Just keep swimming... or start anyway.

It was a good weekend, lots of time on the bike and I had a lot of fun with the girls on Saturday with track starting. I help out with the youth track program, we do mostly cross-country running although we will try some of the other stuff like long-jump, relays etc. My brother came and ran with us for a bit although we didn't do as much running as we usually do since it was the first day and we're getting the kids used to the program. My middle girl started this year, and had a really good time! I was very encouraged that she will enjoy the running even if she is a tad young still. It's nice to be able to help a bit in my community and spend some time with my kids as well.

I'm also looking forward to swimming tomorrow. I'm a bit nervous since this will be my first time with a coach and (I'm assuming) a more formal workout. In the past I've just gone and swam for a while. Hopefully I won't embarrass myself too much! I'm really hoping this will help me a lot in the swim, I need to become more efficient so that I'm not totally out of gas when I exit. I haven't had a lot of trouble finishing the swim in the past, but I definitely feel it when I get out. If I can be more efficient I should be able to go harder on the bike and run and thus more swimming should help all three sports.

I'll be sure to post tomorrow on how it goes.

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Master's Swimming

It took awhile, but it looks like the Master's swim thing is getting off the ground in Suffield. Tuesday and Thursday morning at 5 they will be having a one hour swim for 5 bucks with coaching. My other option is M-W-F at 6 at Crystal Lake if I join the Cyclonauts which has the benefit of being a bit later and open water, but no coaching. I think I'm going to do both. Perhaps once a week get some coaching in Suffield, then a few open water swims at the lake. I think that really is the best of both worlds.

Now that vacation is past me and I'm in crunch time my schedule is looking like this for a typical week.

Mon - 1 hour spin class, 20 min run brick, 1 hour Yoga class at work
Tues - Masters swim, 1 hour Yoga class at work
Wed - swim?, Ride bike to work, run mid-length run
Thur - Ride to work, Yoga class at work
Fri - swim at Crystal Lake, run at work
Sat - Long bike, sometime brick run,
Sun - mtb a.m., long run.

This schedule through May and June will give me 3-4 swims, 3-4 runs, and 3-4 bikes per week, plus 3 yoga classes a week. That seems just about perfect for the big push. Over the course of two months I should be able to build my swim to an appropriate level where I can just survive the IM swim, my runs can stay pretty much static or increase a bit and I feel like I will be okay (I need to work up to 2 1/2 hr runs, and I've already done a number of 2 hr plus runs). Long bike is currently at 50-60 miles, and I need to increase that quite a bit but I'm thinking a few times on the way home from work I can go the long way and get some longer rides in. I need to schedule a few 6 hour rides, and that is going to be tough to do with my current schedule.

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Back from Vacation

Had a great time... not much training. The final push starts now, I'll be commuting to work by bike and starting to swim in the lake shortly.

88 days to go!

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100 days... but not a good week.

It's been a unmotivating week, I was hoping to get out on my bike more but the weather has been crappy and I haven't felt like it. In general I'm feeling a bit burned out but I'm hoping my vacation next week will re-energize me.

In other exciting news, 100 days to go! The combination of less motivation and less time is not really a good one, but I'm still in good shape in terms of training. My longs runs are adequate, I just need to work up to a few 6 hr rides and some longer swims and I should be okay. I found a local tri club that does morning open water swims at Crystal Lake in Ellington where I've done my swims on the weekend in past years, so I'm pysched to be able to do that during the week with others. It's not a good idea to do open water swims by yourself.

I'll be in Florida next week, so probably not a lot of posting... lots of swimming, but I'm not sure it will count as training!

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Back on Sunday mornings

Well... we're trying to pretend winter is over, we've started the Sunday morning mountain bike rides at Soapstone again. They got put on hold only when the snow was too deep to really ride easily, and although it's still pretty cold (22 degrees when I left the house yesterday) we got a nice ride in. A nice 2 hour brisk ride helps get the blood pumping and is a great way to start the day.

I do need to stop mentioning anything to Bruce about his propensity to break equipment though. Thirty seconds after my crack about his chain, he snapped it and I had to fix it! At least I'm getting good at repair anyway!

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Weighty question

I got asked an interesting question today by a co-worker, "If running 100 miles doesn't help take off the weight, what will?" So I decided to do a little check on some trends and built this chart based on the data I've collected over the last few years. The chart doesn't start at my highest weight, I wasn't using the spreadsheet at that point, I had dropped close to 35 pounds in the 6 months before this chart starts. Interesting that the rate of loss slowed dramatically since I started tracking, not sure what that means.

What I was trying to determine was if there was a correlation between running and weight loss or total workout time and weight loss. The 3 peaks in running do have a corresponding lowering in weight, but the trend isn't as clear cut as I was hoping. Extra miles on the bike also seem to have an effect, so I suspect it's a clearer relationship between total workout time and weight loss. In any case, interesting data.

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More pics from the Scantic splash....

Not a pretty progression...

Getting colder...

Yeah... I'm wet.

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101 - Monthly Summary

With a bit of stumbling around on Saturday, I did it! Hit 101 miles for the month, just barely on Saturday, and man my legs are sore. I had to run 36 miles in 7 days in order to reach my goal, but it's pretty cool to be able to say it. It was pretty good to have a stretch goal, it really kept me pushing forward to get some more runs in. Here's the numbers:

Swim - 2 hrs - Ouch! I should be able to get into the lake in April, so this will ramp up
Bike - 19 hrs, 332 miles - Respectable for the month
Run - 17 hrs, 101 miles - Woohoo
Other - 9 hrs

Another big month overall, I hit 47 hours total for the month. The push to get runs in really help me get some time in, and as result I seem to have pushed through my plateau of 220 pounds. I'm going to set another stretch goal for this month, focused on the bike but I haven't figured out what it should be yet. I'm going away for a week where I wont' be able to get on the bike, so I can't go too crazy with the mileage, but I'm going to start commuting to work hopefully this week so that will help get in some miles. I should also be able to get off the trainer and get outside, so that should help as well. My biggest bike month so far is 378 miles, so I'm thinking of trying to hit 500. That may not be realistic with a whole week off, but I'm going to try and lay out the month and see.

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I Rocked the Hock!

Yesterday my brother Matt and I did the Hockunum River Race, the third year in a row for me. It was a pretty good time, although the river was much more calm than the Scantic the week before. Essentially that means that we didn't go swimming and actually competed in our class, taking second place. We were rewarded a blue t-shirt for our efforts, it goes nicely with the green one I won 2 years ago. The water was a bit low, and we ran aground in a couple of spots but managed to navigate through the rapids without too much trouble. I jumped out and pushed the canoe over most of the rocks, since you tend to get hung up there anyway which you can see a lot of if you look at the pictures. After that section of rapids, it's pretty twisty and fast at points but you tend to do a lot of paddling. My arms are a bit sore this morning.

My uncle and cousin won thier class as usual, although they were competing against little kids :) Also racing were Greg, a friend of ours who took 3rd in the long kayaks, and my brother-in-law Sean.

Only one picture that I could find.

http://www.shutterfly.com/progal/slideshow.jsp?auto=0&aid=768a5498cf47e634a543&idx=192

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