Friday, May 26, 2006

athlete foods only

REST Day

Yesterday's massage has helped my legs immensely. They are starting to feel back to normal. My massage therapist always tells me that she has her work cut out for her when I am on her table. This is no surprise because by the time my monthly massages come around, I am always sore and knotty all over. She says my forearms feel like tapioca before she works on them.

I had a few days last week where my eating was not so good. It is so easy to slip back into eating too much bread and cheese (i.e. pizza, lasagna, etc) and sugar (ice cream, popsicles). My recovery sucks when I do that. Right now, I am strictly restricting myself to athlete foods only. In the past day, my diet has included oatmeal with flax meal, eggs, sweet potatoes, lentils, beans, banana, grapes, carrot-beet-spinach juice, broccoli, tortilla with pb+j, odwalla organic energy bar, and water, water, water.

I read that Natascha Badmann drinks carrot-beet juice as her recovery drink so I am all over that. It sounds strange, but is actually very sweet and delicious.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

jitters

Run - 3 miles, 27:08 - easy with 10 strides
Swim - 2000m, 41:02 - easy
Massage

This was my last real workout day before the half marathon on Sunday, and both workouts were easy. Even so, I am not feeling fully recovered yet. I drank four bottles of water today, hoping to flush out some of the lactic acid buildup in my legs. Personal issues have started to mess with my head and I know I have to try my best to put it aside and not let it ruin my confidence. I need to make sure the next few days are restful and rejuvenating.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

just a ride

Bike - 32 miles, 1:57 - UW Campus to Paoli and back

Nothing special about this ride today. I didn't have any specific workout in mind, I just rode at a comfortable pace. It was warm, humid, and windy and felt like summer for the first time this year.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

no time to go to work

Swim - 3000yd, 1:03 - main set: 2 x [25hard/25easy, 50hard/50easy, 75hard/75easy, 100hard/100easy, 75hard/75easy, 50hard/50easy, 25hard/25easy]
Run - 5.4 miles, 45:58 - including 4 x 400 @ 7:15 pace, 4 x 200 @ 6:40 pace
Strength workout

Some days there is too much working out to be done to go to work. I took the day off today and became a professional triathlete. This all took from 7:30am - 4:30pm including eating, an afternoon nap, and giving a friend a swim lesson. Of course, most days I have to squeeze it into a work day but I don't get the good recovery food and nap on those days.

I loved that swim ladder workout this morning. Two sets of 800 were perfect for training for a sprint triathlon. The hard efforts totalled 400, the same distance as the race. Going back and forth between hard and easy with no rest allowed me to really understand the difference in what I am doing to go hard. I need to focus on not simply kicking as hard as I can, but also to pulling faster and harder and maintaining good form. It is easy to get sloppy. I am seeing that kicking hard is more tiring than it adds speed. That might be part of my problem in going out too hard in races.

I am addicted to the song Passive by A Perfect Circle and listened to it during my entire run. I had a great speed session thanks to that song. It's funny how a 7:15 pace isn't feeling killer hard anymore, and even 6:40 is do-able.

[5/24/06 Monday]
REST Day

Sunday, May 21, 2006

race dress rehearsal

Bike/Run - 43 miles bike/1.5 miles run, 2:45 total - 3 x (15 miles bike, 5 min transition run) including 6 x 5 min max bike effort, 2 reps on Lake Mills triathlon course, last lap through Arboretum

After the race specific preparation yesterday, I got in the mood to practice my transitions some more. I built it into this workout which was primarily supposed to be a long bike. It was great to get on the Lake Mills course and after doing two laps of the out and back route, I feel like I know it really well. I practiced my sprints out there and that should come in handy on race day. My goal was to go 2 miles in each 5 minute interval. For some of them I came close, for others I had trouble staying focused. It is a flat course, so unlike all the hilly routes that I do, it has to be a consistent hard effort. This means not letting up and not letting the mind wander. It is a different kind of challenge. The route goes on back roads through local farmland and there were lots of tractors out there today. I had to ride slowly behind a few. There was also gravel on the road on the curves in the road, and dirt around tractor entrances and exits. I hope that gets cleaned up a bit. I felt hesitant to take the turns at full speed for fear of wiping out on gravel.

I got new tires to start the racing season - Michelin Pro Race in yellow to match my bike, and I used them for the first time today. I had Vittoria Diamante tires before, but these seem very similar. I used my race season during-workout-nutrition-mixture today for the first time. Nothing brings me into race mode like a perfectly mixed chalky concoction of calories in a water bottle. My mix includes Hammer Sustained Energy, Hammer Endurolytes powder, and raspberry Hammer Gel. I also wore my race outfit to complete the spirit of race dress rehearsal.

I lost it mentally after the second lap and wanted to be done. I drove back to Madison and did the last part on my familiar route through the Arboretum. I was planning on doing a cold water acclimation swim but didn't feel like dragging on the day any further (it was already 3pm) so I skipped it.