You know you’ve beasted out an FTP session when…

11.  Your legs burn like you have hydrochloric acid in the veins

10.  You drip sweat more AFTER the shower than you did during the effort

9.    You try to pedal your car at 100 rpm.

8.    You drink your iced coffee from a water bottle

7.    Chamois butter is your new lotion of choice

6.    Even after, you look at your wrist every few seconds to check your Heart Rate.

5.    You smell like a sewer rat in the dead heat of summer

4.    The puddle under your trainer actually looks refreshing

3.    Seeing anything with two wheels makes you want to puke.

2.    You contemplate a trip to the dentist for a drill as being the better option

1.    You wonder how 1 minute of suffering can feel as long as an hour of pleasure.

Comment for additions...

6-Week Countdown to Providence

This Sunday is the 6-week countdown to Providence Half-Iron.  Since the focus has been mainly on the full Iron, this is much less intimidating to me than it has been in the past, coupled with a very well planned and paced Timberman in 2009.  The difference is that this time I haven’t been controlling my program, so it’s been more difficult for me to see the forest through the trees.  I’m trusting in the process and am confident that I will be completely prepared to race pretty hard, but not used to being dependent on someone to package everything so that the race is optimal.   We’ve thrown around the concept of a sub 5:00 effort, which is very doable if I can race at full potential that day.  My ultimate goal will be to have a well-paced race that is optimal for the day and level of fitness leading into the longer goal of IMFL.  Part of racing optimally is getting down to race weight.  I have some pretty solid numbers on both swim and bike, but my weight is 10-15lbs too heavy for what I call my race weight.  The poundage has stayed pretty consistent throughout the last several months of training which tells me a few things.  Since my body composition is definitely changing, I’m replacing body fat with some additional musculature from swimming and bike riding.  I happen to be a ‘gainer’, so looking at a weight grows a muscle; in this case, endurance training has maintained and enhanced some of that musculature.  The next 6 weeks will have an additional focus on cleaning up the diet.  That combined with a few race rehearsals and open water swims will be just about the ticket to getting to Providence and having a chance at a solid race.  Looking forward to the race, as both a stepping stone to IM, but also as a good opportunity to blow up a PR at my favorite race distance (so far).  The excitement builds…

185 Pounds of Diesel V-Power

Top end speed and power has always been my wheel house to work out of.  Those 20 odd years of playing hockey and spending time in the gym have contributed to the development and enhancement of fast twitch muscle fibers, i.e. a sprinter, power lifter, or anything utilizing the anaerobic muscular system.  This allows me to be very effective at dropping the hammer for short periods of time and blowing the HR up into the 200bpm range, just can’t do that very long.  So what we have is a powerful, muscular, short-distance athlete trying to transform into a lean, aerobic, long-distance endurance athlete that is capable of holding moderate activity all day.  This is doable, but it takes a long time.  Like I’ve posted before, we’re doing lots of things to change the type of muscles we recruit and build by extending durations of moderate activity and doing things like focusing on high cadences and functional strength exercises.  All definitely helping move in the right direction, but we’re not transformed just yet.  So while we wait for such a transformation to occur, let us embrace the heavy beast.  The 185 lbs of diesel engine that plows through the water like a tug boat, barrels down hills and provides a perfect draft for anyone trying to grab a break and practically comes to a screeching halt on any elevation grade of more than 1.0%, has learned to make it hurt.  It has to hurt to cart around this much extra muscle weight all over the place.  The system is powered by two Panzer pistons, two massive propeller arms and a barrel-chested core; hardly aerodynamic.  I guess instead of the Ferrari, you could compare this to a Hummer that has slowly transitioned to an un-sleek suped up diesel pick-up truck.  If there were a Clydesdale category, I believe I would try to gain some weight and podium that group.  Since that doesn’t work, we’ll have to take out the skinny little men in the wake of the tug.

CRW Spring Century 2012

The annual CRW Spring Century took place yesterday leaving from the Wakefield Vocational Technical High School.  It was a warm, but beautiful spring day.  Extremely low humidity and perfect blue skies.  Met up with Matt first thing, planning for an 8:00 departure.  Wheels up at 8:00 and off to New Hampshire and back.  Robin, Sue’s long time friend, joined us for the first 30 or so as she was undertaking the metric century.  We averaged in the 19.0 mph range for the first hour or so, then amped it up.  By the third hour we were cruising at just over 20 mph. 

Matt is a beast!  He pounded the pedals and I worked to stay right there with him.  We traded some pulls, but he led the way, most of the way.  Power was slightly higher than expected from the start, but HR was mostly behaved throughout the morning.  We latched on to a few groups here and there for some recovery and the pace continued to be pretty high.  Onward we pressed, passing everyone, being passed by no one.  Felt really good to go at a good pace with a specific end goal in mind.  At hour 3, I was confident that I wanted to break the 5:00 mark for the 100.

We stopped at the mile 50 and 79 rest stops to fill up the bottles and get a quick snack.  Then away we went back at it, the two us, soldiering on.  Was fun to work together and Matt is so steady it’s very easy to ride with him. 

At mile 65 or so, I started to feel a little tweak in the knee that began somewhere in the quad.  It became a problem as I continued fatiguing and keeping up with the pacing.  Power began to decline and then eventually pace.  Matt finally decided enough was enough and dropped me around 95.  At this point, it was hot, I didn’t have a whole lot left, but I knew I still wanted the sub 5:00.  Sure enough, 100 came and went at around 4:58 of ride time.  Really happy about that!  The last 5-10 were a bit of a grind and ended up with 105 miles on 5:15.  That’s my longest ride ever.  All in, pretty happy with the effort.  Matt seemed to be happy, as well.  Overall, normalized power of 231W which exceeded expectations.

The aftermath has not been too bad.  Iced a little afterward and fell asleep quickly, before 9:00.  I was up early and ready for a nice session at the pool.  Looking forward to building this riding base and know all the hard work is paying off.  Still, running a marathon after that seems extremely daunting.  It’s far…but, we’ll get there.

Vintage Machine

The constant tease in my cycling circles is about my 2004 Cannondale Ironman 2000 Time Trial bike. If I may say, In 2004, this was a pretty solid mid-line aluminum with the slice Aero frame design, full Ultegra group and a pretty little color pattern for celebrating Kona…Fast forward 8 years to 2012, maybe not so cool. It’s an old aluminum coated in rust from sweat, thousands of miles of wear and tear and an awful blue wavy color pattern trying to represent Kona in some way.

We now have bikes with full carbon everything, matte black Batmobile-esque rocket ships with electronic shifters, water bottles built into the frame, race wheels and a total curb weight that rivals my set of Kevlar reinforced Armadillo tires. But it’s the engine that matters, right? It still needs to be pedaled. The Panzer tank pistons pounding on the pedals move the machine forward. Those bells and whistles are not necessarily directly translated into performance, but rather the ‘look’ of speed. Granted new is nice, smooth and technology has improved dramatically, but in 1986 Greg Lemond  won the Tour de France (first American) with ‘vintage’ machinery while averaging ~23 mph over 2538 miles…

So, instead of a new ride this year, I embraced the vintage for year 1 of IM racing and slapped a matte black Quarq CinCo power meter on there. I guess that, in itself looks pretty bad a$$ and says ‘I’m not messing around…and go ahead and try me.’ After all, this piece of vintage metal was with me in 2005 when I did that very first mini-sprint at the pool in Temecula, CA. It was an amazing experience and start to a pretty good run the last 7 or so years. It’s fitting that ‘Vinny’ and I go end-to-end, cradle to grave, from mini-sprint to Iron together. As a single unit: an entity of perseverance and history of overcoming obstacles to take on new challenges together.

Vintage? Yes, but a whole lot more than that. We have history together and we’re not done just yet.

Are We Having Fun Yet?

As I was punishing myself on the FTP intervals tonight, I realized that all I write about is technical, very informative and mostly boring stuff...

Pfft, who cares about that stuff?  I'm not highlighting any of the fun that I'm having. (I am having fun, right?)  It's been about 3 months since I've been hooked up with Matt and formally started working towards the goal.  In that time, I've been pushed on the bike beyond what I thought possible.  I've swum butterfly stroke on a regular basis and I've strained my cottage cheese......kidding...  I've been hooked up with a great set of friends in my new Iron circle, which includes a Canadian that likes to regularly cruise around 4+ hour rides at a similar pace.  How perfect is that?  Makes these rides enduring....I'm learning new things about myself everyday and enjoying this process.  That's what I've been taking for granted.  Through all the data, pushing the envelope, injuries, PT, Chiro, 4:00 a.m. mornings - the process is worth the work. 

As the sweat puddle was forming under the trainer this evening, I continued to feel the acid burn in the quads on the FTP sets while watching the Sufferfest, Hell Hath No Fury video (Women's 2 X 20:00 race sequence).  I was having fun!  Sitting there in misery, in the basement with electronica blasting over young euro girls chasing each other around on cobblestone streets and a fan blowing in my face!  You can't help but chuckle a little over that. 

In the true spirit of the Sufferfest series: "IWBMATTKYAT!"  To the readers: If you can write out that acronym, you win the prize of taking part in all the fun.

My commitment for the rest of the while will be to expose you all to the enjoyable elements of this process.  Ehhh, I'll give you some data once in a while, but otherwise, it is time to get a little spunky.

By the way, BAM...

Zeo Sleep Manager

Last week we introduced a new tool to the training repertoire.  The ZEO Sleep Manager tracks your sleep patterns over the course of the night’s sleep.  It tracks how long it took you to fall asleep, how many times you wake up and how long you spend in each sleep zone:  REM, Deep Sleep, and Light Sleep.  Then, based on all those factors it produces a quantitative value for ZQ or the “Sleep Quotient.”  This number can then be tracked as a nightly assessment of your sleep health.   The interesting learning comes from the awareness of the patterns and how a typical sleep compares to ‘normal’ ranges for a similar age and gender.  After compiling 6 nights of sleep data, the myzeo.com website will create an assessment and begin an action plan.  Based on my goals at the start and the baseline sleep from last week, the 7 step action plan has now begun, starting with a relaxation mp3 file to work on reduced mental stress and a more focused relaxation at bed time.  It is amazing to see how the sleep patters or the ZQ variations align with reduced performance and the offset of that impact.  For example, my sleep on Thursday night was horrendous and my ride on Saturday was much more challenging than it normally would be.  Of course other factors were at play, but this insight was eye-opening as to the impact of a poor night’s sleep and how that may predict a poor training or racing day.  I look forward to boosting my ZQ baseline from a 69 into the 80s and get my total Z into the 7:00 range as I learn and practice from the action plan topics.

Week Ending May 6th in Review (Build 2A) – Dead Legs…

Week started off with a failure to wake up on Monday morning for the pool.  Probably a sign that it would be a challenging week.  The good news is that on Saturday, we absolutely slayed the dragon on the trainer in the a.m.  The set called for 5X10’ on 90% FTP intervals.  This means 247W (on the 275W FTP number) for a total of 50 minutes.  Started out strong with a 244W set, definitely holding back on the reigns a bit.  Next 2 sets resulted in 253W and 256W respectively.  Final 2 clocked in at a solid 259W and a powerful 270W!  Purely got stronger with each effort.  Let the tiger out of the cage for the last few efforts.  Felt fantastic. 

Towards the end of the week, the ankle began to flare a bit.  3X9’ AeT intervals on the treadmill caused some pain, but moving up the side of the Achilles, higher up on the Peroneus tendon group.  Improved throughout Friday and Saturday for the long south shore ride.  74 miles.  Felt really good through 2:30 and then the wheels came off.  The legs just were dead for the last 2 hours.  Maybe a combination of the FTP work on Wednesday, the running intervals and a poor sleep a couple nights back, but the power just wasn’t there.  NP throughout was over 220W, but still, felt way more difficult than it should have.  The legs just struggled getting the pedals over in the last hour+.  On Sunday, ran to the track and did some of the drill work barefoot on the Astroturf.  Struggled with cadence (86-88) getting over to the HS – the legs were still pretty heavy.  Felt really natural running on the turf with no shoes.  Cadence was well over 90 and I could really feel the feet working on an improved gait – the feedback of the barefoot stride was profound in comparison to that of the running shoe.  The run home was way more successful in both cadence and form after spending time on the drills and barefoot running. 

Finished the week with a nice BBQ for mother’s day with the family.  Looking forward to the Spring Century next week, but hope these legs start feeling a bit more juicy.  I’m anticipating just a rough ride day on Saturday, but still feeling a little run down so pounding the Vitamin C to reduce any chance of sickness coming on full throttle.

Week Ending May 6th in Review (Recovery 1)

Although the Providence half-marathon was the plan for Sunday, my team of consultants: Ratt (PT) and Matt decided that we’d cap the running at 1-hour for the week.  This being the case, we’ve taken the opportunity to cut back on volume for the week.  However, this did not derail an absolute beast out on the trainer Wednesday morning.  The goal was 3x16min 90% FTP intervals.  Since I’ve turned in some big big numbers for the long weekend rides (like 94% IF for 4+ hours) the new, estimated, outdoor FTP is in the 275W range.  That being said, the goal for the 3x16 minutes intervals (big Varsity set) was between 238W (indoor #) and 247 (outdoor #).  I was feeling good, so guess I blew them both out.  First interval at a solid 244W with the following 2 sets right in the 251W range.  Felt phenomenal and strong.  Notice the text book curves:

Everything worked out in this one.  Cadence is right where I want it.  Power exceeds the targets and the HR follows the expected trajectory.  Lots of good Zone 4 work (48 minutes).  Very happy with this performance.  

The weekend shapes up nicely with a shortened ride at much lower power ranges, followed by another 0:45-1:00 run on Sunday, keeping everything moving forward.  The easy ride on Saturday was too easy.  I wanted to beast out a 5-minute best effort.  I set that up at 30’ into the ride and ripped down a 344W 5-minute.  That’s over 4.0 W/kg.  Happy with this.  Quick brick to finish with and that felt really good.

This week, we got the ZEO sleep manager to start tracking the patterns and learning about enhancing that element of the restorative and performance processes.  This week was the first week that I have begun feeling ‘better than average’ in the injury department.  So very pleased with this progress.  Patience has been a necessary evil for me in getting the ankle back up and running, no pun intended!  

6 Month Countdown and May’s Objectives

Seems like last week that I signed the dotted line for Florida; the day after the event on November 3, 2011.  That was exactly 6 months ago or half way to this year’s race.  Those 6 months flew by.  Indeed, we’ve made a lot of great progress on the bike and swim.  There is no question.  Although the running has lacked, the foundational elements are coming into place so that the next 6 months will be optimally conducive to a successful build up and, hopefully, a completely transformed gait.

There is a lot going on in the next 6 months.  We’ve got two half Irons, a few other events sprinkled in, as well as the big daddy in November.  May is primarily a build month, with focus on the following:

·Run volume up to snuff and consistent without injury and with the correct form

·Continued improvement in injury comments and key daily metrics

·FTP road test

·Breakthrough day on May 20 at the Spring Century

·Build swim lengths out to 2k and 3k, confirming correct pacing

I intend to continue growth in all 3 disciplines in May, with extra focus on strength and stability elements and the re-make of the stride on the run. 

In another snap, 6 months will go by and we’ll be thinking back on the journey.  The time is now – to buckle down and start focusing in on what we’ve got ahead of us.