2010-01-23 (Saturday)

Posted on January 23rd, 2010 in Life by Administrator

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!

2010-01-01 (Friday)

Posted on January 1st, 2010 in Life by Administrator

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.

2009-12-26 (Saturday)

Posted on December 26th, 2009 in Life by Administrator

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

2009-11-28 (Saturday)

Posted on November 29th, 2009 in Life by Administrator

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.

2009-11-09 (Monday)

Posted on November 9th, 2009 in Life by Administrator

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.

2009-10-31 (Saturday)

Posted on November 1st, 2009 in Life by Administrator

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

2009-10-10 (Saturday)

Posted on October 10th, 2009 in Life by Administrator

Triathlon Training – Day 13

Running with Kingwood Fit (Morning)

Met with the Kingwood Fit running club at the Christ the King Lutheran Church early this morning. Our group took off at about 06:15. We were scheduled for only 9 miles today, which is a nice break. Here are the splits:

Split Time Distance Elevation Gain Elevation Loss Avg Speed Max Speed Avg HR Max HR Calories
1 00:09:16 1.00 55 136 09:16 07:30 130 144 144
2 00:08:42 1.00 39 54 08:42 07:24 143 147 145
3 00:08:54 1.00 123 136 08:54 06:11 142 146 148
4 00:08:36 1.00 120 99 08:36 06:54 146 153 147
5 00:08:30 1.00 47 73 08:30 06:14 149 162 146
6 00:08:42 1.00 99 129 08:42 05:50 148 154 148
7 00:08:34 1.00 95 55 08:34 06:32 150 158 148
8 00:08:14 1.00 28 36 08:14 06:15 154 165 146
9 00:06:53 0.87 32 0 07:57 06:07 161 169 129
Summary 01:16:25 8.87 639 718 08:37 05:50 146 169 1301

It was a nice run. The temperature was about 57 degrees F. Sweet! We are scheduled to do 15 miles next Saturday, which I have to miss, so I’m going to do the 15 mile run very early Friday morning with a couple other guys in our pace group who also cannot make next Saturday’s run.

Swim – 200s variable pace (afternoon)

This was at Lifetime Fitness in Atascocita, TX. Here was the program:

WU: Build effort on each rep.
100 swim, 50 kick, 100 swim, 50 kick, 100 swim.

MS: Each numbered set is done non-stop as a 200.
#1—100 easy, 50 mod, 50 fast (10”).
#2—50 easy, 100 mod, 50 fast (20”).
#3—50 easy, 50 mod, 100 fast (30”).
#4—100 fast, 50 easy, 50 mod (20”).
#5—50 fast, 100 easy, 50 mod (10”).
#6—50 fast, 50 easy, 100 mod. (60”)
Repeat #1, 2, 3.

CD: 150 easy with drills.
Total: 2350

2009-10-03 (Saturday) – triathlon training, day 6

Posted on October 3rd, 2009 in Life by Administrator

Morning

Run – The Wild West Forest Cove

I substituted Joe Friel’s scheduled workout with this (which was much longer anyway). The weather was beautiful and cool. I’m in the yellow pace group and we were scheduled to do a 14 mile run. Here are the splits:

Split

Time

Distance

Avg Pace

Avg HR

Max HR

1

00:10:06

1

10:06

127

137

2

00:09:26

1

09:26

138

144

3

00:09:36

1

09:36

140

143

4

00:09:37

1

09:37

140

146

5

00:09:31

1

09:31

141

146

6

00:09:37

1

09:37

142

151

7

00:09:13

1

09:13

144

148

8

00:09:13

1

09:13

146

154

9

00:09:34

1

09:34

144

156

10

00:08:51

1

08:51

150

158

11

00:09:07

1

09:07

149

156

12

00:09:17

1

09:17

151

155

13

00:08:57

1

08:57

153

158

14

00:08:59

1

08:59

154

161

15

00:03:52

0.5

07:47

167

173

 Summary

02:15:02

14.5

09:18

145

173

You can see the route and all of the details here. After the run, Shannon Shoelen gave a talk on runners. We were all trying out the poses in the parking lot at the church. It was very interesting and I plan to incorporate some of them in my regular stretching routine.

This is me after the run:
Me after the run

This is Shannon giving her yoga presentation:
Shannon Shoelen giving talk

And this is me sitting in a bathtub with ice water. It’s a preemptive strike to help reduce inflammation. Still working on getting rid of pain in the left leg.
Icing legs down after run!

Afternoon

Continuous swim

WU:

5-minute swim with your choice of kicks and swims.

Drills:

Focus on how well you do the drills, not on how fast.
Set #1 scull front, set #2 scull chest, set #3 scull back.
3 x (4 x 50 done as 25 skull, 25 distance per stroke emphasis).

MS:

Using the “feel” for the water you just developed:
2 x 500 swim (1’) at moderate/aerobic effort.
Kick 400 moderate effort.

CD:

5 minutes of kicks and swims.

Stats:

Duration: 01:06
Distance: 2500 m

Comments:

workout went well. had never done the sculling exercises before and did not find instructions in the training bible. so found some sample videos on youtube that seemed to be correct and used them as an example.

2009-09-19 (Saturday)

Posted on September 19th, 2009 in Life by Administrator

Happy Birthday Mikie!!!

Today is my sweetie’s birthday!!!!

Kingwood Fit Run

We had a nice run with the Kingwood Fit group today. The weather was wonderful and it definitely has a fall influence.

Here is the track as recorded by the Runkeeper app on my iPhone:

Here are a few pictures from the group that I took this morning:

2009-09-12 (Saturday)

Posted on September 12th, 2009 in Life by Administrator

Kingwood Fit – 10 mile run

Got up at 04:30 this morning. After some coffee and a bit of breakfast, drove up to the Christ the King Lutheran church in Kingwood. It was raining pretty hard on the drive over. Our group took off at about 06:00. The rain had stopped, but started up again about halfway through the run. Not too hard though so it was pretty pleasant.
I was wearing the Garmin ForeRunner, but it lost the GPS feed at about mile 8 so the last two miles are not recorded. I think it was from the rain.

I read somewhere that a GPS device can usually receive a signal through things like cloth, etc., so long as they are dry, but that even a thin film of water on the device can interfere with the reception.

Partial stats available here.

Next Page »