Saturday, April 28, 2007

Trail runners

I met a few of the trail runners I used to run Sunday's with for a photo shoot. One of our group is a writer (check out his blog and books here) and has an article going into the Seattle Sunday paper soon and needed some photos. It sure was great to see and talk to everyone again. I really miss Johns one liners and Mike edging him on and pretty soon everyone gets into it, what fun.

Friday I took half a day off from work to get in a brick workout as Saturday was Alex's first T-Ball game, Debbies guitar lesson and Jacobs soccer game. I spent Friday afternoon getting wet. I rode my bike to the pool in the rain and I swam 4000 yards in about 1:20 and since it was still raining pretty good my 1 hour bike was very wet too. The rain kept coming down on my run too. There gets to a point where you are so wet you don't even notice the rain too much anymore. Great workout:
Swim 1:20 4000 yards
Bike 1:04 16 miles
Run 0:45 5.6 miles

Monday, April 23, 2007

Going Long(er)

I hit all my key long workouts this past week.

Thursday night I ran for just over 2 hours. Debbie and the kids dropped me off at the trail head to Galbraith Mountain which is about a 20 minute run from the house, but my goal was only 2:15 and this extra 20 minutes was going to put me over (or so I thought). As it turns out, I must of been flying as I made it up to the top and back down in about 1:35 so on the run back to the house I added a detour down to Haggens and then up a little trail that follows Barkley called the Klipsun trail. Great run, beautiful clear blue skies. On top of Galbraith you see far and wide.

Saturday morning I went to the pool to get a long swim in. My goal was the IRONMAN distance (4225 yards) or 1:30 whichever came first. I did my long swim workout which is a ladder, where I swim 100 yards, then pull swim 200, swim 300, pull 400 and keep alternating until the distance is met or time goal. I made the distance under the 1:30 again, but this time I took a little less rest and was swimming a bit faster so only took me 1:25:18 to swim the 4250 (25 extra yards so I didn't have to get out on the wrong side of the pool).

Sunday morning I left the house at 6:15 to meet my friend Pat at about 6:45 in between our houses. We went west into Ferndale and North onto Birch Bay. Riding though BB in the 'off' season is quite nice, not very many people yet and the views are great. The tide was all the way up as we rode all along the waterfront and around the North point into Semiamhoo and past into downtown Blaine. Blaine was very empty at about 8:15 on a Sunday morning, which is one reason we meet so early on Sunday mornings to avoid as much traffic as possible. We rode East out of Blaine along H road which parallels the international border. This road is very long, hilly and straight all the way to SR 539 (also known as Guide Meridian). We turned north and rode about a quarter mile on SR 539 and stopped at the duty free store to use the facilities and stretch out a bit. From here we continued East along a road called Borderline Road. Next week I'll take my camera as this road has a ditch on the north side of the road, the ditch is maybe 3-5 feet deep (it looks like a drainage ditch), but on the other side is another road, but that road is in Canada, no fence, but lots of camera towers, I'm sure we were being watched. We followed this road as it curved to the South into Lynden and onto the Hannegan road back home, Pat turned on Wiser Lake Road and I kept on going south. Looking at my training logs, this was my longest ride ever in terms of time and distance (4:43 and 76.8 miles). It only rained on us for about 15 minutes.

Another busy week coming up, Alex starts T-Ball this Saturday!

Thursday, April 12, 2007

March Update

A little late, but oh well...


Over 50 hours of training during March. As you can see I am scaling back on the gym workouts and getting out on the bike more. My longest bike ride has been 4 hours and over the next few weeks I will build up to 6 to 6 and half hour rides. I plan to get 3 or 4 6 plus hour rides in. Its crunch time, a few 18 hour weeks planned.


Monday, April 02, 2007

All about the Keys

Key workouts are the important workouts in any training program and very important working and building towards an IRONMAN.

My key workouts are the long bike rides, the long runs, and long swims, followed by bricks, everything else is in support of these key workouts and overall fitness.

I got in two key workouts this weekend.

Scheduled for Saturday was a brick, but not just any bike/run brick, this was a full swim/bike/run session. The swim was scheduled for 1:30 and I had never swam more than 1:15 or so. So for me, the key part of this brick was not so much the brick, but the swim. I was hoping to swim the IRONMAN distance (4224 yards = 2.4 miles) as well, so I decided that I would swim that distance even if it took longer than the 1:30. Well I swam the distance but I did not get in a full 1:30 swim. The 4250 yards (85 laps) took 1:29:58 so pretty close to 1:30 ;-).

I swam a ladder workout, swimming 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 650. I alternated swimming and pulling (swimming with a pull buoy between your legs for floatation) and took a total of 1 minute 15 seconds rest. I also do not know how to flip turn so do open turns at the walls. All this, leaves me hopeful to swim the 2.4 in Coeur d'Alene in less than 1:30.

Debbie and the kids dropped me off at the pool after soccer with my bike, so after the swim I put on my bike gear at the pool and headed out for an easy one hour bike ride. I got home and was feeling a bit tired and happy about my swim that I was going to skip the easy 30 minute run, Debbie said at least run a couple miles, your going to be tired at the IRONMAN, so I went out and ran a 3.68 mile course around our neighborhood and was very happy I did after.

My key workout on Sunday was a 3:30 bike ride. I met with Pat again, we met about half way between our houses and this time we headed west towards Ferndale, we rode through Ferndale and headed north towards Birch Bay, but because we were only planning 3:30 we did not go all the way into Birch Bay (will do that this Saturday). We stopped midway to refill our water and then headed back towards home. Getting home at about 10:30 in the morning was perfect timing, about 15-20 minutes after being home and showered, Debbie was getting ready for her run and then the downpour started. We had one 5 minute section on the ride of very light showers, and we just missed this very heavy downpour of rain. As it turns out, Debbie waited about 15 minutes and the rain had passed and was turning to sun.

Easter weekend next Sunday, so Pat and I are planning to meet on Saturday for a 4 hour bike ride, we should make it to Birch Bay this time.