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.