Training camp weekend

Weekend was AWESOME! Lots of running (ok, not really), biking, swiming and I might have found a husband.

We arrived to a friend's cottage on Torch Lake on Friday afternoon, chilled out for an hour and then went for a swim. Water there is gorgeous. Clean and turquoise blue. And lake is huge (around 20miles long) thus there were waves in the afternoon. I did not like it that much because I am not used to choppy conditions (I do not think that I will ever do a race where swim in an ocean swim). I liked the swim otherwise. We swam in wetsuits because it looked kind of chilly and we did around 1.45miles (one girl used her Garmin to map it).
I really need to work on keeping my head down and just keep my body streamlined. When I keep my body kind of stretched I feel super efficient and fast. Need to work on that!

Then the others went for a run while I went for a bike ride, 1.5hours keeping it at 21mph. It was like a dream. Almost no cars, smooth roads, gorgeous landspace. What the heck am I doing in metro Detroit area???

Saturday: Morning swim, same distance. Lake was mirror-like smooth. Perfect.
Then a bike ride. There were 8 of us and we had to stay together since only the host knew where we were going. So it required quite a lot of stops and waiting but me and one other girl and sometimes one guy would go ahead and turn around for the others and keep repeating it and we went at a decent clip. It was actually a lot of fun. And I would sometimes repeat some hills since I was usually the first one up, I would rode back down and then up. I loved it. I did 85ish miles although we were supposed to do 100 but the others (you know, those lazy IMen) said 80ish was enough. Slackers.
Did 20min run right afterwards and I felt great. I wanted to push it a bit and did 7:26min/miles (it was the first time I wore Garmin in like 3
months). I mean it was only 20minso why keep it super slow, right? ITB no problem.
Then I hoped on a bike again and rode another 9ish miles to the marina to catch the others on a boat. So total of 95 miles. Decent considering that I am training for a tiny Oly tri and a 5k:)

The friend has a boat so we went to hang out there. There is a place called Boat Sand Bar (or something like that) which is basically very shalow area in the lake where boaters anchor their boats and hang out drinking beers. I was a dork hanging out with protein shake:)
I drank my shake and ate two turkey sandwiches, apple and nectarine. People think I am such a nutcase. All the others had only 1 sandwich but they knew that I eat a lot so they have prepared 2 for me:) And then we went to have dinner and I had "Super Burrito WOW" with a lot of veggies. I ate that mostly because the others did not believe I can do it after eating 2 sandwiches but I knew that I could because I am always starving. Well, I was told I need to fuel well to be able to survive long training weekend so super burrito with extra veggies sounded appealing. And I drank tons of water.

I tried to be very good about nutrition. I drank 2 bottles of Powerade (or Gatorade. I do not know), 4 gels, 2 bottles of protein powder/energy drink/Powerade/water mix, 1 banana and 1 peanut butter chocolate bar. Hm, I do not know how long the ride took, I need to check the Garmin but am too lazy to get up. Probably around 5.5-6hours, so I think that was enough nutrition.

Sunday: I did the bike ride again while the others went running. 2hours of very hilly route. Michelle said that big gear intervals would lead to some good adaptations. So we shall see whether it is true.
I warmed up for around 35min and then found one hill that took me around 8min to climb so I just mashed the pedals in bigger gear going up 5 times and then cooled down for 25min. But w/up and c/d were pretty hilly as well but I took it easy.
Then did the swim. Did maybe 500m with buoy, paddles and bands but then the others came and we decided to do our usual 1.45mile swim. So I did that. This time sans wetsuit.

Overall, it was a great weekend!!! I wish I could do this every weekend!
Although it would have been more fun if I was able to run with the others but I am faster than they are so I would not be able to stay with them anyway.
I think that I am in a good shape. Not fast-IM shape yet but getting there. I am sure that even now I would be able to pull off a somehow respectable swim, decent bike split and fake the marathon. And then go get few IVs in a med tent:)

And I think that I will have a very good 5k race in October.

I will probably go to bed now.

Run and bike

I got home only recently, it is past 10pm and I am supposed to leave early morning tomorrow and still have not packed (or showered).

Did a run, that I messed up a bit. I was supposed to do 2k w/up, and 10x200 at 40-42 to keep it highly aerobic but I thought it was 38-40, so I did then little bit faster. But it was still aerobic.
And my c/d was supposed to be 2k (to increase my mileage a bit) but I did only 1k.
No biggie, I will do 1k run tomorrow:)

Then I went biking, which was a small disaster. 90min ride and I was supposed to keep my HR above 140 but I could not. My average end up being 132. I need to find a better road to do mid-week rides. But it is hard here. There are cars everywhere, no shoulders, lot of potholes. And I think that I am faster at 140 than I was before so roads I used to use are not suitable any more. Although I am not 100% sure whether I am indeed faster because I started to pay high attention to my HR only recently.
It was getting late and dark and I kind of got lost in one subdivision and thus had to use sidewalk for last 10min because it was dark and I did not want to get killed. So not the best executed bike ride.

I am off to Torch Lake with some tri people for the weekend. They are doing Ironman Louisville at the end of August and this is their training camp. I am looking forward to it a lot. I am sure that it will be a lot of fun to do a lot of biking and swimming. Unfortunatelly I will not be joining them for running. Will do extra biking and swimming instead:)

So see ya on Sunday.

Guilt

I was supposed to swim today. But it was raining and they were saying that a storm was coming. And my experience is that pool would close. So I did not go. But storm never came. And it stopped raining. I still could have done ~30min of swimming. But I did not go.

And I feel very very bad about it. But I am trying to persuade myself that I will make up for it on weekend, as I usually do.

Not having a car sucks. I was going to buy a new bike. It was supposed to be shipped from Ohio. But then was told they do not have my size anymore. So I chose a different bike. But then a friend told me that I can get that bike for only $100 more from a local store. But I do not have a car to get there:( I need to figure this out.
Maybe I should not but a bike yet, maybe I should wait till I find a real job and start earning real money. But I am thinking that I want to buy bike here even if I have to go back to Europe next year because it is cheaper here. I do not know. Decisions. Decisions.

Sto a jedno

I decided to teach you little Slovak:) It means hundred and one. Basically an idiom meaning different as night and day.

Yesterday I felt like "hundred" when I started my run, today more like "one".
2k w/up, 5x800 (1st 400 @ 1:33-35, 2nd @ 1:25-27) w/90sec rest, 1k c/d.
I do not like this workout, switching gear in the middle of an interval is hard! I remember I did this in October and it was hard and I totally screwed up. But I went harder back then, 1:30ish and 1:25ish but with 3.5-4min jog recovery.

My legs felt heavy and had no spring when I started warm up and I knew it might be a looong painful dying. So different from yesterday. But surprise! The workout was actually really easy.
3:00 (1:34, 1:26)
2:58 (1:32, 1:26)
2:56 (1:32, 1:24)
2:58 (1:33, 1:25)
2:59 (1:34, 1:25)
First 400 always felt like jog and I had to hold myself back a lot. When I was passing 300m I was always like oh, this is so slow, it will be like 1:40, but no I always passed 400 on time and then second 400 was nicely controlled, no problem.
So I am super excited although I kind of think that once I start doing jog recovery instead of standing/walking rest I will have my a-double-s handed to me:)

Then off to pool. Nightmare. At first I was just sitting there waiting to see whether a lane gets open. There were 2 lanes open and one had 2 swimmers and other 5 kids there.
Thankfully after 10min I was able to join one lane. But starting late meant that I had to cut my workout short and I am anxious when I have to share a lane. I am always worried that I will crash to the other person. Thus I cut my w/up by half and c/d was only 1/4 of planned distance.
My first set of intervals was little slower. But then the kids left and I was able to have the whole lane for myself for next 2 sets.

I am nicely pleased with the swim. It involved 200s in <3:05 and I thought that those would be all-out sprints. But you know what? It was actually pretty easy! Nice.
Well, ok. Overall workout was easy because I do not think that I did the sets correctly. I was supposed to swim 100 very easily at 1:45 between 200s. Hm, easy and hit 1:45 send-off? That did not make much sense to me because 1:40/100 is not very easy. So I did it on 2min send-off, which made more sense to me. And I did not use bands for some intervals as I was supposed to because I forgot them. Thus therefore I made it easier than it was probably supposed to be.
But it does not change anything about being able to swim <3:05/200 no problem!

I had a funny dream last night. I felt like 100 bucks during my running workout yesterday after I did those hills repeats prior and it made me feel very good about my training. And I had a dream that I was running IM marathon and I felt like 100 bucks. My legs felt fresh and ready to rock, just like yesterday. However, I was not able to go fast even thought I felt that great and I tried. I was just jogging. Frustrating. You see, I am having nightmares about a race that is going to happen in 13 months:)

Either ..or...

I had a very ambitious training plan for today. Hilly bike ride followed by 1k repeats. I thought that repeats would be super hard after the bike. But....

I was supposed to do 1h45min of hilly ride. But this is metro Detroit area and where am I going to find a safe hilly at 5pm aka "traffic peak hour"? Right. Nowhere. So I biked to my usual hill and did up and down, up and down for 1h15ish min, plus warm up and cool down. I was supposed to do it in a pretty hard gear and I tried but big gear started to irritate my ITB after around 30min so I put it into easier gear and after another 30min into one more easier. I am not pushing my luck.
I tried to motorpace on downhill but that road is so bumpy that I almost killed myself so I just cruised back down. And I lost my bike computer on one of the bumps:( I have not found it. I might go back tomorrow with my glasses on and maybe I will find it if I will be able to see something. It was just a crappy one for few bucks from Walmart but still, it worked just fine (most of the time).
I drank one whole bottle of Gatorade/Powerbar energy drink powder/protein powder and water mix. It was yummy because protein was chocolate and rest was lime/orange and it is an excelent flavous combination. I checked now and it seem that it was around 400cal. That's what I should always do!

I had one more bottle ready to drink during/after for track repeats.
I also ate one gel right before starting running because I wanted to know how my stomach deals with that. Very well, no problem.

I started running and I felt very fresh and full of energy. As if I had not just done over an hour of bike hill repeats. Which can mean 3 things:
1, either I am super-duper fit and hill repeats do nothing to me and my running legs
2, or I went very easy on those hill repeats (maybe if I stayed in big big gear the whole time it would be a different story but I could not)
3, or all those calories I drank/ate gave me so much energy that I could have bounced of the walls.

It is probably a combination of #2 ad #3 and little bit of #1.
I did 2k w/up, 5x1k at 3:50-3:55 w/90sec rest, 600c/d.
1k were: 3:51, 3:50, 3:51, 3:51, 3:50
It was soooo easy. Not completely like jogging but I had to hold myself back a lot. But that was the purpose of this workout. It was supposed to be highly aerobic effort to simulate the benefits of a long slow run, which I still cannot do.

I drank maybe 1/3 of the drink and rest after the workout.
I also did some core exercises afterwards. I need to be better about those!

So I am satisfied with the workout. I really though it will be hard.
Maybe there is indeed something to that fueling thing. I need to continue doing it:)

Getting sick

Not really sick. But I might be getting sick of bike. I am on one of those torture machines every freaking day!!! (I have my commuter mountain bike and a road bike. I am hoping for an addition in next few weeks. Stay tuned.)
Ok, I am not really getting sick of the bike. I love bike. I am getting sick of the roads and having to deal with traffic.

I was supposed to do open water swim today. But it takes me an hour to get there. And road I have to take is really bad. Really bad. I need to stay in the middle of the road because there are potholes everywhere. And traffic on that road is pretty big except for early mornings. So I usully have to use sidewalk for a huge portion of it. And sidewalk is just horrible. Because I need to go slow and there are as many potholes as on a road. And then there is portion where there is no sidewalk and road is very narrow with potholes and traffic and I get a lot of honking there and I am always amazed that I ma still alive when that is over. It is a nightmare.

So I was in no mood to go there this morning and deal with that road. If I could just ride on a nice smooth broad road or even better jump into car and drive there, it would be like a dream. But well, I cannot do that.

So I just need to suck it up. So 1 hour to get there.
Did a ~50-60swim, with some hard 5min intervals. I think that these open water swims are adding a lot to my swimming endurance. I need to remember that next time I am not in a mood for OW swim mayhem.
Then rode back. It actually was not that bad afterall although I would still prefer nice smooth broad road.

Then cooked lunch. I do not remember last time I cooked. I eat steamed veggies with fish and sometimes pasta but I do not cook much. I have no time and when I cook I always stuff my face because I have no self-control so I have to eat everything I prepare:)

Then a friend took my to Costco and Sam's club to stock on food. I think that I have enough frozen veggied and fruits to last me for a month or two.
I wanted to get fresh fruits as well but they are so expensive:( It is interesting that frozen were cheaper. I miss living in Paris and Barbès Rochechouart food market on Wed and Sat. It is the scatchiest place ever since it is in Arabic quartier and chances of getting mugged are high but they had awesome food and prices. I usually got like 3kg of apples for 1.50Eur, or 3kg of carrots for 1Eur, or grapes. Yeah, graaaapes. Or mandarins. Oh, I loved it. Those were times I used to live on fruits and veggies. Here fruits and veggies are so expensive!!! I hate it here.

I had very very hard time to not buy large pack of M&Ms or other crap. But I decided to become laser-like focused for next 13months so will cut on candy. I wonder for how long my determinantion will last. But I got trail mix, so my determinantion is already weakening.

I got also 24 bottles of gatorade (part of my resolution to become a better athlete) and protein powder. I wanted also V8 because it has high content of sodium, which I think I am in need for but they had only small cans and I just could not make myself to buy it. Bottles/cans are such a waste. Already those 24 bottles of G is way too much waste in my opinion so I will need to go somewhere else to get V8. Why don't they sell stuff in huge packages so we can stop producing that much waste!!! Wake up people! Stop buying bottled water (or any drinks). It is water and you live in the US, you can drink it from your kitchen tap and you won't die!

My calves are still killing me. So sore form those cramps on Friday. Every step feels like the calf muscles are going to get ripped of the ligaments that connects them to my knees. Horrible, just horible.

I am tired. I might watch the movie and fall asleep on the floor again.

World record

I am sure that I am a world record holder as of today.

I hope you have not had enough of my pool bitching yet because here goes.
I did 975 yards and headcrashed or was cut off 5x. I am sure that's the record.
I am not the most patient person out there and I cannot deal with people's assholeness very well so after I had to stop 2x during the warm up and then during every single of my first 3 200s (I did not finish them. First 200, then 100, then 75), I have had enough and left because it would have ended up badly for next person who would cross my path.

I still maintain that Paris has the highest assholes population in the entire world but US cities are close behind. This is what I do not like about the US. A lot of kids are not taught to care about other people. They are taught to do whatever they want without thinking about negative effects on other people and let the affected person deal with it. Many people here have mentality that they can do whatever they want, that they are always "the boss", and they just do not care about the others in general. People here are spoiled. Everything must be to their standards and if it is not they make a huge deal about it and sure enough there is always someone to fix it without complains ad the circle continues.

Saturday randomness

I have cca 1hour before going to swim and have nothing to do and I have noone to talk to so I figured I will share with the whole world:)
Maybe I should take a nap instead but it will be hard to wake up and go swimming afterwards.

Did ~3h bike ride, which was little strange. Not very well executed. I did last 2 hours with some friends and since my bike computer does not work and I wanted to get some data I stayed with them although they went slower than I would have liked.
1h58in, 33.6miles, speed 17.1mph, HR 135. Pretty pathetic, isn't it? Oh well, it was just to get T.I.T.S. up.

Then I went running. 15minutes!!! Longest I have run since...well, the tri I did at the end of May. But longest training run since sometime in April.
I decided to cap my HR at 160. Thus it was more like a shuffle not a real run. I am so not long-distance fit. I can get my HR to high 180 very easily and hold it there.
But I wonder isn't that good? Isn't that what athletes want? Be able to run at high speeds that are like 90% of their max HR for the longest time possible. At least marathoners do that, don't they? But sure, running a <3h marathon is a whole different story than doing a 11h long Ironman. So I am going to get a IM distance fit.

My calves are killing me. Seriously. They are really sore today. I have been wearing compression socks for a run and am wearing them now. Maybe that will help.

When I was running 400s on Thursday and I had this small panic attack for a second. I was hurting a little on one of the 400s and then suddenly I realized that IM is going to hurt. The marathon I did in 2009 was very easy. It never hurt. It was like a long slow easy run. I was sore like hell afterwards but that was because of the distance not because of hard work. Running a 3:30marathon was a piece of cake, it is way easier than running a 19min 5k. But running a marathon after swimming for 2.4miles and biking for 112miles? It probably won't be that easy, will it? I am sure that it will not be the same pain as running a fast 5k but it will be pain. And for that split second on my 400 I was like, I do not want to hurt for 3+ hours. That IM marathon after bike is going to hurt. Sure I kind of think that running a 5h IM marathon would not hurt, it would be just long. But I do not want to run a 5h IM marathon. I want to run 3:35 IM marathon. And I am sure that it will hurt. Lot of work to do, lot of work to do.

I have Oly tri in 4 weeks. And call me crazy but I am not thinking about the race strategy etc, I am thinking about what to wear! My sister would be proud of me, haha. At first I thought that one piece or two piece swimsuit will be ok. Because I am not going to wear tri suit. Too much drag in water. And Michelle agrees with one-piece swim suit. But this is not Hawaii, this is Michigan! And running in swimsuit? Hm. I have a feeling that I will be the only one. And surely the only one from our club. Maybe I will be surprised and there will be others, I have no idea. Well, I am going to do it of course but people are going to think that I am crazy. And I am not sure I like to "be different" when it comes to running around half naked. But what else can I do?!?

Awesome swim workout

When I saw the workout with the little comment from the coach at the end saying "Phew. I got tired just typing that! But it looks like fun!" I knew this might be real "fun".

It looked tough and I was little intimidated. Good thing about pool situation is that now I am more anxious about whether I will be able to get the swim in than abuot actuall swims. Basically I am freaking out about having to deal with messed up pool hours and not about hard workouts:) So there is something good in all that pool drama.

As I said, workout was tough but I did it and it was great. Main set was fast and steady efforts at short send-offs.
100 fast @ 1:40
200 steady @ 3:20
100 fast @ 1:40
300 steady @ 5:00
100 fast @ 1:40
400 steady @ 6:40
100 fast @ 1:40
300 steady @ 5:00
100 fast @ 1:40
200 steady @ 3:20
100 fast @ 1:40
LOVED IT. I am getting much better at endurance stuff. I cannot believe that 1:37/100yards pace is actually easy for me now (those were steady efforts). Ok, it is probalby like warm up pace for fast folks but it is damn good for me and I am thrilled about it.

The only hick up was that I got cramp to my left calf during 400 and then another in my right calf during following fast 100 so those were little slower by ~5-6sec than they were supposed to be and thus I added 10sec to send offs:( It happened at the turn. Not as I pushed off but as I moved legs/feet to my body before the turn right before I pushed off. And it would not go away for around 40yards. Frustrating because then I need to keep that leg flexed and cannot kick with it and it also hurts. (By the way. I do not understand why people drown when they get a cramp. I mean, you can keep swimming, it just hurts and you cannot really kick with that legs. But you still have another leg and two arms.)
And during following 200 I headcrashed to some kids. WTH? There were 5 people in the whole pool and 3 lanes completely open and those stupid kids decided to chill out in my lane??? What's with their parents?
I tore my swimming cap. I do not have time to go buy one tomorrow because it takes me around 40min on bike to get there...Hard life without a car.

So again, awesome swim, I am thrilled. But still a lot of work to do to be able to hold <1:35/100y pace for 4224 yards next August. Phew, that's looong. I need to work hard, I have 13 months!
And then <1:30/100m for the future. Is that even possible???

By the way, woo-hoo for Andy Schleck taking the yellow jersey. I love him. Well, I do not know him but whatever. And Peter Velits who is 19th! Awesome!

Phew

100 degrees forecasted for today! I like heat though. But it might be because I have never done any endurance event in brutal heat:) Well, I haven't done any endurance event at all. Although maybe that 230k bike race can be considered an endurance event. And some of my Saturdays:)

Ok, so plan for today: bike in the morning and track after work.
I was already hot at 6 in the morning when I did the ride. And it was pretty hard ride, main set was 3x10min 160-170 HR intervals. I loved it though.

I usually run at 6:30 but moved it to 7:30, but it did not help too much. It was brutally hot. 3x5x400m at 5k pace with 1min rest and 3min rest btw sets. When I stopped I got immediatelly covered with sweat and then I was splashing sweat all over the place once I started running. It was kind of hard, I was panting heavily after each one although it did not feel too hard while I was running. Heat and bike are probably behind that it felt harder than normal:) I poured water over my head but water was already pretty warm so it did not help much plus it washed all the sweat into my eyes. Not fun.
1;29, 1:27, 1:28, 1:28, 1:28/ 1:28, 1:28, 1:28, 1:28, 1:28/ 1:26, 1:27, 1:26, 1:26, 1:26. Last set was little bit faster than it was supposed to be.
I finished with a lot of stretching watching 2 soccer players practising some golie moves. Pretty interesting and those guys were not bad at all. They might have been little intimidated by me staring at them but well they stared at me as I was killing myself on the track so we are even.

Next weekend I am going to Torch lake with some tri people, Friday through Sunday. They are doing IM Louisville in August and one guy has a cottage at Torch lake and he is hosting a little training camp for people and they agreed to take me along. So it will be a lot of biking and swimming and running (not much running for me though). And I am really really looking forward to it! I hope that week will fly by!

Chilling

Today was a chill day.
I had an optional 1h bike ride and although it is really not like me I decided to pass. I have decided to treat my bike commute to work, back home, to the library and back home as a bike ride.

Then I wanted to go to one meeting in the evening because I wanted to try out a tri bike I am considering buying so I again did not swim today and need to move the swim to Saturday. It is Felt B16 and although I liked the bike it felt little "high" and I did not feel like I was aerodynamic enough. I am sure that part of it is the fitting but I was told by a few people that Felts are usually little "higher".
And I met the hockey guy with his girlfriend and daughter. Lovely. I have not seen him since our bedroom accident thus in over 2 months but it still got my HR up seeing him.

I do not know what to do

Pool is driving me craaaaaaazy!
It was supposed to be open for laps 8-9pm but only 2 lanes were open and there was some kind of dancing class going on in other 3.
But surprisingly 1 lane was open when I came. So I was doing my workout and half way through my main set suddenly "bang", I headcrashed to some punk who decided to get into my lane without letting me know. And he stayed there doing breaststroke with fins! Who does that? So I continue swimming and "bang" another punk who I have no idea what he was doing but thankfully he left when I crashed into him.
And the fin guy would not stay on his side, so I had to keep lifting my head to see where he was so I do not crash into him again or get killed with fins although once I kind of swam over him. So there went my fast 100s....Still managed 1:32s which is good considering what I had to deal with.
And then I was supposed to do paddle work and then suddenly there was one more person in my lane, old guy breaststroking. No way I could do pull with paddles and bands with 2 other people doing breaststroke in my lane. So i left. I want to cry!

I do not know what to do. There is nothing I can do. But I need to get my swims in!!!
One and a half month and then pool goes back to normal hours, hopefully then it would be better. But I might go nuts by then.
I am trying to not stress myself out over missed swim workouts because I know getting stressed doesn’t do any good, but still I can’t help it!

At least my track workout went well. I thought it would be hard and my legs would be dead since I did track yesterday but it was kind of easy.
1k w/up, 1200, 1000, 800 @ 5k pace, 600, 400, 200 @ 3k pace w/2min rest, 600m c/d = 3miles total.
I was joined again by the guy from work. He knows now that he needs to take it easy at the beginning otherwise he would die by the end. And also one other guy from the club came. We shall see whether he comes again, because it seems that people join me once and then they do not show up again. I wonder why:)
1200: 4:29
1000: 3:42 Little too fast.
800: 2:54 Again too fast, but it was easy.
600: 2:06
400: 1:22
200: 37 Sure I can not hold this for 3000m but it is 200, so it is ok that it was too fast.

ITB is great!!!! You cannot imagine how happy I am! Now I need to make sure it stayes that way so I can rock some tris and 5ks in fall. Another track on Thursday and then 1st attempt for an easy slow run on Saturday.

Track, bike, etc

Interesting, both of my coaches want to kill me. One wants to kill me with her track workouts and the other because of my haphazard fueling. Nice.

Well, I really need to start thinking about training time management because now that I am running again it is going all downhill and it might lead to a tiny disaster soon. Otherwise I am pretty bright and analytical, but I just do not want to think about my training mostly because I have no idea what I am doing. Therefore I have two coaches, duh!

So I have 4 runs this week. I need to increase my mileage but I cannot do it in just 3 runs and I cannot do easy slow runs. Thus I have 3 kick-ass track workouts + 1 attempt for an easy 2miler on Saturday.
But how to fit that in with bikes and swims especially since I cannot do track in the mornings because track is closed and I cannot swim in the mornings because pool is crowded and I do not want to deal with biking to pool and back before going to work. So I need to do almost everything after work. I can bike in the morning.
The best solution seemed track on Mon, Tue, Th and then easy on Sat after the bike ride.

So today was bike and track. At first I thought that I was going to bike and then go to track, like a brick. But then at work it occured to me that it is a very stupid idea because it is hard running workout and I have another tomorrow and thus I should try to have fresh legs for today and have something left for tomorrow. So track and then bike it was. If I thought it through earlier I could have done bike in the morning.

Anyway, 1k warm/up, 5x1k @ 3:40-3:45w/ 2 min rest, 400m c/d, 4miles total. It was really hot and humid out. Blah.
1st 1k: 3:44. OMG, this is hard. I was splashing sweat all around me and my legs (and arms) hurt. It is probably that stupid bike ride and track workout on Saturday. It is catching up to me:( I am going to die after just two. (I have read Mental training for peak performance last week but clearly it has not helped me too much. I should re-read it! It is a good book.)
2nd: 3:44. Ok, this is not too bad but I am still going to die after the next one.
3: 3:41. Oh, this is easy-peasy. Clearly, my legs just needed a proper warm-up. 1k is not enough but I cannot do more yet.
4: 3:42 Felt good and confident that I can easily do 5 of them. Just stay focused and relaxed.
5: 3:40 Not bad at all, I pushed the last 200 little bit to get to 3:40.

I am satisfied. At first I really thought that I was not going to make it because it felt hard and my legs were heavy and non-responsive. But it turned out very good. 2min walk rest was plenty and I was gaining confidence as I went, which helped a lot. Although I will probably die tomorrow since I have another kick-ass workout.
This was one of the the longest runs in one day since March, and I am thrilled about it. ITB feels good although it was little funky yesterday. Probably because I did not have a change to ice it the whole day since I was not at home.

Bike workout was an easy ride for just 83min with 10x20-30sec hard pick ups. 42.3k with average speed 30.4kph, average HR 140.I need to start keeping track of this so I can compare my HR/speed ratios. 83min is not long, and it took me some time to warm up and then there was a cool down and those pick ups but it is better than nothing. It was on a loop by my house, which is like a T and I need to do 180degree turn at each end, so my HR and speed went down significantly then. I did 4 loops and something.
26.4miles, 19mph, HR 140.

Actually I am surprised that my HR was that low. It was pretty hard to keep 140+. My past experience is that I can get it to 170+ within a blink of an eye and it stayes pretty high I think. Pick ups were high 160s/low 170s. But maybe low HR is a sign that I am becoming aerobically fit. Or maybe it is only because I did track before and thus was tired and could not get HR higher. But speed was decent, would not I be more muscularly tired? Or because it was a very short ride. I have no idea, because I never really kept track of it before. We will see in the future.

I am little concerned about my biking abilities. I guess I am decent but it only because I bike a lot. A lot lot. And I am worried that because I already bike a lot that I will not be able to progress much further:( For example today.
I biked to work: ~20min.
From work: ~25min (it is a slight uphill)
To track: ~20min
From track: ~20min (if I have not had biking shoes/pedals I would have taken my road bike to track and then done the ride from there. But because I needed to change running shoes into biking shoes I needed to go home first. That's a disadvantage of biking shoes)
Bike workout: ~80min
My bike commute was actually longer than my bike workout today. I think that I do 50-60miles/weekly just commuting to places and it adds to my biking improvement. But how much more can I bike? Will I be able to continue to improve?

Weekend recap - two extremes

I almost killed myself on Saturday whereas today I did nothing.
But my lame excuse is that I was babysitting friend's 5 and 9-year old girls the whole day today and I knew I would not be able to get anything in. By the way, playing with Barbies, playing on swings and slides, playing tea party and preapring PBJ sandwiches is a hard work!

Saturday:
4h were on plan. I somehow ended up doing 6h15min for around 105miles. Ops. I just love biking with people and since people I went with went for 4-5 hours I went with them. The only problem is that I biked 1h to get to hour meeting point and then almost 1 hour back. But I loved every minute of it. It was at a good pace from mile 14-50ish, then it was mostly easy riding, and then at mile 86 I decided to see what I have left and hammered 3 miles at 22+ average. It hurt. Then I cooled down 13 miles home. Sure I was not really prepared for that, so one guy bought me a bottle of Powerade and gave peanut butter sandwich his wife made for him:) It was the best tasting PB sandwich I have ever eaten! And I am not saying it only because it was after I did almost 90miles on 3 gels and 1.5 bottles of Powerade.
By the way, I love my new biking shoes and pedals! I think that it really makes me faster. Maybe not when riding steady, but it helps in surges and on uphills. Oh wait, that's something that triathletes should not do, so forget I have mentioned that. Plus I have not wiped out yet:)

Got home, refilled water bottles, switched shorts and shoes, took my other bike and biked to the track where I did some "divided" 300s. 800m w/up, 10x (100m fast @ 17-18s, 100 easy, 100 @ good clip) with 100m walk, 800 c/d.
Surprisingly that bike ride did not seem to take much of my legs because I did hold 17-18 for 100m, although those 100@ good clip were kind of brutal. I did not feel low on energy (yet, wait for it...) and felt good.

Then I went to the pool. Descendng 200s that I was supposed to do on Monday. Ok, I knew that it would be a very long stretch to make it and it indeed was. I was pretty much spent by that point. I am asking myself now as I am typing this, why did not I ake a gel or something with me to the track or pool? Maybe that wold have helped. Although I did not feel very low on energy (I never feel low on energy actually), it was more like my legs and arms were almost dead by that point. I descended them, but off my prescribed pace. Oh, well, I need better "training execution" skills.

I know that Saturday was not the brightest idea ever. I knew that my body could do it, no problem, it was not the brightest idea because that swim was not a quality swim. I was too tired by then. But there is no other time I could have fit it in and at least I got yards in.

Which leads to Sunday. I spent the night at friend's night because she was leaving very early in the morning. I had a good time and hopefully the kids were not too bored. I did not let them watch TV but I let them eat some popsickles and ice cream:) So it has evened out.
I was supposed to do OW swim today and I really did not want to do it. I was not looking forward to it at all. I do not know why, I love those swims, but I was probably too tired. My friend got home at around 7pm and took me to the lake. I changed to the swim suit, went down to lake, saw what was going on there (the beach was crowded. We has almost 100degrees here and even at almost 8pm it was filled with people), dressed back, hoped onto my bike and biked home.
I feel little guilty about it, but I am not going to dwell on it.
This week was a bad week for swimming with 0 100% swims. So let's just put this week and today's hick-up behind me and move on!

Unbelievable!!!

I am soooooo incredibly pissed! Really.
I went to the pool 3 times this week and ALL 3 times I got screwed.
On Monday I did not even attemp the swim.
On Wednesday they closed half an hour early.
And today they closed 15min early!
WTF?!?

I was having a very good workout of 16x100 but got in only 13 of them and then the lifeguard came over and told me they were closed and I needed to get out!

I do not have money (and time) to go to a different pool! Therefore I hope they will not continue like this the whole summer. But they probably will. So I hope that at least when they go back to their normal hours in September it will be like it was before-problemless and noone but me in the pool.

I need to get in my swims!!!

Bike/run

I feel very non-creative today, if that's even possible. So this is going to be boring.

Bike ride - hill repeats. I was supposed to do 4-5min hill repeats but since this is Midwest, they do not have hills that take 4min to climb. The longest I found takes me 2min45sec to climb so I just did few extra repeats. Oh well...

Then went to the track. 3x6x200m at 40sec. It felt pretty good, easy but I was definitelly feeling some "fatique" in the legs by the end. Those hill repeats probably started to catch up:)
ITB feels great. No problemo!
I think that PPC is trying to kill me. I asked her about that yesterday and she did not say no. Hm. That probably means that yes, she is trying to kill me.
But it is hard to create a plan for me right now since I can do track intervals but probably cannot do slow longish runs. So basically all my mileage comes from intervals, which leads to 3 track workouts/week and I am telling you, next week will be brutal because all 3 sound very hard. My mileage is still very low, around 11 miles this week and 13 next. Then hopefully, I can start adding some easy runs to rump up the mileage.

I am not making this up

I went to pool and was little over half-way through when the lifeguard told me I had 5 minutes. What?!? 5 minutes? You are supposed to close at 9pm and not 8:30pm!
He said he was sorry and he really looked sorry and explained to me that the other lifeguard was 15 and 15-year old lifeguards cannot stay past 8:30pm and there must be 2 people to close the pool and thus they must close now.

Ok, I know that my attitute towards pool intervals is not the best attitute ever but that really was not a lame attemp to cut the workout short on my side. Even with a lousy attitute, I am dedicated enough to suck it up and do it.
So, how am I going to become a decent swimmer if there is always something going on with the pool? (Ok, I am exagerating a bit because it is not that bad overall, just some weeks are disasters)

Drives me nuts. I wish there were a lake closer to my place and I could go there more often. There are lakes close but they are private lakes:(
Ok, ok, it is not the end of the world. Chill out.

Another "awesome" thing that happened today is that the rear shifting string on my commuter bike tore and now I cannot shift, and it is always in high gear. I shifted the front to low gear and am going to ride it like that. So basically my commuter bike became a fixed-speed bike. I am not going to have it fixed because it is not worth it. It is not my bike so I should take care of it but it's one of those $50 mountain bikes from Walmart + it is all rusted and old. So not worth it. I am going to die riding that thing like that for next 6 months. Or it is going to make me really strong. We shall see.

Bike and track

You remember how I said yesterday that I need to do bike, run, swim today? Well, I should have but then I started to think about it and I realized that do bike intervals followed by running intervals followed by swimming intervals is not such a great idea. I am sure that I could do it, but will that swim still be quality workout? I doubt it. Plus I got my period and honestly the first day of that thing is getting worse as I get older. Plus, and I am really ashamed of this but I want to be honest: I like to use every opportunity I have to postpone a swim workout. I know that it will not go away, but I would rather do it on Sat with pool being half-empty than today with pool being half pool So I scrathced the swim and will do it on Saturday instead.

Today was my second day on my new job without any supervision. You know, a girl that trained me was there last time on Friday and my boss is on vacation for the whole month (she is German...) so you can imagine what I am doing there. But so far it is ok, I think that I have not messed up too many things yet:) But it was only second day. Still 2+ weeks to go before someone knowledgeable comes in.

So I did a bike workout, nothing too bad, only 1h of riding with 1min intervals. And I used my new pedals! I tried to focus on pulling and not only pushing. I think that it indeed makes me faster! But I need to adjust my seat because it is too low now.
I wonder how do people run out of/in to transition in biking shoes? I know that some people keep their shoes clipped in and thus run barefoot but I won't be able to do that because my shoes are not tri shoes but biking shoes and I cannot slip my foot in easily. Anyway, am I supposed to run in biking shoes and cleats on them? Is that even possible?

And then I did the track workout. I was again joined by the guy from work but this time he knew he needed to keep it controlled otherwise he would die by the end like he did last time. So he stayed with me the whole time.
800m w/up, 1000, 800, 600, 600, 800, 1000 w/2 min standing/walking break, 800c/d. With second half (upward going intervals) faster than first half.
1000: 3:45 Easy, well, relatively easy. This is the longest interval I have done since early December.
800: 2:55 Easy.
600: 2:08 Somehow easy.
600: 2:08 Managable.
800: 2:53 It is getting harder here, went steady, controlled and managed to make up time (2 sec) in a finish kick:)
1000: 3:43 Felt really sluggish/slow the first 600 (2:15) but then pull my s*** together and picked it up for the last 400.
Perfect! Exactly how it was supposed to be. It was not a super easy workout, especially last 800 and 1k, definitelly made my heart beat hard and my lungs gasping for oxygen in this water-filled air. I thought that I was not going to make the last 1k, but I stayed focused and mentally strong and did it and it was not that bad after all! 2min breaks went by too fast though.

ITB felt great, no problem. I do not know what the deal is because I felt it on Sunday. I am starting to think that although it is ITB it is not only it. Before, when I did aquajogging it felt as if my muscle on the outside side of thigh was detached from the tendon that attaches it to the knee. Ok, I know it was not detached but I had this weird dangling feeling as I was moving my leg up and down in water. And that inflammation or whatever it was this past weekend was exactly at that spot. I iced it every 2-3 hours yesterday and today and thus it did not bother me at all. Just weird. But these intervals do not bother it at all.
I did leg weights on Friday and I think that it might be what irritated it and caused that pain this weekend. It is either that or running.
So I am just going continue running and do not do any weights and see what happens.

I have very mixed feelings. But not like frustrating bad mixed feelings. I just cannot decide what I love more. Hard life, isn't it? I LOVE track intervals. And I LOVE tri training- long bike rides and intervals and long/steady swims (swim intervals, no so much because I suck at them for now). And I am sure that I will love IM training and I am looking forward to it. But I LOVE track intervals. I wish I could train on track for IM. Maybe I should start a new IM training approach:)

Attempt

So I tried to go to the pool today hoping that that one Monday I went there and had to stop after warm up because it was too crowded was just exceptional, but no. Today was the same. I got there, changed into swim suit, took shower, went to the deck, put my things down, picked them up, took shower and went home.

Swim team was there and only 1 lane open for swimming and there were 3 people already swimming there. It says on a schedule that swimming team is done at 8pm but reality is different.
So I can't swim on Mondays. Frustrating.

I need to think how to adjust my schedule because I must do track on Tue and Thurs and thus I want to bike on those days. Oh well, I will just do two hard swims two days in a row. Maybe it will help me at the end, who knows. Or I can do OW on Mondays. I need to think it through.

So today was a day off. Tomorrow will be bike, run, swim.

And it all seemed to be getting better

I woke up in the middle of the night with that same ITB pain when I pressed on it. But this time it is not the same "outside of knee" spot, it is little above but I am sure it is still that stupid ITB. Like it was inflammated or something. It is weird. And I have not even done anything yesterday to irritate it.
So this week my mileage is around 6.7miles or so.

It does not bother me when I walk, and it feels great after I ice it. it is definitelly inflammated. We will see how this continue.

Anyway, I went (actually a friend drove me) to a bike store today and I got new pedals. Nothing fancy, just something to use the shoes with. I do not need high performance carbon whatever pedals.
I installed them and went to try them. You should have seen me installing them. First I could not unscrew my current pedals so I put the bike on a trainer and was basically jumping up and down on a wrench to loosen them. It worked although I almost killed myself. And then I realized that I do not have a screw driver! I must have thrown it out when moving from LA. Well, so I used a knife and a penny to fasten the screws on cleats. Not very efficient.
I was also trying to figure out how that clipping in system works and clipped in the cleat while it was not on a shoes yet and then was too weak to unclipp it from a pedal. So I had to take the pedal apart to get it out.
And my wrench it too "thick" to fasten the pedals properly.

So now, the cleats are on shoes but not fastened enough (I need to find someone with a screw driver. Maybe this is a right time to get to know my neighbors) and pedals are on but those are not fastened enough either.
I went for a ride anyway and believe it or not, I am still alive and no road rash. But my shoes can move in different directions because of those loose screws.

But it was interesting. I think that I might like it and I need to work on pulling my legs up, not just pushing.

I also cleaned the bike. That machine was nasty. It is not perfect but at least you can see that a chain is somehow not black. I need to do that more offen because I almost used the whole can of decreaser! Yes, that bike was nasty.

I also bought 2 cases of gels, 1 case of some other gel-ly stuff and 1 electrolytes drink powder. (They have a huge sale in that bike store.) Michelle can be proud of me:) I am starting to take this seriously, at least until I run out of those gels. Then I will look more into making my own with honey or something.

Then I went grocery shopping and stocked up for next month or so. So I will not starve to death anytime soon.

And then went swimming. I liked it. Around 50min (2100-2200yards) with two 10minish faster intervals mixed in. It was good, I am definitelly getting better at sighing and swimming in a straight line!

Bike, biking shoes!!!! & awesome swim

I went biking with one of our German engineers. We did only 2.5h although I was supposed to do 3 but I usually bike more that I am supposed to so I guess it is ok.
It was not very fast, just moderate effort. I liked it.

Plus I scored these for $50:


Pretty sweet, don't you think? The guy ordered them last year but they were too small and he was too lazy to return them. So they were never used. And they are good shoes.

Now I need to buy pedals and I will be FAST! (Maybe)

And then I went to the pool and had an awesome workout. Maybe my swimming mojo is indeed coming back. 16x100 @ 1:50 (2 in 1:40, 2 in 1:35 etc). And it felt pretty easy although it was a decent workout. I was able to go little faster on all of those. I am happy about it.
I like workouts like this one. I do not like workouts that are tooooo hard for me and I cannot make the intervals. Those make me too nervous and I am always freaking out before them.

Friday speedwork

Since I did the TT yesterday I did not do the track workout yesterday. But for the following weeks I am sticking to the T/Th track routine.

Today's plan was 800m w/up, 3x5x300m at little faster than 5k w/walk back to start(cca 1:05-1:10) w/ ~4min between sets. 3.3miles total.

This track has very weird markings. I started what I thought was 300m start but after I did first 5 at 56-57sec, I knew I was not startig at right mark.
Then I found what was starting line for 300m hurdles and I continued from there. I might have found 300m starting line as well but there was nothing written there so I decided to stick with my hurdle line.
61, 60, 60, 60, 61; 60, 60, 60, 60, 60

It was pretty easy. These workouts are so much easier with walking rests instead on jogging rests and with fresh legs since that's what you get when you do my mileage:)

It is only 6.8miles so far for this week, so I guess I will not get to 11 by the end of this week. I have not really thought that throught and planned my runs.

Plan was to swim afterwards but I kind of forgot about it. I mean, I brought all my swimming stuff with me to the track but then I started stretching after the workout and well, I forgot that I need to be careful about pool closing time so by the time I got to the pool it was too late to do the swim workout. So I will just move it to tomorrow.
I did legs weights instead.

Bike Time Trial #3

Bike TT #1: 34:18, average speed 35.2kph (21.88)
Bike TT #2: 34:04, average speed 35.6kph (22.11)Course was little bit longer this time, not by much though.
Bike TT #3: 34:03, average speed 36.1kph (22.56mph). We never start from the same spot therefore the time is not a very precise indicator of my improvement. It is better to look at the average speed.
If my computer is accurate. It might be little off in absolute value but then in relative value to other TTs it should give the same data. I know it cannot be off by much because when I compare my comp data with other people data when we ride together they are pretty close.

Clearly I am improving! It was windy today, windier than last time and much windier than the first time and I went faster. Or maybe my new tires worked their magic:)
But honestly I do not know whether the wind helped or not because I went ~32-33kph into the wind and then ~37-38kph with the wind when usually I can hold more stable speed. So maybe wind made me faster. We do 2 loops so we get the same amount of headwind and tailwind.

I felt horrible for the first 3rd, probably because it was into the wind. Also my warm up for 19 miles at decent clip might have played a role. Yes, it takes me 19miles to get there from work. So I warm up for 19 miles for a 20k bike TT...

After that first third it was not that bad. TT felt much harder the first time I did it. This time, not so much. I should have gone faster the whole time because I had a lot left at the end and I was hammering last 2k really fast. But it was hard going into that wind thus I kind of could not go faster.

It was good though, I really like it.
Then we went to get dinner and I have learnt a lot of new things about bikes, bike shoes, powermeters etc. One guy in the club is able to get a whole-sale prices on Giant and Cannondale tri bikes. I do not have any money to buy one but that's what credit cards are for...He will make few phone calls to see what he can do for me. We will see.

Fartlek swim and new tires. Yay!

Oh, I am hungry! I just ate a huge bowl of steam veggies but I am still kind of hungry. Maybe I will get some cereal.

Have I mentioned how much I hate new pool hours?!? I am sure I did. The same story today. I got there and all lanes were taken with 2-3people there. So I just sit there for 20min hoping someone will get out. Eventually 1 person left and I joined one line.
Problem is that my swims take usually 60-70min and thus there are always people at the begining aalthought they eventually almost always leave with 45-50min before closing (at least on Wed and Fr, Mondays are a different story). If my swims were 45-50min then it would be great. Need to talk to Michelle about it.

But I had a decent swim, although I felt tired. Kind of treading water and powering through it but eventually I loosened up and it was better. Some paddle work and 1000 fartlek. I liked it. I felt smooth on fast sections. I was concentrating hard to keep my head down and breath without lifting my head because I tend to do that when I breath to the right side. It needs practice.

I got my new tires today! Continetal GP4000s and Ultra Gatorskins. They have also sent me some water bottles, biking socks and a lot of spare racing and training tubes. Also hometrainer tires. Although I wanted also one other different kind of tires that they did not sendit is ok. What they sent is still pretty awesome.
I have been using whatever 28s tires and now I put racing GP4000s 23s on so I should be fast(er):) I am doing bike TT tomorrow so we will see whether it makes any difference. I can definitelly see the difference. I have never realized how huge those 28s are until I compared them to 23s.
The only problem might be flats. Since I ride that bike on sidewalks and over potholes and whatever you can find in Michigan I might get a lot of flats:( Then I will switch to Gatorskins 25s. They are presumably one of the best training tires on a market and you never get flat but they are also one of the slowest. We will see how those racing ones survive my ride to the park tomorrow.

Track (again)

It is Tuesday and it means....SPEEDWORK on a track. Tuesdays and Thursday are my favorite days because of running speedwork and because of bike intervals. And Saturdays because of long bike rides. And Sundays because of long swims. Hm, it pretty much leaves out Wednesdays, Mondays and Friday because...well, those are swim speedwork days. I am sure I would like those days as well if I did not suck at swimming. But I will get there. I am just way too impatient.

I met with one guy (he actually works for the same company as I do and just came here from Germany for a work assignment) who is training for Detroit marathon in October. Some other people said they would come but 97degree weather might have detered them. Slackers.

Plan was 800w/up, 5x800 at 5k pace with 90sec rest (stand, walk, no jog), 800m c/d. Around 3.5miles total.

1st: 2:52, felt soooo easy. Really, like a jog.
2nd: 2:54, hm, not so easy anymore, but still nice and controlled
3rd: 2:55, the guy left me in the dust, but I had a feeling he would die on the last one.
4th: 2:56, felt ok.
5th: 2:55, as predicted the guy basically died and just somehow hang in there behind me. It was hard but not like dying hard.

Ok, this was not the best executed workout. I got carried away by running with someone faster (at least for first 3 intervals).
Normally I would start at 2:56 and finish at 2:52 but because that guy was faster than me at the beginning I went with him and then I paid for it.
Although the heat has played a role as well.

It was a good workout although I am not sure how I am going to run 2.5miles w/up, then 2.5miles sub-tempo, then 5x800 at this pace with 90sec jog in the future. Sounds hard. Last fall I did such workout and 800s were in 3:00ish on average. Maybe I can pull if off. We will see.
I mean it is only my 3rd week "seriously" running and doing speedwork so we cannot expect any miracles, can we? And my mileage is like few miles/week and I am hoping to do around 10-11 this week. And than rump it up more significantly next week, probably high tens (18-19miles) and then get over 20 the week after. We will see, I need to discuss it with PPC.

I was still little worried about jogging between intervals but I think that IBT might be ready for it next week.
I have not had any unpleasant feelings or anything in it for quite some time now.

Holiday workouts

I love holidays. Although I love them more during a school year when it means that I do not have to go to school that day. But I am not complaining. Holidays while working are also nice.

I went to the BBQ last night and I had a great time- lots of good food and nice people. The only problem was that I had to stay there until 2am until my ride home was ready to go home. Last time I went to the party I decided to not wait and just crashed at host's place and then it let to some interesting night events. I was not going to make the same mistake last night although I am sure that if I stayed there would be noone to wake me up at 3am with invitation to "try" master bedroom matress.

Still got over 6 hours of sleep before having to go for a bike ride with one guy from work. I went to the park and there were also some people from the club but we decided to stay just two of us. It was a good easy/moderate ride. We did around 23miles together and then he got a flat:( But it was close to his car so no problem. I went on to the beach for swimming.

I did only 5 laps instead of my usual 6. I was not wearing wetsuit and I could tell the difference. I did not have a swim cap either. Just swim suit and googles and a very small towel. Because that's all I could fit into my small under-seat bike tool bag.
I did not enjoy the swim as much as usually, proably because I was just tired and 3 days of swimming in a row have taken their toll.

Then I biked 16miles back home but it was very easy. Total of 3.5h biking.

I ate and then started watching a movie and I fell asleep on a floor by my bed. It has already happened to me once before and it just means that I am dead tired. Because if you do not have energy to climb into your bed and you stay sleeping right next to it it means that you are tired and need some serious rest.

Finally

a somehow decent swim.

I was pleasantly surprised that I almost managed to do 2 hard swims in a row (one more to go tomorrow, but that one is not hard, just long).

And I even hit my 1:30 and sub1:30 intervals! Finally. Maybe my swimming mojo is coming back. But I was so spent by those that last fast 2x200 was a disaster. One the first one I died after around 120yards and then on the second one I (or rather my arms) could not take it any more after around 70 yards. 3:09 and 3:14 adn I was supposed to go <3:05. Oh well, I can not have everything...


I also ran. 5x4min w/ 1min walk. That's around 8miles for this week. NICE!!!!

I will see how running next week goes, hopefully I will pass 10miles barrier.

Bike and swim

Bike was brutal. I wanted to go with a fast group of people but I did not find any fast people. But I managed to recruit one guy from the club to do somehow hard ride with me.

I warmed up for 13miles and then we did fast 2hours sharing pulling/drafting ~2miles. 43 fast miles. Actually last 8 miles were me pulling for 2 miles and then 6 miles alone because the guy could not keep up anymore:) Average 21.56mph (with guy average was 21.8mph for 36.7miles. The last 6miles I was totally alone and tired so I went slower but still decent clip. Last 10min were brutal though).
Then 13miles home and it usually takes me around 50min but it tool me like 70min. I was done! 4h10min total.
I was so glad to be home and sit and do nothing for 3 hours.

Then I went to pool.
It was finally open and I had a pretty good swim, so I am happy about it. I still did not hit my fastest intervals perfectly but I worked hard and my arms and legs hurt like hell. So good effort.

Swimming business and tire sponsorship!!!

Hm, this week is a disaster for my swimming.
Monday- too many people so I decided to move it to the weekend.
Wednesday- prefer to forget about it
Frida- pool was CLOSED when I got there!
Hm, seems that I will have to do my 3 swims for a week in next two-three days. That should be interesting.

ITB is great.

I got a small sponsorship from Continental Tire so that's exciting. They are sending me bunch of racing and training tires, tubes and some other small stuff. I wanted some biking clothing as well but unfortunatelly they do not have clothing line for the North America this year, only in Europe.
Now I need to buy a real tri bike! Next year, after I know which country I will be living in and after I save enough money.