Solo training camp

The girls are in day camp from 9-4 M-F this week, so I'm trying to get some increased training volume in a solo training camp by myself. (The slight glitch in this is that my new Adamo bike saddle arrived Monday, and it's going to take me a few more miles than I expected to get accustomed to totally new pressure points. I'll post a review soon).

Here are my completed workouts (I'll update this and add as I do them):

MONDAY
SWIM 0:44 0.99 mi 44:47 min/mile 396 cal
BIKE 1:02 17.29 mi 16.7 mph 691 cal
Painted 1 laundry room, grouted cracks in driveway, filled 1 rotten windowsill with wood putty.

TUESDAY
SWIM 0:49 1.10 mi 44:12 min/mile 440 cal
BIKE 2:36 40.80 mi 15.7 mph 1632 cal (slow and sluggish)
Also spent too much time adjusting the bike seat, putting on the behind-the-seat water bottle cages for summer long rides, etc.

WEDNESDAY
SWIM 0:42 0.96 mi 43:47 min/mile 384 cal
RUN 2:07 8.30 mi 15:18 min/mile 830 cal (call it heat acclimatization training - hot and slow)

THURSDAY
RUN 0:60 5.00 mi 11:54 min/mile 500 cal
BIKE 1:19 20.07 mi 15.2 mph 802.8 cal

FRIDAY
BIKE 2:13 35.20 mi 15.9 mph 1408 cal (cut it short, had intended 50-70 miles)

SATURDAY
RUN 0:49 4.24 mi 11:30 min/mi 424 cal

Plus some walking that I won't count! Whew!

Home again!

Home again from vacation! Yay! I'll post some photos when I find my camera (buried somewhere in unpacked luggage, I hope).

Major events of this week:

* My birthday! My math says it's my 52nd, but that can't possibly be right.

* Summer day camp starts! Hurrah!

* MORE work on both houses proceeds, slowly. Photos to come, also. Two sets of beautiful upper cabinets are now installed in my new kitchen and 3/4 of the beautiful floor. It's still going to be several weeks until moving day. The old house is listed for sale and we've had a few looky-loos so far.

* 20 weeks to Beach 2 Battleship iron-distance triathlon means that SERIOUS tri-training begins this week! I'm using a modified ontri.com free canned training program, which looks good, along with logging my workouts there. They have a "friends" function, though I'm not sure exactly what the friends thing does.

* I just ordered one of these funny-looking bike saddles. It's my only hope for riding long distances without being in serious, serious, SERIOUS discomfort after 2-3 hours. Nothing else has worked, and I've tried everything. Everything. And yes, red is fast.

Cycling and sheetrocking

Started out today very early with a great 48-mile bike ride. I was pleased with the pace, 16.9 mph average, and to crack 100 miles for this week. That's a good start to the long haul to Beach to Battleship iron-distance triathlon in six months from now! Time to start cranking up that volume!

Things at the new house are coming along, very gradually. Here's one of the upstairs bedrooms that I just finished painting - except for touchups (the trim needs a second coat), baseboard, and doors. We just had the whole house measured for new carpeting - that's still the old nasty stuff on the floor. Hopefully we'll have the new stuff installed within a week to 10 days, but I have a lot of painting to finish first.

"Before" with dingy old flat white paint (one coat over the wallboard and trim will do ya):

"After" with fresh warm tan paint (Kilz Casual Colors Dusty Orange), new bright white flat paint on the ceiling, and white semigloss on the trim (and begone with the fake removeable plastic window mullions):

The big remodeling project is coming along! They're right in the middle of doing the sheetrocking and plastering now. When they complete that, we move on to painting, flooring, and installation of cabinets and appliances! Then it's moving day!

Early ride on Mothers Day

My training buddy Dave at a pitstop at Claiborne landing on a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay. Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Swimming technique

Here is a great resource for you analytical visual learners out there who are working on improving your swimming strokes.

More miles

Planned a long run today, but I ran out of time so I just went to the track for 3 quick 1-mile repeats:

• 10:28
• 10:36
• 10:53

That's actually a bit faster than I expected, since I've been feeling slow and sluggish lately. Lots going on with the new house acquisition and other stuff in our lives, but the increasingly warm weather always helps my motivation and interest in getting outside and working out.

4th place: I'm almost good enough

Last summer I rode in two individual cycling time trials in the attempt to qualify for the 2009 National Senior Games in California. Except that I got 4th place in the 5k time trial and 4th place in the 10k time trial, and only the top two finishers qualifed for the Games. So (even though I did qualify to compete in triathlon at the Games) I scrapped that idea and concentrated on other things (like another iron-distance triathlon in November).

Well, now it turns out that they are increasing the rolldown and allowing 3rd-place and 4th-place finishers to attend the Games - I suppose due to the economy they're not getting as many entries as they expected.

Which did give me a moment of temptation. Maybe I could go out to Stanford for a few days after all and give it a go, just for fun. Even though nearly everyone else in the event would have had five more months of event-specific training than I have had.

But then I read that the 4th-place rolldown applied (inexplicably) to everyone except tennis players and cyclists. Go figure.

So it's out of my hands. I'm not going to travel all the way across the country just to do a sprint-distance triathlon (heck, I haven't done any sprint tris since 2005!

If I want to work really hard on my time trialing this year and challenge myself, there's always the USA Cycling Masters Road National Championships in Louisville, Kentucky, June 28 – July 4. I'll think about it. But first I'll have to wait and watch the calendar to see when some earlier ITTs are held locally to try my luck and test my training.

Ironman training re-start

Today was the day it officially re-started! Not an enormous long-distance workout for starting, just a modest speed workout on the track and a half-hour of upper body freeweights and core work in the living room. But it's a start.

I've got the week mapped out for week 3 of 24 weeks of iron-distance training, which will end up at the beginning of summer (when I was planning to do Eagleman Aqua Velo, which has been dropped from the schedule in favor of a vacation at the beach). I still need to find a fun event or two in early June to cap off my spring training.

Key workouts planned for this week are a 120-min bike (probably on the trainer inside tomorrow), a 70-minute run, a 60-90 min swim and a 70 min bike/20 min run brick.

Then over the summer the plan is to go to maintenance training while the girls are out of school and free time is more limited; then crank up the volume again 10-12 weeks out from Beach 2 Battleship on November 7th. Battleship or bust!

Oh yeah, here's my current tentative event schedule, subject to additions when I find some other fun events (mostly for summer/fall) that fit in well:

• RD Seminar: 08 Feb 09
• B&A Half Marathon: 01 Mar 09
• Disney Princess 5k: 07 Mar 09
• Disney Princess Half Marathon: 08 Mar 09
• National Half Marathon: 21 Mar 09
• Dorchester YMCA half?: 11 Apr 09
• Oxford Day 10k?: 26 Apr 09
• Potomac Marathon: 03 May 09
• Columbia Triathlon: 17 May 09
• Chesapeakeman Aqua Velo: 26 Sep 09
• B2B iron distance tri: 07 Nov 09

Last 5k of the year?

I ran 12.5 laps of the track today, which I usually count as 5k. I'm always slower there than on the roads with my Garmin or in races, but it is what it is. First lap was a warmup and then I picked up the pace from there. Finish time for the approximate 5k was 35:43.

Back on track

Every time I have a bout of bronchitis I seem to get slower. I'm still coughing now and then but I'm about 95% recovered this round. So I went over to the track to get a little slightly faster jogging done today.

But I just didn't have it today. (It was unseasonably warm, too: 63*F and windy). Mile repeats were:

• 12:33
• 10:44
• 10:40
• 12:59

The "fast" two in the center were about the times of my slow two in September. Oh well. It's all good. I just have to stay healthy and keep laying down the miles and they'll come around.

Whew, I have a 15k race on Sunday - I haven't run that long in ages. Last year I cramped up so badly on this course that I had to stop - I'll take the first couple of miles pretty slowly this time out there. Slow finish times are better than DNFs.

Back running

Finally got back out on the roads today after 12 days off running completely. Fortunately, I think my no-running strategy was successful this time for getting rid of bronchitis and not having it stick around indefinitely and turn into pneumonia.

It felt good. Time to start catching up on my mileage again.

The only problem today was the cold! And not to my fingers and toes and ears. I have a dental problem right now that makes me acutely sensitive to cold - such that breathing in the cold air gives me a nice sharp ice pick to the side of the face. No fun. Hopefully my "angry nerve" (as the dentist puts it) will calm down in another few days.

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.

Nose news

Not much happening lately to report on. Just the regular routine of taking the girls to school each day, working out, picking them up, feeding them, going to sleep, starting over the next day.

On Wednesdays after school we have swim lessons. Yesterday I tried out a new Speedo nose clip during their lesson. Forgot it for one lap, then wore it for the rest of the time I did a short (700 yard) swim. It didn't hurt once I had it adjusted right. Then I had it off while playing in the pool with them for about another half hour after the lesson. I also quickly spritzed some saline in my nose post-swim but not a lot.

Result? My congestion is only about 10% of what it was for normal non-noseclip swims! Hurrah! That's a pretty manageable level that allows me to still breathe through my nose the subsequent night. I can live with that. Let's see what happens on longer swims.

In other unrelated news, if you're interested in some of the blatant cheating that goes on in triathlons these days, you'll be interested in this post. Yes, I believe that drafting on the bike = using fins on the swim. Same-same.

Swimmer's nose

Skip this post if you don't want Too Much Information about my nose, but - I may have the nose issue nearly fixed! I brought 3 things with me to the pool today to test:

• Vaseline
• Plastic swimmer's nose clip
• Bottle of nasal saline

Before swimming I put Vaseline up my nose, which is gross but better than having a 3-day "cold" from nasal irritation.

Then I put on the noseclip just before I started swimming, being sure to wipe off the excess Vaseline off the outside of my nose so it didn't slip around! Well, the nose clip didn't work so well. It hurt and my nose was running out through the clip. More ewwww. So I stuck it out for about five laps and then tried to adjust it and just ended up breaking the nose clip. Oh well, I have another metal one somewhere. I continued swimming without it.

The rest of the swim was pretty normal, I was doing a lot of work on keeping my elbows high and paddling like I'm on a surfboard, and that seemed to help my speed a little.

Then 5 or 10 minutes in the sauna after the swim like always, and then off to the showers.

I hid inside the shower and sprayed the insides of both nostrils with large amounts of saline and got all the Bad Stuff rinsed out.

Now, about 6 hours post-swim, I have some congestion but it's approximately cut in half from what I would usually get. If I can breathe tonight we're approaching a solution. If I can swim routinely without a noseclip, I would definitely prefer that!

---

Update: FAIL. Everything was okay until I went to bed, and then I stopped breathing. Well, at least breathing through my nose. Next up (I'll try one change at a time to see what is actually effective):

• Find the other nose clip for my next swim
• Swim only in the cooler pool
• Get drugs

I thought I had terrible allergies

Every few days I've been having a terrible runny nose and blocked sinuses like the awfulest cold you can imagine that lasted for about two days. I thought it was probably the autumn pollen - ragweed, or that big ornamental grass thing outside my bedroom window, and going away when the weather changed.

Nope.

*lightbulb moment*

I'm actually having a reaction to the chlorine in the swimming pool. Ugh. It's a tissue reaction to the irritation of the chlorine, not an allergic reaction. So my normal seasonal allergy antihistamine didn't help one little bit.

Looks like I'm going to be swimming with a noseclip from here on out unless I'm in open water, and maybe experimenting with fun barrier methods like Vaseline up the nose. I'll have to see if it's a little less bad in the cooler of the two pools at our YMCA. People have also recommended neti pots (ewww) but I think a spray of nasal saline is more or less equivalent. I've also heard Atrovent up the nose does a great job preventing it as well, but I'll wait and see if non-drug approaches work first.

Ugh. What a pain.

I think this might be a great justification to buy an Endless Pool, don't you?

Swimming laps

Just trying to get back in the habit of getting in the pool a couple times per week and pushing myself for a few lengths of the pool. I did some timed 100s (yards) today at the end of my swim just to do some time-checks on some different techniques - adding some more body roll, some more glide, some more shoulder shrug. The only thing I concluded is that smoother is faster. Yeah, I'm a regular Einstein.

100s today in:

• 2:07
• 2:15
• 2:16
• 2:10
• 2:11

Swimming time trial

I finally found my old copy of Swim Workouts for Triathletes that had fallen down behind the other books on the bookshelf. So today I decided to give myself their recommended swimming standardized test: 3 times 300 yards.

I finished them in:

6:39
6:44
6:47

which I thought was pretty decent for me, an average pace of 2:14 per 100 yards. Slightly slower than my fastest wetsuit-aided triathlon swim, but within their standard of no more than 15 seconds spread between the sets.

Then I go back and look at the charts in the book and they all stop at 2:00 per 100 yards at the slow end. How deflating. It's like going to the running charts and having the slowest running pace in their charts at 9:00 min/mile, faster than all but my very fastest standalone miles.

Well, it gives me a benchmark. Guess I've got some work to do this winter.

Since school started

Now that my girls are in full-day school I've had more time for workouts and for catching up on a lot of things!

Here's the comparison in weekly averages:

• Average weekly swim distance, January to August: 1050 yards
• Average weekly swim distance, September: 1885 yards (up 79%)
  
• Average weekly cycling distance, January to August: 25.3 miles
• Average weekly cycling distance, September: 47.6 miles (up 88%)
  
• Average weekly run distance, January to August: 11.0 miles
• Average weekly run distance, September: 11.9 miles (up 8%)

Not quite where I want it to be yet, but definitely moving in the correct direction! That's 6 to 7 hours per week and I'd like to get it to average around 10 hours per week. I'll probably reduce the cycling mileage a bit in favor of more swimming distance once the weather starts turning bad in late autumn.

Swam

Speaking of calories, somehow it doesn't seem fair that a 45-minute swim burns off only 366 calories, and sitting at my computer reading about these crazy election shenanigans would have burned 65 calories. The net result is that I'm only 301 calories ahead of the game.

I'll break exactly even if I eat 87 plain M&Ms tonight.

This stuff will make a person insane. Maybe it already has.

But I did one set of 500 yards in 10:20, which is very speedy for me.

Well it was with flippers, but still....

Back to the mile

Since a burst of speed (for me) this spring, I've been getting progressively slower in my running this spring. There's a variety of reasons, mostly to do with low running mileage and gaining a few pounds and a couple of nasty bouts of bronchitis.

But now the weather is cooling off so that it's much more comfortable to run in, and I'm back to doing mile repeats in the hopes of perking up my speed again. I headed to the track today, but the students were using it (very unusual!) so I headed out on the roads with my Garmin. I did them just like I planned on the track with quarter-mile recovery walks in between and this is what I ran today:

• 10:51
• 10:22
• 10:49

That gives us some baseline numbers heading into the fall. It's a (re)start. Onward to get back to those 9:22s, 9:02s and below!