Sep 052010
 

Strength Training

Did the Strength 1/B workout from New Rules of Lifting. Just for fun I stopped at the gym that Lifetime Fitness bought over on W. Lake Houston in Kingwood. This used to be QLS. It is most definitely not up to the standards of a LTF. The weight room was a mess and they don’t have towel service yet. I think their one interesting feature is their pool. They have a saltwater swimming pool. Next time I’m due for a swim workout and I’m in that area I’ll check it out.

Aug 212010
 

Kingwood Fit

Here are the splits from this morning 7 mile run with the Kingwood Fit running club. The average pace for miles 5 and 7 was a little bit fast. Have to monitor that more closely next time.

Split Time Moving Time Distance Elevation Gain Elevation Loss Avg Pace Avg Moving Pace Best Pace Avg HR Max HR Avg Run Cadence Max Run Cadence Steps Calories
1 00:09:32 00:09:30 1.00 11 0 09:32 09:29 07:56 131 140 84 87 0 92
2 00:09:18 00:09:16 1.00 7 0 09:18 09:15 07:55 140 144 83 86 0 101
3 00:09:03 00:09:00 1.00 0 0 09:03 08:59 07:28 143 146 84 86 0 96
4 00:09:19 00:09:05 1.00 0 0 09:19 09:04 07:38 143 148 83 86 0 95
5 00:08:51 00:08:43 1.00 0 19 08:51 08:42 06:54 148 155 84 87 0 97
6 00:09:01 00:08:54 1.00 0 8 09:01 08:53 07:09 152 156 84 86 0 105
7 00:09:23 00:09:10 1.00 13 5 09:23 09:09 07:39 154 159 83 86 0 110
8 00:02:56 00:02:55 0.33 0 0 08:48 08:44 07:22 158 163 84 86 0 35
Summary 01:07:26 01:06:33 7.33 30 31 09:11 09:04 06:54 144 163 83 87 0 731
Aug 142010
 

Kingwood Fit – 6 mile run

Split Time Moving Time Distance Elevation Gain Elevation Loss Avg Pace Avg Moving Pace Best Pace Avg HR Max HR Avg Run Cadence Max Run Cadence Steps Calories
1 00:13:20 00:12:52 1.43 2 15 09:20 09:00 07:17 136 156 85 88 0 136
2 00:09:18 00:09:18 1.00 23 0 09:18 09:17 06:32 142 148 85 87 0 99
3 00:09:20 00:08:46 1.00 3 0 09:20 08:45 06:42 156 178 84 87 0 101
4 00:09:31 00:08:54 1.00 5 4 09:31 08:53 06:52 157 181 84 88 0 58
5 00:09:41 00:09:32 1.00 3 7 09:41 09:31 07:04 150 158 83 87 0 104
6 00:05:21 00:05:18 0.63 0 11 08:27 08:21 04:46 157 174 85 99 0 58
Summary 00:56:34 00:54:40 6.06 35 37 09:19 09:01 04:46 148 181 84 99 0 556
Jul 172010
 

Kingwood Fit

Today was the first meeting of the Kingwood Fit running club for the 2010-2011 season. This year I am one of the coaches for the yellow pace group. We had a really good turn-out for today’s meeting. Here are a couple of pics.

Kingwood Fit 2010-07-17 (Saturday) - 1

Kingwood Fit 2010-07-17 (Saturday) - 2

Kingwood Fit 2010-07-17 (Saturday) - 3

Kingwood Fit 2010-07-17 (Saturday) - 4

Kingwood Fit 2010-07-17 (Saturday) - 5

NW Cyclery

I stopped by NW Cyclery today to pick up my packet for tomorrow’s Katy Flatlands Century ride. I saw this daring fellow in the parking lot out front:

Crazy guy on a crazy bike at NW Cyclery

Jan 232010
 

Triathlon Training, day 118

Just had one workout scheduled for today. Instructions were:

Run 9 miles - warm up first 2, then next 7 at tempo

I did this up in Kingwood fairly early because a group of us from Kingwood Fit who had run the Chevron Houston marathon and half-marathon were meeting at Starbucks (all wearing our finisher shirt). Here are the details from the run. I walked for 10 minutes as a warm-up first, then did the run part as shown in the following table. Then walked for 9 minutes to cool down.

Split Time Distance Avg Speed Max Speed Avg HR Max HR Avg Run Cadence Calories
Endurance 00:20:41 2 10:20 08:32 124 131 86 192
Tempo 01:05:56 7 09:25 06:30 139 157 88 617
Summary 01:26:38 9 09:37 06:30 135 157 87 809

I took a few pics at Starbucks. Here is the Flick photo set:

By the way, Elaine was looking for a head coach for the yellow pace group for the next season so I volunteered. I don’t have any real experience but the main duties are to help pace the runs and also to write some articles for the weekly newsletter. I’m pretty excited about this!

Jan 012010
 

Happy New Year everybody!

Triathlon Training, day 96

The scheduled training for today was to run the Texas Marathon, held in Kingwood, Texas. This was my first marathon and I don’t think I could have picked a nicer one. I think there were a total of about 550 runners. We met at one of the parks in Kingwood and the coarse consisted of 4 laps on a stretch of greenbelt. It was a bit crowded at first. Eventually things cleared up as folks settled into their natural running or walking pace. The greenbelt was in pretty good shape — just a few patches where water and/or mud covered the path.

This was a training run for me. My instructions were to run two miles at endurance followed by three miles at tempo, then repeat until done. I finished 92nd overall with a time of 04:26, and felt perfectly fine at the end. At one point I stepped off the right side of the path and re-twisted my right ankle (which hasn’t been right since the 25K Rocky Raccoon trail run. So that’s just a bit of an issue, but nothing too bad.

Here are my splits from the run. Again, for the first lap, my target heart rate was zone 2 (endurance), for the second lap my target heart rate was zone 3 (tempo), etc.

Split Time Distance Elevation Gain Elevation Loss Avg Speed Max Speed Avg HR Max HR Steps Calories
1 00:19:24 2 72 85 09:42 05:48 128 138 0 180
2 00:26:50 3 174 187 08:56 06:34 143 150 0 284
3 00:22:14 2 210 197 11:07 07:37 132 143 0 151
4 00:26:07 3 187 190 08:42 06:21 143 148 0 241
5 00:22:20 2 167 174 11:10 07:44 131 139 0 105
6 00:28:04 3 256 259 09:21 06:28 143 151 0 243
7 00:23:51 2 259 184 11:56 07:55 131 143 0 98
8 00:30:29 3 269 259 10:09 06:33 142 149 0 245
9 00:24:53 2 236 240 12:27 06:44 129 145 0 88
10 00:29:45 3 125 197 09:55 06:47 141 153 0 234
11 00:12:14 1.49 102 125 08:12 04:54 152 164 0 124
Summary 04:26:16 26.49 2054 2093 10:03 04:54 137 164 0 1993

You can see all of the details, including the GPS map, here.

Dec 262009
 

Triathlon Training, day 90

Run – 22 miles Had a marvelous birthday run! Was pretty cool starting out.

Split Time Distance Avg Speed Max Speed Avg HR Max HR Calories
1 (WU) 00:10:00 0.64 15:42 11:43 96 106 45
2 (Z2) 00:10:50 1.00 10:50 08:31 131 155 73
3 (Z2) 00:21:58 2.00 10:59 08:42 123 140 170
4 (Z3) 00:18:12 2.00 09:06 07:17 136 146 186
5 (Z2) 00:21:45 2.00 10:52 08:08 127 136 144
6 (Z3) 00:18:32 2.00 09:16 07:23 138 144 170
7 (Z2) 00:22:29 2.00 11:15 08:09 129 140 131
8 (Z3) 00:18:36 2.00 09:18 07:33 137 145 157
9 (Z2) 00:23:47 2.00 11:53 08:27 127 137 108
10 (Z3) 00:19:27 2.00 09:43 07:07 138 148 167
11 (Z2) 00:24:39 2.00 12:19 08:59 127 136 108
12 (Z3) 00:19:19 2.00 09:39 07:27 137 146 165
13 (Z2) 00:12:54 1.00 12:54 09:10 125 142 51
14 (CD) 00:05:00 0.28 17:56 12:46 109 128 10
Summary (RUN only) 03:52:28 22.00 10:40 08:04 131 155 1630
Summary (WU, RUN, CD) 04:07:35 22.92 10:48 07:07 129 155 1685
Nov 292009
 

Triathlon Training – day 62

Run – 30 km + 2 miles Our Kingwood Fit running group had a 30 km (18.6 mi) run scheduled for this morning at 07:00. Coach Kt had assigned me a 20 mi run today. So I decided to do the Kingwood Fit run and just add on a couple miles at the end. The weather was great and we had visitors from the Woodlands Fit club running with us. All went well except that I somehow manage to stop the timer on my Garmin Forerunner 305 for a significant part of the event so my recorded times and distances are whacked. For example, you can see from the recorded track that, apparently, I can run on water!

Glowarama Illuminated Art Car Parade

Mikie surprised me with V.I.P. tickets that gave us access to a party upstairs at the George R. Brown convention center. There was food and drinks and we could watch all of the festivities from a large balcony. There was a light show set to music that was projected on the side of the convention center above us and on both sides.

Continue reading »

Nov 092009
 

A Visit to the Orthopedic Guy

I had an appointment this afternoon with Dr. Joseph Muscat at Fondren Orothopedic Group. I had seen Dr. Kerr there in the past but that rascal finally retired.

Basically I wanted to find out if I was doing some kind of serious and permanent damage to my left knee by continuing to run on it, in spite of having pretty much continuous pain.

I had figured that Dr. Mucat would be a good resource. He had given an injury-prevention seminar at one of our weekly Kingwood Fit meetings. I was not disappointed. After checking things out he told me that it would be OK to continue to run on it as long as I could stand the pain. At some point, when it gets bad enough, he will want to do an MRI and the go in and clean things up. There would be a 6-8 week period of time before I could resume training at normal levels.

That was all I needed to know to make a decision. If I had the procedure done now, then I miss another season. If I can put it off until the end of the season, that would be the way to go. Enough said!

Dr. M. did write me a script for some Voltaren (diclofenac), a topical anti-inflammatory cream that I can put on the left knee area a couple of times a day, so hopefully that will help out the situation a bit.

Nov 012009
 

Triathlon Training – day 34

Morning – Running with Kingwood Fit Group Details Duration: 01:47 Distance: 11.71 mi Energy: 1695 kcal You can see the route and the splits here.

Swimming – Mod-easy pyramid Description WU: 4 x 100 swim done as 25s each of kick, R arm only, L arm only, swim. MS: The even intervals are done at 5 seconds slower than 100 T-pace. The others are relaxed swims with good technique. Recoveries are in seconds within parentheses. 100 (15”) 200 (20”) 300 (40”) 400 (60”) 500 (60”) 400 (60”) 300 (40”) 200 (30”) 100. CD: Easy combination of kicks and strokes for 10 minutes. Total: 3300