Ironman Louisville – The Bike

I was off on the 112 mile bike leg of Ironman Louisville.  I felt great!  I had heard that the bike course was hilly.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to check it out before the race, so I saw the course for myself for the first time during the race.  The course is a lollipop shape.  You ride out from the city, ride two loops in the country and then ride back into the city.

Hilly was a great overstatement of the course.  There were quite a few rollers, but only two hills that I would really consider climbs, and they both were at the beginning of the course and you only had to ride each one once.  Does anyone else notice that people tend to describe every course as "hilly" unless it is pancake flat?  I think this is horrible, because I hear about people training for a hilly course and then they get to their race and the course is flat and they are not prepared.  For me, flat courses provide unique challenges in mental concentration and fatigue (you never get that change in elevation to use different muscle groups, as you do when climbing).

Going into the bike, my biggest concern was metal focus.  Often on the bike, I would find myself day dreaming, letting my cadence slow down, and letting my speed drop.  I have really worked on improving my mental concentration over the last two years and felt like I really had a break through at the Spirit of Racine Half-Ironman in July of this year.  I stayed focus for the entire ride and improved my bike split by 30 minutes from the prior year.  However, that was less than three hours on the bike.  Ironman was going to be 6-7 hours.  Could I stay focused for that long?

When I got out on the course, I quickly noticed that the feel was much different than any other race I had done.  No one was in a hurry.  You could even tell that the faster age groupers were pacing themselves.  This was good, because it made me realize that I didn't need to be in a hurry either.  It was going to be a long ride and there would be plenty of miles on the bike and plenty of miles on the run to use up any extra energy that I had as I neared the end of the race.  Once out on the course, I settled into a cadence of about 95 and a speed of 18mph.  That felt really comfortable, so I decided I would try to maintain that for the duration of the bike.

My second biggest fear of the bike was the heat.  It had been as hot at 95 degrees on race day with high humidity.  We lucked out.  Temps stayed below 80 degrees the entire day and it was partly cloudy.  It couldn't have been better racing weather.

Half way into the bike, I was still intently focused.  Things were going great.  I felt great.  I was starting to picture myself crossing the finish line.  At about mile 48, the first time around the loop, I saw my family out on the bike course.  It really motivated me to have people out there cheering for me.  I waved to them as I passed, and said I'd see them again in about 1.5 hours when I came around for the second time.

Out on my second loop I realized that I wasn't going to make it back to transition without a bathroom stop.  I had thought about this before the race, but didn't really have anything planned.  I should have paid more attention to were the Johnny on the spots were.  I decided better to be safe than sorry, so I'd stop at the next one I saw, which ended up being about 15 miles later.  As I approached, I saw there was a line.  Great!  I stopped, because I didn't know how much further I could make it.  Waited in line about 5 minutes, went to the bathroom, and was back on my bike.  5 minutes lost time!  Next, came the bag fiasco.  Another 5 minutes lost time!  I was now below the 18 mph average that I had been keeping.  I came around the loop again at mile 78, I saw my family again!  I was feeling great.  I knew if I picked it up I could come close to hitting a 6 hour bike split.

As I came off the loop and headed back to the city, I turned it on.  I averaged 20 mph on the last 20+ miles of the bike.  I knew I wasn't going to hit 6 hours, but I was going to see how close I could get.  I was back to transition 6:11 (18.1 mph average.) for the bike.  It was a good ride!  I jumped off my bike.  I felt great!  My legs felt strong.  I didn't feel fatigued at all.  I started running toward the gear bags and suddenly realized in all of the excitement I had forgotten to take my bike shoes off before I got off my bike.  Stopped and took them off.  Ahh . . . it was much easier to run without the shoes.  As I approached the gear bags, I was surprised to see one of my clients, Beth, there to get my bag for me.  I knew Beth was going to be volunteering, but I didn't know what she was going to be doing.  How cool was it to see her there to get me my gear.  I grabbed my bag and was off to the changing tent.

T2 was wear I made another error.  I decided that I would change from my tri clothes to running clothes for the run.  Why?  I really have no idea, because I have never been uncomfortable running in tri clothes into he past.  It was tough to get my tri clothes off because I was sweaty and wet.  I will have to admit that it was nice to put on fresh clothes, but after I dumped the first cup of water over my head on the run, it really didn't matter.  After 6:08 in transition, a wave to Beth, and a wave to my family who was there to greet me as I exited transition, I was on the run course. 

Ironman Louisville - The Swim

The picture to the left was taken the day before the race.  Notice my brand new TYR, Sayonara swim skin that I am wearing.  In it’s 2 year history, Ironman Louisville had never been a wetsuit legal race, so I bought this swim skin to use specifically for this race.  I had the opportunity to use it several times for practice swims, and I absolutely loved it.  I was so excited to try it out the next day at the race.

The picture to the right is me on race day starting the race.  Notice anything missing?  Yes, my swim skin!  After pumping my tires up in transition on race morning, I made the 3/4 mile walk to the swim start.  When I arrived at the swim start, I opened my bag to get my swim skin out, and it was not there.  My husband made a frantic run back to the hotel to look for it.  While he was gone, the race started.  The start of Ironman Louisville is unique in that it is the only Ironman race with a time trial start.  Racers line up first come, first serve to start the race.  I slowly watched racer after racer start.  My husband returned.  The swim skin was not at the hotel.  I decided I needed to stop worrying about it and get in line to start the race. 

I walked the 1/2 mile to the end of the race line.  I was the last person in line to start the race for a long time.  I really thought I was going to be the last person to start the race.  Finally, as I neared the start 3 other people got behind me.  I was, however, the last female in the water.  In the water ahead of me were over 2000 other participants.  Unfortunately for me, that equaled 2000 obstacles that I had to swim around, as I am a good swimmer.  This slowed me down a lot!

The swim for the race is in the Ohio river.  About 1/3 of the swim is upstream and then you make a turn and swim downstream.  Fortunately, for all of us in the water, the dams upstream were closed, so you really couldn’t feel the current.  Note:  if you ever do a river swim with a strong current, stick near the shore.  The current is not as strong near the shore as it is in the middle of the river.  The water was very dirty, and I couldn’t see anything.  When the water is like this, I actually like to close my eyes and try to relax.  I know it sounds crazy, but why have them open?  You can’t see anyway. 

There was one interesting portion of the swim, where I ran into a major traffic jam at a point where the water was shallow and people were standing up.  I had no idea I would encounter anything like this in the middle of a river.  There seemed to be about 50 people standing talking about the swim course in the middle of the race.  It was crazy!  I pushed my way through the crowd and went on my merry way.

I made it to the end of the swim with a time of 1:16:49.  I was frustrated.  Not a good swim for me at all.  I blame the bad swim time on my swim skin commotion, being one of the last people to start the race, and probably not logging enough yards in the pool during training (I will elaborate more on this in the future).

Okay, time to get over the prerace swim skin commotion and bad swim time.  I still had 138.2 miles of racing ahead of me!  I spent approximately 4 minutes in T1, and I was off on my bike.

Ironman Louisville Race Report Part 1 – Bags, Bags, and More Bags!

For those just joining my blog, I completed the 2009 Ironman Louisville on August 30, 2009. It was my first Ironman race. Here is my race report. This is long overdue! For those of you that were wondering what happened to me at Ironman Louisville, I survived, beat my goal time by an hour, and am looking forward to doing another Ironman distance race.

We arrived at Louisville the Friday before the race. For those of you planning on doing an Ironman, it's important to note that you must register and check in for the race 2 days prior to the race, so plan your travel accordingly.

When checking in for the race they use one of those Tanita body fat scales to check your hydration level to make sure you are properly hydrated going into the race. My readings on the scale were 18% BF, 54% water, and 130lbs. I believe they said they wanted 45-60% hydration for women and 50-65% for men. I passed that test with flying colors and got checked in for the race without a problem.

The expo was okay. It was not as big or as nice as I expected. I did not see anything there that I absolutely had to buy nor were there any great deals. I didn't purchase anything from the expo prior to the race, but did hit it after the race to purchase some of the "Finisher" merchandise. Another note for those doing Ironman: they put out a ton of stuff at the expo the day after the race, that is better than most of the stuff they have prior to the race, so don't spend all of your money prior to the race.

On Friday, it was time to check my bike and gear in. They give you 3 gear bags and 2 special needs bags. One gear bag for your stuff you wear to the race site in the morning, 1 gear bag for T1, and 1 gear bag for T2. You get 1 special needs bag for the bike leg, which they give to you at about the halfway point and 1 for the run, which is also at the halfway point. It all must go in your gear bags. You are not allowed to put any gear by your bike. It all must go in your gear bags.

A big question that I got from people after I did the race was, "What was your nutrition plan?" My biggest piece of advice is that everyone is different, and it is best to experiment and practice during your training in order to determine what works best for you, so please don't count on using my nutrition plan or anyone else's nutrition plan for a race without testing it on yourself first. I have a sensitive stomach, so I pretty much know what I can and can't eat prior to a race and during a race. For example, I cannot drink Gatorade when I run, but I can drink it on the bike. Another note about your race nutrition plan, it should probably begin a few days before the race. For example, it's a good idea to avoid fiber, dairy, raw vegetables, and anything else that is difficult to digest the day or two leading up to a race. Often people will have gastric distress on race day and think it is their race day nutrition that messed them up, when in fact it was something they ate the day before the race. Remember it takes about 24 hours for food to make it all the way through your system.

I ate a big pasta dinner on Friday before the race and then ate light on Saturday. On race morning I drank about a bottle of water and ate a bagel and banana. I carried 6 nutritional items with me on my bike, pretzels, peanut butter crackers, Gu, Gu Chomps, Nuun, and Water. Nuun is an electrolyte only drink. It doesn't have any carbs. If you can't stomach Gatorade, you might want to check it out. I at every 45 min. – 1 hour on the bike and just ate what I felt like eating. I ate about 2 packages of peanut butter crackers, a bag of pretzels, 4 Gus, and 3 packages of Gu Chomps. I drank about 2 bottles of Nuun and 2 bottles of water, and about a half of bottle of Gatorade that I picked up at an aid station. My philosophy was eat and drink as much as possible until I reached about mile 90 on the bike. Then give my stomach from mile 90-112 to settle, as to avoid having issues on the run. It worked!

I carried a bottle of Nuun with me on the run and grabbed water at the aid stations. I used 3 Gus and grabbed some pretzels and grapes every once and awhile at the aid stations. I felt like I was well fueled and hydrated throughout the race.

I did fill up my special needs bags and did stop and get them, but did not use any items out of my bags. They actually slowed me down quite a bit, because I yelled out the wrong race number on the bike, (my fault) and I got someone else's bag and had to take it back and get mine. On the run, they gave me the wrong bag , and I had to do the same thing. Probably lost 10 minutes dealing with those silly bags. If you are really trying to hit a time goal, I wouldn't use the bags except in an emergency. I did back a spare tube and tire in my bike bag, so I was able to recover my $50 tire, but that was really the only good thing about picking up the bag. When I finally got the correct run bag, I just threw it in the trash. I have no idea why I even picked it up!


More tomorrow!

Hope Everyone Had a Happy Thanksgiving!

 
Hi Everyone,
I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. This is a picture of me with a chocolate pie that I made for Thanksgiving! It was the best one I've ever made; however, this isn't a cooking blog, so let's get down to business!

I took the last 3 months off from training after completing Ironman Louisville on August 30th! Yes, it's okay to take 3 months off. I take 2-3 months off every year. Yes, I might not be as fit as I possibly could be, but I've found that I enjoy taking some time off, so I do it. If you haven't taken some time off from training, I would strongly encourage you to take a week or two off in December. I resumed training yesterday with a 3 mile run on my treadmill and some Bosu Ball exercises.

How has your training been going? Do you have a plan to stay motivated and fit this winter?

My company, Custom Coaching, is now on Facebook. Please become a fan! There is a link just to the right ->.

16 Days until IM Louisville

I haven't blogged for a long time. I've been too busy training. I'm well into my taper now and find myself having time to do things I haven't had time to do for a while, like blogging.

I'm happy to report that my training has been going very well, and I'm really getting excited for Ironman Louisville. I've been going to the pool consistently twice a week since early June, survived 3-100 mile bike rides, and my knee has held up through my limited running. I find myself feeling like I haven't felt since April . . . RESTED! It's a nice feeling, but something that is somewhat unfamiliar, because I haven't experienced it in months.

I feel ready for the race. I have one concern about the race and that is maintaining my mental concentration on the bike. I have really been working on this, but I still have some doubts about staying focused on race day.

It's all really a big mental game though . . . I've been trying to visualize myself staying focused on the bike and having a great ride. Is it helping? I think so. I'm starting to feel a little better about it. You need to be confident going into a race!

Your mind really can affect your training or your race. Therefore, we must not only train or bodies, but train our minds. Visualizing yourself having an awesome training session or an amazing race is a simple, yet highly effective way, that using our minds can help us achieve our athletic goals. It is also helpful to walk through "bad" scenarios in our minds to help us prepare for those. Examples of this include: going off course in the swim, getting a flat on the bike, or cramping on the run. How will we overcome these situations in a race? Walk through the steps mentally, so that you are prepared for everything come race day. Being prepared will lead to confidence, which will lead to success!

I'm Tweeting!

Hi Readers! I'm going to be logging my own training on Twitter, you can see my posts just to left of this site, but of course, I also invite you to follow me on Twitter. I'll be using my blog to talk more about coaching and training in general and to address issues that myself, my clients, and my friends have faced in their training and racing. I hope my blog posts will be a source of motivation and information to guide you through you training and/or coaching endeavors. I hope to share the good, the bad, and the ugly of my experiences, so that everyone can benefit.

If you're a new reader, I'm a stay-at-home mom and am training for my first Ironman. This year I also started coaching triathletes. I am excited to promote the sport of triathlon and assist others in their journey.

Thanks everyone for all of the positive feedback about my blog. I really appreciate the support!

Best week of coaching and training yet

Had a great week of training this week. Starting to feel like my running form is improving. Now running 9:30 pace at the same level of effort I use to run 10:15 pace on my long runs. It's crazy how much a little change in form can help.

Yesterday's group ride with my training group was awesome! We rode 30 miles, longest ride so far for these guys, held a good pace, and rode nicely together as a group. Looking forward to doing some longer rides. They're ready for it.

Also had a great ride with Susan today. We only rode about 12 miles during her cycling lesson, but she has improved her hill riding tremendously in just a few weeks. I can now see her attacking hills, both up and down. Just a few weeks ago, she was too afraid to ride aggesively and was really struggling with shifting and gearing during climbs. No evidence of these problems today. I was very impressed!

Feeling great. All workouts this week were completed better then expected!

Totals for the week Swim: 3000 yards (1 workout), Bike: 160 miles (4 workouts, Long Ride = 75 miles), Run: 30 miles (3 Workouts, Long Run = 12 miles)

Monday is recovery day.

The day just got away from me today without getting my planned recovery run in. I had a good rest day. Back to it tomorrow!

Brick #3

Today, I did a 40 mile bike and 12 mile run brick. Felt really good during the workout. Didn't start to feel tired until the last mile of the run, which was almost all uphill. Also managed to keep good running form until I reached that last mile. I have to admit that I shuffled up the hills on the last mile.

Rest Day!

Decided to take the day off today to work around the house and go to the pool with my family.

Swim, Bike, Shuffle

Today I ran 4 miles on Grant's Trail. Felt great. Very good sign.

Let me just put it bluntly, my running form is very bad. I am more of a shuffler then a runner. My feet barely come off the ground. Before I hurt my knee back in February, I was well on my way to improving my running form, but have since resorted to my old ways. I'm back on a mission to run instead of shuffle. I have to force myself to pick my feet up. It is just completely unnatural to me. I felt like I was making some progress with my turnover and picking my legs up tonight. Good run all the way around.

Back from Hiatus!

It's been a while since I posted and unfortunately, I was not only on a hiatus from blogging, but was also struggling with my training. I've learned a few things over the past few weeks that I'd like to pass along to everyone:
Issue #1: If you realize your training plan is not working for you, change it as soon as possible.
Issue #2: There is no “norm” when it comes to training.
Issue #3: Take a multivitamin.
Issue #4: Set reasonable and attainable goals for yourself.
Now let me address each of the above issues as I faced it in my training.

Issue #1:
What I did wrong: I purchased an Ironman Training Plan online that had received great reviews. I was very excited about following it and stuck to it without variation for my first 4+ weeks of training. By the end of about week 4, I was bored, burnt-out, and tired. I continued to try to stick to the plan, but that just wasn't working. I was becoming unmotivated and more tired. I realized things were getting really bad when I could hardly finish a 3 mile run and people I hardly knew were telling me I looked horrible. I started missing a lot of workouts and fell behind with my training. Very frustrating to admit that the plan was not working for me, because I have always been able to stick to the plan, and I like to stick to the plan.
Remedy: Not every plan will work for everyone. Change your plan as soon as you realize something is wrong. Don’t continue to push through it, knowing things are going bad. With 12 weeks left in my training, I decided to write a new plan. I’ve been following this plan for almost a week now and things are going much better. I wish I would have regrouped much earlier, but am happy that I seem to be on the right track now or at least a better track.

Issue #2:
What I did wrong: Seems like most triathletes get up in the morning and go to the pool, so obviously, I thought I should do that. However, having to get up at 5 or 5:30 AM when you don't go to sleep until 11-12 pm, does not give a person the required amount of sleep needed to successfully train for an Ironman. Bottom line, I have no control over what time I go to sleep, because I cannot go to sleep until my son goes to sleep, but I do have control over what time I get up.
Remedy: Don’t get up at 5am to go to the pool. Sleep in and get the necessary 7-8 hours of sleep I need to train, let alone function in life. Remember, your body adapts to training while resting and recovering, so if you don’t get enough rest, you’re not going to get better. I now sleep until 7AM, get up and do a run on the treadmill or a bike on the trainer or even sometimes, no AM workout. I head to the pool in the evening or on the weekend. Not the “normal” training schedule that most people follow, but it is what works best for me.

Issue #3:
What I did wrong: I have a sensitive stomach and multivitamins have always caused some stomach upset issues for me, so I have never taken one. Really not a problem for a normal person, as long as you eat right, but let’s face it, logging 20 hours of training a week is not normal, and my body was telling me that. I was achy and basically felt like I had the flu, but without the fever. It’s hard to describe, but I was hurting from the inside out.
Remedy: So I can’t stomach an adult vitamin, but I do seem to be able to handle one of my son’s Flintstones Vitamins. I got myself some of the Flintstones with Iron and have been taking one a day for a little over a week. Achiness went away completely in about 3 days after starting to take the vitamin and hasn’t returned. I’ll talk more about Iron and Vitamin D in my next blog, as they are very key nutrients for endurance athletes.

Issue #4:
What I did wrong: Even though, my training was going bad, I kept trying to push toward a challenging time goal for my race. I was becoming demotivated, because I was realizing I wasn't going to be able to acheive my goal.
Remedy: Set a new achievable goal. I initially wanted to finish the race in 13:30:00 and run the entire marathon. I have to be realistic and say that this goal is really not a reality based on my tough 4 weeks. I think running the entire marathon is still a good goal. I’ve also set the goal of just finishing the race. I might set a time goal as I get closer, but right now, I’m motivated about my current goals and am also motivated about the goal of being successful with my training.

So you’re probably thinking none of the above seem like any great training insights, and I would have never thought I would make some of these simple errors in my training, but when you’re actually in the trenches, working out, focused on your final goal, rather than taking things one step at a time, it can become very easy to overlook the basics.

A fellow triathlete coach gave me the piece of advice to never coach a relative. I have not followed this advice, as I coach my husband, and it has actually been a very good relationship for both of us. He has seen great improvement with his performance, and we get to spend time together doing something we both enjoy. I also like it, because I get very honest feedback from him about my coaching style, methods, and strategies. I think a better piece of advice might be to be cautious being your own coach. If you are self-coached, seek out a friend, relative, or training partner to help guide you through your training. You need someone to keep you honest and help keep you motivated.

My training log for this week (not where I would like to be, but it seems to be working for me!):
Monday: Run- 4 mile recovery run with my husband and son in the jogging stroller. Full set of running drills.
Tuesday: Run – 3 miles including a 1 mile time trial on the track. Not the best time for my time trial, but I made it through, which I don’t think I would have been able to do a few weeks ago.
Wednesday: Run – 5 miles on the treadmill and full set of drills. Bike- 20 miles easy.
Thursday: Run – 5 miles, Bike – 30 miles easy, Strength training

The Brick

I completed my first brick workout for my Ironman training today. It wasn't a very long one, but I'm happy that I have one under my belt. It was a 55 mile bike followed by a 15 minute run.

What is a brick? A brick in triathlon is basically a workout including two or more disciplines in a row. You may do a swim followed by a bike; a bike followed by a run; or even a swim followed by a bike, followed by a run.

How often should you do bricks? Some people are under the misconception that brick workouts need to be done every week. However, this is not true. In my opinion, doing bricks every week is too often. Bottom line, they are too hard on your body. You'll get much of the same benefit with reduced risk of over training by doing bricks every other week or even every 3rd week.

What intensity should be used for brick workouts? The intensity should match the purpose of the workout. For example, if the purpose of the workout is endurance then HR zones 1 and 2 would be appropriate. Additionally, you may vary the intensity of each discipline. For example, the bike may be done in zones 1 and 2, and the run might be done at race pace giving you a nice endurance and muscular endurance workout combined.

How long should brick workouts be? Start short and get longer as you progress through your training cycle. Make it simple as total training volume increases, increase the distance of your brick workouts. Build toward distances just short of your race distance.

Participating in races less then your goal race distance is a great form of brick training. When doing this, just don't be tempted to race hard if that is not the ultimate goal of that day's brick workout.

Top 10 ways to know if you're a triathlete

As it's Friday, I thought I'd do something fun on my blog, so here are my top ten ways to know if you're a triathlete:

10. You have goggle rings around your eyes.
9. You keep a stick of Body Glide in your car just in case.
8. You don't understand why other people don't think it's fun to get up at 5 AM and go for a run.
7. You have a special cabinet in your kitchen for your nutrition supplements and water bottles.
6. You can't wait for your next issue of "Triathlete Magazine" to arrive.
5. You own special socks that are just for running or cycling.
4. It turns out it's not just socks. You have A LOT of special clothes that are just for running or cycling.
3. You have "Slowtwitch" bookmarked on your web browser.
2. When you think of bricks, you don't think of building materials.
1. You'd rather be swimming, biking, or running right now!

And my workouts . . .
Wednesday - 3000 yard continuous swim. Swam at an easy pace. Very relaxing workout.

Thursday - Not such a relaxing workout. Road my bike in the trainer for an hour and 20 minutes. Included 10X2 minutes at hard resistance keeping my cadence above 80rpms. Very tough workout.

Friday - Logged my longest swim workout so far at 3500 yards.

Speedy Henry

Sunday, I ran 6 miles on the treadmill, because it started raining just when I was getting ready to go outside. After about a mile on the treadmill, I was wishing I had run outside in the rain.

Monday, I road an hour on the Computrainer. Making some progress on smoothing out my pedal stroke from where it was a couple of months ago. Very happy that the bike is getting easier, as when I started my Ironman training, an hour ride was really tough.

Tuesday, went to the pool in the am, got in as many yards as I could in 40 minutes, which turned out to be 2900 today. Got a little side tracked with my workout, as a lady at the pool was begging me to come to the AM outdoor lap swimming sessions which start after Memorial Day. She was afraid they won't open up the outdoor pool in the morning if enough people don't show up. She even offered to bring bagels for breakfast occasionally. Obviously she really likes swimming outside! Tuesday PM, I went to speedwork for a workout of 5X800 @ 10K pace. Total mileage for the night was about 5 miles.

Henry had fun at speedwork tonight too. He ran a lap around the track, which was nothing compared to the 3 laps he ran last week. Now he's eating his snack and then going to bed. Yes, we have his sleeping schedule straightened out, and I'm happy to report that everyone in the Clay house is now getting enough sleep again.

Off to walk the dogs. Should I include that in my training mileage?

Epiphany Race for the Starts

This morning I rode 20 miles with the training group and then rode another 30 on my own. Felt great during and after the ride. I can really tell that my endurance on the bike has improved during my first four weeks of training. I hope this trend continues.

This evening I ran the Epiphany Race for the Stars 5K with my husband. This was the first race in the Big River South City Racing series. We took turns pushing Henry in the jogger. The course was pretty hilly, which made it fairly challenging with the stroller. We thought we were doing pretty good and at mile 1 we got passed by a man pushing a double stroller. We later passed him at mile 2, and he was walking. I guess that stroller wasn't as easy to push as he thought! It was a beautiful evening and the race was fun. The good news is that my knee seems to have survived the hills. Keeping my fingers crossed that my days of knee pain are far behind me.

Today was an easy day, kind of

Yesterday, I did 3000 yards in the pool. Today was suppose to be an easy day with 2000 yards in the pool, but it actually was a challenging workout, because it was my 4th day in a row of swimming. I haven't swam 4 days in a row for at least 10 years. Looking forward to a beautiful weather day tomorrow for my long bike.

Change is good.

I had a great bike ride today. It was so nice to be able to ride my bike over to Grant's Trail. As I've lived on a gravel road for almost 5 years until just recently, I didn't have the luxury of just heading out on my bike from home.

My bike workout for today was 20 miles with 6 X 5 minute time trial efforts. I never really hit what I would consider to be a time trial effort, but I came pretty close on the last three, so I was happy with the workout.

Tonight, I headed to the pool for a 2500 yard workout. I was glad when tonight's swim workout was over, because it was the last time I have to do that workout. I've been doing it every Tuesday or Wednesday for 4 weeks, and it was a very boring workout. Next week, I'm onto a different workout. Can't wait for a change!

I feel the need for speed

Tonight was the first night of Big River's speedwork. The workout was 8-10 X400 @ 10 K pace. My Ironman training plan does not include speedwork, but I love going to these workouts, and I also think speedwork is an important part of any training plan.

When training for endurance sports, most of our training is done at a nice conversation pace (HR in zones 1 and 2). However, speedwork is also very benifical no matter what distance race you are training for. No matter if your a cyclist, runner, swimmer, or triathlete, make sure you include some faster work in your training plan.

Unfortunately, with speed comes the increased risk on injury. You can reduce your risk of injury by warming up and stretching before your workout. Easing into speedwork. Start with slower work and gradually build into faster work. Finally, don't forget to cool-down, stretch, and ice after the workout.

Last but not least. The ultimate goal of speedwork is to hit a consistent split everytime. Speedwork does not mean sprint, rather think of consistency and control.

Start of week 4

Met with a new client, Susan, tonight. I'm going to be helping her with her cycling. She was great. She is a mother of 7, who started doing triathlons last year with her oldest daughter. She's a very good athlete and has the potential to be at the top in her age group.

Friday, I had a swim scheduled, but didn't get it in. Happy to say, I made it up on Monday.

Saturday, I rode 12 miles with the training group, then ran 2 miles and then hopped back on my bike for another 23 miles.

Sunday, in the morning, I ran 5 miles with my husband. Great progress! In the afternoon, I headed to the pool for a 2200 yard set.

Monday, I did 2000 yards at the pool and road Grant's Trail with Susan for 16 miles on the bike. The bike workout wasn't as scheduled, but it's all part of balancing coaching with training and the rest of life.

Today marked the 4th week of my Ironman training. I'm happy to say that I haven't missed a workout yet. A few workouts haven't been exactly as planned, but I'm happy with how things are going. I've got one more fairly light week this week and then my mileage will start to climb. If my knee holds out, and I continue to get most of my workouts in, I think a finish at Ironman Louisville is definitely acheivable.

50X50

Today, I did 50X50 at the pool for a total of 2500 yards. Sounds very boring, but actually wasn't too bad. Although, I haven't done any long workouts in the pool yet, my arms are starting to feel fatigued from my almost 3 weeks of training. Not sore, just fatigued, which is good.

Also, spent some time today getting organized around the house. As my training volume increases, I know being organized is going to be key to not missing any workouts. Finally, I'm hoping that Henry (my son) starts going to bed earlier, as I know that getting 7-8 hours of sleep every night will really be beneficial. He was up till almost midnight again last night, which means I was up till midnight. I didn't want to get up and go to the pool this morning when my alarm went off, but after hitting snooze a few times, I got up at 6:30 and was at the pool before 7 AM and home by 8:15.

Training is going great!

The bad news is that I haven't blogged for a few days. The good news is that I've been keeping up with my workouts, my knee is feeling great, and I generally feel good.

A lot has happened since my last post. Last night, I had a great time at the Maplewood Multisport clinic on heart rate and power training. It really made me want to get a power meter. The iBike is very tempting, because of it's price, but I'm somewhat skeptical about its accuracy. If any one has an iBike, I'd love to hear about it. Also, found a great deal at www.competitivecyclist.com on a Powertap Comp for $695, including the wheel, which is also very tempting. Note to anyone thinking about getting a bike, you may want to buy a less expensive bike, so you can afford a power meter.

I was back at Maplewood today for Beth's bike fit. Beth got an awesome new Trek road bike, with matching white grip tape, seat, and shoes. Very sharp! I suspect she will be very fast on it.

Tonight, it was off to the pool for Deena's first swim session. She did amazing! I was very impressed. I'm really looking forward to working with her. I'm starting to get excited for the Rec Plex race, because I can't wait to see how everyone does.

My training log . . .

Sunday, I did a 5 mile walk/run, alternating 1 mile running and 1 mile walking.
Monday, 1:10 with some short power intervals on the bike
Tuesday, 2000 yards in the pool and a 30 minute jog. I'm happy to report that I jogged the entire 30 minutes!
Wednesday, 1:10 on the bike, with some longer power intervals. Note to self, turn the AC on in the house when doing this workout. I got very hot. I also did a brief core and strength workout.

Thanks for reading! Have a good one!

Windy!

The first day of group training went great. We had a small turnout, as some opted to run 2 back to back half-marathons and do St. Louis last weekend and Nashville this weekend.

I rode 20 miles with the group in Columbia, IL. The wind was horrible on the way out. We struggled to average 12 mph. With the wind to our backs, we were able to average 22 mph easily on the way back. After the group ride was over, I faced the wind again and rode another 20 miles by myself. I had a great ride, and it was nice to get outside after riding two weeks in a row on my indoor trainer!

Running again

Today, I got in 2000 yards in the pool. My workout was a pyramid. Managed to get it done in about 20 minutes, because the pool was closing. Then I headed to the track for a 10 minute jog and 20 minutes on the elliptical. This was my first run of any kind in about a month!

Group Training Starts Saturday

Henry slept till 10:30 this morning which he has not done in a really long time. I took advantage of the morning to get caught up on some things. One thing I did was to write some of my workouts for my coaching company's group training which starts this Saturday. I'm really looking forward to working with the group. I think we have a great group with a lot of enthusiastic people. It should be really fun!

I did 40X50 today at the pool and then did another 500 yards for total of 2500. I'm still trying to understand the point of swimming so many 25s and 50s, but the workout wasn't as boring as I'd thought it would be.

Smoothing out my pedal stroke

Today's workout was 75 minutes on my indoor trainer. I watched this week's episode of the Biggest Loser and the time went by fast. I can tell that my pedal stroke has improved greatly in just a week. I was pretty rusty when I started last week. Looking forward to getting out on the road with my bike this weekend!

I finally know what's wrong with my knee

After about 5 weeks, including 3 trips to the orthopedic, 1 MRI, and 12 sessions of physical therapy, I finally know what is wrong with my knee.

Just to bring everyone up to speed, I started having pain in my knee about 5-6 weeks ago. I didn't think much of it at first, but it gradually got to the point where it was difficult to walk, so I decided to go to the doctor. I got an MRI which showed a few minor things, but nothing that was causing the pain I was feeling, so he sent me off to physical therapy. PT seemed to help, but I was still having some pain. I went pack to the doctor today, and now know that my pain is caused from some roughness on the back of my patella. The doctor told me I should keep doing my physical therapy exercises on my own and that I could return to all of my normal activities. I asked him if that included running, and he said, "if that's what you really want to do." He said that if I did start running, he'd most likely see me back in his office with knee pain again in a couple of months. The next step if the knee pain gets too bad is to have the rough part scraped off the back of my patella, which unfortunately involves surgery. Bottom line . . . I have to keep my knee happy, otherwise I'll have to have surgery, which will mean no Ironman this year.

Yesterday's workout was about 50 minutues on the bike (20 minute warm-up, 10X1 minute power intervals, and 10 minute cool-down).

Today's workout was 2100 yards in the pool. Mostly 25s, which I think is rather strange for someone training for the Ironman distance, but I'm sticking to the plan for the most part.

My first WALKING half-marathon

Today was the Go! St. Louis Marathon and Half-Marathon. I walked the half-marathon with my husband, Aron. If you've been following my blog, you probably know that I was planning on running the full marathon, but was not able to due to a knee injury.

First of all the weather in STL was horrible today. It rained for a good part of the race and there were lots of puddles on the course. Congratulations to everyone who completed the race in less than ideal weather!

Being at the race today was a little hard for me. It was tough to see all of the runners, knowing that I couldn't run. However, I'm glad I still participated, and Aron and I had a good time. We finished in 3:05:17. Yes, somehow, both of us managed to get the exact same time.

I saw a few of my clients at the race. I yelled for you, but no one looked my way. I know some of you had headphones on during the race, but I won't name any names.

In addition to walking 13.1 miles today, I also road for 2 hours on my indoor bike trainer. I was hoping to get out on the road today, but the weather kept me inside.

Here are my totals for my first week of Ironman training: Swimming: 3300 yards, Biking: 4 hours, Walking/Elliptical: 4 hours, Strength Training: 2 sessions

One week down, 19 more to go!

Missed today's workout

I was suppose to do a 2 hour bike today. Didn't get it in for various reasons. I'm planning on doing it tomorrow instead. It's bedtime. I'll be getting up at 5 AM tomorrow to head down to Go! St. Louis. Good luck to everyone participating!

One of my few rest days

Today was a rest day. There aren't too many in the program I'm following, but it was nice to have a day off.

Went to the Chaifetz Arena today to pick up my packet for the Go! St. Louis half-marathon. Since I hurt my knee and won't be able to run the full marathon, I decided to give walking the half-marathon a try. I don't think I've ever walked more then 5-6 miles at one time. The race is Sunday, I'll let you know how it goes!

First 2 workout day

Today was my first 2 workout day. I did a 2000 yard swim (30X50 and a 500 cool-down). My second workout was suppose to be a 30 minute run, but I did 30 minutes on the elliptical instead, as I'm still not suppose to run. My knee is a little sore, but I won't say it is painful. I go back to the doctor next week. I hope I get the okay to start running again soon.

Mental Focus

Yesterday, I did 1300 yards in the pool. A very short workout, but I know I will come to appreciate these types of workouts over the next few months.

Today, I was back on my trainer for another hour of spinning. My mental focus was much better then it was on Monday, which made the hour pass quickly. I use to struggle to maintain my concentration on the bike. Last year, I finally feel like I had a breakthrough and was much more focused on the bike. I hope I continue with last year's trend and improve my ability to tune out outside distractions even more.

Although the ability to tune out distractions isn't going to lead to a successful race on it's own, a lack of focus on the task at hand can definitely result in disaster on the race course. I've found that practicing my concentration during my training sessions results in improved concentration on race day and more effective workouts.

Ironman Louisville Training Begins

It's been awhile since my last blog. I hope to get everyone caught up on what I've been up to over the last few weeks during my next few blogs. However, as it's getting late tonight and sleep is an important part of training, my blog today will be short.

Today was the official start of my 20 week Ironman Louisville training plan. I did a one hour bike on my trainer. I felt great physically, but had some trouble maintaining my mental concentration.

One day down, a lot more to come!

Detour from nutrition to talk about dealing with injuries

I ran today for the first time in over a week! I ran 2 miles. Not very much, but at least I was doing something.

I got the results from my MRI back. I have several things going on in my knee. I have a sprained ACL, petella tendonitis, and a problem with my meniscus, which I don't fully understand yet. I'll be starting physical therapy next week, and have to go back to the doctor on Tuesday to hear what he thinks about me starting to run again. Right now, I was told not to do more than a jog around the block.

I talked to Ben, local running store owner and best runner I know, about his thoughts on me running the marathon in April considering my injury. He advised that he didn't think I should run the marathon. He said possibly I could do the half-marathon. During our conversation, Ben asked if I had been doing any cross-training since I haven't been able to run. My answer was "no." I've been having a hard time focusing and getting motivated with my training, as I've had a lot of other things going on lately and have been frustrated with my injury. Cross-training has been very low on the priority list. As a coach and an athlete, I immediately thought to myself how horrible it was that I have not tried to maintain some of my fitness since I got injured.

I think today may have provided me with the motivation that I've been lacking to continue plugging away at my training. Although the marathon may be out of the picture, I still have a bigger goal ahead for this year, and have decided it's time to look at the big picture and get myself back on track.

It's funny how it would be easy to help one of my clients refocus and continue on with their training, but when it's myself who is injured, I did exactly what I would tell everyone they shouldn't do, I basically gave up.

So if you're out there struggling with some portion of your training or perhaps and injury like I am, I would encourage you to examine your goals, refocus, and get back to work! That is what I hope to do tomorrow.

Race Day Nutrition Part One

Went to the doctor about my knee today. Going for an MRI tomorrow. Hopefully, the MRI won't find anything, and I'll be running again tomorrow.

My first piece of advice regarding race day nutrition is not to try anything new on race day. Often, race day swag bags will contain a sample energy gel or other nutrition product. Save it for after the race. Only use nutritional items on race day that you have practiced with and had success with during your training.

Patience

I did not run yesterday or today. My knee is still hurting. It now hurts when I walk. Going to the doctor on Wednesday. I've now had four days in a row off. It is really hard not to run knowing that I'm missing so much training 5 weeks out from the marathon. I don't want to risk hurting my knee for the entire season though, so I'm going to be patient until Wednesday.

No Pain, No Gain

I went to the Maplewood ride this morning. I was the only one that showed up. Probably a combination of the 30 degree temperature and the Parade Run. I wasn't too upset about it though, because my knee hurt so bad this morning that it was painful to walk. I did not ride. I did not run. I tried to stay off my feet most of the day.

I don't think I'll be running tomorrow either, as my knee seems to be getting worse instead of better. This is very discouraging, but all I can do is hope that with a few rest days, I'll be back running early next week.

R.I.C.E.

I had an easy 20 minute jog today. My knee is still bothering me. I'm hoping is starts feeling better soon. I'll have to admit that I haven't been taking the time to ice it. Going to start tonight!

I don't have any authority to speak on this topic, but often clients ask me what they should do when they experience a minor ache or pain. The best way to treat acute injuries experienced during the course of training is the R.I.C.E. (Rest, Ice, Compress, and Elevate) method. If the injury is so painful that it's causing you to limp or that it hurts all the time, it is best to take a couple of days off. For more chronic conditions heat can be helpful, but should not be applied right after a workout. If things don't start feeling better after a few days off, it's probably time to consider going to see a doctor.

Tomorrow, I'll be heading out on my bike for the first time in a long time for a short easy ride with the Maplewood Multisport Club. I'm very behind on my cycling training.

Shouldn't I be training?

Do you ever feel like you should be training on rest days? It's very normal to feel like this, but rest days or easy recovery days are very important to any training plan. I had another day off today during this low mileage week of my marathon training. I really felt like I should have done a run, but I stuck to my training plan. I have to have faith in the plan!

I had a great session at the pool with Lisa and Alan tonight. As I told them, they are starting to look like swimmers! It's so much fun to watch my clients improve. I'm starting to get really excited about group training which will be starting next month. I have the group training schedule put together. It should be up on my website shortly. The first training group will be for the St. Peter's Rec Plex Triathlon and will start on April 25th.

I also had a lot of fun watching Henry in the pool tonight. He had a great time playing with daddy and trying to swim "laps" I'm looking forward to spending a lot of time with him at the pool this summer.

Plan it and log it

I haven't gotten to blog for a few days, because I've been trying to get ready to move. Monday, I had a day off. Yesterday, I did 4 miles on the treadmill, and today, I did another 4 miles on the treadmill. I have a very light week with my training this week, which is good, because my knee is bothering me a little. Also good, because I am starting to feel the time crunch to get ready for our upcoming move on March 27th.

As a coach, one of my duties is creating training plans for my clients. I know a lot of people out there train without a coach (myself being one of them). I have two big pieces of advice for my fellow self-coached athletes out there. First, have a plan and second, log your workouts.

Any plan is better then no plan! Training without having a plan is one of the biggest errors a person can make when training for endurance sports. If you don't feel comfortable designing your own plan. There are a lot of great training plans for all disciplines available online. For beginner triatheletes, beginnertriathelete.com has some great free plans available. Also, don't be afraid to ask your more experienced friends for help when designing your plan. They may also be able to give you some of their old plans to follow.

Log your workouts! This can be done on a fancy online training log, in a spreadsheet, or simply in a notebook, but the bottom line is that you need to keep a log of what you've done. This is important, because it will allow you to go back and see the things in your training that helped to make you better and the things that might have made you slower, caused an injury, or resulted in over training. Also, it's fun to see how many miles you logged during the course of your training segment. I use Training Peaks with all of my clients. They have a nice version of their program that is available to anyone for free. Beginnertriathlete.com also offers a free online log. In additional to logging your workouts, it's also a good idea to log which running shoes you wore for your workout (they typically last 300-500 miles) and which tires you had on your bike (they typically last 1500-2000 miles).

Have fun planning and logging!

Twister!

Well, not really a twister, but I got a call from my husband today while I was running saying that hail and tornadoes were headed my way. I wondered if I should continue my run or pack it in next time I ran by my car. I was running with the Big River Training Team, and the folks I was running with urged me to keep going, so I did. Turns out we just got sprinkled on a little bit, but husband's phone call sparked interesting conversation about tornadoes and bad weather for the rest of the run. I told my exciting story of being in a tornado when I was in college at Mizzou. I won't go into it here today, but maybe some other time.

Today, I had an 18 mile run with my last 4 miles at marathon pace. We pushed the first 14 a little faster then I would have liked averaging 9:45. I was concerned that this would make it difficult for me to hit race pace on the last 4 miles, but I ended up averaging 8:19 for the last 4, so that made me pretty happy.

Yes, swimming workouts are long compared to your race distance

I had an easy 6 miles on my schedule for today. Didn't get it in.

I gave a swim lesson to a new client tonight and also discussed this at my intro to tri clinic last week . . . your swimming workouts should generally be quite a bit longer then your race distance. This is one aspect that swimming training differs quite a bit from cycling and running training. For example if you are a beginner triathlete training for an Olympic distance triathlon, which includes a 1500 meter swim, in my opinion, you should consistently be swimming more than 2000 yards/meters during your swim workouts. On the other hand, your run workouts for the 6.2 mile run segment of the race would most likely consist of a lot of 6 mile and under runs and the occasional longer run over 6 miles.

More of the same

Yesterday, I did an easy 4 miles. Today, I did 10X1 minute hard. This workout was much easier then when I did it earlier this week. Felt good and very light on my feet tonight.

Looking forward to getting back in the pool tomorrow!

Spring is getting close!

This morning I ran 10X1 minute hard with 1 minute jog between intervals. This afternoon, I ran 8 miles easy on my treadmill. When the weather starts getting nice like it was today, that's when running on the treadmill starts to get hard for me. I hope to get outside the next couple of days for my runs to enjoy the nice weather. Total mileage for today was 12.

Thanks for a great clinic last night!

I want to thank everyone who attended my "Intro to Triathlon" clinic last night at Big River. I know we went over a lot of information last night. I hope to work on condesing this information for my next clinic of this sort. If you were at the clinic, please don't hesitate to email me with your questions

Yesterday was a day off from training for me. Today was a 4 mile threshold run. Today's run was tough. I had trouble getting into the groove. I think I was still tired from Sunday's marathon pace run.

My totals from last week were: Swim: 0 yards, Bike: 0 Miles, Run 33 Miles. Not happy with my mileage for last week. I missed one run workout, and with the house selling and buying chaos, just didn't have time to get on the bike.

First Marathon Pace Run

I did my first marathon pace run today. 10 miles in Forest Park. I ran 8:13 pace, which was a little fast, but I felt good. Next marathon pace run, I hope to hit my pace right on.

We sold our house last week and bought a new one too! We're moving on March 27th, so if I miss a few days of blogging over the next month, I'm probably busy packing and getting ready to move. Fitting my training in around moving will be challenging, but I hope I can do it!

Some is better than none

I got in 3 miles yesterday and 6 miles today. Not a lot, but some is better than none. It will be interesting to see how my 10 mile marathon pace run goes tomorrow.

Yasso 800s

I didn't get my two workouts in today as planned, but I managed to get yesterday's workout in today. Total 7 miles. I did 8 Yasso 800s. What are these? Basically, you take you goal marathon time, mine being 3:40 and try to run that for each 800. My 3 hour and 40 minute marathon time converts to a 3 minute and 40 second 800. Here's a little article from Runner's World about this magical 800s. Enjoy!

No workouts today

It's 10:43. Henry is still up. We've had a very busy day. Looks like tomorrow will be a 2 workout day.

Getting Stronger

A 6-8 mile run at an easy pace was on the schedule for today. I did 8 at 9:30 pace. I can tell I'm getting stronger.

Intro to Triathlon Clinic

I'll be giving an Intro to Triathlon Clinic at Big River's South City store on Monday, March 2nd at 6:30 PM. Please click here for the details. The clinic is free and is open to anyone.

Today was a rest day for me. Back to the grind tomorrow!

Very Tired

I just have a short post tonight, because I'm very tired. Today has been a mentally draining day, as we got our first offer on your house, and we have till 10 AM tomorrow to counter. It's 11:30 PM, and we still don't know what we're going to do. For those of you that don't know, our house has been on the market since October, so getting an offer is very exciting.

I did a 16 mile long run this morning with the Big River Training Team. Most of the team ran down to the Arch, but I elected to stay in Forest Park with a few of the team members, so I'd be close to my car in case I ran into trouble with my eyes. No problems with the run or the eyes. Ran a 9:40 pace and kept my heart rate below 153. Great run!

No swimming and no biking this week. 46 miles of running

Hoping to get to bed soon!

I can see!

I made it through my LASIK procedure with out any problems. I was at the doctor's office this morning, and I'm excited to say that I saw 20/25 in my left eye and 20/30 in my right eye. I've never have had perfect vision, even with contacts or glasses, so these results are great. Especially, because my vision will continue to improve as my eyes heal. I should be at least 20/25 in both eyes and maybe even 20/20, which would be something I've never experienced before.

The procedure itself was very short. I was in the surgery suite for less than 15 minutes. It was not painful at all, but was very scary. Right after I laid down on the surgery table, I almost got up and said "Forget it, I'm too scared. I don't want to do it." But before I had time to say anything, they had all of the equipment over me, so I couldn't sit up and the nurse immediately began cleaning my eyes off. Next came the doctor and the surgery began. The procedure was not painful at all, but was scary. I think I held my breath almost the whole time. The worst part of the whole thing were the metal clamps that they used to hold my eyes open. Before I knew it, everything was over, and I was walking out of the doctor's office in my very stylish clear plastic eye shields with doctor's office sun glasses over the top. They told me the pain and burning in the eyes would pretty bad the first 4-6 hours after the surgery, but before I left the doctor's office, they gave me something to make me sleepy, so I would be able to take a nap. I was tired by the time I got home and by that point, I was so happy to go to sleep, because the burning in my eyes was like nothing I had ever felt before. I laid down in bed, and when I awoke from my nap 2 hours later, the pain was almost completely gone. I sat around bored for the rest of the day wearing my eye shields and my old lady sunglasses, as I was not allowed to read, watch TV, use the computer, or be out in the sun.

Today, I was back to all of my normal activities. There are only three basic rules I have to follow. First, make sure I put all of my drops in my eyes (I basically have to put drops in my eyes every hour that I'm awake until Monday). Second, no sweat in the eyes and no swimming for two weeks. Three, no rubbing, scratching, or touching my eyes for 5 days.

After all of the months of being nervous, I'm so glad I didn't chicken out. It has been great today, being able to see without contacts or glasses for the first time since 2nd grade! I would highly recommend LASIK and for those in STL, Dr. Wexler at TLC was great!

I ran 6 easy miles today on the treadmill. Had to be careful not to break a sweat as to not violate the no sweat in the eye rule. It was wonderful to run and not have my glasses bouncing around on my face.

Bye Bye Glasses

Yesterday's workout was a 6 mile easy run at 9:40 pace. Today's workout was a 6 miles progression run. Both workouts went well.

I'm getting my post in early today, because I'm headed out to have LASIK in about a half-hour. I'm nervous about the procedure, but excited to be rid of my glasses. I'll have all the details in my next post!

Just plugging away

Today's workout was 10X20 seconds hard with one minute rest between intervals. I love these workouts, because they go by so fast on the treadmill. Total miles was 4. Hoping to make it to the pool tomorrow morning. We'll see if I get to bed early enough to do it.

The Long Run Continued . . .

I had 6-8 miles on my schedule for today, and I'm happy to say that I got 8 miles in and felt wonderful. I'm beginning to think my goal of 3:40 might be attainable. I also did some push-ups, running drills, and a core workout.

I already talked about my first big pet peeve with the long run and that is that it should be run at a conversation pace. This is generally about 1 minute to 1.5 minutes slower than your marathon pace. Do you always feel totally drained after your long run? Are you having trouble recovering from your long run? Slow it down.

Next, let's take a look at how this "long run" works. Many people freak out when they first start training for a marathon and look at their training plan and say "my longest run is only 20 miles, how can this be when the marathon is 26.2 miles?" It is not necessary to run a 26 or more mile run to train for the marathon, because the idea is that you are doing your long run with cumulative fatigue on your legs. All of those little short runs you do during the week make your legs tired for the long run. I think the best way to explain it is to think of your long run as the last part of your marathon. This brings me to another one of my pet peeves with the long run. I hear a lot of people say, I don't run the day before my long run, because I want my legs to be "fresh." Why would you want your legs to feel fresh for your long run, when it is suppose to be helping you train for the last part of your marathon, when your legs are going to be tired? After all, I don't think most of us are training to do a long run on the weekend, we are training for a marathon or half-marathon. If are legs aren't fatigued going into our long run then we are simply training to run that 16, 18, 20, or however miles we are running for that long run, not the 26.2 miles we'll be running in the marathon. The same thing goes for you cyclists out there you need to ride the day before your long ride and make sure you are getting those shorter rides in during the week. Sound time consuming? I'm not going to lie, it is very time consuming, but the payoff will be big!

Rest, rest, rest

Today was a rest day!

The Long Run (a.k.a. the slow run)

I did a 14 mile long run today at Forest Park with the Big River training team. We ran 8 miles out on the Go! St. Louis course, followed by a 6 mile loop around the park. The weather was absolutely perfect. I also did a short core workout.

Totals for the week: swim 0 yards, bike 0 miles, run 53 miles, 2 core workouts. Not happy with my swim and bike mileage at all, but at least I had a decent week of running.

The long run has 3 main purposes. First, to train your body to use fat more effectively as fuel; second, to get your body use to the constant pounding and to strengthen your legs; and third, to learn how to deal with physical and mental fatigue. So what pace do you need to run at to best achieve these goals? Let's take a look at the second and third goals. In my opinion, pace really doesn't affect these goals at all. However, the first goal mentioned, requires you to run at a certain pace. That pace is often called conversation pace or below lactate threshold. Conversation pace is pretty self-explanatory, it is simply a comfortable pace that you can carry on a conversation at. Below lactate threshold is a bit more scientific and involves the use of a heart rate monitor. I don't think that one method is better than the other. In fact, I tend to see more people running their correct long run pace without a HR monitor than with a HR monitor.

I absolutely love the McMillan Running website. They have a great tool called the running calculator. Check it out. I'll continue talking about this more tomorrow, as it's time for bed!

What is the long run?

I did a 6 mile easy run at 9:50 pace today. I felt great. I'm looking forward to my long run out on the road tomorrow. I'm glad I don't have to do another long run on the treadmill this week.

Some of you just getting into triathlon and/or running maybe asking what exactly is a long run? The long run is the most important run of the week. If you have to miss a scheduled workout during the week, it should not be your long run. This is kind of a catch-22 though, because no one should attempt to do a long run without building their base, which is done by doing shorter runs. Therefore, all of your workouts are really important, and I would not be a good coach if I didn't emphasize that.

Cyclists should listen-up to this discussion too, because every cyclist should also be doing a long ride every week. For the purpose of this discussion, I will call it a long run, but everything I'm going to say holds true for a long ride as well.

First, let me address my biggest problem with most people's long runs. Almost everyone does their long run TOO FAST! How fast should you go? Check back tomorrow to find out.

Feeling Speedy in my Speedstars

I think that a key to successful Ironman training for me is going to be getting into a training schedule and sticking to it. I was happy that I was able to get my run in early today. I'm going to have to get used to these early workout soon, as it's going to be important to get that early workout in when I have to workouts a day on a regular basis.

I did a progression run today. 20 minutes easy, 20 minutes medium pace, and 20 minutes just over marathon pace. Total distance with a warm-up and cool-down was 10 miles. I wore my new Asics Speedstar 3 shoes. They definitely made me feel speedy. They had just the right amount of cushioning without being too spongy. I think these will be great speedwork and racing shoes for me, as a racing flat just doesn't give me quite enough cushioning. They made my feet feel light and fast. When I first put them on, I felt like the tongue was rubbing the inside of my foot, but after a couple of miles, this seemed to go away and wasn't a problem. After a 10 miler, these shoes seem like a good choice. Can't wait to try them on a longer run. Above is a pic of my pretty new speedy shoes. I don't think the other pair of shoes in the picture needs an explanation.

Why is goal setting so hard?

Didn't blog or run yesterday, because it was my son's birthday! I'm the mom of a 3 year-old now. Spent much of today getting ready for the big Thomas the Train birthday party he is having this weekend.

I did manage to squeeze my run in today. I did 7 miles at marathon pace (8:24). It was a good run. I'm a little unsure if 3:40 is a realistic marathon time for me, but after having dinner with a friend tonight, I think I'm going to go for it and see what happens. My friend ran 3:45 at his first marathon several years and ran a 3:10 and qualified for Boston this year at Chicago 2008. I ran 4:00 at my first marathon last year, so he thinks it is possible for someone to drop 20 minutes off of their time, based on his own experience of dropping 35 minutes off of his own time. The only problem is that he consistently runs over 60 miles per week, and I don't run anywhere near that much.

I get nervous about setting a goal. What happens if it's too easy of a goal, and I get to mile 20 and am feeling great. Yes, that is a wonderful thing, but could I have gone out faster and held a faster pace for the entire race? What happens if the goal is too challenging, and I'm forced to slow down or, worse yet, am not able to finish the race.

I've also talked to Ben at Big River about my whole goal setting delema. Now, you have to know Ben, and know that he would never tell anyone that their goal is unrealistic, so of course, he tells me that I can do it, but then he writes on my training plan that my goal is "ambitious." Is that a nice way of saying it might be a little too fast for me?

I'm pretty confident I'm in the 3:40-3:50 range for a goal, but just where in that range I am, I don't know. I guess I'll just have to see where my training takes me. Nine more weeks of training to go!

A Day Off

I ran 8 days in a row, so I feel that my day off today was well deserved! Complete rest days or days of easy training with the purpose of recovery are essential in any training program, as the adaptations in your body that make you faster, stronger, and able to run longer actually occur. I would have liked to have run today, but I know I'll be better prepared for my race if I stick to my plan!

My longest run on the treadmill

I made it. I did a 16 mile run on the treadmill today. It really wasn't too bad. I watched a movie and a TV show. I was also very happy that I was able to keep my heart rate below 153, which is the upper limit of zone 2 for me. I felt good the entire run, which was very exciting after my horrible 13 miler last weekend. After my run, I did a lengthy stretching session, as I feel like I really need to work on my flexibility.

Congrats to the JCC Training Grouup!

Congratulations to Aron, Beth, Laura, and Tara for a great race at the JCC Indoor Triathlon today. It was the first tri for most of these guys, and they all did a great job! Also, Aron and Tara were caught on tape while they were racing and were shown of Fox 2 news, which was really exciting. Everyone came so far during our 8 weeks of training together. I was so impressed with how everyone in the training group did. They all finished the race strong and showed good form on the swim. I had so much fun working with this group and can't wait until the next training group starts.

This was the first indoor triathlon, and I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but it was a great event. It was well organized and all of the athletes and volunteers were very friendly and helpful. I would recommend this race as a great first triathlon race or as a good chance of pace from, the often boring, winter training.

Didn't get my long run in as scheduled today, as I wanted to watch the Grammy's. I did manage to get in 8 miles today. I felt great. I'm going to try to get my long run in tomorrow. I always hate missing it on the weekend, because it's so hard to squeeze it in during the week. One small piece of advice tonight . . . don't miss your weekly long run.

Totals for the week: Swim 0 yards, Bike 0 miles, Run 32.5 miles, 2 core workouts

Although my mileage was low for the week, I'm still happy with it, as I was sick. I'm happy that the only run I missed was today's, but hopefully, that's just going to be a flip-flop of workouts and really won't end up being a missed workout.

Congrats again to everyone who did the JCC Race!

Back on Schedule

Did the workout I had scheduled today. First time in a week that has happened! It was a 6 mile run at an easy pace. Felt good.

Looking forward to the JCC Race tomorrow!

Bike Fit

I the workout I had scheduled for Tuesday today, as I did today's scheduled workout on Tuesday. I did a fartlek workout of 3 minutes hard and 3 minutes easy for 30 minutes. With a warm-up and cool down, I did 5.5 miles. Felt good. I think things are finally back to normal after being sick for 5 days.

As a lot of people are thinking about getting a bike this time of year, I wanted to take a minute to emphasize the importance of getting a good bike fit. What is a bike fit? A bike fit is far more than the old fashion stand over the bike and make sure you have a few inches to spare. Bike fitting is an art and a science and now days, thanks to technology, it's very high tech and even more precise than ever. A lot of people walk into a bike shop know the kind of bike they want to get, but in my opinion a better approach is to get a bike fit and have your fit technician recommend a bike that fits your body that is in your price range. After all, the bike should fit the person. The person can't be made to fit the bike. An added bonus is that usually, the bike fit is deducted from the cost of your bike.

By being placed on the right bike that is set up correctly, it is usually possible to eliminate most discomfort a person has experienced previously on the bike. Also, a proper fitting bike will ensure you are not creating inefficiences from a poor fit. Finally, a great fitting bike will help to reduce the risk of injury.

For more info, I suggest visiting Retul and Serotta Fit.

Bottom line, a bike fit will make you more comfortable on the bike, reduce your risk of injury, make you faster, and it's usually included in the cost of your bike. Why wouldn't you get a bike fit?

Feeling better

Sorry, I didn't get to blog yesterday. I actually just forgot to do it.

I'm still recovering from my cold, so I switched my workouts around a little this week. Yesterday, I did 10 X 1 minute hard with 1 minute rest between intervals on the treadmill. Felt much better then Tuesday, but still just kind of blah. With a warm-up and cool-down the workout totaled 4 miles.

Today, I did 3 miles easy to stretch my legs out. It was suppose to be a rest day, but I wanted to do a little something just to see how I was feeling. Felt okay. I think I'm on the mend. I hope to get back on schedule tomorrow.

The JCC training group had it's last group workout tonight. Everyone in the group has really worked hard and made a lot of progress. I've had a great time helping everyone, and I can't wait to see the group race on Sunday!

Still feeling sick

I had a 6-8 mile easy run scheduled for today. I did 6, as I'm still not feeling 100%.

Planning and Goal Setting Part 3

I am happy that I'm feeling much better today. I do think I'm fighting a cold, and I had been taking Sudefed, which I think had me a little bit dehydrated. I think those two things combined made for a miserable run yesterday. Live and learn! Today was a scheduled day off for me, which was great.

Let's take the goal from yesterday's blog and see how we need to plan our training to accomplish it. The goal was "To swim 1000 yards,in a pool in under 20 minutes by June 2009." First, we need to identify what has kept us from accomplishing this goal in the past. Is it because we don't know how to swim or need to work on our technique, is it because we don't have the endurance we need, is it because our strength is lacking? Let's say the limiter in the past has been our strength. Next, we need design a training plan that specifically targets improving strength, while not neglecting other areas. The key here is not to just focus on improving strength and neglect other areas. See why it's important to identify this early . . . as building strength takes time and needs to be gradually improved as to avoid injury. Next, it would be time to design the actual training plan that is going to help us accomplish our goal. As that's a completely different topic, I'll talk about that some other time.

Planning and Goal Setting Part 2

My scheduled workout for today was a 12-14 miles long run. I felt great when I started this run this morning. Around mile 8, I started not feeling very well. My body felt achy all over. I slowed down for mile 8, thinking I maybe should just slow my pace down a little bit. It didn't work. I started feeling worse. At mile 13, I decided it was time to stop. I've been fighting a cold, and I really think that's what made me feel so bad. I had never felt so bad after a run. After about an hour, I started feeling better.

Next, it was off to the gym to do a brick on the exercise bike and treadmill with Tara. I decided it was best to take it easy, so I just pedaled easy on the bike and walked on the treadmill while Tara did her workout. Got 12 miles in on the exercise bike and a little bit of walking.

Totals for the week: Swimming 0 yards, Biking, 12 miles, Running 38 miles, 1 core workout

Goal Setting - Many people have probably heard that your goals should be "SMART," which stands for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. I think these are good rules to follow when you're setting your multisport goals. Setting goals is very important, as your training plan can then be designed to help you attain these goals. Additionally, goals help you to stay focused in your training, stay motivated, and make you feel a sense of accomplishment when you achieve them. It's important to note, that your goals don't necessarily have to be based around a race. For example, it would be possible to have a goal that says: "To swim 1000 yards,in a pool in under 20 minutes without by June 2009." The number of goals you have is up to you, but I would recommend keeping it to a reasonable number of challenging yet attainable goals. If you achieve all of you goals for a year early in the season, you can always set more. Tomorrow, we'll look at how to integrate your goals into your training plan.

Planning and Goal Setting Part 1

My scheduled workout for today was a 6 mile easy run. I completed it on the treadmill with no problems and felt pretty good. I'm not looking forward to my 14 mile long run in the slush tomorrow. I wish I had some waterproof running shoes!

I'm also happy to say that I've finally gotten my website up. It's not done yet, and I still have some formatting issues to resolve, but I'm pretty happy with how's coming together. You can check it out at Custom Coaching.

Starting my own business has been a fun and educational experience. I'm learning to do a lot of things I didn't know how to do before like blogging! My next endeavor will be designing a business card.

Now onto our training discussion for today. Planning and goal setting are, in my opinion, one of the most important parts of training. Every year, I like to start my season by selecting the events I want to participate in. The way I typically go about this is to first select one or two races that will be my "big" races for the year. These will be races that I want to peak for, or in other words will be the key races in which my training plan will be built around and that I want to be in tip top shape for. Triatheletes like to call these their "A" races. So for this year, I have selected two races as my "A" races, the Go! St. Louis Marathon and Ironman Louisville. For me all of my training will be centered around preparing for these two races. It doesn't necessarily have to work like that, but that is how I've chosen to plan my year this year. Next, I decided it might be a good idea to do a half-ironman race as part of my Ironman training, so I selected a half-iron distance race that fits into my training plan nicely, meaning that it would provide me with the right amount of mileage for that particular weekend. I won't peak for this race, instead it will be more like a nice long workout that I can use as a measure of my fitness at that point.

After selecting your races for the year, I would next move toward setting your goals. More on this tomorrow!

A great night

Today's (I guess it was actually yesterday's workout) scheduled workout was a run, 10X20sec. hard at one minute rest. Felt great. Did a 10 minute warm-up and 10 minute cool-down for 3.5 miles. Also did a core workout. Finally, got to spend a lot of time with my husband and son tonight, which made it a great night.

Tomorrow's topic will be planning and goal setting.

Awesome swimming today!

Today was a scheduled day off for me, and I took full advantage of it.

I had a swim practice in the morning and the evening with the JCC training group today. I was excited both times when I left the pool, because everyone's swimming has improved so much in the last 7 weeks. I have no doubts that everyone will be ready for the race next weekend!

For me there is nothing better as a coach than seeing my athletes improve. After working with everyone over the last seven weeks, I think we're starting to establish what everyone needs to work on going forward. Now, the real fun in coaching begins. That is, how to we fix the problems? It's easy to say "Beth, you need to finish your stroke all the way" or "Aron, you need to relax" . . . but how do we actually change these things in our swimming stroke. After tonight's workout, I did a lot of thinking on the way home and started coming up with some solutions to some of these problems. I'm really looking forward to working though some of these things as we progress throughout the season.

Thanks everyone for a great workout today!

Running on the treadmill

Today's workout for me was a progression run (20 minutes easy, 20 minutes medium, 20 minutes hard). The hard pace was just slightly faster than marathon pace. Completed on the treadmill with a cool-down for a total of 7.5 miles. I was nervous going into this run, as the thought of running sub-marathon pace (8:24) after running 4 miles this early in my training was a little scary. I made it through no problems and the workout ended up being easier than I thought it was going to be.

Yes, everyone . . . I do run on the treadmill a lot. No need to feel sorry for me. It's the only way I can get my runs in during the winter, and so I really don't mind it. I actually think it is good, because it forces me to keep my pace. I've been told I'm excellent at keeping an even pace (thanks Jen, Chris, and Ben), and I really think it's because I run on the treadmill so much. It also helps to build mental toughness, which we all know we need for the marathon. Last year while training for my first marathon, I logged 30-40 miles a week on the treadmill.

If you do find running on a treadmill boring and are forced to do it for whatever reason, try doing speedwork. It makes the time go by faster and forces you to hit your splits.

Day 3 of Marathon Training

Today's workout for me was an 8 mile run at an easy pace. I did the 8 at 9:37 pace on the treadmill. Felt good for the whole run! It's going to be a challenge to train for the marathon in April while building my base for the Ironman in September, but my plan is to do my run workouts as scheduled and to get in one swim and one bike per week until after the marathon is over. The bike and swim workouts will be focusing on building endurance and working on technique. Hopefully, that will be enough. We'll see!

Let is snow

I'm happy to say that I'm following a training plan now and am out of my random training mode. Today was a scheduled day off for me.

It's snowing here in St. Louis! Could possibly be our first decent snow this year, so I thought I'd provide a everyone for a few cold and snowy weather training tips.

1. If it is icy out, do not train outside.
2. When dressing to run outside in the cold weather, dress like it is 20 degrees warmer then it really is.
3. Don't overdue your layers when dressing to training outside. A base layer, a mid layer, and an outer layer if necessary is really all you'll need.
4. When dressing to bike outside in the cold weather, dress warmer then you think you'll need to dress. A layer that blocks the wind is a necessity.
5. Wear a hat when biking or running.
6. Mittens work best to keep your hands warm.
7. Make sure you drink fluids even though it's cold and you may not sweat much.
8. Take an extra dry warm jacket with you to put on for the car ride home.
9. Don't attempt any hard interval work, as the cold weather can make it difficult to get your legs warmed up.
10. Take a warm shower and stretch after your workout.

Big River Training Team Begins

Today was the first workout for the Big River Marathon and Half-Marathon Training Team. I'm happy to be back helping out with this group. I've learned so much about training for the run from Ben, the runners in the group, and the other coaches. I had a great time meeting everyone in the group today and am really looking forward to running with the team every week.

I also got my marathon training plan today. It look pretty challenging, but I'm going to give it my all! Today's run was an easy 6 miles, which was really relaxing after yesterday's freezing 13 miles.

As I mentioned in my first post, I wasn't planning on getting my business started quite as quickly as I did. I wish I would have had more of the infrastructure in place before before I really started taking on clients. However, things now seem to be falling into place.

My husband spent the day making bike stands, so my clients will be able to practice realistic transitions. It took a little figuring out on his part, so that the stands will work for both mountain bikes and road bikes, but I think he has it worked out. My dad also got involved in this project. Both my dad and my husband are engineers, so I just asked that the racks not be too complicated for me to put together, because from the way they were talking about building them, you'd think they were designing an award winning civil engineering project! I have complete faith that the racks will be wonderful.

That's it for tonight. Thanks for reading!

Brrr . . .

It was very cold this morning for the Frostbite Series in Forest Park. I never warmed-up during the half-marathon run. Although I just like to use these runs as training runs, I was happy with my time of 1:50, considering the cold weather and that I have not been running very much lately.

I was also happy to hear that Tara had a great PDR run with her Fleet Feet training group today! Also, kudos to Beth for being out there in the cold today!

I also did a core workout today! Which I hope to start doing 3 times a week until Ironman Louisville.

I've been busy working on the Custom Coaching website, planning upcoming training groups, and formulating some more ideas for my coaching business. I should have a lot of exciting things to talk about over the next few weeks, so please stay tuned!

Functional Strength Training

Zero workouts for me today.

The primary goal of any strength training program for an endurance athlete should be injury reduction. Notice, I did not say injury prevention. Again, just to recap yesterday's blog, if you are using strength training as a part of injury rehabilitation, make sure you are following a program prescribed by your doctor or PT.

What is functional strength training? Functional strength training works to enhance the coordinated working relationship between the nervous and muscular systems. Obviously, having a good working relationship between our nervous and muscular systems will help us to perform our sport of choice better. But how will this help to reduce injuries? There should be five key aspects of every strength training program: 1. develop joint flexibility, 2. develop tendon strength, 3. develop core strength, 4. develop stabilizing muscles, 5. train movements not muscles. It just so happens that functional strength training is the best way to cover these five items. As we look at the five aspects of strength training, we notice that they all also seem to relate to injury reduction. Especially key to injury reduction is developing stabilizing muscles. Functional strength training is a great way to do this.

When designing a functional strength training program, you want to make sure you include controlled amounts of instability so that you must react in order to regain your stability. For example, one great functional stability exercise is the one legged squat. You'll have to concentrate on maintaining your balance while you do this exercise. See the nervous system and muscular system working together? No weights required for this type of training, which also makes it easy to do at home. The next progression on this exercise would be to perform a one legged squat on an Airex mat then on a Bosu ball after that. Now when doing functional strength exercises it is Key to note that we are training the movement, not the muscles! Therefore, we won't necessarily do repetitions of these exercises, but will do them until we achieve "functional mastery." What does that mean? It means that you do it until you can do it perfectly. If you can't get it perfect during one session, then you pick up at that same point during the next session. Taking our one legged squat as an example, you would continue to do the one legged squat on the ground until you could get it perfect, meaning no wobbling, falling over, etc. Once you achieve functional mastery, then you would progress to the one legged squat on the Airex mat and do that until you achieve functional mastery.

Bottom line - If you're looking to incorporate some strength training into your training plan, functional strength training gives you the most bang for your buck!

Cross Training

Today, I did a 2700 yard swim workout. I wanted to get a run in too, but got home from the pool too late. I'm really happy with how my swimming has been going. I've been getting in 2 swims a week for the past couple of weeks, which is really good for me at this point in the season.

Now, on to cross training and injury prevention. First of all, I'd like to make a distinction between cross training and weight training. To me, cross training means doing an activity outside of the sport you normally train for. Weight training is a type of cross training for anyone who is not a weight lifter. Cross training does not necessarily mean weight training.

Next, if you have an injury that prevents you from training for a couple of weeks, I would advise you to go to the doctor. Hopefully, he can provide you with some exercises or stretching to do that will improve your condition or help to prevent the injury from happening again.

The best type of cross-training in my opinion are core exercises. Having a strong core does wonders to prevent a lot of different types of injuries. I have all of my athletes do core exercises, whether they've ever been injured or not. I would start by doing them 2X times a week and gradually build up to doing them everyday if you have time. Remember, don't do the same exercises everyday, week after week after week. You need continually mix it up.

Now obviously core exercises won't prevent all injuries, so what about preventing other injuries? To my knowledge the latest rage for this sort of training are functional strength exercises. I will blog about these tomorrow, as it's too much to get into tonight.

Next, let's move on to the situation where you're injured and you need to use cross training to maintain fitness, because you can't participate in your usual sport. Well, if you participate in running, cycling, or swimming, you know that the bulk of your training is to build, improve, and maintain endurance. So you'll want to choose cross training activities that do the same. (I would again caution you to have your doctor help you with this, as some types of cross training might do more harm than good for your injury.) So, let's say you have a running injury and are unable to run, but you get the okay to use an eliptical machine and exercise bike from your doctor. I would follow much the same plan with those two pieces of equipment as you were planning to do if you were able to run. For example, if you were suppose to do a 5 mile run at an easy pace, I would do an equivalent workout on the bike and or eliptical. So let's say your scheduled run would have taken you 45 minutes, so that might be equivalent to 1.5 hours on the exercise bike in heart rate zones 1 and 2. Aerobically, you would get a similar workout. Now, obviously, the exercise bike is not going to build strength for running, so as Katie hinted, you'll want to do some strength training to maintain and build your strength. Here again, is where I would prescribe functional strength exercises and maybe some weight training of the appropriate muscle groups.

We'll continue this discussion tomorrow!

Not planning should be part of the plan

No training for me today. Just too busy.

Tonight, I went to the St. Louis Triathlon Club meeting. The topic at the meeting was periodization, which basically means organizing your training. Right now, I'm training without any real planning, which is actually part of my plan. I like to have a very unstructured "off-season," to prevent burnout from intense and more structured training during the rest of the year. I think it is important to have this time at some point, weather it's taking a couple of weeks off after a big race, or training without structure during the winter. Your body and your mind will thank you for not planning every once and awhile.

Katie - sorry I got sidetracked on this tonight. I'll be back on your topic of cross training tomorrow.