Recognize Your Success

Skyline Drive Bike-n-Hike

November was a month of fun races and light training - or it was intended to be.  A 40-mile Skyline ride, 3 races, and a brick workout later and may not have been "light" but it was lighter than I had been used to coming off of half-ironman and marathon training.  Despite the light training, I felt tired and slow the first couple of weeks - understandably so, looking back at what I had just put my body through.  November became a mental training month for me - pushing through when a workout wasn't going as well as I had planned, modifying workouts and training plans, setting goals and making plans for next year, slowing down and focusing on technique, and learning to recognize each day's success.

Elite Women Start 

No matter how poorly you may perceive a workout to have gone (or be going), there is something successful that comes from it.  You may not always see your interval times creep down as you'd hoped for, you may not always feel stronger tomorrow than you did today, but you can always find a success in a completed workout.  It may be pushing yourself to get out the door during a long day when normally you would have stayed in, not losing your head if your intervals are slower than last weeks, learning and perfecting technique or a new skill, developing a new pacing strategy, hitting a new distance, or hitting new marks during intervals.  I challenge you to not only log your training but always log your biggest success from that day.  I have recently started to include my daily success in my log and it is great to see that no workout is a waste and I am always able to achieve something.

What training success did you achieve this week?

In the past I have easily fallen into the trap of having to be better tomorrow than I was today.  Such a trap is not horrible to fall into but it takes a toll on your body.  I was training in a way that from day to day I pushed my times to be faster or my body to go farther.  I have since learned that there are ways to be better tomorrow without having to train on the brink of disaster all the time.  Keeping a consistent pace, practicing form, and learning new skills have all been avenues I have used to focus my lighter training days and achieve something rather than better splits.

November Race Reports

DC Tri Turkey Trotters

DC Tri Turkey Trot 5k (11/6/11) Hains Point - 23:10 - This was a small race, put on by the club with an entry fee of 2 canned goods.  Perfect for the student loan budget :)  This race was 1 week after my marathon and the morning after a day of too much fun.  Saturday was spent riding and hiking out at Skyline Drive with some DC Tri folks and then heading back to the District to celebrate my roommates birthday.  I got a nice warm-up in pre-race by riding my bike out to Hains Point.  My race strategy was simply go out hard and hold on.  I was shooting for a time in the range of 22:05 (my 5k PR), but considering the circumstances not a bad result.

Nearly Naked Mile Crew

Nearly Naked Mile (11/12/11) - Reston Town Center - 6:40 - I do mile repeats every week.  I hit under 6:40, I thought with the crowd and fellow runners I would be able to hit 6:20ish in this race.  I raced in the Elite women's division (under 7:00/mile), but my time does not reflect an elite runner by any means.  My legs did not want to run fast at all - they were asking for marathon pace - not cool!  The race was 2ish loops including a nice tedious uphill on the back side of the loop.  The environment was fun and some great friends were out at the race as well.  I actually won my AG and scored $20 gift certificate to Potomac River Running.  Not a bad day in Reston.

Rocket City - Huntsville, AL

Huntsville Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot (11/24/11) - Huntsville, AL - 22:55 - Again, I was aiming to crack my 5k PR.  This was my first run of the year in air cold enough to burn the lungs.  My lungs and legs do not like working in the cold.  No wonder I loved south Georgia so much.  The course was a simple out-back design with a nice downhill going into the finish line.  I was surprised to only take 15 seconds off the previous 5k time, my effort felt harder than that.  Cracking my 5k PR is looking like it may make the list of things to do early next season.  My brother and lady friend also ran and we had great fans - my mom, aunt, and uncle!  It was totally different than the monstrous Detroit Turkey Trot that we had been regulars at for the previous few years.  It was a good way to earn some turkey and sweet potatoes.

Did you do any Turkey Trots or Holiday runs this year?

The Italian Stallion

There is new member of the race team in town!  In previous posts I had mentioned how I was beginning to look at tri bikes and comparing the costs and specs of the bikes that might work for me.  My dad was my go to man for bike advice and compared the bikes I was considering and always put in his 2 cents - I'm not going to lie he seemed quite excited about the addition of a Tri Bike.

I had been considering a tri bike for a few months.  I wanted to seem improvements in my swimming and running before making the big purchase.  With my PR 10k at Stumpy Creek and my PR Swim at Rockett's Landing I felt good about getting a tri bike.  My intentions all along with the tri bike were to win more races, qualify for bigger races, and all in all improve.  Coming off the win in Luray I knew it was time for the tri bike.  The Trek 1000 had been good to me - even got me many top 2 bike splits and top 3 finishes this year, but with The Nation's Triathlon around the corner I felt ready to commit to a tri bike - yes it is a commitment, especially when you make $0.

Do you ride a tri bike or road bike?  If you have both how much time do you spend on each?

I have seen and heard such statements that a tri bike will help decrease your run time due to the different geometry and position of your legs, it's more aero, it's lighter, faster, better, etc.  I never realized how different they were than when I started test riding them.  I felt fast and efficient, I loved it.  I had also heard buying a tri bike is worse than buying a car - I'm still not sure if this is true but all of a sudden I loved 2 bikes and I couldn't decide which one to get.

After going out to Bonzai Sports with my brother after the infamous DC earthquake I settled on a bike.  The staff at Bonzai was great, super helpful, 0 pressure, and flexible.  In a previous blogpost I had mentioned that I had my eyes on the Women's Quintano Roo CD0.1 - I tried it out and even the small was a bit big for me.  I tried a few other bikes and it came down to the Felt B16 and the Cervelo P2.  The Cervelo P2 and the QR were both highly recommended by my dad - the Cervelo taking the top spot and QR up there because of the women's specific design.

INTROCUDING...

THE ITALIAN STALLION

And for those of you who know me make sure to pronounce it "I"talian because we all know I do, whether it's right or wrong.

I absolutely love this bike.  The staff at Bonzai were awesome and spent a little over 2 hours working with me during the fitting and adding accessories and such.  This bike is fast and awesome.  I love riding the Hains Point loop for hours on this bike, it really doesn't ever feel hard.

Where do you like to get in a good hard ride at?

My biggest concern for my bike right now is getting it to Augusta for the Augusta 70.3 in just over a week.  Currently my plan is to send it down with a DC Tri Club member who is planning on driving while I fly, but if anything changes I will be having to ship my bike which I am not to fond of or pack it up and take it on the plane with me.

How do you travel to races with your bike when you don't drive?  Any advice on packing/shipping?


Do you have anymore races coming up this year?  What are you training for?

A Week in the Life

Building strength and building endurance are the keys to my training right now. I have been using The Triathlete's Training Bible to help me organize my workouts and schedule based around the races I would like to peak for. Recently I have read a lot about using longer training periods such as 10, 14, or 20-day training periods instead of the commonly used 7-day training period. I considered adjusting my schedule to a longer format but decided that in the spirit of consistency I would stick with the 1week plan. I have been on a "1 week plan" ever since I started playing college soccer so I have grown quite accustomed to it.

I keep my training log on my computer in an excel document and I am also trying to become comfortable using trainingpeaks.com. The nice thing about the 1 week plan with similar workouts based on the day is that it makes tracking progress and improvements pretty easy. I can also see how much I have added from one week the to next or if my performance is deteriorating. I had some issues inserting the piece of the training log, so it is not the best quality but I'll work on the technique.

What type of training plan do you use? Do you use a base, build, and peak method or do you train spontaneously?

As I have decided to compete in my first 1/2 Ironman this Fall training on the bike will become a much larger part of my weekly training plan as the weather gets nicer. I have never cycled farther than about 32 miles so 56 miles will definitely be a new adventure for me. In the past I have worried most about being able to keep a decent pace on the swim distance, but as the swim distance of a 1/2 IM isn't too much farther than Olympic Distance the focus must switch to the bike and the run as well.

I am also toying with the idea of tackling a new distance on the run this fall - the marathon! I have until mid February to make a decision on this as the marathon I would complete is the Marine Corps Marathon on October 30. Have you completed a marathon? What was your first marathon?

DESIRE

Back into the swing of things, and it feels great! Morning workouts followed by a huge bowl of Special K Red Berries and off to school! 2.5 weeks of relaxation and restoration at home was amazing and it feels great to come back with energy and enthusiasm to train hard and work hard (school wise too). The toughest thing about taking such amounts of time off (and I did do at least 30 min of aerobic activity 5-6 days of the week) is the overwhelming thought that I am losing all my fitness. In actuality I knew I wasn't going to lose all of it but heading out for a run after 5 straight days on the indoor bike trainer isn't the most uplifting and energizing running experience. After just one week of returning to training hard I feel great, some of my runs have been a little slower but that's expected and I tend to run slower when its only 30 degrees outside. My legs just get too cold.

Next weekend I am heading up to a mountain ski chalet in Davis, WV with a group of friends for a ski weekend. It should be a great weekend and I know my legs will get some good strength workouts with all the snowboarding I'll be doing but I would love to get some running in as well. Of course that also depends on the conditions of the mountain roads in town and the weather to an extent but I hope I can make it happen.

Over the past week I patiently contemplated my one word for this year. This word appeared a few times while reading throughout the week and I think it really sums up a little of everything I want to focus on throughout the year. "For where your treasure lies, there your heart will be also..." - the word I have chosen is DESIRE. Desire to train hard, eat right, live well, be happy, have fun, follow my heart, and achieve my goals. As long as I treasure what is most important my desire can help me achieve that which I set forth to do.

I have also been thinking about and planning my racing calendar for the year. With a few races set - the most important one has yet to be decided upon - a half-ironman! For awhile I was thinking Providence 70.3 but more recently I am leaning more toward the Augusta 70.3 due to the late season date and location. Though this is only 2 weeks after The Nation's Tri I think if I plan it out I can get a good peak for both of them.

I am well into The Triathletes Training Bible and have began playing around with trainingpeaks.com. I have yet to sit and write out an annual training plan but I know basically what it will look like and what things in my workout schema I can change or adapt. I do love the book and all the training/racing tips and advice it has to offer. Do you use any software for creating a training plan or do you do it old school and use a notebook?