Thrusday Night Bike Workout

Last night, Thursday 2/26, I jumped on the bike trainer and pounded out a quick (45min) workout.  I don't have my power meter yet so used the heart rate zones instead of wattage.  With the way my legs have been feeling, that wasn't a bad thing.  Heart rate can be subjective but wattage (work) is wattage (work).  There's no faking wattage.  During the day I did pretty well eating.  Not necessarily all that healthy but enough calories.  Here is the workout:

Warm Up	15min @ Z1 w/ 2 X 1min one legged drills
Work Set	2 x 10min @ Z4 w/ 4min recovery
Cool Down	15min @ Z1

After I got down for 20 minutes of core work and took a quick shower before friends came over for some euchre.  Yes, we won the night and are up 2 to 1 with euchre.

Wednesday Night Swim

I'm still looking for a good workout tracking utility and haven't had much success to I'm just going to post the workouts and how they went.  Last night, Wednesday 2/25, I swam with TNT and was pretty beat from a rough couple days at work.  All I ate before swimming was a granola bar which is a lot less than normal.  Here is the workout:

Warm Up	8 x 50 Drills
Work Set	8 x 100 (50 @ Z4 / 50 @ Z2
	1 x 400 (300 @ Z2 / 100 @ Z3)
Cool Down	200

I was noticeably slower than the previous week but also haven't swam since last Wednesday.  Maybe there's something to that whole frequency thing.

New FTP

Last Saturday I went to Element for a Functional Power Test (FTP).  This is a measurement of your average wattage over a 30 minute, all out, bike Time Trial.  Like the 5K run, this test helps determine the bike pacing and lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR). The power and pacing zones for the bike and run help determine the fastest, most efficient speed I can go.  They also allow me to train in a way that gets me faster without burning out or over training.

The test was brutal but resulted in a 16 watt increase from my old FTP.  I'm not sure what that means, other than I now get to work at a higher level.  Here are the results:

Date	Weight (lbs)	Distance (mi)	Time	Speed (mph)	LTHR (bpm)	FTP (Watts)	W/kg
02/21/09	180	10.48	30.00	21	156	220	2.7

    

I'm not really sure how this translates to the road yet.  It's just too cold to ride outside, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Workout Lingo

It occurred to me that some of the target audience of this blog do not know much about the structure of endurance based workouts.  In an effort to create a common reference point, this post is all about the language and terms used to describe these workouts.  First off are the training zones.  These are used in relation to heart rate as well as watts on the bike and pace on the run.

Pace Type	Heart Rate	Perceived Exertion
Easy/Long Pace	Z1	Easy
Marathon Pace	Z2	Steady
Half Marathon Pace	Z3	Upper Steady
Threshold Pace	Z4	Moderately Hard
Interval Pace	Z5	Hard
Repetition Pace	Strides	Speed Focus

  

I’ve added a bit to the side of the blog that shows where I’m currently at with my training zones as well as a piece that describes beginning, current, and goal fitness levels.  The goal levels might be a bit aggressive but we’ll see…

How Far I've Come

Last night I met up with a friend, JD, for a swim workout. We only swam 1,050 yards, or just over a half mile, but the workout was focused on drills and not speed or endurance. At this point in the season I’m trying to get rid of the bad technique and form that I’ve developed. As we’re getting out of the pool someone stops us and starts asking us how to swim. No kidding!

For those who don’t know JD, we both started doing triathlons 3 years ago with Team In Training, but he had no experience in the water. At that time he was a little intimidated by swimming in a pool, let alone open water. Doing so for a mile? Forget it! However, he signed up and worked at. JD worked with the TNT coaches on getting comfortable in the water and went on to do a couple Olympic distance races as well as several Sprints. That off season he worked and worked on his swimming and not only became confident in the water but can consistently finish the .9 mile swim of an Olympic distance triathlon in under 30 minutes. For some perspective on that, I’m usually just over 30 and people who swam in high school or college finish it in the low 20’s.

Of course we helped him with what we know and advice him to seek professional help, for both the swimming and asking us.

First Endurance Nation Workout

After some emailing back and forth with the coaches from Endurance Nation (EN) I received my "Out Season" plan.  Out season is just marketing for their off season training schedule.  It's to early to start really working on the endurance base but not to early to start getting fast!  Anyway, I missed the first week of the plan but decide to do the 5K run test yesterday to determine my run pacing, lactate threshold heart rate , and VDot number.

Maybe it was because I was on a treadmill, maybe it was the 5 minute warm up instead of the 15 minute warm up the plan calls for, maybe it was the lack of running for the last 8 - 10 weeks, or maybe it was the hangover.  No matter what the cause; I'm a lot slower than I remember.  Here are the results:

Date	Weight	Distance	Time	Pace	LTHR	vDot
02/01/09	180	3.2 miles	25:19	7:55	159	39

The good news is that I test again next month and will try to use a local 5K race instead of a treadmill.  Seriously, I feel like a hamster on those things!

Picked A Coach!

After a bit of deliberation, a few meetings, and several beers I decide to go with Endurance Nation (EN).  Last Saturday I got the chance to sit down with several of the people coached by them and go over the training, the season planning, the support, and all things Ironman.  It was a lot of fun and several of the people seemed very knowledgeable and helpful.  The things that attracted me most to the company were the structure of the workouts, the season planning detail, and the focus racing.  EN seems pretty focused on making sure that race day is a smooth, fun experience.

There is still some work to do with adding in races I'd like to do to their "season map" but that shouldn't take too long.  Once that's finished, I'll post that as well.  More than likely money will be the biggest limiting factor in the racing this season.  Next time I'm picking a cheaper sport!  :)

 

EN has a pretty detailed workout tracking tool and I’m going to look into ways to post the data on the sight. The training program starts next week and I’ll do manual posts until I get the automated piece figured out.