Todde's Tri Blog

I changed my workout schedule around today in order to run while it was still warm. This morning I did a 50min run which covered 6.4 miles. My avg pace was about 7:50 with the last mile around 7:10. My goal was to start slow and increase may pace every 10 min which i did. The other thing i focused on was my cadence. I am trying to shorten my stride and go with a quicker step to increase my speed w/o losing any efficiency.

Today at lunch i worked in a 25min swim of 1250m. My main set was 4x200m @ 1:30 pace with 1min RI. The swim felt good.

Today was the final day of my 5 day weekend (i have been off work since thursday). I wanted this past weekend to be a chance for me to kickstart my training for IMAZ. I have been pretty low-key since Conroe and I was actually getting use to sleeping in over the last month. I have slowly been working back in to running, swimming, and weights and it was time to dial it up a notch. Since thurday I have had 2 good runs of 6 miles and 8 miles and I have biked 3 times for a total of 4.5 hours.

Today was my longest bike yet. I put in 2hours and i loved every minute of it (minus my back getting sore the last half hour). I rode the first hr easy in the small ring and then moved to the big ring for the second hr ( pushed it some near the end doing 3x 9:30 min laps at the 3mile veloway loop). The weather this past week was perfect and it did not let me down today. Now that I am back at work during the week it will be 2 trainer rides during the week and 1 long ride on sunday. I hope to build to 4hr rides by January.

Tomorrow is an off day other than some core work.

Today was a long run at town lake. I went with Keith who is training for the 3m half marathon in january. We ran two 4.1 mile loops. We ran a real easy pace for most of the run. The 1st loop was 36min and the 2nd was 34min. I really picked up the pace on the last mile or so. The run felt good and my legs didnt give me too many problems. I ran again without the orthodics.

Yesterday was another town lake run. I ran 5mile in about 35min. I thought the pace was slower but i ended running 7min miles. The run was pretty easy with no labored breathing. I will continue to run at this pace and even a bit faster when I do my tempo runs. However, I will need to slow it down for the longer runs so I am comfortable with my IM pace. I went without the orthodics in my new shoes and the fit was perfect. My knee is a little tender in the joints today so I hope that is not from the shoe change.

Today was a 90min bike ride. Not sure of the distance but I made sure to not drag ass very much. I spent an hour tuning my road bike prior to the ride and it was perfect. I am feeling the itch to keep making my rides longer and longer. Now I just have to find someone to join me.

Tomorrow I plan to run again and then bike again monday before i head back to work on tuesday.

Today was my first ride since my race in conroe 4 weeks ago. The ride was 60min/15miles. I felt so good to get back on the bike and get a joy ride in. I forgot to lube my clean chain before the ride so I got to listen to the sweet sounds of squeak squeak squeak. I also had to ride in the small chain ring the whole time b/c the chain was hitting something on the big ring which made a worse noise than the squeak. I plan to do some more riding this weekend before I start cranking up the long rides in a week or two. I followed the ride up with a core workout.

As for turkey day, i definitely ate too much. I ate a huge meal at noon followed by a nap and then a second meal of the same stuff and size at 3:30pm. I followed that up with another nap and now it is 8:30pm and I am still stuffed. I checked the scale and I think I gained at least 5lbs today.

Tomorrow I will try to run again and hopefully the blisters will not be an issue. I will follow that up with more leftovers and the TX game. I predict a longhorn thrashing of 42 - 7. hookem!

I got a weights workout in today at lunch. I am currently doing 1 set of 25reps w/ light weight to get my muscles use to strength training. I plan to get in at least one more of the easy sessions before I begin to up the weight and sets.

No workout this morning. Carson has 2 ear infections so we had been hearing all about them the last few days b/c she cant sleep. I am starting to feel better but the weather is still working me over.

Tomorrow is my favorite holiday of the year. I love eating myself into a coma and then watching TV all day. Two cowboy games in 4 days!!

Got the road bike up and running last night. I hope to get in 60 to 90min on the bike tomorrow morning.

I continue to drag ass as my allergies kick my butt. Every year I hit a span of a month or so where I feel like trash due to the weather change. I wake up every morning with a sinus headache and a sore throat. I also tend to feel worn out all day. I hope this passes soon. Enough of that rant!!!!

No workout yesterday. Today a hit the pool for a 25min/1200m swim. I mixed in the pull buoy for 200m free and then 200m of kicks on the side and then another 200m w/ pull buoy. I swim stroke feels good and I look forward to focusing on my force and ME this upcoming year.

Lastnight I put my new Hutchinson tires on my road bike and I made sure to insert some strips between the tire and tube to protect against flats over the winter. Tonight I will put my longer crank on the road bike and strip the tri bike down. The road bike will be up an running for my 5 days off this weekend. I plan to get in at least 2 rides. The tri bike will be a work in progress on the next month. I plan to upgrade my stem and base bar and I also plan to move to dura ace 10 speed from my current ultegra 9 speed setup.

Blister update - they are still there!!!!!!!!!! Hope to run Friday and Sunday.

Friday was an off day.

Yesterday i bought some new shoes and proceeded to try them out. I bought some Filas and was a bit nervous b/c they are not known for running shoes. However, their new designercame over from Mizuno which is a running shoe company so that made me feel better. I really like the control system the shoe has. When you heel strike the shoe rolls forward in a smooth fashion which makes for a nice heel to toe transition. Yesterday I did a 30min/4mile run and followed it with a light core workout.

Today was another run but this time i didnt use a shoe insert over my orthodics which was a bad move. I now have monster blisters on both arches on my feet. Today's run was on lovely town lake and was 5mile/40min.

First time back in the water in almost 3 weeks. I put in a 1000m swim in 20min at lunch today. Nothing special, just a 400m warmup of free, back and breast stroke follow up by a steady 500m free and then a 100m cool. The goal was to focus on breathing and high elbows thru the pull phase.

This morning was a 20min weights session prior to work. 1 set of 20 reps for each excercise with some really light weight.

Things have picked up a little this week but not too much. Monday was a 15min spin on the exercise bike at the gym. Tuesday was too hectic at work so I missed a weight session at lunch. This morning was a 30min run covering a little over 3 miles. The legs felt good but my IT band is a little tender tonight. I think its time to replace the shoes so I hope to do that this weekend. I plan to continue small workouts this week and continue to increase the frequency over the next 2 weeks.

This past week was my first bit of exercise since Ironstar 2 weeks ago. I told myself to take a 2 week break before transitioning back into training, but I ended up at the gym this past wed (I made it 10 days). This past wed i rode the exercise bike for 20 mins and followed that up with 5 mins on the eliptical machine. This was my first time to use the eliptical. It made me feel like I was taking baby steps, however it seems like it would help with increasing my running cadence. I will definitely try it again. Thurs i didn some light weights at the gym to get some feel back in the body. I then relaxed the next 2 days and squeezed in an easy run today at town lake. I put in a 28min 3 mile run. Damn it felt good to do that!!!! I will continue to ease back into working out this next week and hopefully things will become more structured the following week. After thanksgiving I will get into about 3 months of base training and follow it with another month of base or a month of build work prior to my taper for IMAZ. I am really excited about the next 5 months leading up to IMAZ. I want to have a strong plan laid out for myself and then commit myself 100% to that plan. The end goal is 10 hours at IMAZ. As Rutgers would say, "its time to chop wood!"