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.  7.5/10.  Not bad, not good – solid.

More details tomorrow.

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’s SORT race. 

First off – I am a huge fan of your races.  I have done SORT 5 times now, and have done the TTT 4 times, and plan to do it a 5^th next year.  Up until this year I considered SORT to be equal to or only slightly behind Ironman races in terms of quality, organization, and support. 

The first was the swim.  Why was it so short?  Why was it so shallow in places that while swimming I was able to touch the bottom?  As I told a friend – if I wanted to be able to walk the entire swim, or a large portion of it – I wouldn’t sign up for a race in Lake Michigan.  At a race of the stature that you promote Racine to be, a short swim is unacceptable (in fact at any race IMO) – last year – no issues as the fog was crazy and you did the best you could.  This year – inexcusable.  If I wanted to swim 1500 meters, I would have done an Olympic today.

 Second – the drafting today was horrendous.  Words simply cannot describe what I saw when I was at mile 2 of the run, and I saw two groups of riders, 2 wide 15-20 deep cruising towards transition – I only imagine what else was happening out there.  Up in the elite wave it was pretty honest.  Obviously a boatload of USAT officials giving out 100+ penalties didn’t do jack.  You can’t count on the participants to be honest, so YOU need to do something.  Smaller waves, larger intervals between waves, a smaller field, something.  Fix the problem by preventing it.

 Third – I am not sure if there were timing problems in some of the waves, or if it was a sheer effect of drafting, but some of the Female bike times were insane, I haven’t looked at the Men’s times close enough to form an opinion there.  I observe that an female AG “winner” rode a 2:21, nearly 24 miles an hour.  Out splitting me by 2 minutes – last year at IMWI I rode 31 minutes faster than that participant.  Just 3 or 4 months ago she rode a 2:39 at NO 70.3.  Not only that, but she rode 4 minutes faster than Lisa Bentley – the year she was 3^rd in the World at the Ironman.

 Give. Me. A. Break.

 Lastly – I was personally disappointed in the lack of a deep competitive pro field that we have seen in years past.  It would have been fun to see David Thompson, Luke Bell, Chris Leigh, Jordan Rapp, or any other speedy guy out on the course dishing out the hurt with Blake.

 While I fully intend to return to the TTT again next year, I am currently doubting my return to SORT, despite it being in my backyard and the timing of it in my usual training schedule – I see a lot of potential in taking a drive up to the Door County half and hopefully enjoying a much fairer race.

I am disappointed to have to send an email of such a negative tone to you guys, but the things I mention above were a HUGE spoiler on a day that saw me execute my best “half” in a couple of years.  See you next year at the Triple T, and hopefully when I will feel confident that SORT return to its past form next year when I chose a race for this weekend.

Scott Bowe

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.