Run down of the last week (#9)

Tuesday 1/24/12

Afternoon: I am so tired right now.  I got up at 4:30 this morning and swam for an hour, ran on a treadmill for 30 minutes and did strength stuff for another 20.  Its 1:30 in the afternoon and I want a nap.  But knowing me, a nap would turn in to an 18-hour sleep and then I wouldn’t make it to my evening class.  Ugh.  Evening class.  I’m going to have to eat so many gummy bears to stay awake. 

-Also, my swim this morning felt just as labored at last Thursday’s, but at least I was expecting it pushed through it anyway.

Evening: The only thing I gave 100% to today was my workouts.  I was tired and sleepy in class.  I left lab early because I was tired and wanted chocolate.  I should have just bought chocolate (and an Americano) on campus and resumed reading papers, but oh well.  I feel like an inadequate grad student.  But at least I got all my workouts done.  I’m going to bed early, I’ll give lab 110% tomorrow.

Thursday 1/26/12

I skipped my swim this morning because my shoulders were so sore from lifting on Tuesday that I figured I’d either half-ass or it end up hurting myself.  Instead I biked in the morning and did lighter weights in the afternoon.  It’s the start of our first recruitment weekend for incoming grad students, which means free food and beer, but also less sleep, less time to myself and less than ideal eating/drinking habits.

Friday 1/27/12

I meant to get up at 5:30 and do both my swim and 1 hour run in the morning before going in to lab, but I didn’t go to bed until past midnight (my recruit’s flight got delayed 3 hours).  I slept in til 6:30, so I only had time to swim and I had a ton of energy afterwards!  I had forgotten how invigorating swimming is in the mornings.  It seems that following it with lifting weights, running or biking, and then sitting in class for an hour and a half has the opposite effect.  How weird...

Saturday 1/28/12

I had a great time last night at recruitment.  I hadn't hung out with most of my classmates in awhile, so it was nice to see them and not be pressuring myself to go home and sleep.  The downside of that was not getting to be until 2 and drinking 5 beers (Utah beers, but still...), which isn't a big deal until you get an hour into a 2:45 trainer ride and realize that you're struggling way more than usual and you're not even half way done yet.  

Sunday 1/29/12

I took it much easier on the beer last night, but still felt really tired/slow on my 1:15 run this morning.  My friend Sarah joined me for the last 45 minutes, which was fun.  I got to show her one of my favorite streets to run down and my "stair-stepping" method for dealing with the more moderate hills around our apartment.  Then we had pancakes and I took a nap in front of my fireplace, not a bad Sunday.

The Most Dangerous Spreadsheet Ever

         So my goal finishing time for Ironman CdA has been 11:30: 1:20 for the swim, 5:50 on the bike, 4:00 for the run and 2 ten minute transitions.  This goal will definitely be a challenge.  It will require that I not panic during the swim, that my bike strength improve significantly, and that I run a marathon 5 minutes faster than I’ve run one before.  And that nothing mechanically go wrong on the bike ride or intestinally during the run.  Qualifying for Kona was more like a “yeah right, maybe if I have the perfect race and luck out with a weak age group,” but now that I’ve seen this spreadsheet, guess what’s going through my mind?  That’s right, if I can knock a measly 30 minutes off my goal time, I’ve got a reasonable shot.  Here’s how qualifying works: each Ironman race gets 60 Kona spots to distribute.  The bigger your age group, the more spots given to that age group.  So if women between 25 and 29 make up 5% of the race, they get 3 spots.  I figured my age group would be so small that only the winner would qualify, which I could probably only do given genetic enhancement or some miracle.  But around 5 spots?  Well, however irrationally, that gives me hope.  I know that goal inflation is really common in first-time Ironmen, so there probably is no chance of it happening.  But if it gives me motivation to work harder in all my workouts and I simply finish the race feeling great, then I’ll take it.

Anyway, here’s an update on the rest of last week’s training:

I came home from school on Thursday upset and generally hating life.  I haven’t been enjoying grad school that much recently, or at least I’ve been seriously questioning why I’m doing it and if it will lead me to a career I actually like.  Then I loaded some Ironman motivation videos on Youtube and finished my bike ride from the morning.  30 minutes later, I felt great.  I hadn’t felt good about a workout for most of the week, but this one made me feel powerful and ready to do more.  Maybe it was seeing three and a half minutes of people collapsing on the course that gave me the extra energy, maybe it was the Americano I had in lab that didn’t kick in until I got home.  Whatever it was, I got off the bike feeling more positive than I had in a while.  It reminded me that physical and mental discomfort are only temporary, and that they’re worth it in the end.  I’m still going to explore some other options related to grad school, but I’m more optimistic that I’ll find something that is enjoyable and fulfilling without leaving science.

I watched a cool documentary during Saturday’s 2 hour ride called Living is Winning.  It’s about Andrew Johnston, an Ironman who is diagnosed with leukemia and returns to racing after treatment.  This week’s piece of motivation comes from that movie.  Incidentally, Andrew qualified for Kona at Ironman Coeur d’Alene... 

Motivation:

“Are you breathing? Then you can finish the race.”

Week 8

I've had some rather discouraging workouts this week.  On Tuesday I did another 2500 yard straight swim, and it took me 8 minutes longer than the last time I did it.  Wednesday's bike ride (45 min at 90 rpm with HR between 137 and 156) was also a struggle.  It was my first indoor workout using my new bike computer and I couldn't get my heart rate high enough without simultaneously having my quads burning.  Maybe my rpm's were too high before, so I could stay in zone at a lower resistance?  I guess it'll make me stronger on the bike, which is necessary, judging by an outdoor ride I did on Saturday.  I rode up the City Creek Canyon, which was really pretty, but averaged a 5% grade on the lower portion, so at times my heart rate was over 170 bpm and I was only going 6 mph.  I think my average over the whole 2.5 hours was only 13 mph.  I need to average 19 mph to meet my Ironman goal.  On the plus side, I tipped over again, but this time into a pile of snow, not a pile of rotting crayfish.  Apparently road bikes aren't meant to be ridden in the snow...

So this morning I took my new heart rate monitor (the Polar RCX 5) to the pool for my 12 x 100 workout.  Each 100 averaged 1:50 and while I've never timed myself before, I felt much slower than normal.  I felt super awkward and out of rhythm, my heart rate was over 150 at the end of each 100 and
it was a struggle to even finish.  I'm not really sure what the cause was.  Tuesday's slower workout was probably caused by a lack of sleep but I should be recovered by now.  I had some cereal and a couple bites of chocolate cake before the workout, but my stomach didn't bother me at all.  Whatever the cause, it was really frustrating, hopefully next week is better.

Back in action! - the end of Week 6

So I finally started feeling like my old self towards the end of the week.  I went out for Thai food Thursday night and got a curry (level 2 spicy), not that spicy on just an eating scale, but on the having- leftovers-for-lunch-and-then-trying-to-run-60-minutes-scale, pretty spicy.  I gave myself two and a half hours to digest it and I still thought I was going to throw up on someone's lawn.  So no more Thai food before running... Otherwise it was a great run though, I headed a different direction, through the Avenues looking for the City Creek Trail (which I think I found, but was on the wrong side of a canyon to actually go up).  I discovered a better way to deal with all of the hills surrounding my apartment, run one block up hill, then turn 90° and run one block downhill.  This kept my heart rate much more constant than all uphill followed by all downhill.

It snowed Friday night, so I didn't feel guilty about doing my long bike ride indoors (I feel like I should start riding hills and work on my fear of tipping over in traffic).  I took an ice bath after my ride, which I haven't done since high school track, and my quads didn't have any of their usual soreness during my Sunday run.  My hour-long run on Sunday was great, the snow storm had cleared out all the pollution in the valley, so I was able to breath a lot easier than "normal".  I hadn't really noticed how bad it had gotten until it went away. 

I also ordered my newest toy this weekend: a Polar RX5 bike computer, heart rate monitor and GPS! Only a few months ago I wouldn't spend more than $50 on heart rate monitor, but I just spent more than 10 x that on this package. Rather, my mom and dad did by way of my Christmas and birthday presents combined (Thanks!).  I'm really looking forward to playing with it, and finding out how fast I've been riding.

Week 6: Back from break

So I haven't written in awhile because I was on Christmas break, which meant that I was away from internet, not training as much and therefore didn't have many positive things to say.  Also, once you stop writing down little things daily to post, its difficult to get back in the swing of things.  Anyway, here's a summary of how training has been:

Week 4 (Final's week):
Got my normal workouts in Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  Took a final Friday morning (which went really well, I think) and promptly fell asleep for 8 hours (as in I slept from 11 AM to 7 PM).  I didn't get my 45 minute run in that day, but since I was able to fall back asleep 4 hours later, I guess my body needed rest more than running.

Week 5:
On Monday I drove to California to see my mom and did a 45 minute trainer ride when I got in with no videos or music to distract me (I had a lot of energy after driving and drinking coffee for 10 hours).  The pool I was planning on swimming in was closed for the holidays, so I just ran on Tuesday and Thursday.  Wednesday my mom and I took our bikes up to the American River Trail in Sacramento and rode for about an hour.  It wasn't that strenuous, but it was good practice for me to be aero while not on the trainer.  I did pretty well cornering, but my shoulders were pretty sore by the end.  Early Friday morning we flew to Guadalajuara, Mexico and met up with my sister.  The three of us got picked up by some family friends and spent the next week in Emiliano Zapata, Michoachan, a small town in the hills.

Week 6 (but really week nothing):
I did nothing but eat too many tortillas, beans and tamales.  We did a little walking around the town, which was pretty hilly, but I spent a lot of time reading or sitting in a car site-seeing.  The first few days were pretty hard; I couldn't communicate very well with anyone and I wanted to be at home training.  We went to a quincinera the third night (the reason we were there in the first place) and after that I was able to relax and enjoy myself.  Overall it was a good trip, and it was really nice spending time with my mom and sister (especially because we didn't fight at all, which is pretty unusual).  We got back into Sacramento early the morning of Friday the 30th.  I went for a run as soon as we got home, but only made it 20 minutes before I had to got to the bathroom (my digestion gets really screwed up when I travel).  I did a long trainer ride (90 minutes) Saturday morning and felt good.  Sunday, January 1st was 25 weeks until Ironman CDA and my 25th birthday.  I celebrated by going on for 60 minutes run.  And having some cheeseless Papa Murphy's pizza when I got home on Monday.

Week 6 (for real):
So now I'm back in Salt Lake and back into training.  I swam Tuesday morning, and felt awkward and slow; running for an hour Tuesday afternoon felt similar.  Wednesday's 45 minute bike ride with a quick transition to 15 minute run went about the same.  I felt a lot better on my swim this morning, so that was good.  I know you're supposed to ease back in to training after taking a week off, but I'm going for the whole 9 hours this week.  I did a little less the first weekend back and I'm not doing any strength training this week, so I figure that will give my body enough time to adjust.  I might not be 24 anymore but I think it can handle a little abuse :-)

Week 3+Last week of classes=no sleep

Monday: 7 hours sleep

                Rest Day. I cut the tip of my finger off last night while chopping garlic.  I might get it looked at so it doesn’t end up interfering with swimming.  I really need to be less excited about preparing food.

Tuesday: 5 hours sleep

                So I ended up staying awake until midnight last night (reading the second Hunger Games) and then had to get up at 5 to swim.  I also made to poor choice of having a Costco-sized bag of Kashi cereal next to me while reading, and managed to consume about half of it.  On the plus side I didn’t need to eat anything before swimming, and the downside, my stomach has been feeling weird all morning.  So now for my workouts: 2500 yards of straight swimming and 45 minutes of running in Z2.  The swimming took ~45 minutes, which corresponds to 1:17 for 2.4 miles.  My goal is 1:20, but I made this my goal pretty arbitrarily, so I’m glad to know it isn’t completely unreasonable.  Swimming also felt really good this morning; there were a few laps towards the end when each stroke felt completely natural and powerful.  So far this has only happened for a stroke or two at a time, so I was pretty excited about it.  Also, Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” was playing on the radio when I was driving to swimming, which was great, because it’s the soundtrack to most of the motivational Ironman videos on Youtube.  Oh, and with some Neosporin and water-proof Band-Aids my finger was just fine in the pool.

                Running was uneventful; I did it on the track at the field house.  The amount of people-watching you get to do on an indoor track is great, it kept me really entertained.  Plus I had to avoid all the people who didn’t understand the concept of following arrows, which was fun.

Wednesday: 5 hours sleep

                I was up late last night studying, so I did my short brick (30 min bike to 15 min run) in between classes.  I was freaking out all morning because Stella’s (my car) brakes started scraping and grinding last night.  I’m convinced she knew I had been lusting after the new Outbacks and is trying to get back at me.  Anyway, I was much less stressed out once I finished my workout, and Stella is now on her way to an auto shop.  Hopefully it’s something simple; Ironman is taking all my money so there’s not any room for expensive repairs or car payments.  Given that it’s my last week of classes my stress level isn’t that high.  I’ve got two homework assignments due and a quiz to take on Friday, but have a pretty good start on those already.

                Update: Stella is fine, a bolt on the CV axle that was replaced this summer needed tightening, and luckily I hadn’t driven her enough to damage anything else.

Thursday: 6 hours sleep

                 Went to bed early (10:30) last night but had to get up at 4:30 to start something in lab before going swimming.  Repeated my first swim workout (300 wu, 6 x 50 drill, 12 x 100 yrds and 2 x 50 drill/cd).  I pushed myself more than usual on my main workout, but I find myself slacking on the drills and cool-downs.  I’m supposed to 8 x 50 drill at the beginning, 6 x 50 at the end and a 200 yard cool down, but a) I get bored doing that same drills that many times in a row, b) my calves want to cramp doing the drills with flippers at the end of my workout, c) the drills are essentially a cool-down and d) I usually have to go to the bathroom by that time and it seems pointless to get back in the pool for a few laps.  Maybe I’ll lengthen my main set a little to make up for it.  I also learned that I have much less motivation on the bike in the afternoons.  All I had to do was 45 min of high RPM (100+/min) spinning at a low heart rate and I kept sitting up or pausing pedaling for a few seconds, just because I was bored and couldn’t focus.  I think in general I felt a little unmotivated this week.  I didn’t do any circuit weights, partially because I was so busy with school but I could have made it work if I had really wanted to. My diet was also complete crap this week, mostly because I tend to snack uncontrollably when I’m up late studying.  So overall I felt a little guilty about my behavior.  Oh well, I’m done with classes tomorrow so I’ll have plenty of time to get back on track next week.

Friday: 5.5 hours sleep

                I was up late doing homework and eating chocolate-covered rice crispy treats but at least both homework assignments got done.  I definitely failed the quiz I took since I had no time to study for it after doing the problem sets.  It sounds like everyone else feels about the same though, so my overall grade should still be okay (I have to get a B- in every class and maintain a B average to stay in the program).  I went for a 60 min run in the afternoon.  It was great, the sun was out and it was in the mid-20’s, which felt perfect.  My run was about half on a pretty steep downhill and the other half coming back up.  I had to give up on staying in Z2 for that part, otherwise I would’ve been walking the whole way.  I finally decided that I can’t keep avoiding hills just because it gets my heart rate too high.  I’ll probably do plenty of runs on the track with a consistent HR to ensure that I have a good low-aerobic threshold.   

Saturday: 8 hours sleep

                 I didn’t set an alarm this morning!  I was up until around 1 AM reading the third Hunger Games but still woke up at 9:30.  I did my long bike ride (1:45) during the Kona highlight show, which was great fun.  I don’t think it’s necessarily biking in the afternoons that I have trouble with, its biking on a full stomach and making myself push through the first 10 or 20 minutes until I find a good rhythm.  Once my legs and back are warmed up I really enjoy biking, I just hate every minute before that point.  I guess I used to feel the same way with running, I just find my rhythm a lot sooner now.  I’m guessing this will happen with biking soon enough.  

  

Sunday: 11 hours sleep

                One nice thing about training in winter: you can sleep in and it won’t be too hot to run.  The nice thing about training over winter break: you can completely ignore your alarm and not be stressed out about your run taking away from your study time.  Regardless, my hour-long Z1-Z2 run felt pretty challenging this morning.  I think it was a combination of poor air quality, being around a dog last night  and coming off a couple of hard back to back days; between running pretty fast downhill on Friday and pushing myself on the bike yesterday, the muscles on the front of my shins were pretty sore. 

Week 2

Monday: 7 hours sleep

                Rest Day

Tuesday: 7 hours sleep

                Was supposed to get up at 5 to swim, but my alarm didn’t go off so I ended up doing it between classes (300 wu, 25x16, 1x400, 25x16, 200 cd: 1700 total).  It was kind of nice, the pool was emptier, the sun was shining through the windows, and I had a normal breakfast 2 hours before working out; I might try to swim at this time more often.  I had time for some strength and core work before heading back to class.  Went for a 30 min Z2 run from lab, really had trouble keeping my heart rate in check.  It could have been the return to altitude, the air pollution in the valley or how much dessert I ate over the weekend.  Or maybe trail running in a hilly area isn’t good for keeping your heart rate in a certain zone.  I was feeling pretty stressed from class and lab stuff so it was good to get out in the sunshine for a while.

Wednesday: 6 hours sleep

                Yesterday I discovered that I really only need half an hour to get ready in the mornings, instead of the hour I’ve been giving myself.  So I slept in ‘til 6 this morning, rode my trainer for 30 minutes and ran for in the semi-dawn for 15 minutes.  I feel great, pumped for the day!

Thursday: 5 hours sleep

                I was very thankful this morning that I wasn’t scheduled for an outside run, since we had really high winds (40-60 mph with gusts up to 80).  Instead I swam (300 wu, 8x50 drill, 1x300, 3x200, 1x300, 200 cd) and biked (30 min @ Z1, ~100 rpm).  I finally cut the ends off my flippers last night so they were short enough to use for drills.  It was weird to do a workout without flippers after using them, I felt like I was moving at a snail’s pace!  I felt so fatigued and awkward for most of my workout. I don’t know if it was the lack of sleep (there was a late Gonzaga basketball game) or if it was in my head after using the flippers, but until my last 300 I was struggling.  I had some toast with coconut butter before swimming and my stomach didn’t hurt at all, so I’ll probably start having that regularly. Biking was fine, even using a really easy gear it was difficult to spin over 100 rpm and keep my heart rate in zone 1 (120-137).  Of course I was completely guessing at my cadence, so I could have been going way too fast.  I have a bunch of talks/presentations to go to today; it’ll probably take a small mountain of cookies to keep me awake.  Maybe I’ll go look for a healthier snack now…  

Friday: 6 hours sleep

                I got up early this morning and studied a quiz that afternoon instead of running for 45 minutes.  This was a good choice, because it was cold and dark and I needed to study, but also kind of a bad one, because later in the day I ended up really frustrated and stressed out at things that normally wouldn’t have that great an effect on me.  I ended up going for my run soon after I got to lab (and tried to pour a gel only to have it leak before it set).  It felt good for the first half but my stomach started complaining and I ended up walking a lot of the way back.  I didn’t end up eating a mountain of cookies the night before, but I did have a couple pieces of pizza.  Normally I do okay with pizza, but the cheese on this was really weird and disgusting, so I’m blaming that.  

Saturday: 9 hours sleep

                I meant to get up at 6:30 so I would have time to ride my trainer and then bake something for a brunch I was going to.  Instead I woke up at 8 to a dry, sunny, beautiful day that would’ve been great for an outdoor ride, but I didn’t feel like I had the time to get dressed for outside and still make it to brunch.  So I rode my trainer for 1:30, which was pretty boring and made my butt hurt.  I got to enjoy second helpings at brunch though; there was some really good French toast with berry topping, German pancakes, cheesy hashbrowns (which I really liked even though I don’t like cheese or hashbrowns), quiche, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and mimosas!  

Sunday: 8 hours sleep

                Went for a 1 hr run in the morning, it was below freezing so I wore a hat and a long-sleeved shirt under my windbreaker. I was way too hot after about 10 minutes though, I think I need a wind-breaker vest sort of thing.  The rest of the day was spent recovering in lab and doing homework.

Week 2 wasn't that bad.  I managed to get all of my homework done with out losing too much sleep.  I even did alright on Friday's quiz, even though I was sure I failed it at the time.  I went Christmas decoration shopping with my friend Sarah on Friday night and went to a hockey game on Saturday.  So it seems that hanging out with friends without drinking too much or staying up too late won't be too much to ask for.