http://blog.rappstar.com/2009/07/real-men-of-bamfness-chris-everhart.html

How about a little of both?

As I mentioned in the race report for Tri-ing for Childrens, I had a pretty satisfactory race.  Strong swim, decent bike, and weak run.  Yesterday after the race I rode home from the race and pondered the question – Why did I run not much faster today than I did last weekend at SORT?  My thoughts focused on other races this year and previous years- when I had good runs, when I had bad runs and what I did before them, and tossing in my bike pacing during said race.

The unfortunate conclusion I came to is that while there are some common threads – there isn’t anything super concrete take for instance -

My fastest 5k run was done at the end of a sprint race with a TSB of -32.

Yesterday one of my slowest 10k runs was done at the end of an Olympic distance with a  TSB of 9.

 The 5k week I did a two long rides in the 10 days before the race, several 3-4 hour rides and a Tempo run and a long run.  The 10k week only had a Half Ironman + a Long run.

Which leads me tobelieve that numbers alone does not predict performance – they are useful for forecasting potential – but exceptions to both sides happen. 

It also highlights that sometimes it’s not always in how much you did – but how you did it that is important – so while raw numbers can help guide you – some artfull interpretation and subjectivity is definately required.

What’s for this week?  No races and lots of training.  Been pondering what to focus on and how much to do.  A bit unsure yet, but I’ll figure something out soon.

OK race.

The picture today is a shot from probably the most epic stage in cyling history.  It’s a gentle reminder to myself that success comes from working hard – even if it doesn’t seem like fun – especially because when you look back – it might have been fun.  However, it needs to be tempered with working easy.

Racine was a great race this past weekend, and I dug pretty deep for my race, but I’m entering the last weeks of viable training time for IMWI.  In that light, I took Monday as a complete rest day, and slept in Tuesday morning.

The goal for this week is to get some solid training in, but show up Sunday at Tri-ing for Childrens ready to go sub-2 for an Olympic.

IOW -

• Monday
  • Off
• Tuesday
  • AM: Off
  • PM: 2:15 run (2:12:52 -17.749 miles actual)
• Wednesday
  • AM: Swim (6×300 SCY @ 4:00 – 3:35-3:40 swim time)
  • PM: 2 hour bike + 30 run – 3×20 @ HIM
• Thursday
  • AM: Swim
  • PM: 90 minute bike + 30 minute run – Steady IM Pace
• Friday
  • AM: 2:30 easy ride to Lake Geneva
  • PM: 60 minute easy-steady run
• Saturday
  • AM: Swim
• Sunday
  • Triing for Childrens
  • 3.5 hour easy post ride

The remaining 3 weeks before Pleasant Prairie will be focused on hitting my basic weeks: 1 Tempo Ride, 1 tempo run, 1 long run, 1 long ride each week.

I feel like my FTP which is likely around 320 is plenty high – I don’t need to worry about getting it higher – I just need to hit the workouts and become more confident in that and more comfortable riding at that intensity (and it’s children zones).

In the past, I have usually struggled a little with this last month of so of training before IM, I tend to become a little lax and miss more than I’d like.  I would like to improve on that this year and maintain the wave of the last month.

I’m working on my race report for SORT yesterday.  Long story short it was a good race.  I was the first person out of the water – hopefully somebody got a good picture of me in my Gear Grinder kit!  Swim was short, but fast.

The bike went really well I averaged 252 (257 NP) on the bike.  Higher than my average power at both High Cliff, and Elkhart Lake (an olympic – wow that was a sad performance).  That resulted in a 2:23 bike split.  My computer said the course was about .3 miles shy of 56, but I didn’t change the computer for my race wheels.  When I googlemapped it last week, I got 56 miles on the head.

I topped it off with a 1:29:00 run – my best in a half since 2006.  I would have likely crushed my 1:26:5x run from 2006, but I suffered a huge side stitch just before the final turn around (Mile 9.5-10).  That reduced me to a run walk for a mile or so before I got back to a solid run.  Probably an indicator that I was at or near my limit.

All in all a very good race – a race report will come shortly and some other thoughts on SORT.

Finally a race worthy of me.  Next weekend is an Olympic – Triing for Childrens.

Shannon and gang

I wanted to offer you a few pieces of feedback from today

Figured it was time for an update.  After embarrasing performances at my last couple of races – namely Elkhart Lake and High Cliff I finally had a good race.

This past weekend I returned to Stevens Point to defend my win last year, I wasn’t going alone as I had managed to convince Matt, his wife, and Mary to join me.  I went into the race expecting to get beaten by Matt, but with the full intention of making him hurt for it (He did).  Anyways, I ended up third overall, coming in a minute behind Matt, and 2 seconds behind fellow Gear-Grinder Tom Shepard – who out kicked me with 50 yards to go.  4th place went to Michael Boehmer.

Despite finishing 3rd, I was very happy with the race.  My performance was much more reflective of my capabilities as compared to some other races this year, especially with a -32 TSB (CTL Constant = 10) Saturday Morning, and my TSB just a couple days earlier hitting -39, my lowest ever.  My swim was good, my bike was a little less then last year (287 vs. 297 watts) with a major fade starting at about 20 minutes in, and my run was spectacular.  I ran an 18:54 for a 3.22 mile run – if you take that pace to 5k, it’s 18:15 – my best 5k by a handful of seconds.

This week is a rest week, I’m looking to bring my TSB up to slightly positive – between +5 and +10, and be in the hunt for a strong performance at Spirit of Racine.  It’s actually pretty important for me to turn in a strong performance this weekend, partly because I “need” to, but partly because I’ve haven’t had a “good” race at Racine since 2006.

After Racine I have Triing for Childrens an Olympic distance – target there will be to break 2 hours.

Training wise – everything has been going very good since High Cliff, I finally hit a good rhythm

Swim: 35,500 meters
Bike: 834 miles
Run: 111 miles
Just shy of 70 hours, all in 3 weeks!  Which leads me to my blog title today – if nothing else the last 3 weeks taught me, if you want to go fast – you’ve got to work hard.