consistently and makes me push as hard as I can up hills etc. Ouch. It's a miracle I still like him.

So I wish you well on your speed and interval journey... I literally feel your pain.

[Veronica]

Wow, that is ambitious! I'm glad to hear you took a rest day. I don't train for anything, and I need 2 rest days to recover !

Was the woman who beat you on the bike segment on a comparable bike to yours? Sometimes, it's the bike, not the rider.

I don't like to build in a rest day. I take them when my body/mind says to. Some weeks I can go five days straight, others I need a day off every other day. I suppose if I were way serious I'd have a more specific plan, but really this is about having fun and pushing myself in a different way. I'll get more serious when I'm a better runner.

I don't know what kind of bike she was riding. I was ahead of her out of the water, so at some point she passed me. But I wasn't looking at numbers or anything at that point, so who knows. This year I plan to ride with aero bars. We just put them on my bike in the trainer so I can start getting use to the position. In a month or so I'll put them on my outside bike.

Veronica

[kacie tri-ing]

That is pretty ambitious! My HIM is in 2 weeks, and my coach has me doing a bit less than that . Of course, I will be able to let you know how that works out for me in two weeks

[tribogota]

You say "if" you were "way serious", well if your training schedule and goals is NOT serious, I just don't know what serious would be, some obsessive non working person who didn't have to shop, cook, pay bills, etc who could do triathlon full time...and I mean FULL TIME
I like the idea of not building in a day and then doing whatever your body tells you to... I think that is what I do. For example, this week, I had an olympic last sunday, traveled monday, trained without stop from Tuesday, and thought of taking the day off today (Monday), but didn't, didn't feel like it (felt extra motivated), so my body is telling me "we are ok", and if I take every other day off this week, no problem. Then when I am not motivated, some extra days off won't matter. Of course this is untested un empirical training philosophy, but works for me.
ps, your swim time kicks butt, I hope I can do my HIM in that swim time.

[Veronica]

Bummer... I just found out that there will be no Athena division at Barb's Race this year.

I suppose that just means I can get as skinny as I want.

Veronica

[roadie gal]

Good luck! It was fun following you along last year.

I think having a written plan helps a lot. If I don't write it down, I don't do it.

[Veronica]

I had a GREAT run this morning before work. I love it when running feels effortless and I could just go for forever. I planned on at least two miles and did four in the end. If it weren't for work, I'd have done another mile, maybe even two. Why can't running always feel like that?

Veronica

[kacie tri-ing]

Oh, I LOVE those runs too! I even love when a mile or two inside of a run feels like that!

[Veronica]

Last weekend I was poking around at the Barb’s Race website looking to confirm what the weight restriction was for the Athena Division. I couldn’t find it, so I e mailed them. The reply I received on Monday said that they were not going to have an Athena Division. There just hasn’t been enough participation to make it worthwhile. I was seriously depressed. It is so not fair. I had been thinking that I could have a faster time this year than last year’s Athena winner. Yes, I know, it’s not about placing, it’s about doing better myself. However, thinking I could take 37 minutes off my time and possibly win was motivational. But when I looked at where I would place in my age group with that time, I didn’t like it and got even more depressed. The top 5 finishers in my age group all finished in under 6 hours. With the time I was thinking of, I’d be in the bottom third. Reminder to self - It’s not about where you place, it’s about doing better yourself. Right.

Monday afternoon is one of my days with the trainer and this particular day was a Weigh & Measure Day. As my trainer, Shawna, was measuring my body fat with calipers, I was telling her about how I would now have to race against the wisps and the twigs. She finished all the measurements, did the math and my Body Fat percentage is 26%. The lowest it has been in the last few years was 23%, last September when I weighed 148. Since late December my weight has been fluctuating between 154 and 156, and it sure isn’t from increased muscle mass. My lean body mass (116 pounds) is more than what some of these women weigh in total. It is so not fair. We talked a little bit about changes I could make in my diet (yeah, right!) and then went off to work out.

I started doing the math during my workout and came to the conclusion that if I lost 13 pounds of fat, I ‘d have 18 percent body fat. That’s what I had in college. The actual number is 14 pounds of fat. I did some rounding in my head I guess. :-) Somehow that just galvanized me into action. Thirteen pounds of fat, that’s more than a gallon and a half of milk. EWWWW! Tuesday I started revamping my diet. On Wednesday, Shawna and I talked more about nutrition and I’m making some serious changes. I’ve cut my calories to 1500/day and I’m keeping track of fats, carbohydrates and protein. My target is no more than 40 grams of fat, 173 grams of carbohydrates and 100 grams of protein per day. I’m having a hard time keeping the fat down and I’m seriously under proteined.

These changes have really got me thinking about what people eat. It’s no wonder Americans are so fat! I love to eat at Jack in the Box. It’s where we usually go after a long bike ride. My favorite meal there has 1800 calories and 93 grams of fat! And that’s just for a (big) burger and a (big) shake. Imagine eating there all the time and never working out. Shawna told me that it’s a good thing I do so much cardio because with the way I have been eating, I would be seriously soft.

Thursday I had to choose between the peanut butter for my apple or my chocolate chip cookie. Naturally, the cookie won. But at 11 grams of fat, that one item has more 1/4 of my fat grams. I know people, myself included, who will eat many of these cookies in one day. They are very tasty, but nutritionally they are worthless. On Friday our PTA had a movie themed spread for the teachers - pop corn, soda, Kit Kats, Twizzlers, Whoppers, but worst of all… Reeses Peanut Butter cups - my favorite candy bar!

I ate my apple slices. I figure I need to get as wispy as possible if I want to finish in the top half of my age group.

This week’s training has been a mixed bag. We’ve needed to do a lot around the house lately so last Sunday became a chore day and that’s what today (Saturday) is shaping up to be. This week I had my two trainer sessions, biked once, ran twice and did two yoga sessions.

I did both of my runs on Wednesday and it felt so good. Wednesday morning I went out before work with the intent of just doing two miles. But I got into such a nice groove I did four miles instead. Wednesday afternoon before working with my trainer, I did a two mile interval run on the treadmill. That also felt really good. Unfortunately, I woke up Thursday with an odd pain in my right hip. I did yoga and really tried to stretch it out. It almost feels like a cramp, but not quite as sharp. I don’t know if it was a result of running or the weight work I did on Wednesday, or just from getting old . In any case, I won’t be running today. I haven’t tried biking with it yet.

If it doesn’t get better, I guess I’ll be hitting the pool next week.

Veronica

[Blueberry]

V-

No words of wisdom to offer - just sympathy. I did want to add - though - you're an inspiration for lots of us on TE

CA