Back on it

Last week was not the greatest training, but you have these fall offs from time to time.  After the 13.1 I knew I would suffer just needing to recover from the run, but I also came down with a nasty sinus infection that has taken almost a full week to run its course.

I only made two of my fully planned workouts (Tue ride and Fri Swim) and shortened one of my runs and rides as well.  So I made it to four, but missed four as well.  Mostly it was the illness, but I was still feeling tired from the race on the Sunday prior.

On my scheduled off day yesterday I managed to get in the Swim I skipped on Sunday of 2500 meters, then went out in the afternoon and did a 1:30/30 Brick for 25 miles on the bike and 3.5 on the run.  So I did get three of the four missed workouts back, and had a nice run off the ride in the Brick.

This week is another recovery week then we hit the final stretch.  We have spring break next week and will be going training camp style down in Cedar Key, FL with a few other friends and lots of kiddos.

Race Report

My second installment of the ING Georgia Half Marathon is done, and overall it was a good morning.  Since ING is no longer sponsoring the race after this year, 1: after they build enough brand for it to be called “The ING”  2: after the race jumped from 12,000 to 16,000 total runners this year, and 3: after they finally got a decent race director to fix some problems that have plagued the event since its inception,  I will refer to it as the Georgia Marathon and Half Marathon (although I did tell the Mizuno guys they would make a great title sponsor, so if that happens I take the credit)

Before the recap lets take a look back at my 2008 running.  First racing ever beyond 10K’s and Olympic distance triathlons.  I wanted to improve my running for triathlons and get a base for Augusta. For the Georgia Half Marathon my training was good until the last weeks and I had some falloff, which showed in my finish time of 2:20.18.  Out of 9,716 half marathon finishers I placed 5,989, so in the 60th percentile.  At the 70.3 race in Augusta my half marathon pace was 2:19.21, 61st percentile.  So basically I had conquered the distance, but needed better pacing.  After the Augusta 70.3 race I did a local 5 miler in 39:47 (7:57 min/mile pace) then this year followed up with two 10K times of 50:24 (8:06 pace), then a few weeks later of 48:16 (7:47 pace).  So two weeks ago I was feeling good after that 10K and set a goal for a sub 2 hour half marathon.

This year the half marathon had 10,481 finishers.  I went in with a little more course knowledge than last year, and was better prepared for the rolling hills, especially in the last 4 miles. 

The morning started early meeting some other friends running at 5:30am then heading downtown.  We had a group of 6 running across all abilities.  Weather was mid 50’s and overcast so great conditions.  I took off easy and settled into a comfortable pace.  One thing I tried this time was running without my GPS, and going on feel.  I was going to run based on my perception and not worry about time until at least an hour into the race.  I ended up on my 8 mile split at 1:11.58, so I knew then if I could finish with 9 mile pacing I would have a few minutes to spare and break 2 hours.  My pace over the 8 mile split was 8:59, and I ended up pacing 9:00 flat over the last 5.1 miles for the total time of 1:58.16.  Felt some leg fatigue on the last few hills but never a doubt that I would make it once I hit the 12 mile mark and had 12 minutes to spare.

Everyone in our group did great, and we had a fun time.  I was able to take 22 minutes, 2 seconds off last years time and jump from the 60th percentile of run time up to the 25th percentile. (also jumped up from 5,989 overall to 2,667 overall) I am very pleased yet I think I can get that time down even more in the future.  At least I know where I can improve my 70.3 time by 20 minutes, so now if I can find 20 minutes on the bike I will be close to the 5 hour mark at Augusta.  Always something to work on.

Training gets specific for Alcatraz now as my runs get a bit shorter.  Should be fully recovered by tomorrow for this weeks work.  I did miss a scheduled brick this weekend of 90mim/30min, but I think running the half marathon was enough leg work to sustain.  I have a 2h15min ride scheduled for this Saturday so I may just add a little run in to make up for that.

13.1 week

Finished last weeks work and only missed one run.  I had to leave town over the weekend so I missed Saturdays workouts, but did a double on Sunday for a ride and run.  Ran 13.5 on Sunday for my last long run gearing up for the Georgia Half Marathon next Sunday.  We have a big group running together so should be a good day.  My goal for the race will be to break 2 hours on a half marathon.  That will cut about 20min off my time from last year.  I have had a lot more work leading up to the race this year and the hills will not surprise me, so I should be close.  Either way my run base is in great shape for the rest of the year.

Last weeks swims all were in the low 2,000 meter range, and the swimming is coming along well.  It looks like we might get some decent weather this week, and combined with the time change I should be able to get out on the bike outdoors some.  I am still trying to figure out what to do over the weekend as I have a 90min/30min Brick scheduled for Saturday, the day before the half marathon.  After this week I need to start hammering on the bike a bit.

Not Quite Recovery Week

Although last week was supposed to be a recovery week I blew it out a bit over the weekend with my running.  ING is two weeks out so I had to get a long run yesterday, plus I had a Peachtree Road Race qualifier on Saturday, and a Brick scheduled for that day as well, so I am totally wiped out today.

Tuesday had a 1h ride, Wednesday got both the 1750m swim and a 6 miler in with some intervals, and Thursday got another 50 min ride in at lunch.  That was all according to the recovery week plan.  Friday I was scheduled for a swim/run, but only did the prescribed 1700m swim with a 10K race the next morning.  Since I was scheduled for 6 miles I just added it to Saturday.(more on the race in a moment)  Saturday got up early, ran the 10K in a PR time of 48:16, worked in the yard a bit then got onto the bike for a Brick of 1:15 ride/20 min run.  I was supposed to run for 30min, but needed to save some gas for Sundays long run.  On Sunday I did a nice slow 10 miler with some serious hills in the second half, and skipped the 1600m swim that was scheduled.  My wife was due to get in her long run as well, so it was my turn to watch the kiddos.  Even if that wasn’t the case, I had no gas in the tank for any more workouts.  On my normal triathlon plan I would only be running around 40 minutes anyway, so I went way over the necessary mileage.  I ended up on the weekend running about 18 miles and biking 22ish.  Only 2 weeks to go to the ING Half Marathon then my running volume will come back down some.  Good thing is that I will have a nice base for the 8 mile run at Alcatraz, and can limit my long runs to stretching the Sunday runs only.

I ran the Chattahoochee Road Runners 10K this weekend trying to get my time lower.  As mentioned earlier I have been trying to get down below 50 minutes on my 10K time for some time and came within 25 seconds a few weeks ago.  This time I had a good dinner the night before, and got to bed early.  My neighbor and I got there early and the weather was nice and sunny with temps in the mid 30’s,  This race is a popular qualifier for the Peachtree RR so there was a healthy field of 844 in the 10K.  The course was rolling out and back with the final half mile taking a turn and pretty much downhill all the way.  I came across the line in 48:16 (7:47 min/mile) which is good for me.  This was also good for 244th place so about 28th% in a pretty competitive local field.  All that running since last year seems to be paying off, and I am enjoying these races.

March is here

So we are now three full seeks from ING and  9 weeks out to Alcatraz.  The weather has made outdoor training, or at least riding on the bike a bit of a chore.  Normally we are in the upper 50’s or 60’s a few days a week by this time of year, but we are still trapped in the 40’s for highs.  Not much global warming here in Atlanta for 2010.

Last week was a nice solid week with about 9 hours of training.  From Sunday to Sunday I logged 32 miles over four runs, 6,350 meters over three swims (about 4 miles), and close to four hours on the bike trainer which would normally equal about 72 miles on the road.  No outside riding this weekend, and melted my tire on my indoor trainer on Saturday.  I did hit every workout last week as this was the first week of the build phase (week 7 overall), and also the third week in my second four week periodic cycle.  This week the volume is a bit lighter with a recovery week, then we step it up for March.

Got my new wetsuit on order so that should be coming in the next week or so, just need to figure out the bike shipping thing and we will be all locked down for San Fran.

This will get you primed for a lunch swim

Quick update then some good links.  Finishing up week 3 of this second period and adding some volume.  Yesterday was a nice 1h15min ride with 5x5 min long hill climbs, and then today stretched the pool time to a 2200m session.  I can really tell that my swimming has come a long way in the past year, the only time I hurt in the water is during very hard intervals, I think I could pull off a 2.4 miler without too much of a problem at about a 70 minute pace.

I found these videos on the intraweb and thought I would post them, some good high quality videos of last years start.  Talk about controlled chaos.  Next time I am dragging to a lunch swim Ill just watch one of these to get motivated.

Escape from Alactraz Triathlon 2009 Swim Start 1 from Rick Gaston on Vimeo.

Escape from Alactraz Triathlon 2009 Swim Start 2 from Rick Gaston on Vimeo.

Up to date

Had a nice full week of training last week with 4 1/2 hours on the bike, 30 miles running, and about 5k in the pool.  Highlights were getting outside on the bike Saturday for a 30 miler then following it up yesterday with a 10 mile run @ 1:35.  I am shooting for a sub 2h half next month so that will be pretty close time wise at that same pace.

This month has had two weeks where I have hit all of my training plans and one week where I missed a few workouts, but I am feeling good right now about where I am in preparation for Alcatraz and my running time is about 1 min faster per mile on all of my runs over last year.  I am looking at another 10K Peachtree Qualifier next weekend to try for that time again.

Right now we are 9 weeks out from San Francisco, 4 weeks from the half marathon and all looks good.  Time to start looking for a wetsuit

Race Recap/past 10 days

Well, sometimes you have all your goals setup, have a good effort but still fall short.  Even with all indications pointing to success if you don’t close strong you might not meet your demands, and that is the lesson learned from the Chattahoochee Challenge 10-K.

As mentioned before I am trying to get a good qualifying time for the Peachtree Road Race this year so I can be just behind the main group of pros and seeded runners.  I am still transitioning from being a jogger to becoming a runner, and I think a sub 50 minute 10K time needs to be met before I can call myself a runner.  Not to mention that the cutoff time for the A group in the Peachtree is 49:59.  They are taking times from shorter races, but my official 5 mile time from last falls race was 39:47, and the cutoff at that distance is 39:44, so still a bit short, but mentally I really wanted that sub 50 minute 10K time.

The night before the race had a nice night out compliments of a babysitter, and got a good nights sleep.  This race has a fairly decent field, of the 890+ runners, somewhere close to 24% run under 50 minute times, and the winners came in around 32 minutes.  Race started well and I planned on negative splitting from 9 to 7 minute miles over the race to hit the magic 8 minute average needed.  Shortly after starting however I was passed by a pace setter and found out that he was running for the 49 minute mark.  I decided then to keep up with him and see how it felt.  After the first 2 miles I actually got out in front of him a bit, and by the 4 mile split I was ahead of my needed pace by almost a minute, and felt strong as well.  Closing in on the 5th mile the pacer caught up with me and I decided to bring it home with that group.  The problem popped up in the last half mile, when I realized we had only 3 minutes to go to break 50 minutes.  At that point I took off from the pacer (who I soon heard yelling “we need to pick it up!”) and went all out.  With the finish line in sight and about 2 minutes of 6 min pacing interval I was burning out and knew I would not make it.  I crossed the line ahead of the 49 minute pacer, but my time was 50:24 seconds so I just missed the cutoff time.

I was disappointed for missing the goal time, but also had to be happy with a PR time in a chip timed 10K.  I just needed 4 seconds per mile to cutoff enough to get under 50 minutes, close but that is how you learn to get better.  Somewhere in the last 2 miles my pace fell off even though my perceived effort was still the same  Overall I came in 30 of 101 in my age group (29th percentile), 176 of 472 in the men's division (37th percentile), and 222 of 890 overall (25th percentile).  I am happy with that and have one more shot in March to get to a sub 50 min time in a qualifying race.  Next time I will not eat Thai food and drink a few glasses of wine the night before!

January Summary

Another long break from updates, but training has been moving forward. I am currently in week four of the Alcatraz training, so my first recovery week is here as well as in week 5 of my half-marathon training. I am getting some breaks on the tri stuff, but still hitting the road hard on my runs. The plan I have for Alcatraz is a high level Olympic distance plan, so I am putting extra work in compared to my last ones, but with the quirky distance of Alcatraz I will have to add some distance to the run and swims in the last month. And lots of hills too.

It has been a tough month to get outside here in Atlanta, so I have only had one actual ride outdoors. The second one I attempted resulted in a flat about five minutes into the ride so I have been exclusively on the spin cycle trainer so far. The weather has been brutal as well, we had 8 of 31 days in January with heavy rain, 4 of those days were Saturday/Sunday combos, so the long work on the weekends was all done indoors. Along with the rain we had 20 total days of sub-freezing temps, and 15 of those were all in a row the first two weeks of the month. Way too cold to do the typical early morning runs, so I have become very friendly with the treadmill as well.

Over January I had 30 scheduled workouts, and was able to get to 21 of them. That is skipping a lot more than I would like, but travel for work and the awful weather has contributed a lot. Thankfully I am already running much longer distances than required for the triathlon plan; my ½ marathon training has me ahead of the curve there. However, I am a bit concerned about the biking, I really need to get outside to replicate actual riding conditions as the indoor trainer only does so much. Totals for the three weeks of training in January were 5 miles in the pool, 114 miles on the bike, and 37 miles running. Nice little base period, but the volume will be kicked up a notch in the next month.

Overall I feel good, but a little anxious about the missed days. I need to make sure to keep those to a minimum this month as I enter the build phase for the triathlon training. We shall see. Tomorrow I have a 10K race and shooting for a sub 50 min time. That will get me in the seeded group just behind the pros and real runners in the Peachtree Road Race. The weather is awful today, but tomorrow morning is expected to be 35 and dry, so conditions are good with a flat track. It will be a stretch, as most of my training runs are putting me at the 55 min mark for 10K. We will see how it goes.

Week 1 of 16

First double of the year today with a 4 miler in 35 minutes then 1400 meters in the pool.  This is week one of 16 leading to Alcatraz, and the entry fee was paid over the weekend so I am officially in.

Travelling all week so I will get most of the workouts on the plan in on an unusual schedule, but should not be a problem with the low volume.  Cobwebs are coming off.