Time away

So, I will start by apologizing for lack of posts over the last couple of weeks.  I've been away for work and have been living in a hotel, which has been problematic.  Unfortunately, any reports on training or diet would only be negative; so, I'll just leave it at that.  For the last two weeks I've worked everyday for approximately 12 hours a day.  It's been extremely hard to squeeze anything workouts in for several reasons.  First of all, my day is packed with unavoidable deadlines and meetings and secondly, its just hard to get motivated to do anything with a schedule like that. I do have another week and half of hotel life and hope I can get somewhat back on track. 

That being said, I'm not sure how much these last few weeks will throw me off of my race.  I've made some moderate time goals for myself, but at this point I may just have to be satisfied with finishing the race.  We'll see though, all hope isn't lost.  Wish me luck... I'm going to need it.

Week Seventeen Complete

Week seventeen is complete and it wasn’t too bad.  I only missed two workouts, which is good, but unfortunately missed my long ride this past weekend.  Though getting all my workouts in during the week is important, I feel that my long rides and runs (weekend workouts), outweigh my weekday workouts considerably.  Two factors kept me from my ride this weekend. One was the weather and the other, I hate to say, was laziness.  It was raining all morning, so I waited for the weather to pass.  Once it did, I just couldn’t muster up enough energy to do a three plus hour ride.  It was a nice day of doing absolutely nothing, which I don’t see very often.  I guess you need that sometimes; although, I can’t afford too many more.  I have six weeks until Ironman Texas 70.3 and twelve weeks until the full meal deal. Yikes! Storms-a-come’n!!!

For this week’s training it was suppose to be pretty light, with an Olympic distance tri on the weekend.  Well, tri season hasn’t started yet and I felt it would be better to move on to the next week, instead of putting on my own personal Olympic distance event.  Skipping over this week will actually put me back on track anyways.  It seems I miscalculated by a week when I started, which was actually 29 weeks out from the race, instead of 30.  No biggie, but I get to look forward to a four hour ride this Saturday. I think I’ll make it an 80 miler!!!

Monday
Rest Day

Tuesday
S -500m warm up, 8x50m drill, 4 x 200m @ 20sec, 6 x 100m @ 15sec, 8x50m drill, 300m cool down
R - 1:00 Z2 (at 0:10, insert 3 x 6 min Z4 @ 2 min jog)

Wednesday
B - Trans: 0:45 Z2 (QC)
R - 0:30 Z2

Thursday
S - 500m warm up, 8x50m drill, 16x25 @ 10sec, 600 pull, 8x50m drill, 300m cool down
B - 1:15 Z2 (at 0:10, insert 6 x 5 min Z4 @ 3 min spin)

Friday
S - 500m warm up, 8x50m drill, 10x50 @ 15sec, 4 x 100 @ 20sec, 10x50 @ 15sec, 8x50m drill, 300m cool down
R - 1:15 Z2 (at 1:00, insert 10min Z4)

Saturday
B - 3:30 Z2 (QC)
R - 0:30 Z2

Sunday
B - 1:00 Z1 (100+ RPM)
R - 1:15 Z1 to Z2

Total Hrs: 14:00
S: 3:00 2:00
B: 6:30 3:00
R: 4:30 4:00

Tale of the Tape: Week Seventeen

Tuesday Morning Weigh-in

Starting Weight: 208 lbs

Last Week’s Weight: 191.8 lbs

Current Weight: 190.1 lbs

Weekly Difference: -1.7 lbs

Total Lost: 17.9 lbs

Even with a spectacular four-day weekend in Colorado, I still managed to drop another 1.7 lbs.  The biggest factor was a good week leading up to the trip, and not completely over doing it to during my travels.  We did spend Saturday and Sunday carving up the slopes, which was fairly taxing at times and a pretty considerable workout.  I assumed my cycling and running would have helped the legs and calves… nope.  Specificity is a bitch!  Skiing has its own brand of leg torture, but I love it.  So we kept the meals pretty light both days, except for dinner.  We did keep warm with a flask of Gentleman Jack; so, there were some empty calories consumed throughout the day, but what are some calories shared among friends? I’ll tell you what it is... AWESOME!!!  By the way, if you’re not a fan of the bite that usually comes with Old Number 7 Jack Daniels, I recommend going with the Gentleman Jack.  It costs just a little bit more than regular JD, but is totally worth. Very smooth and can be enjoyed on the rocks or neat; or, even better in a cold flask on a ski lift!

Including this week, I have seven weeks until my half Ironman in April.  At my current rate of loss, assuming I can maintain it, I should be able to break the 180 lbs barrier by race time.  Following the half, I’ll have six more weeks of training and potential weight loss before the Ironman in May.  Best case scenario, I’ll break the 170 lbs marker by race day: very doable, realistic, and healthy.  It’s hard to imagine what it’ll be like to have 40 less pounds while riding and running.  I’m sure my knees and back will throw me a party!

Hope everyone has a great week. There is no try…DO!

Week 16 Complete

I just got back from an awesome four day weekend in Colorado. It wasn’t a great week for training due to the weekend travel and the weather again.  Though the temperatures were pretty moderate all week, it rained and thunder stormed Tuesday and Wednesday. That kept me out of the pool except for Thursday and kept off the road and at the gym. 

On the bright side, I spend eight hours skiing on Saturday and six hours on Sunday.  It was a great weekend with some awesome friends. My legs and calves are utterly destroyed, but totally worth it.   Unfortunately, this was the last weekend of fun until my race in May.  I say unfortunately, but it’ll be a good thing when it comes to hitting all of my long weekend runs and rides. 

This week I am really going to focus on hitting every workout.  It has been awhile since I’ve completed all my workouts for the week, but this week it’s happening!  Come hell or high water!

Monday
Rest Day

Tuesday
S -500m warm up, 8x50m drill, 200-300-400-500 @ 45sec, 8x50m drill, 300m cool down
R - 1:00 Z2 (at 0:10, insert 5 x 3 min Z4 @ 1 min jog)

Wednesday
B - Trans: 0:45 Z2 (QC)
R - 0:30 Z2

Thursday
S - 300m warm up, 8x50m drill, 12x100 @20sec, 8x50m drill, 200m cool down
B - 1:00 Z2 (at 0:15, insert 5 x 5 min Z4 @ 3 min spin)

Friday
S - 3,000 straight swim
R - 1:00 Z2 (at 0:45, insert 10min Z4 @ 3 min spin)

Saturday
B - 3:00 Z2 (at 2:50 insert 5 min Z4) (QC)
R - 0:30 Z2

Sunday
B - 0:45 Z1 (100+ RPM)
R - 1:30 Z1 to Z2

Total Hrs: 13:00 4:15
S: 3:00 1:00
B: 5:30 1:45
R: 4:30 1:30

Tale of the Tape: Week Sixteen

Monday Morning Weigh-in

Starting Weight: 208 lbs

Last Week’s Weight: 193.5 lbs

Current Weight: 191.8 lbs

Weekly Difference: -1.7 lbs

Total Lost: 16.2 lbs

So I’m about a week past the half way point and I’m pretty much on glide path for my 178 lbs goal by race day.  Things seemed to be going really well until January.  Once I hit 195lbs, I was there for about four weeks or so.  That really put a damper on my weight loss progress and brought me back to my one pound a week projection.  I guess that’s good in way, but I was hoping for a little bit better results.  The one pound a week was very conservative, but health and realistic.  Below is my progress so far:

 

 

I really feel like I could easily get to a sub 170lbs, which would be awesome for my race.  That’s a realistic goal, but I’ll really need to buckle down.  I figure that’s just a hair less than two pounds a week, for the next 14 weeks.  My biggest challenge will be living in a hotel for three weeks in March and two weeks of April.  I will just need to plan out my meals throughout the week and avoid all the restaurants my work mates will be dining at every night.  Oh yeah, the other challenge, I haven't weighed less than 170lbs in over 17 years.  It'll be a good race weight, but I don't see me sustaining that weight much more after the race and I don't think I'd want to.

I'll really need to keep it clean throughout this week because we're headed to Colorado on Friday.  That'll mean knocking out black diamonds and potentially some really good (meaning really bad) food and spirits in Vail, CO. The upside is that we normally keep breakfast and lunch fairly light and we'll be skiing all day.  The downside, it's easy to have way to much fun at Vail!!!  But I guess that's the point.

Cheers!

Week 15 Complete

This week’s training wasn’t that great.  I did get all my runs in and most of my rides, but didn’t make it to the pool.  Between the weather and work again, it just didn’t happen.  We've got some more crappy weather coming in this week, I'm going to have nut-up and swim anyways. I had a pretty decent long run on Saturday and a good ride on Sunday, at least until it was cut short.

I had some bike issues this week, which affected my weekend rides.  I put on some new carbon wheels (Reynolds), but couldn’t get the wheels to settle in correctly.  I am not bike mechanic by any stretch of the imagination and it really showed this weekend.  Google and Utube are my go to moves, but I couldn’t figure out the issues.  So, I ran on Saturday and moved my bike to Sunday.  This gave me time to switch back to my other wheels.  Unfortunately, Sunday’s ride was cut short due to a flat at the midway point, which sucked because I was feeling really good and was averaging about 20 mph up to that point.  Normally flats are not an issue, but I left my bike leavers, which assist in getting the tire on and off, back at the house.  I’d been messing with my new wheels and forgot to return my leavers back to my bike bag.   That’ll learn me.  I rarely get flats, but you always seem to get them at the worst possible moment.  Mine happened to be halfway through a four hour ride, in a Dollar General parking lot.  I still don’t know what caused the flat, but my lovely wife came and got me.  Thanks again honey.

So… I had a first on this ride.  I actually had someone throw something at me.  As a white pick-up truck screamed by me, one of the passengers threw a plastic cup full of Coke at me.  Luckily it wasn’t too close to me, but it was definitely close enough to not be an accident.  I replied to the gesture with some choice words and some hand gestures of my own.  I’ve had more problems riding in Louisiana than any other state I’ve ever road in… that’s 17 years of riding and about seven different states. So I ask you Louisiana, why are you the biggest bunch of A-holes when it comes to cyclists?  Any Louisiana natives want to defend their red-neck, inbreed brothers?  This is why I hate riding off post.

I’ll be headed to Vail next weekend to hang with some good friends and hit the slopes; so, I’m not sure how I’m going to manage my workouts.  I’m definitely going to focus on the swimming and maybe I’ll be able to get my long ride and run in before I take off.  We’ll have to see.

Monday
Rest Day

Tuesday
S -500m warm up, 8x50m drill, 4x200 @20sec, 6x100 @15sec, 8x50m drill, 300m cool down
R - 1:00 Z2 (at 0:10, insert 2 x 6 min Z4 @ 2 min jog)

Wednesday
B - Trans: 0:45 Z2 (QC)
R - 0:30 Z2

Thursday
S - 500m warm up, 8x50m drill, 16x25 @10sec, 600 pull @ 10sec, 16x25 @10sec, 8x50m drill, 300m cool down
B - 1:00 Z2 (at 0:15, insert 4 x 5 min Z4 @ 3 min spin)

Friday
S - 500m warm up, 8x50m drill, 10x50 @15sec, 4x100 @ 20sec, 10x50 @15sec, 8x50m drill, 300m cool down
R - 1:00 Z2 (at 0:45, insert 7.5 min Z4)

Saturday
B - 4:00 Z2 (at 3:50 insert 5 min Z4) (QC)
R - 1:50 Z2

Sunday
B - 1:45 Z1 (100+ RPM)
R - 1:30 Z1 to Z2

Total Hrs: 14:00 7:50
S: 3:00 0:00
B: 6:30 3:30
R: 4:30 4:20

Tale of the Tape: Week Fifteen

Tuesday Morning Weigh-in

Starting Weight: 208 lbs

Last Week’s Weight: 192 lbs

Current Weight: 193.5 lbs

Weekly Difference: +1.5 lbs

Total Lost: 14.5 lbs

Well I followed a bad week of training with a 1.5 pound increase in weight.  Ugh! Though it wasn’t the best week of food intake, it wasn’t that bad.  I did have some pizza, a hamburger, and a little crappy food at a Super Bowl party, but come on!!!  I still got in seven hours of cardio!  My body hates me. 

The only thing to do this week, is make it a better one.