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!

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.

2009-10-31 (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

2009-10-25 (Sunday)

Posted on October 25th, 2009 in Life by Administrator

2009 Houston Half Marathon

This was my first race, ever, and it went great. I was worried about problems with my left knee but that held together pretty well. I had the alarm clock set to go off at 03:30 this morning but I actually woke up on my own 30 minutes before that. So I had plenty of time to feed the dogs, cats, parrots and myself (fed the fish when I got back), and get down to Allen Parkway about an hour before the race started.

The Kingwood Fit group had a tent very close to the starting area and were kind enough to have someone posted there so we could leave our drop-bags and not worry about them.

It took about 3 minutes from the time the starting gun sounded to when I got across the starting line. I had foolishly started my Garmin timer as soon as the gun went off instead of waiting until we got to the starting line. Oops! Also, I think in using the little foot pod I may have some setting mixed up because even after uploading my data I do not see the route. Not that it would be a very interesting one … just three laps along Allen Pkwy.

Anyway, I hope that when the chip times are posted I will find that I finished in a bit under 2 hours. That would please me immensely!

Here is Dewayne, Stephen, and myself all sprawled out after finishing the run:

Just finished the Houston Half Marathon

And, for what it is worth, here are the splits from my Garmin. I’m not sure if the paces and speeds are accurate as the Garmin may have been taking them from the foot pod and not the GPS. I say this because I vaguely remember it asking me something about the pod, shortly after starting the timer. It was pretty dark and I couldn’t really read what it said. But I may have told it to use the data from the foot pod (which is not calibrated) instead of the GPS… live and learn!

Split Time Distance Elevation Gain Elevation Loss Avg Speed Max Speed Avg HR Max HR Avg Run Cadence Max Run Cadence Calories
1 00:10:00 1.00 0 0 10:00 07:38 128 142 88 98 143
2 00:08:47 1.00 0 0 08:47 06:26 141 153 91 97 144
3 00:08:34 1.00 0 0 08:34 07:38 146 155 89 95 144
4 00:08:36 1.00 0 0 08:36 07:46 148 154 88 94 143
5 00:09:07 1.00 0 0 09:07 07:59 146 151 87 93 143
6 00:08:25 1.00 0 0 08:25 07:22 148 151 89 95 145
7 00:09:07 1.00 0 0 09:07 05:43 149 156 87 95 143
8 00:09:07 1.00 0 0 09:07 07:54 149 161 86 92 142
9 00:09:08 1.00 0 0 09:08 08:05 151 161 86 90 144
10 00:08:56 1.00 0 0 08:56 06:38 152 164 88 96 143
11 00:08:44 1.00 0 0 08:44 07:31 154 161 88 93 145
12 00:08:36 1.00 0 0 08:36 07:26 156 166 89 95 144
13 00:08:40 1.00 0 0 08:40 06:51 159 164 89 99 145
14 00:05:02 0.62 0 0 08:10 06:52 161 168 88 92 90
Summary 02:00:57 13.62 0 0 08:52 05:43 149 168 88 99 1,958

Update – I have the official times from the race web site:

Overall Place Age Division Place Gun Time Chip Time First Half Time First Half Pace Second Half Time Second Half Pace
894 / 2474 78 / 156 02:02:31 01:59:52 01:00:01 09:10 00:59:52 09:08

Triathlon Training – day 28

Cycling – Pedaling skills
Description
Ride in the HR 1-2 zones on a mostly flat course (or indoor trainer). Include pedaling drills such as: a) try to drive pedal straight forward from 9 to 3 o'clock, b) pedal with foot against the top inside of your shoe trying to avoid touching the insole, c) try to touch toes to end of your shoes at top of downstroke. Stay as relaxed as you can while doing these drills. No tension in feet, legs, hands, etc.
Details

Duration: 01:34
Distance: 22.74
Average Speed: 14.6 mi/hr
Energy: 1378 kcal

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.

2009-09-10 (Thursday)

Posted on September 10th, 2009 in Life by Administrator

Run – 40 / tempo

This was nice. Walked briskly for 5 minutes. Ran at tempo for about 45 minutes. Then walked again to cool down. Went out early in the morning. Temperature was great.

2009-09-08 (Tuesday)

Posted on September 8th, 2009 in Life by Administrator

Sprint Intervals at Kingwood HS Track

We started doing interval training instead of hills on Tuesdays this week. The Kingwood Fit bunch met at the Kingwood High School track anywhere between 05:00 and 05:30. Coach Gary had us do the following for this first sprint session:

Run two easy laps to warm up, followed by stretching.

Then run 4 laps as follows: Sprint hard on the straight parts and run easy on the curved parts. So there were 8 sprint/rest intervals in all.

Lastly, we ran two easy laps to cool down. I’m assuming that we will add additional sprints each week.

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