It feels GOOOOOOD to be back....292 days till Ironman...

FINALLY I'm back to training!!!!  That long week off sucked. Sick every day, felt good every morning only to feel progressively worse as the day went on. But I made myself relax and not train and I feel good again. I got in my first swim in a week this morning, and it went surprisingly well.  I had thought about doing a shorter distance than the training called for, but nah, let's push it...i mean, that's how I got myself sick in the first place.  Course, I felt good the day I trained last week and woke up feeling like hell, but I really think it's behind me now.  I still have a date with my trainer tonight, so we'll see what tomorrow brings. 

1850 yards @ 37 minutes. 
   550 warmup
   1000 main set
   300 cool down.

298 Days till Ironman

And I'm sick again.  Pushed it last night cause I felt good now I feel completely miserable. Looks like I'll be taking the rest of the week off.  Stupid.

299 days till Ironman

Well, I just cracked the 300 day barrier.  Still a long ways, I don't even start training for it till July.  So I was sick this weekend which put a small dent in my training. Didn't do any training this weekend, but my Olympic is still a good ways out, so I'm not too concerned.  I was planning to take today off too, but I think I'm going to get on the bike tonight and get some spinning in.  I'm skipping the pool today, with how strong I've felt in the pool lately, I'm not too worried.

302 Days till Ironman

YES!!!!! Finally a day off.  Yesterday I had a great swim.  Did 1 mile in 35 minutes and could've gone a lot longer.  I averaged about 1:55/100 and had a ton more left in the gas. Not too bad for my 2nd full week back in the pool. I was very happy about that time.  My HR was nice and low, around 140 I think.  Seeing as how I'm still 17 weeks out, I'm feeling very good about race day.  Not to mention Ironman, which is still 10 months out. 

I'm going to enjoy my day off today, and looking forward to my easy 3 mile run tomorrow, and who knows what i'll be doing sunday..probably 30 or so.  Good times :)

303 days till Ironman

Not a whole lot to write about today.  Just another training day.  Yesterday after work I did 15 miles on a stationary bike.  Took about 50 minutes at an average HR of 129.
This morning I did a 1.85 mile run, slow and easy. Took 21 minutes, avg HR of 157.

304 days till Ironman

I'm feeling worn down and very sore. May have cranked up the volume to much.  But I suppose I'll catch up. 
Yesterday I did 1500 yards in the pool.  A 300 yard warm up, 19 sets(missed counting 3 sets somehow) of 50 yards all out, averaged about 47 seconds per 50, and a 200 cool down.  I do love that my cool down pace is the pace I had to work my butt off to maintain when I started.  Wish my running would get there.
I also did a 20 minute run for 2 miles, with an average HR of 151 on the treadmill.

305 days till Ironman

Had a really good weekend of training.  Nice long weekend as well.  On Saturday I took Sadie for a 3 mile trail run, which wound up taking 45 minutes.  The trail was snow covered, which added to the difficulty, but it was a really nice run.  She was loose, which she clearly loved, and i was able to run freely.  Sunday I finally got back out on the road and went for a 27 mile ride from woodfin through alexander, marshall, and back again.  It was a 10 mile very slight downhill to start, followed by a 1200 foot vertical, 1 mile long climb, then rolling hills the rest of the way.  Yesterday I got in the pool for 1500 yards, did strength training and rode the trainer.  Here's the sum up:
Saturday-3 mile trail run, 44 minutes, HR 160
Sunday-27 mile ride, 1:45, HR 164
Monday-1500 yard swim, 34 min; strength training; 45 min trainer, spinning, HR 134

309 Days Till Ironman

Finally Friday. Didn't get off to the best start, but anyway. I get to rest.
Last night I spent 45 minutes on the trainer and felt really good.  The workout consisted of a 10 minute warmup, three 5 minute intervals of low cadence, high intensity work, with 5 minutes of high cadence low intensity work in between.  Finished up with a 10 minute cool down. 
Had a huge dinner, and was hungry about 2 hours later.  Yikes. 

311 Days till Ironman

Been a few days since I posted. Oops.  Training has still been really hard.  Treadmill and trainer. Not fun.  I'm sick of running for 30-40 minutes and going nowhere.  Anyway, gotta do what you gotta do. So over the weekend I did a 65 minute trainer ride at an average HR of 142.  Yesterday I got in the pool, finally, and did 1300 yards in 24 minutes.  I ran on the treadmill for 26 minutes and did 2.6 miles.  I did some intervals of 3 min running at a 7:40 pace(average), with a 1 min walk in between. 
Today I'm getting back in the pool for a long easy swim.  Can't wait, gonna be a hoot!
A few days ago I got signed up for my first race of the year. I don't remember if I wrote about that or not.  The cool breeze tri in huntersville. Hopefully I can top last years performance but I doubt it, since i'm hardly ever going to be able to get on the bike and do any real rides between now and then. But again, it's a training race, not one I'm going to be fully prepped for.

316 days till Ironman

So today I'm feeling like hell. Everything hurts. Maybe jumped back into too much volume too fast.  My abs are killing me from two straight days of core training, and my legs are still sore.  Yesterday I did an easy 3 mile run, with an HR of 162.  I did it in 32 minutes, so it was pretty slow. I started out at a 10 min/mile pace, but had to back off a couple times as my HR approaced the mid 170's. Too high for an endurance pace.  I'll get  there, I'm sure. I've been off for a while so it'll take a while to get back there. 
Today I finally get to get back in the pool as we're getting out YMCA memberships.  I kinda miss swimming, especially in a good pool.  The Rush pool absolutely sucked. 

317 Days till Ironman

So last night I finally performed my first indoor trainer workout, and it was a lactate threshold workout.  Dear God was it hard.  I went for 50 minutes total. 15 minutes warming up with a couple springs, 30 minutes all out, and a 5 minute cool down. Probably not enough but my butt was so sore already. 
I think did part 1 of my core workout. 

My LT was 184 on the bike.  Still have been unable to get my resting HR in the morning. I don't know why it won't work. Frustrating. 

So today I'm unbelievable sore.  Mostly in my glutes and hamstrings.  I assume as I do this more I'll adjust.  Tonight I do a 32 minute run and a slightly high endurance pace.

318 days till the Ironman

Weight- 215
Resting heart rate-??  didn't work this morning for some reason

Yesterday I did a short, easy 2 mile treadmill run.  Avg HR - 143.

Started the strength training program, Running Lower body, Cycling Upper body

The run was easy, but slower than I would've liked for an aerobic heart rate.  Hopefully that'll improve, but I guess starting low makes it easier to get better.  I'm still in the base period so I need to just stay patient and keep myself within the HR's I'm supposed to be. It's still kind of random training because I don't have a pool to use just yet. On friday I'll finally have one and be able to get back to swimming. 
I'm still very excited about the big race, and fortunately I have several months before the training for that will really kick in.  I'm pretty confident about it though.  It's going to be a fun year.

319 days till Ironman

Yesterday I did my first real workout, though it wasn't truly a workout for training, but a learning workout.  I needed to test my running Max heart rate.  On a treadmill I warmed up slow for 15 minutes, went all out for 30, at about an 8-8:30 min/mile pace, then cooled down for 5.
Although my heart rate reached as high as 197, according to the "theory" my average over the final 20 minutes was 190.  Roughly exactly what it should be based on age. 
So as of start of training my max heart rate is 190, and should remain. Resting heart rate(middle of the day, after coffee) is 57.  Still need to test when waking up in the morning.

Monday Morning...Day 1 of training

Today's the day. The new year, the year I'm going to complete an Ironman.  I begin my training today.  Sort of. I just quit my old gym last week, and I'm not actually sure if my membership keeps going through the end of the bill date or not, but I felt so freaking lucky to have even gotten out of it in the first place, I don't want to take any chances by going there.  The only reason I'd really need to go is to swim. But I figure, missing three swimming sessions, 20 weeks out from the first big race, aren't going to kill me.  So, today I'm supposed to swim and bike.  Oh yea, I just remembered my new bike trainer comes today, so I was planning to ride the bike in the gym at work, but I think I'll wait till tonight and use it at home.  Now I have an hour to kill at the end of the day at work.  I'll probably do some strength training with what few weights they actually have here. 
Oh shoot, didn't take my heart rate this morning.   I'll do it now.  It's not going to be accurate, I've had coffee.  Here goes...57 bpm.  I gotta start remembering to wear it overnight.  Ok, back to work.