The dreaded Treadmill workouts, how I despise you. Before, during and after, not one aspect of these treadmill workouts has me eager to make the trek to the gym at 6:15am. Tuesday mornings provide the time for these treadmill workouts, the Rec Center in Long Beach is the place and the why and the how may remain forever unanswered. With all my negative feelings towards this mouse wheel for humans, there are definitely benefits for utilizing the treadmill workouts in preseason, especially those of you in the northeast.
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Browsing Posts tagged goals
So test week turned into a light training week with multiple days off. The importance of recovery can be the difference maker in a season. This turned out not a terrible decision considering it is not even February yet, and it is freezing outside. My Thursday morning training session was met with resistance and ultimately leaving early. I arrived at the gym at 6:45 hesitantly, and stayed for about 15 minutes, completed 4 sets of squats and a few mixed sets. After one set of step ups I knew something was wrong, I had little energy and could not focus. I could have pushed through and completed the workout half-assed, but truthfully I believe to have gained better long term fitness walking away. continue reading…
Yes, it is true, Ironmen do get sick, well Ironmen hopeful. I am a living testament to the fact because this past week I was sick. It really pissed me off too! Wednesday morning around 3am, I woke up feeling miserable. I was wide awake but still dreaming and of the weirdest things too. Either way, I knew something was wrong but I thought it would pass as soon as I awoke in the morning… continue reading…
As a follow up to my initial posts about diet and nutrition, I have decided to dedicate the remainder of January to fine tuning my diet. Being in the base period of training, I feel nutrition will be instrumental in order to stay on track and injury free for IM Louisville.
My knowledge is fairly limited and I am not all that interested in researching much further on this topic, I have my general guidelines which I will follow: continue reading…
It is time to start training with a purpose, time to train with a specific goal in mind. To just finish would be great and I will be just as happy to when I do as achieving any specific time. But looking forward, beyond my first IM I must start to plan more specifically. By selecting a specific time, I can have a better understanding of where I am during my training and how far off I am of my goal pace in any of the three disciplines.
Completing this exercise means I now have a “race pace” for training sessions which require me to be, at or around race pace. My goal is complete Ironman Kentucky in 12 hours; I have broken this down further into a 1:20 minute swim, a 6:30 bike and a 4:10 marathon. Individually this absolutely seems doable; however, when everything comes together it may be a little bit more difficult.
It would seem almost intuitive that my individual training sessions would need to be at a pace faster than my race day pace. However, how fast? I have scheduled into my training program an endurance day, which is the greatest percentage of any given workout. This is where I will be better able to understand how close I am to achieving my goals. Come the spring time, completing 6-7 hour bricks will be the closest simulation I come to race day, I know if I am off during those workouts, I may need to readjust my goals.
In thinking about daily food intake I remember reading back to Joe Friel’s, “The Triathletes Training Bible” and reading a lot about the timing of our diets. How the nutrients in some foods have greater effects when consumed at different times of the day. From what I have read it seems that this is mainly based around workouts and timing consumption of starchy rich carbs within the first 30 minutes following a session.
Some examples include; pasta, bread and rice, which provide nutrients to replace energy stores and promote recovery in the body continue reading…
To obtain the level of fitness required to compete at the Ironman distance and even think about qualifying for Hawaii, I would have to increase my training volume considerably, by literally 44%. My goal for 2010 is to average nine hours a week. Based upon some preliminary research on average training volume required for Hawaii qualifiers is between 15-20 hours a week. Knowing this and also taking a look at my over all limitations for training, I am well aware a gradual increase is needed. I have attempted the sudden jump in training hours, I started very ambitious for the first few days, only to regress to my normal routine shortly after. It is not fun, and a bit demoralizing, so I am doing this the right way and creating a plan. continue reading…
