BACK TO THE REAL WORLD

Well I'm back from the coolest vacation of my life. My girlfriend and I spent 12 days near the equator. The majority of time was spent on the Aggressor I live aboard dive boat. What a trip....incredible diving in a completly unique place. If your a diver this is simply a MUST DO!!!! and I completly recommend Aggressor Fleet.
The problem with a trip like this is of course it's hard to ride a bike and run while in the middle of the ocean. So now I have to make up 2 weeks of lost training....oh well totally worth all the pain to come.

RUNNING IN THE RAIN

Today was a nice run in the rain. Tony and I ran 11 miles and it was raining for about 5 of them and the wind was blowing the whole time. Still a good run though but after working all night it sure seemed like a hard run. when I woke up this evening I was a little tight. So I will rest on Sunday, well if you can count cutting a cord of wood after working all night rest.
1 week until we leave on vacation that will be about 7 days without running or biking and I don't think you can't count the diving as swimming. I do plan on running in Ecuador before we leave to go the boat. So hopefully I can't get a couple of 8-10 mile runs in on tues and wed.

GOOD RUN

Sunday's long run was perfect. Tony and I ran a different route nice and flat along the river. The weather was perfect as was our pace. We ran nice and easy for the first 5 miles then began to pick up the pace as we headed back finishing with our last mile at 6:57. The thing that we both thought was cool was that we went out and ran 10 miles like it was nothing.

1ST CENTURY RIDE

Well I did it, or I should say we did it. Jeff and I rode our 1st century. We both had set that as goal at the beginning of the year and yesterday we did it. We started at about 0745 at the Rose Lake trailhead on the Trail of the Couer D' Alenes. This is a converted railroad grade, so it is very flat. The only hill is a 3% grade that is 7 miles long. That hill started at about mile 27 for us. We took a couple of short breaks one at 34 miles, another at 53 mile. At the 53 mile point I thought there was no way I was going to be able to to it. My thighs were burning in a way that I had never experienced before. I think this was due to a few factors, one was that my 10 mile run on sunday had been pretty tough for me and I did not follow my normal recovery routine. The other big factor is that I have not been spending enough time on the bike and to this point this year the longest ride had been 48 miles. At the 68 mile point we took a longer lunch break and accessed the situation. Jeff felt good and was willing to go for it. I on the other hand was not as eager to push on. But I did feel tha I could go maybe 6 miles out then back and that would give us 80 miles. And I started using analogy with the 100 miles representing a 100% grade ie A+ and that we, 68 miles had a D+ and that was not good enough. But I rationalize, that if we made to 80 that would be a B and that was good enough. So we started out, but when we got tot the 6 mile point I felt ok so we kept going. Then got into the A catagory and by then we just had to go for it. And when we turn around we were cranking along really well. In the end it turned out that the last 30 miles were some of our strongest miles. Total ride time 5 hr 47 min 7 sec. average 17 mph. It was king of funny my bike computer actually had us at 98.88 miles and jeff's had us at 101.5 so we split the difference and called it an even 100. As I write this my knees are a littke sore and my legs in general feel like they did something but all in all I feel good. I must say the Serotta is the sweetest bike. I do want to make a couple of tweaks to my aerobars I think I bent over to much because my neck is killing me. Next goal,100 miles with some hills.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A WEEK MAKES

Today I ran the same route as last weeks race. This week was 5 min slower. Now I'm not sure if that's because I worked all night prior to today's run or if this was a train run not a race or some combo??? I know that a big deal today was that I had some issues with my shoes that caused me some foot problems. But the thing I do know is that after last weeks run I felt great ready to keep going. Today, I was done. I felt like I was working real hard just to maintain. I should get my new shoes on Tues. hopefully they will help.

NICE LITTLE BRICK

Today was a nice little brick. Started with a 20 mile ride really trying to keep cadence above 90,which by the way is hard for me. This was followed by a nice 3.3 mile trail run through the woods back to the house. The first 1/2 mile was a little sluggish as usual but the legs cam around. finished in 27:26 which is fine for me at this point.

SUNDAE SUNDAY

Today I ran my 1st Sundae Sunday. This is annual 10 mile race in Spokane. Nice coarse, perfect temp all in all good run. At the 2nd mile there is a pretty good down hill probably drops 145 ft in 1/2 mile. then when gain it all back and then some in the 9th mile. Final time 1:17:45 so 7:46 miles. The thing that bums me out was that I was at 8 miles at 1:01:10 so that last hill really spanked me. Especially considering I sprinted the 1/4 mile. Jayne did great considering it was her longest run ever. she was able to manage 9:09/mile to finish in 1:31:25.

LONGEST RUN

Well another first for me. Yesterdays long run was way morethan I bargained for. The plan was to run 16. However, because of the route we choose I ended up running 18. Now I did not set any speed records here bacically I just survived. Up to about 10 miles we were holding about a 9 min/mile pace which was ok because this was going to be a very long run for both of us. Tony was going for 20 and 16 for me. We were very lucky to have the help of my girlfriend Jayne, who was riding her roadbike and was are mobile aid station. We each started with about 30 ozs. of gatoraid and 2 gu's each. At about 10 miles Jayne brought us full bottles and another gu. Then again at about 14-15 miles another bottle. I think Tony took another gu as well but I did not. By this time I was running pretty slow and was pretty much in survival mode. It took all of my focus to keep running,if my started to wander my technique would start to falter and then my knees would start to hurt or my hips. But if I stayed focused and concentrated on each and every step then it was bearable. I hope that this will get better as I do more of these longer runs. Can't wait for the new shoes to get here because my feet were killing me. And I grew a blister on the arch of my right foot that started at about 10 miles that ended up being about the size of a quarter. All in all I think it was a fair effort 4 miles farther than my previous longest run, but considerably slower. oh well!

PRIEST LAKE RIDE

Friday was a real mixed bag. I went for a 26 mile mountain bike ride on one of the most beautiful trails I've ever ridden on. If you ever get the chance, or find yourself in north Idaho, ride the Lakeshore Trail on the west side of Priest Lake. This trail runs through beautiful old growth forests from Nordman all the way to Navigation point. It's not a technical ride nor is there a ton climbing, but a little. But the trail is very well maintained and provides some of the most incredible views of the lake and surrounding mountains. Most of the trail is middle chain ring kind of rollercoaster ride. We ate lunch at Navigation point. And made several stops along the route, my son was having bike issues. On the way back to the truck I broke a chain, which was an interesting experience. Having never had to fix a chain myself and not having my own chain tool made me a little nervous.Luckily, one of my friends had a tool and it was really a piece of cake. The weather started changing, a storm was blowing in From Canada and it was moving pretty fast. It's quite unnerving to be in the woods when the wind starts blowing hard. One large red fir had fallen along the trail blocking our way so we had to get off the bike and carry them through the woods for 40-50 ft. And a mile or so later a birch had fallen accross the trail and broke into several pieces which we were able to clear off the trail. But all in all it was a spectacular day, great workout and a fun ride.

SPRINTS

Yesterday it was up early and off to the track. 1/2 mile warm up then 12 x 400 on 3 minute repeats. My goal was to keep my sprints < 1:30 then 1:30 rest. I would then take 3 min rest between each mile. The 1st mile all laps were < 1:20. I did have 1 lap in the 2nd mile in which my time was 1:35. But all in all I felt pretty good about my effort.
After the workout it was off to the lake and skied a set. This is the 2nd time this week that I skied after my workout. It's weird I seem to ski better after the workouts than I do if I go out fresh. I think beacause I'm a little tired and that causes me to be less aggressive.

SOMETHING NEW

Today I tried something new that I got from http://www.jeffgalloway.com/training/walk_breaks.html . This long run workout incorperates walking with the running. I ran 8 minutes then walked 1 min. You can read the article to get all the specifics. Today I ran 10 miles, normally I run Long runs slower than normal at around 9 min/mil. A 10 mile run would normally leave me feeling pretty spent as my longest runs have been 13 miles. But today at the 7 mile point I felt great and at 8 miles I felt so good I did not take the prescribe walk break. I finished in 1:33:58 which is 9:23/mile and I walked ~ 9 min. and at the end I felt good to go another 5 miles. I also tried to incorperate something I read on Trifuel about critical speed. The article was gear toward cycling but I figured it would help with running as well. When I would come to a hill, and this route has alot of long hills, I would increase my cadence and not try to power up the hill. By taking the choppier steps my heart rate did not come up as fast and when I crested the hill I was able to maintain the higher cadence and increase my speed without feeling like I was going to blow up. All in all it was a great run.

TOUGH RUN

Yesterday was a tough long run. The goal was 12 miles using the same run 8 minutes walk 1 min. apporoach that I did last week. I had a tougher time this week though probably for a couple of reasons. 1st on Sat. I did a short tempo run of 4 miles. But I didn't do it until about 7pm. Then i was up the next morning at 0800 for a ski, skied like crap. Then Tony and I ran about 1030. At the beginning of the run it was about 75 but I think by the time we got done it was about 85. The first half though we ran the just as I had planned finishing the 1st 6 miles in ~ 54 min. But on the way back as it began to heat up, and I had no water or anything, I began to slow down, miles 9,10 were real tough as this was a brutely hilly section. By the time I got back to the Jeep I was ready to be done. All in all it was a good run but it was tougher than I thought it was going to be. makes me a little nervous to increase to 14 miles next week.

HIGH CADENCE??? RIDE

Today's ride was a short 20 miler on a fairly hilly ride through Riverside State Park. My goal was to keep my cadence above 80 and as close to 90 as possible. I don't know how in the world Lance and those guys can rev at above 100. The few times that was above 90 I felt like a cartoon character, legs going like crazy and not moving. Apparently I have alot of work to do on my technique. I try to maintain the circles and I can really tell on the hills when I try to focus more on pulling the pedals instead of pushing them, my quads don't burn so soon.
Love my new bike!!! Serrotta's rock

SPRINTS

Today was a sprint day. Jayne and I ran from the house through the woods to our little interval section of trail. Running sprints on a trail is harder than running on a track, I don't think it's quite as effective. Because I can't run as fast over the uneven ground. But we wanted to take Gus (lab) with us because the boy just looks so sad if we go running and he doesn't get to go. Anyway it's about 3/4 mile to the trail which serves as a good warm up. Then we started doing our sprints 1/4 mi. sprint followed by 1/4 mile jog. My 1st 3 were all at 1:23 and the last 3 were at 1:19 so I was pushing harder. Probably should have done a few more but it was starting to get dark and Jayne and Gus had had enough. Next week though I'm going to do them on the track.