Friday 5/12/2006

Morning Workout: Weights (Power Cycle 3)

Bench Press:
6 @ 100lbs
4 @ 110lbs
3 @ 115lbs
2 @ 120lbs
3 @ 115lbs

Jockey Row :
6 @ 85lbs
4 @ 95lbs
3 @ 100lbs
2 @ 100lbs
3 @ 100lbs

Clean:
6 @ 75lbs
4 @ 95lbs
3 @ 100lbs
2 @ 105lbs
3 @ 100lbs

Evening Workout: CompuTrainer

Came home from work early and did some 4:00 Super Maximum Sustainable Power Intervals on the CompuTrainer. It's been a few weeks since I've done these so I was a bit curious as to what my wattage numbers would look like.

Set 1:
306W(437W), 23.6mph avg, 160bpm(174bpm)
304W(443W), 23.6mph avg, 165bpm(180bpm)
277W(427W), 22.8mph avg, 165bpm(178bpm)

Set 2:
294W(436W), 23.3mph avg, 161bpm(174bpm)
296W(400W), 23.4mph avg, 166bpm(178bpm)
278W(399W), 22.7mph avg, 164bpm(177bpm)

I sandbagged the last effort in each set, I simply didn't have the energy to move my legs in circles for 4:00. The first and last minutes would be good, but the two in the middle were awful and is where the average power got pulled down.

25.7 miles total.

Thursday 5/11/2006

Morning Workout: Swim

I actually made it to the pool this morning for a swim workout, my first in over a week. I did 700m of warmup/drills then went into a 1500m time trial, which I did in under a half-hour and could've done faster had I paced myself better and went out harder. 300m of cooldown (mainly backstroke) and I was on my way home.

Felt good to get back into the pool, unfortunatly the motivation to swim still isn't there. I know I can go the distance and I'm clinging to the belief that I'd be better served resting than busting my ass for a couple of minutes in the water.
Evening Workout: None

Due to a work-related emergency and horrible weather, tonight's CompuTrainer workout was canned. Going for a run would normally be an option but the electrical storms in the area and pouring ran put a bit of a damper on that. At least I got some pool time this morning so the day's not a complete waste.

Sunday 5/7/06

Workout: CompuTrainer + run brick

After waking up feeling like a million bucks (two consecutive 'rest' days will do that) with very little piriformis pain (~90% gone) I decided to hit the bike. Riding outside is out until I have more confidence that my piriformis won't flare up and leave me stranded somewhere in the middle of Chester county, but the CompuTrainer is always in since I can just hop off if it flares up.

There was some work to do first, none of it fun. Getting up at 0530 on a Sunday to VPN into work isn't cool. Even more uncool is a two hour outage turning into a 3.5 hour outage. At least I had enough down time in there to do some dishes and get some food in me.

After hitting the massage balls and pre-fueling with ~1500 calories I hopped on the CompuTrainer for some tough love. Since my 'hill' workout on Wednesday went well, I decided to hit the hills again, just more of them.

The session went like this:
Full warmup (~50 minutes)
2 sets of:
- 3 mile climb @ 6%
- 3×0.3 mile climb @10%, standing the last tenth.
2×15:00 TT efforts

And these are the results:

Set 1:
3.0 miles @ 6%: 18:24.0, 254W(306W), 9.8mph
0.2 miles @ 10%: 1:44.0, 272W(324W), 6.9mph
0.3 miles @ 10%: 2:37.5, 281W(366W), 7.0mph
0.3 miles @ 10%: 2:29.5, 281W(349W), 7.2mph

Set 2:
3.0 miles @ 6%: 18:21.3, 255W(323W), 9.8mph
0.3 miles @ 10%: 2:27.5, 293W(367W), 7.3mph
0.3 miles @ 10%: 2:27.5, 291W(361W), 7.3mph
0.3 miles @ 10%: 2:28.8, 282W(384W), 7.3mph

15:00 241W(354W),21.9mph,5.48miles
15:00 241W(319W),22.0mph,5.48miles

I was really pushing it at the end of the second 15:00 TT effort in order to be in the same ballpark as the first and was quite surprised that the numbers were identical.

I took a ~10 minute break and went out for a quick run which ended up being longer than expected due to electrolyte issues which forced me to walk little bits here and there. Lesson learned: I need to make sure I salt my Cytomax.

4.1 miles in 35:11.4 (8:34/mile)

Friday 5/5/06 -> Saturday 5/6/06

Workouts: None

I've had some piriformis issues the past few weeks along with some incredible lower back and hip tightness. At work Thursday and Friday my right hip/butt was literally throbbing with pain. No amount of stretching and tennis ball massage was giving relief and I'm not really in a position to take weeks off letting this thing heal up with IMLP just a few short months away.

Enter the massage ball.

When I first saw these at the IM Wisconsin expo a couple of years back, I was really skeptical, especially when they quoted the price. $130 for some balls and rollers that supposedly fix all kinds of injuries, yeah, right.

Some research and a lot of forum posts later, I was interested in getting a set to see if they could help my situation. At this point I was willing to try anything to get rid of the throbbing pain.

After calling around to the retailers in the SE PA region listed on the site, I found a chiro in Delaware that had them, and cheaper than expected. A 'quick' 2-hour round trip later and I was back home with the entire TP massage ball kit in hand.

After dinner I popped the DVD in and started using them. My girlfriend wasn't a fan of the video, laughing pretty hard at it, and I wasn't too thrilled with it either, the website provides better diagrams on how to use the products. I used them again on Saturday morning and again in the evening. At this point the throbbing was going down quickly and my lower back/hips felt loose and relaxed.

I pretty much followed the protocol on the website for piriformis pain: release the soleus, then the quads, then the piriformis, then the hips and lower back. The entire process on both legs is only 15-20 minutes and it does take some getting used to the pain in the very beginning.

I've only used them for two days, but I still can't figure out why I didn't purchase them sooner.

Sunday 4/30/06

Workout: Ride outside + run

Woke up really early (0420) this morning to head up to Peapack, NJ to ride the Miles For Matheny '7 Hills of Attrition' ride. The official ride was last weekend, and I had registered for it in advance, but the weather turned on us late in the week, washing us out. A bunch of us had agreed to meet at ~0730 and ride by 0800, which is the usual plan when it's just me or me and my friend L. Today, though, there were eight of us, which was pretty cool, but we ended up not rolling until 0820 or so.

We decided to ride this years course since the little white arrows were still fresh on the roads and part of last years course was recently chip-sealed, making an already hairy descent a death wish.

My right hip decided fairly early on it'd not take part in any climbing. I'm not a great climber to begin with (the reason I do this ride every chance I get), but I'm much worse when I can use my glutes to power over the top of the pedal stroke.

Needless to say, the group fractured and 5 guys went off the front leaving three of us behind to fend for ourselves, which happens on these kind of rides. I'm used to riding solo and this route isn't very paceline friendly anyways so I was cool with it. We managed to ride the course spot-on, only missing one turn that resulted in a whole 50ft detour to get back on track.

The weather was incredible. It started off cool and I dressed with tights, two base layers, a long-sleeve jersey, jacket, and shoe covers. I was sweltering by the ten-mile mark at which point we stopped and I took the sleeves off my jacket. At the halfway point and water stop, I removed my jacket and tied it around my waist for the remainder of the ride.

The new course is nice, and it's nice to see a bunch of last years nasty climbs as screaming downhills. The climbs are rough and a few of them are long with steep sections in them, which makes life worth living.

Total: 49.2 miles w/ ~5000ft climbing in 3:41 (including all stops).

After putting my bike away and changing, L and I, the two trigeeks on the ride, went for a run. I'd had some side cramps during the ride, so I kept the pace slower, around 8:00/mile, and the run short. It felt good to be able to run after a ride like that, especially after riding it on a road bike with a slack seat angle.

Total: 2.1 miles in 16:30, nice and easy.