Week 15 wrapping up

Couple exciting things happened this week. First off, my wheel arrived. I put my "new" cassette on it yesterday. It did not want to go on very smooth, so I brought my wheel home and put it on my bike on the trainer so I could make sure it was changing gears smoothly and then played with my bike a little more. I don't have the pump adapter yet, so I cant put the tire on, but it is suppose to be cold this week so I am not in to big of a hurry. I decided to put the 808 on the front for fun to get a picture of the new setup. I can't wait to get it out on the road.

Wednesday, I got on the elliptical for 30 min. after an hour swim. Thursday, I tried out water running for the first time. It was challenging at first to run normal, but I soon got that figured out and ran for 45 min. It was a nice workout. It really worked my quads. I have been icing my foot all week and it seems to be helping a lot. Today the pain is almost completely gone. I had a 3:15 bike today and took my dog for a walk immediately following and it kind of "acted" up at the end of the walk, but that is all it has bothered me in the last 2 days. Tomorrow, I am going to have an hour swim and then water run for an hour, then I will probably get on the elliptical for :30. It takes a lot to get your heart rate up water running. I am going to stop by the Natural Living Expo on Sunday also. Not really sure what it is all about but it seems interesting and plus it is free so why not.

Wind, what wind?

This last weekend was so awesome out. Why can't these nice weekends line up with a long bike weekend for me so I can get outside to do it. I had a 2 hour bike Saturday, which I extended by 15 min just because it was nice out. Sunday, I was going to go to the gym to swim, but ended up cleaning my house, tiling my kitchen, cleaning my car and switching out the winter clothes for the summer ones. So no workout. It was a recovery week anyway. This week, I hit it hard on Monday. Had a great swim and then came home for an hour bike. It was almost 70 degrees out, so I ventured outside. Yes, in the 32 mph sustained wind with 45 mph gusts. It really wasn't bad until I turned around to head back home. I had a short 4 mile out to my 6 mile loop of hills that I do. I did that loop twice since it is kind of out of the wind a little bit and then headed home. Well, I had it in the small gear up front and the large gear in back and was still struggling to keep moving. It was like riding up a steep hill for 4 miles straight. I figured this will give me an idea of how that humungous hill in Louisville will be. I even had to peddle hard going downhill when the gusts came. All in all it was a good workout. I would much rather be outside than inside biking. Last night I was inside on the trainer for 2 hours. I did my last Saturday inside bike workout since I was outside last weekend. It was intense! Tonight I am back in the pool and I am going to attempt to get on the elliptical after. I tried it out on Monday for 1 min and it didn't seem to bother my foot at all. If it does bother my foot, I will head back to the downtown Y and try some water running. It will be good to get some "running" in. I miss it.

Foot Update

I went to a podiatrist on Tuesday since my foot has been acting up again. I heard the worst 2 words I could have heard...Stress Fracture - 3rd metatarsal. Seriously? Oh yes, no running for 6 weeks. Great! I didn't want to do good or anything this year anyway - being VERY sarcastic. As of now, I don't have a cast or anything on it, but if the pain doesn't go away within 3 weeks, I have to go back and get a boot cast put on. So I will not be running for 4 weeks and then weeks 5 and 6 I will get on the eliptical and see how that feels. After 6 weeks, I will have 4 weeks until my first races - Dam to Dam and Bluff Creek Triathlon - same weekend. I am going to have to forget about having a PR for those 2 events (atleast for the Dam to Dam and the running part of the triathlon) because I won't have built enough mileage back up to do any speed work. I will barely just get enough mileage in to finish them. Probably end of June before I can to do any real speed work. I think I am most dissapointed because I wanted to do really well for my first races. Other than that, I dont really think the long miles will help me in the Ironman anyway. I will still have to walk most of it, lol. Now I have added weight training back into my schedule 3 days a week and I am going to try to get in a 4th or maybe 5th day of swimming. I will definately up the intensity on the bike to help me keep my endurance that I have already built and perhaps add a 6th day of biking. In a couple weeks, I am hoping to get out on the mountain bike and work on hills since that is my weakness, but that is putting the pressure on my foot where it hurts. I will have to wait and see. Seeing my new disc wheel helps to ease the pain :)

To Disc Wheel - A Zipp 900 to be exact

I just wanted to share with all of you my recent purchase :) It's so pretty. I was looking at the HED Jet disc wheel, but on a whim I decided to check out and see what ebay had to offer. Since they didnt have any HED Jet discs, I checked out what they had for Zipps. I found this sweet piece of equipment. The ad says it is an '08, but those graphics are pre '08, so my guess is the guy bought it early '08. He owns a bike shop and never even used it yet. No cassette mounted on it, ever. And since Zipp hasn't changed anything from their '07 to their '08 model (or '09 for that matter), it is bascially a brand new wheel. I can't wait to get it out on the road. I can't believe how much it looks like a Sub9. I will have to compare it straight up with a sub9 to see any difference.

To disc wheel or to not disc wheel

I am sitting here this morning waiting for it to warm up a little more outside before I go running. The thought of buying a disc wheel has entered my mind again. The Zipp Sub9 is out based first on cost and second, it doesn't come in a clincher. I have it narrowed down to the HED Jet Disc. I also want to get a sweet decal for it. Thinking of the spiral one. I am waiting for a price from the local bike shop and now it is just a matter of when I want to pull the trigger to get it. I thought this would be the year to get it for sure because I will have such long races on it and I will get the most benefit from it. I have until the end of May to decide if I am going to get it for sure. If anyone has any experience with this disc wheel, let me know. I would love to know more about it other then everything else that has been printed on the internet. Well I am off for my 1:45 run for today.
Side note: I did finish my first 3 hour bike ride Friday night. My legs were tired when I was done, but not sore the next day. I am hoping they hold up today for the run. The warm weather should help a lot.

Week 13

This week has been going great. Foot pain was gone and I haven't felt this great the entire week for my workouts. Monday, I did feel slow at first when I got in the water, but after I did a few sprints I felt really smooth. I added some intensity this week to the bike and run. Wednesday night I did the bike and Thursday I added the Run. The swim always seems to be more intense to me because I just want to float around and not really try. I was worried that the Wednesday night bike would wear my legs out for Thursday, but I felt really good in the swim (that is usually where I notice I am tired) and the run was awesome. I did 2 sets of: 1200 @ 75%, 800 @ 80-85%, and 400 @ 85%. I was really surprised at how fast I had to run to get my heart rate to get that high and stay there. I did this on the treadmill and for the 400, I had it at 6:15/mile pace. The treadmill did not like that. It was shaking all over the place. I could feel my foot starting to hurt when I was doing my cool down. This morning it was a little achy so I iced it and it seems to have gone away. It is not completely healed. I decided that it is a muscle/tendon weakness. When it acts up, the next day, the muscles that support my ankle are tired. I just need to strengthen that area. Tonight I am going to do my long bike. I am up to 3 hours. How nice would it be to get outside for it, but that won't happen. I am hoping that in 2 weeks it will be nice enough out to get outside because that is when my 3+ hours start. Saturday will be my day off. Heading to the Casino for my grandpa's birthday. Sunday will be my long run for the week: 1:45. It is going to be awesome out for that run.
Yesterday I got an interesting post card in the mail. It is from the Colorado Springs Sports Corporation and it says that I qualified for the 2009 State Games of America. I qualified by getting 3rd in my age group at the Iowa Games last summer. The race is August 1st, 2009. I was planning on doing Big Creek that weekend, but have not signed up for it yet. The State Games of America are in Colorado Springs. If I did not need to save up my money for Louisville, I probably would do this race. I looked up the times from prior years and it looks like I would be very competitive in this race. Maybe a top 3 finish. For sure a top 3 in my age group (based on prior year times) Anyway, it is only a sprint and it is far away so Big Creek is still the plan. Big Creek is going to be a very competitive race this year being the midwest regional championship race. This will really give me a feel of my talent or lack thereof in this field of great triathletes. It is going to be a great year of racing and I can't wait to get started!

Week 12 Overview

This week was very productive until this weekend. My foot pain came back on Tuesday, but now it is a different place. Still on the top of my foot, but now further down so atleast I dont think it is a stress fracture. It definatly isnt as painful as it was the other week, but it is enough to keep me concerned about it. I swam Monday night for 1:00. Good tough workout. Tuesday I ran first and then biked. I pushed myself harder Tuesday than I normally do. It was just so nice and I felt great. I finally actually got my heart rate up to the 75% mark. Usually I am sitting about 10 beats below that. I ran 5.28 miles in :42. = 7:57/mile average. Awesome! That was including my warm up mile too. Then I came in and did an hour bike. My legs were shot from the running. I am learning that if I have a bike/run combo in the same day, I have to do the bike first if it is anything other than spinning my legs out because if I have to get my heartrate up, my legs just wont put out enough power to do it. I have also noticed on some of my runs that my legs start to get tired, but breathing tired. Now it is starting to occur on the bike. I need to some how get my legs to rest more so that they are fresher so I can get the quality workouts in that I need to. Atleast with the run, I can push through it, the bike I cant get my legs to get moving if they dont want to. Wednesday I had a :45 swim and an hour bike. Fairly easy workout. I did have a good bike that night. Thursday, I switched my Sunday long run and my normal Thursday workout (swim, run) to Sunday so that I could get some recovery time for my foot. I ran 1:25 Thursday night (gorgeous night) and followed that with a :45 bike. Friday is my rest day. Saturday I had planned for a 2:45 bike, but only got 2 hours of that done. My legs just were not going to have it. I couldnt get my heart rate up so I felt I would skip the last bit of the workout instead of just sitting there and not really trying. Today my plan was to switch the run with a bike for extra foot rest time. I am not doing anything today. I am having trouble getting motivated today. It has to be the weather and the time change. It is now noon and I just got out of bed. I didnt even want to make breakfast and that is usually the only reason I get out of bed is because I am starving and want to eat breakfast. I think that is my favorite part of the day - eating breakfast. So today I am not working out. I just dont think my mind will be in it or my body. Maybe not being able to get my heart rate up yesterday was a sign I need to take a break. With these short workouts today, skipping them wont hurt my progress, probably only hurt it if I did them not 100%. So with that being said, I am continuing to ice my foot and trying to stay off it. Not really a problem. Monday I will start in with a swim and Tuesday I will be up and running again. Hopefully pain free.

Week 11 Total Time: 12:30:00

This week I completed the longest workout week so far. 12 hours and thirty minutes. In that time included a 2:30 bike and a 2 hour run. I told myself if I finished my entire weekend workout I could get a blizzard Sunday afternoon. It was an awesome blizzard. Extra sweet. Just about half of my total time came from my weekend workouts. Had the 2:30 bike plus a :40 run Saturday and a 2:00 run followed by a 1:00 bike on Sunday. I was very pleased that I was able to finish it, with no foot pain and still feeling great today. Tonights swim workout will really let me know how much energy I have left, but as of right now, I am feeling good. Little stiffness, but nothing that shouldnt go away after stretching tonight. My feet are really happy with me for throwing out my old shoes and starting in with a fresh pair. Up until now I never really felt the effects of worn out shoes. I also decided that I am going to not use my Zoots for the Ironman. I just feel I am going to need something with a little more cushion. I checkd out the new Asics Nimbus 10s. That is totally what I am going to wear. Just waiting for the price to come down. Hopefully by midsummer I can find a sale on them some place. This week I am going to start adding some intensity to my bikes. I tried to do that 2 weeks ago and I just about died. It was to much. I will start with a few 15/45 sprints just to get my legs use to it again. I think after I get outside, it will come back to me. For some reason I have a hard time riding "easy" when I am outdoors. :)