'ike loa

Today the team road the Great Western Loop.  It is a wonderfully hilly ride that through some very scenic and remote areas of eastern San Diego county and the Cleveland National Forest.  As per our training, this was a long, slower ride at sub-lactate pace as much as possible.

A winter storm had passed through the day before so it was a bit chilly in the morning.  Broke out the arm warmers, jacket, leggings, and full fingered gloves for the cold weather. Nice amount of climbing, about 4200′ over 45.5 miles of distance and some good grades so it was easy to stay warm going up the hills.  Going down, it was quite chilly but very fast and fun!

For much of the ride I was able to keep my HR sub-lactate on average but it did get a little high on some of the steeper climbs.  Felt good when I did the transition run that followed so I worked the ride at just the right intensity.

The team also was fortunate to be joined for the ride by our honored teammate Dave Orlowski!  Dave introduced himself to the team as many of us haven’t met him before. Dave shared his story, including completing the very first Ironman on February 18, 1978!  In January 2010, Dave was diagnosed with Chronic Lymphonic Leukemia.  Though Dave is battling cancer, it hasn’t stopped him from pursuing challenges and he has completed 18 Ironman competitions.  He embodies everything we are doing as a team and individually — raising $500,000 to help find a cure for blood cancers and completing Ironman New Zealand!

Riding with Dave made a great ride an exceptional one!

Now for the general ride profile:

We were fortunate enough to have our swim forms analyzed by Ron ‘Sickie’ Marcikic of UC San Diego Masters Swimming Program.  Sickie filmed each of us underwater from the side and then from the front and then provided value critique of on what is right and what is wrong with our forms.

Based on the feedback, which at times was rather unflattering, I have a lot to work on to become a more efficient swimmer.  More efficient means less work and less energy burned on the swim. It generally means faster as well.  So working on my form is only going to help me during the event.  Previously I just got through the swim with sheer endurance.  That might work out ok for an Olympic or even a half-Ironman distance event, but it won’t cut it for the 2.4 miles of the full Ironman.

I expect to be spending a lot of time in the pool over the next month improving my efficiency.

After the big event at Anthology on Tuesday, it was time to get back to training.  This is a recovery week but the schedule is a bit confused, so I did a 5 mile run followed by a 20 minute spin on the bike.

Per our standard training, runs should be sub-lactate unless we are doing a speed workout. For me sub-lactate is a HR of <150 though we are having another test this weekend to re-adjust our thresholds. The coaches recommend easy zone 1 runs when possible, but I tend to do most of my runs in zone 2.

I have been training with a target pace of 12:30 on this particular out-and-back route which keeps my HR, on average, in the mid-130s.  On this run I pushed a little faster with an average pace of 11:49 which had the expected affect of raising my average HR into the upper 140s (zone 2 and 3) and a max HR of 162 (zone 4).  I could definitely feel the difference post-run to how I felt after other runs.

After the run, I did a twenty minute easy, high-cadence spin on the trainer.  My Garmin was still partially locked onto GPS while I did the spin in my garage so my data, aside from cadence and HR, was kind of useless.

Today was quite a challenging ride with repeats of Mount Soledad as the objective. 3 to 5 repeats in 3 hours. That didn’t sound so bad at first as I had ridden to the summit via Solidad Mountain road many times in the past.

We started up a different route than I was familiar with and it wasn’t until we hit the 12%+ grades when it really sank in.  Wow! This route was tough! Quite a challenge to crank up Caminito Valverde and it felt like climbing up a wall on Via Casa Alta with its 15% grade.  How do they even build roads on these hills?  The down and up Soledad Mountain Road seem much more tame in comparison.

I managed to repeat the route 3 times within the 3 hours.  I think I could have completed another repeat if I was somehow able to avoid Via Casa Alta.  That hill is simply unfair.  A few members of the team rocked it hard and did 4 or 5 repeats.  Maybe next time I can push through it.

The ride profile is quite interesting.  I did hit zone 5 each time I went up Via Casa Alta, but was expected.  I did have good HR recovery on the downhills.

The team is hosting a wonderful charity event at Anthology San Diego benefiting Team In Training and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society this Tuesday, October 25, 2011.  There will be great music from the house band as well as numerous items up for silent auction and door prizes.  Team In Training will also be recognizing Coach Gurujan with a Lifetime Achievement Award for all his years of dedication to the cause.

Alexis DelChiaro, KUSI’s co-host of Good Morning San Diego, will be the emcee for the event!

Please come and join us for this incredible evening!  You can purchase tickets securely online at Anthology.

From my introduction into Triathlon training way back in 2004, my coaches impressed onto me the importance of keeping cycling cadence in the 90-100 range when possible.  They talked about dynamics of cycle stroke and how it compared to the run form and that so on.  I always took it as the right thing to do so I strive to stay in an average cadence of 85 or higher.  It is a comfortable cadence that seems natural to me.

When I was training with a cycle team for a century ride, they stressed that I wanted to keep a lower cadence but more powerful stroke so I would often stay in the 70s.  It never really felt that comfortable and it seemed to make my rides feel more draining overall.

Today Active.com posted an article about why a high-cadence is appropriate, at least for flats and inclines.  A new study suggests that higher cadence has greater efficiency because with a higher speed, but more moderate force stroke, you are engaging slow-twitch muscle fibers, which burn less carbohydrates than the stronger, fast-twitch muscle fibers.

It is a nice validation to what all my triathlon coaches have engrained into me over the years.

Ironman New Zealand training stats from my Garmin 310XT uploaded to connect.garmin.com, June 11, 2011 to October 18, 2011:

Running:

Cycling:

Rode a new route today with a co-worker.  Met up at 6am and did a new loop along Scripps Poway Parkway and Kirkham.  Approximately 3.7 miles for each loop, similar to the large loop at Fiesta with the advantage that this loop has some rolling hills, about ~350′ of climbing for a loop.  Fiesta Island is about as flat is it can be.

It was quite foggy this morning due to a heavy marine layer hanging around.  Enough moisture in the air to soak through all my riding gear and to make everything thoroughly wet.  Soon I will have to use arm-warmers and full finger gloves to stay warm enough.  And this is San Diego.

We had decent pacing overall for the ride, doing 4 laps for 14.6 miles with the last lap averaging almost 16mph.  My HR stayed in zone 1 for most of the ride with a few periods in zone 3.  It was a good way to start the day.

Ride profile:

It was time for the Sunday long run.  We are slowly increasing our distance and time on the run while maintaining sub-lactate threshold (SLT) pace.  For most of the team, 9 miles is doable in 90 minutes.  For me, it is more like 110 minutes as I am currently doing ~12 min/mile pace for my SLT runs.

I decided to stay close to home for this run because I had to go somewhere in the late morning, which meant concrete and asphalt and not the more pleasant trails. And I thought this was also a good time to add my second pair of ASICs to the rotation. Fortunately I didn’t have any issues with the new shoes on the run.

My SLT is at a heart rate of 150, but with this run I managed to stay below 140 for most of the run, aside from the few rolling hills.  My max HR was 146 for this run, and I felt strong for most of the run.  I was tight from the long ride yesterday and it took me more than a mile to get into a rhythm on this run.  The middle six miles or so felt great but when I hit mile 7, I was wishing for the end of the run to come soon.  Mostly it is from boredom and not from being tired.

Run profile: