A leisurely 1500 yards

I got back in the pool for laps today, without the kids even, which I've been avoiding since I recognized the poolwater has been giving me severe nasal issues.

I went in the cooler of the two pools at our Y (presumably with less nasty stuff in the water), wore my new Speedo noseclip, and did 1500 yards at a comfortable pace, using open turns, and stopping a few times to adjust the noseclip (ouch!) or goggles or stretch my crampy feet, etc.

Time? About 41 minutes - close to what I've swum in some races.

Sheesh! I must be swimming in circles in races or stopping completely to sight every 6 strokes or something!

Anyway, it's 3 hours post-swim and my nose is running like a faucet. Obviously we have not found the optimal solution yet. I've got a few more ideas yet to try, though.

Fun at the track

Today I went over to the track to do some speedwork, but just didn't have the requisite "oomph" to do the mile repeats which I had planned. I ran two miles and then fizzled out and turned sluglike. Could I rescue this workout from its profound oomphlessness?

Inspired by some ideas which I had read long ago from Coach Neil Cook, I decided to mix it up a bit for several walking laps.

I walked normally around the curves (so as not to tweak my touchy knees), and on the straightaways I did all sorts of 100-yard sets of stuff like:

• Giant steps
• Sideways steps (50 yards left. 50 yards right)
• Grapevine (50 yards left, 50 yards right)
• Skipping
• Knee-high marching
• Butt kicks
• Wide steps
• Backwards walking
• etc.

It ended up being quite a good workout! I woke up several long-forgotten muscles, mostly those lateral ones that don't get a lot of attention in straight-line running and cycling. It certainly elicited some strange stares from the nearby tennis players and construction workers, but I didn't care.

My butt is already incredibly sore, and I hold Neil Cook responsible.

Accelerations on the bike

Today I had an hour to ride so I tried to make some good use of it by doing a series of acceleration exercises: At every new mile, accelerate and stomp hard on one pedal and pull upwards hard on the other one for 25 repeats of each leg.

It ends up being a pretty good workout. I just would like to be able to maintain those 23-24 mph speeds I was seeing at the end of each acceleration! They don't show in the speed data, though, I guess I decelerated again too rapidly for anything to show up!

Launching my comeback

My comeback started yesterday with an "all clear" check of my lungs at the doctor*, and then a 5K run around the neighborhood today.

14 weeks ago:
5K race (hilly) in 28:01

Today:
5K workout (flat) in 37:35
5.6 pounds heavier
No coughing while running finally for the first time in weeks and weeks (though I did have some spells last night). That's the good news.

So 14 weeks of recovery and climbing back out of the Sucking Cesspool of Bad Lungs will take me to the end of August before I'm completely right again. Hopefully.

So the Nation's Triathlon will be my Comeback Race this year. The other several triathlons and road races that I have coming up before then will be simply races to complete the distance without keeling over.

*I also got a tetanus-diptheria-pertussis vaccination, which adults can get now, so we can cross off the additional threat of whooping cough to the precarious health of my lungs. Plus a prescription for Zyrtec (which is over-the-counter now, but cheaper to me by prescription) so maybe that will improve my body's reaction to Pollen Overload Season. Which set off this whole nasty chain of events.

Standard exercise test #2

Today I went over to the track and repeated my 1x3 mile workout (with 1/4-mile walks between) to see if there was any difference.

Today:Three days ago (Thursday):


Today didn't feel like I was 100% either, but at least an 11:00 minute mile was my slowest for the day instead of faster than my fastest, at close to the same effort level.

Slightly better, that's all I can expect in only three days!!!

I got your swim coach right here

Swimplan.com - very cool site I just learned of today that will generate customized swim workouts for you. Looks great, I'm planning on doing one of their workouts tomorrow. It's free to users, for now, although I'm not quite sure how the site is supported other than a few ads.

Yeah, I'll swim tomorrow if I can manage to stumble to the car on these WAY sore legs. 3*15 squats and 3*15 deadlifts (along with everything else) might possibly have been a little too much on the first day back hitting the weights. Ya think!?!?

A little longer run

Normally I would be all self-congratulatory after finishing 12.6 miles in 5*F to 15*F wind chill. It was difficult to finish over two laps around our usual running route from the YMCA. My face was too frozen to talk without slurring my words!

But - my training buddy Dave started at 6AM before the sun came up and had finished about 18 chilly miles before I even showed up! So that kept me jogging along until he finished his 30 mile ultramarathon for the day. Congratulations to Dave the Ultramarathoner!

Yeah, that heart rate is looking good!! NOT! I'm not sure why the heart rate meter wasn't working, but that's about 80 beats low for me.

Not a bad workout pace for me today, either. Not quite up to my all-time best half marathon race pace (10:38 min/mile), but not too far off, especially considering I took a few walk breaks that I wouldn't have taken in a race!

I ran for Ryan and Dorothy today

My training buddy Dave and I previewed the 10K course we will race next Friday this morning. The pace was a bit slower than I hope to race it next week, and included an extended pit stop I hope to skip on race day: 10:41 min/mile pace at 169 bpm average heart rate for a total time of 1:07:11 for 6.28 miles.

I thought of two athletes whom we remember and memorialize today: Dorothy Barnett-Griffin, who died following problems in the swim in Ironman Florida; and Ryan Shay, the 28-year-old who collapsed and died at the 5.5-mile mark of the US Olympic marathon trials.

Your race is run, and well it was run. Rest in peace.

The Yassos begin

Back to the track today. Yassos - half mile repeats - were on the schedule. Five of them. Ugh. Yassos suck. And they're way too hard. And there's way too many of them. And each one takes way too long to complete. But they work. I kind of faked five of them by using the first one for a warmup. That evasion is not going to work as well when I'm supposed to do 7 or 8 of them in a few weeks (all leading up to the Marine Corps Marathon on October 28):

Here's the data you've all been waiting for:

1. 5:21
2. 4:37
3. 4:48
4. 4:53
5. 4:56

And a chart! Hooray!


Just for reference, this is what my training paces are supposed to be right about now. 4:37 to 4:50 for Yassos. I guess I'm close enough, for a first attempt this year.

Or more simply:
My easy run training pace is: 12:08 min/mile
My tempo run training pace is: 10:11 min/mile
My maximum oxygen training pace is: 9:13 min/mile
My speed form training pace is: 8:32 min/mile
My long run training pace is: 12:08 - 13:36 min/mile
My Yasso 800s training pace is: 4:43 min/800m

I may bounce back after all

I was concerned about my fifth half marathon in my series of five for my 50th year, after last Saturday's crappy run.

But today I did a timed 5K in 33:47 while keeping my heart rate under 165 bpm, which is a sustainable pace for me.

If I could keep that up for 13.1 miles it would get me a 2:22 half marathon, which would be a PR by 4 minutes. That's not terribly likely, but it's not impossible, either.

I'm just glad I can run again without my heart rate going through the roof or coughing out nasty things.

On to the inaugural Bridge to Bridge Half Marathon on Saturday!!

PR workout run!

My training buddy David is good at flogging me. I was planning on doing a nice, easy 8 or 9 miles (very probably more like 8) just to put in some time on my feet before the B&A Half Marathon next weekend. Instead he was cajoling and whipping and barking at me the whole way and got me to red-line run it most of the way, to finish up a workout that included some walk breaks at a pace unofficially 3 minutes faster than my 10 mile PR: 10 miles in under 1:49.

I can't say that I was thinking such nice things during the actual running part - more like I was just running hard to try to catch him so that I could stick a knife in his back and make him stop haranging me - but I'm glad to have it done and in the books. Now I feel ready to take on the half marathon distance again at next weekend's race and run it as hard as I can.

Happy Birthday David!! Thanks for kicking my butt!!