Week 15 2/26/07

2 weeks have gone by and I missed updating all of you on my status.....um no one even said anything like, update your blog, I want to read what you have been doing, so that must mean no one really is reading this anyways!!! I am sure I will read this many years from now, so I will continue my postings anyways.

So let me see, I will do a quick recap on two weeks ago and then jump into last week's fun times. On Saturday 2/17 we did the infamous "Iron Mountain" brick workout, the doosy workout of every year's Lavaman training. We met on the 67 north of Scripps Poway Parkway, at the base of Iron Mountain....coming together now huh? We did a ride north to Ramona through rolling hills and then turned around, passed where we started, and then rode all the way down to the base of the hill in Lakeside. Did i mention hill? This was more like a mountain....you know this cause when you are going downhill at close to 50mph you figure there must be a pretty good incline coming on the way up, and boy was there. I figured I must had been in a descent for a good 7-10 minutes doing close to 50mph the whole time. Needless to say coming back up that hill I did nowhere in the vicinity of this speed...However I did impress myself with my climb and before I even really knew it, I had completed the climb and was back at my car ready to transition into a 6 mile run to the top of Iron Mountain and back. You're right 3 miles pretty much straight up and then 3 miles back down. It is impossible to run the whole time up this mountain, because it is pretty straight up in some points and there are loose rocks everywhere.

Any ways, I got to the top of the mountain right on the heels of the support crew and that felt pretty good. One of my mentors was carrying water and fuel to the top of the mountain so the people training (me) would have some replenishments at the top. Well it was neat because I was on her heels and she did not want to let someone beat her and the rest of the support crew to the top.....so i complied and we got there at the same time.

All in all, it was a great workout from the second I woke up, to eating the right pre-workout meal, to fueling and hydrating on the bike, to finishing strong and into the night....a party bday bar crawl for my buddy Marty.

Sunday I did not feel so well.....that is all i have to say about this day.

So after missing Sunday's swim in the ocean I woke up Monday (day off!!) and still felt a bit hungover. I tell you, drinking and training do not mix that well, I may learn one day. I ended up spinning on Monday night, getting out all the toxins I put in me on Saturday night. The rest of the week followed per my normal schedule. Tuesday night swim at JCC, track workout Wednesday night at Mesa College and then I took Thursday and Friday off....and it was nice to have a break.

So here comes Saturday 2/24, the long awaited Time Trial workout on the bike. We have waited all season for this. 25 miles on fiesta island timed so you can see how fast you are. The team had the island reserved for two hours from 7-9, security, course street swept and no cars allowed on the island for this time!!!! A real production, awesome I thought I can't wait. So I wake up at 4am since I can't sleep and I feel like I am going to Disneyland. Finally 5:30am comes, I get up and get ready so I am at the Island by 6am. I do all of my normal Saturday morning things and am really in the groove now...... So I get to the island at 6 and converse a bit with some teammates and then I start to get ready since this morning time is of the essence.

Okay, first of all it is gorgeous outside, crystal clear, but that also means it is cold, I think it was 45 degrees... I start getting ready and know that I may not be in my normal comfort zone today because of 2 reasons right off the bat, I left my arm warmers in another teammates car the Saturday before and I do not see him, I think he may have dropped from the team....darn. Second, I have one freaking glove to ride with, because i lost the other one. Wait, coach announces he has one glove that he found!!!!! My luck may be changing, um no, quite the opposite. I go check and yes he has one glove but it is not mine, what are the chances of that? My luck....so we do a warm up lap around the island and i go without gloves or arm warmers.....it is freezing, I am going to be thinking about how cold I am the whole 25 miles......

Luck changing again, coach Dave says I can wear his arm warmers and gloves, whew hew, put them on and I am good to go. Wait, coach Gurujan tells Dave he wants him to ride with the team and help people out, Dave asks for gloves back, dang it. I get to keep the arm warmers though.... So i run back to my car to put on the one glove i have, hey it is better than having both hands get frostbitten and not be able to clench the brakes and shift gears. On my way, MoMo, another teammate knows my glove issue and asks if I want to wear hers, she has an extra pair. Luck changing again, heck ya I put them on, did I mention the gloves are about 2 sizes too small for me, who cares at this point, anything will help.

Now I am in line, 30th from the start and the Time Trial begins...I get into my groove, taking into account everything I have learned from 3.5 months of training, from reading Triathlon magazines and books, advice from coaches...... I briskly move up to the lead after about 2-3 miles and say to myself...no one is going to pass you today. The course was 6 laps totaling 25 miles. We would get split times after 3 laps, my goal was to finish under 1:10 for the 25 miles, which would have me averaging about 22-23 MPH consistently. Anything better, great...anything worse, no worries this is my first time. Those of you who know me, know that I am competitive though, so I wanted to do very well, especially since I have been doing so the past month on the Saturday workouts.

Back to being in the lead, just past MoMo, down in the aero position, reading my computer, 23mph, cadence 98....perfect...just keep this pace, get your legs warm, keep your breathing slow....look at my HRM...says 79% of max....okay need to lower my heart rate...I know I will.....it is just the adrenaline still kicking from the excitement of all of this.

Maybe 10 seconds later, in aero position still, looking at my computer, 23mph...cadence, wait a second it is jumping all over the place 48, 73, 29...I think to myself what the heck...oh crud my sensor by mike crank must have loosened itself and I am going to have to do this whole ride with no cadence monitoring...just another thing to add to the list of things going wrong today......but this was something very different and in the next few seconds that I transpire.....I know this is just one of those days.

As I am looking down at my cadence still wondering what is going on all of a sudden my left elbow drops right through the elbow rest on my aero bars, what the heck I am thinking, also as I notice it is not just my left elbow that drops, but my whole left side of my body.....then I hear a springing sound, and a ching, ching...like something came flying off of my bike. Of course all of this is much slower now, but at the time this whole ordeal took maybe 5-7 seconds. Okay, back to the story.... As I am wondering what that sound was and why am I hanging off of my bike, I hear MoMo behind me yelling something...can't quite make out what it is....then I finally notice sparks coming from my foot....what is going on...aha.......

I look down and attached to my foot is my shoe, my clip...okay this is normal...but what is not normal is that my foot is about 2 feet away from my bike and had the damn crank arm also attached to the pedal. The crank arm came completely off the crank, made my whole left side drop, made me crack the elbow support on my aero bars and was creating the spark from clinging off of the pavement. I veer from the left to the right, oh no I am heading right for the dirt...I do not want to take a digger in front of everyone. With about a foot or so until the dirt and my mouth were going to meet I was able to lift my left foot up in the air to counterbalance me and this straightened me out...whew disaster avoided...but I still had to stop with a crank arm on the bottom of my foot. So I am able to click out of my right pedal and stop with that foot on the ground. Then I get off my bike and pull the crank arm off of my left foot. MoMo looks for the missing piece, nowhere to be found. I take my bike back to the start, put it on my car, chat with the coaches, mentors, volunteers for a few minutes and then know if I do not do some sort of workout to vent I will be frustrated all day long. So I throw on my running shoes, iPod and start running in the opposite direction of everyone doing the time trial, so I can see my teammates and root them on. I ended up doing about 8 miles, twice around the island...and I feel much better...stuff happens, just deal with it. I made the best of the workout.

Sunday - I decided to go on the trail run with the team. 6 mile run on the beach in Torrey Pines...gorgeous, running on the sand, partly cloudy skies. I am so lucky to be training in San Diego. Swim that afternoon was canceled, some private home in La Jolla dumped some dookie into the water and it was unsafe to swim due to high bacteria count.....weird weekend, but stuff happens, deal with it...make the best of the situation.

Week 13 2/12/07

On Saturday 2/3 we did another brick workout, this time in a business park / residential area of Carlsbad. We rode a 5 mile circuit and ran about 1.15 miles. I did this workout 5 times and had a great workout. The next day we had our second ocean swim at La Jolla and what a beautiful day it was. I think it was close to 80 degrees at the beach on a day in February.....dang we are lucky to be living here. This swim was much more intense and we actually did more swimming this time around, much less of a Chinese fire drill. I ended up doing the circuit of out and back 3 times, with the third time being a bit shorter since Ryan D (pic on right) and I raced on our way out through the waves and pretty much exhausted ourselves. All in all it was a good swim and mentally now I am getting used to knowing I will be able to swim a mile in the ocean.

On Monday 2/5 I decided to go to a yoga class for my first time. I have done some yoga poses, but never went to a class. So for my first time I decided to go to the gym first, work out for over an hour, then go to yoga. What an idiot i was....first of all why would anyone go workout for an hour before they go to yoga? Second, this yoga class was called warrior yoga, that should tell you it might not be all the relaxing and third of all, it was a hot day...over 80. So I go to the class and am sweating so bad within the first 5 minutes I am trying to find a way to bail on the class without looking like an idiot. Oh well, I make it through the 90 minutes class, sweat about 10 lbs away and create many laughs.....good first time for the class......also last time...never doing that thing again.

Tuesday I took the night off from swimming and had a good friend make me some dinner, oh so nice to take a day off and just relax. As for Wednesday, wow what a great track workout. We did a few miles of warm up, then stretched, did abs and then started our workout. The group I was a part of did circuit training. We did 1200m (3 times around the track), then ran up a pretty steep hill at our 5k pace (3.1 miles), so it was pretty high intensity, definitely in the anaerobic range if following heart rate monitoring. After two of these circuits we did some plyometrics to build leg strength and speed, then did another 2 circuits and then finished with a cool down....forgot to mention the race on the last lap.....i took off from the pack at just the right time....since they tried to run me down but i had too far of a lead.

Thursday I did a solo swim at Coronado pool...was great to get it in since i missed one on Tuesday night, but it was not my best swim.....need to have a good one again next time.

Saturday - Another brick workout. This time we started off at Fletcher Cove (Solana Beach) and rode up through Rancho Sante Fe, past the dam at Lake Hodges and then stopped to go into a transition to run at the country store. From there I took off with Nuno and Coach on a 4 mile trail run, 2 out and 2 back....what a great conversation we all had....actually it was just coach telling stories, but I laughed a lot. Once back from the run got right back on the bike, rode down the big hill by Lake Hodges that I just rode up and then down it again and headed back to Fletcher Cove. Nuno smoked me up the hills on the way back....my legs were pretty shot...but I got some help from the street lights and bet him back to the cove..... :) After the workout, went straight home, showered got read and went to a wedding, nonstop I tell you.....but that is what you learn to do when training for a triathlon....gotta just keep going.

It rained Sunday 2/11 and the swells were about 8 feet so we did not have an ocean swim....which made me have a nice lazy day.

Some Various Pics from Tamarack Beach Brick

Week 11 2/2/07

Well it has been almost 2 weeks since my last posting, man time really flies. I am trying to remember all of my training activities sover this span....hmmmm....I will just start with Saturday 1/27. This was one of many true "bricks" to come. A brick is when you combine two of the three events of the Tri into a workout. We met at Tamarack Beach in Carlsbad where the Carslbad Tri is actually held. I did a 5 mile bike ride along the coast and then headed into the parking lot at the beach to the transition area where I slid off my bike shoes, put on my running shoes, grabbed my water bottle and took off into the run.

The run was .7 miles on the boardwalk and then .7 miles back to the transition area...but in sand. From there I hopped back on my bike and did this circuit a total of 4 times without stopping. What a great workout this was...I liked the quick short distances...it really brought out my competition.
On Sunday we did our first Ocean Swim...at La Jolla. Wow, this was exhilirating and needed....I drank quite a few beers/shots the night before and what better way to beat a hangover then jumping in 57 degree water? The swim went well and is now a great pre-cursor to the weekly Sunday Ocean swims...I cannot believe we will actually swim from the shores to the cove and back in 8 weeks....that is a 2 mile swim.

Monday I did my usual spin class, sweating all over the place. Tuesday I did the swim at JCC, but this was the first week we were on our own...no more coached swims since we now have coached ocean swims. I could not belive only 6 of us showed up to swim, but what do I care? I ened up with my own lane and could do what I wanted.

Wednesday track practice was changed to a beach sand interval workout because of the rain....dang. These are tough workouts. You go from South Mission at the Jetty to the PB Pier going in and out of the sea wall alternating between sand and the boardwalk. 100% on the sand and about 10% of max recovering on the boardwalk.

Thursday brought a more relaxing workout this week. I showed up at the Westin Hotel about 5 pm and did a light swim in the pool, followed by time in hot tub, sauna, shower and then a sports massage....that is how all training should be. Let me tell you it was a great experience....almost as good as the unmentioned massage I had on Monday night :)

Well it is Friday now, almost time to leave work and go home and get ready for my weekend workouts.