Numbers!

VO2Max is now 63.8, up 5% from 60.7 (projected) last year. Weight was 73.9 vs. 76.4 (3.2% loss), so that's a good chunk of the gain. FTP was 219 in Jan, currently 232.

It's almost Friday, right?

Thursday has become sleep-in day! No, wait, it's become stupid cat waking me up every 45 minutes -- "well, will you pet me now? meow meow meow how about now?" and small child coughing in his sleep every couple hours.

Then 3000m in the pool, mostly drill. And my workstation decided that the new Ubuntu upgrade was not to its liking, and would just halt during the restart. grr. I'm trying to install over-top currently -- "Would you like to upgrade Ubuntu 11.10 to Ubuntu 11.10?". Er, yes? no? all of the above?

Oh yes, and someday when I'm independently wealthy and don't really want to plan a trip of my own, just show up and hop on a high-end road bike and go where someone tells me: there's this.

Building a running base

It's only about 3.5km from my house to my work, so when the car goes bye-bye and I cancel my Y-membership, I'm going to consider running back and forth to work, at least on the non-blizzard days, and the days where I'm not going to be running .

Mon -- AM: Swim(FH), Run commute (8k total)

Tues -- AM: Bike PM: Run(UW)

Wed -- AM: Bike, Run commute (8k total)

Thurs -- AM: Bike PM: Run(UW)

Fri -- AM: Swim(FH), Run commute (8k total)

Sat -- AM: Bike

Sun -- AM: Run

Settling in to swim focus block

If things work out, then I get 5 swims/week.

Mon/Thurs are rest days -- just swim
Tues -- AM: Bike PM: Swim
Wed/Fri -- AM: Swim PM: Tempo Run (BP:M)
Sat -- AM: Bike
Sun -- AM: Long Run (BP:L)

Going to keep this going until the end of December, then switch to a 15-week bike focus. This will also coincide with me getting rid of the crappy car, and most likely putting my Y membership on hold.

That block will probably look like:
2 swims - maybe 3 if the UW thing pans out
3 runs
4 bike sessions

Mon -- AM: Swim(FH)

Tues -- AM: Bike PM: Run(from work)

Wed -- AM: Bike

Thurs -- AM: Bike PM: Run(from work)

Fri -- AM: Swim(FH)

Sat -- AM: Bike

Sun -- AM: Run

check out http://www.athletics.uwaterloo.ca/sports/2010/7/21/CR_0721100658.aspx?tab=openrecreation for 2012 swims

also

http://www.athletics.uwaterloo.ca/sports/2010/7/21/CR_0721105823.aspx?tab=memberships $260 for the year


OR

Keep the Y membership:
Mon -- AM: Swim(FH)
Tues -- AM: Bike PM: Run(Y)
Wed -- AM: Bike PM: Swim(Y)
Thurs -- AM: Bike PM: Run(Y)
Fri -- AM: Swim(FH)
Sat -- AM: Bike
Sun -- AM: Run

Week two summary

Got a good amount of work in.

Swim: 4 swims for 10.8k, up from 3 swims last week. Trending in the right direction at least.

Bike: Two bikes, the 2x20 in HHNF is putting the hurt on.

Run: No small stuff alas, I need to figure out how to get out the door with dog for a quick 20 without 10 minutes of clothes changing on either end.

Overall TSS of 640. More of these will make me happy.

Finally seem to be shaking the cold that's been pestering me for the 10 days, I felt reasonable on the run, my pace in Z2 (by HR) was more or less where it should have been (5:20 min/km at about 135) during Sunday's long run.

Sufferfest: Hell Hath No Fury

Got the new training vid -- Hell Hath No Fury -- mainly because of the 2x20min set, which is a great set when done at/around your FTP (great in this case meaning "excrutiating") for boosting that particular metric.

Made it into the first 20min set with minimal damage, then started hurting after the first few attacks. I'm used to women kicking my ass on the bike, but this was unusual. It was downhill from there (in the video, there is only a small downhill section, alas). I'm glad the Cervelo has comfy arm rests, because my head ended up there after the end of each 20 minute segment.

One thing that has bugged me in each of the Sufferfest vids that I have is that there's some small typo or weird grammatical error in the mid-interval messages. Random font changes in Angels, David Millar gets labelled as Miller in Local Hero, etc. HHNF has "capitan". But that's about the worst thing I can say about them, honestly.

So yeah, between this 2x20 and A Very Dark Place's 5x4 (just an aside, there is nothing more soul-crushing than kicking to the end of the 4th interval, and thinking "well, that's done", and then realizing you have to Do. It. Again.) that's pretty much my FT and 5MP workouts sorted for the next while.

*whimper*

Get Ready, Get Set, Go moderately easy ...

FTP testing yielded 232, which for indoors is expected (I was hitting 240 outdoors at the end of last season), and my 1000m swim was 18:45, so 1:52/100m. My pool yardage fell short -- with only three swims, and two of those largely drills, I didn't even break 8k.

I spent most of the week feeling like crap because of no-sleep (sick kid), sick me, and work-related carousing (cf sick). Also batchin' it (DW is away for the weekend in Toronto at a show), so minimal time for anything other than child wrangling. Would be nice to get the long run in tomorrow at some point...

My ever-evolving 2012 race-plan now looks like:


Around the Bay 30k run- March 25 - Hamilton
Paris-Ancaster 60k XC bike - April 15 - Ancaster
Victoria's Duathlon - May 20 - Waterloo or Ohio Triple T - May 18-20 - Ohio
Tour De Grand 160k bike - June 10 - Cambridge
Guelph Lake I Olympic triathlon - June 17 - Guelph
Tour De Waterloo 130k bike - June 24 - Waterloo
Peterborough half-iron triathlon - July 8 - Peterborough
Centurion Collingwood C100 bike - Sept 16 - Collingwood
Tour de Hans 100k bike - Oct 1 - Waterloo

Note the bike-heavy and local overtones.

I've signed up with Braun's to "race for them" (ie, show up at events in their kit, blog/tweet/etc about racing, and volunteer at a couple events). This is the first year in a while they have a team presence, so it'll be interesting to see what shakes out.

First week down ...

Not bad. Only missed a short run, and a swim on Friday (little one was up sick Thursday, and sleep > training right now).

I signed up for a membership at the local Y, which is a 5 minute drive from work -- pool and treadmill -- very handy.

So, starting an eight-week swim focus: Monday-Wednesday-Friday, Masters, Tues-Thurs at the Y, trying out the SwimSmooth booklet I bought ages ago. Hopefully, I can get in ~15km / week that way.

At the same time, I'll be maintaining the BarryP 3-2-1 plan at minimal volume (20-40-60 minutes) for the next little while.

After the swim block, it's onto the bike block -- the road bike is all upgraded into the modern era (well, 8-speed STI) and I tested it out on the rollers last night, works great.

Need to talk to someone at Braun's ... their race team might be a better fit for the next season if I'm just focussing on short-course.

Last day ...

... of the off-season.

Starting easy with a swim and easy run in the morning. Real work starts Tuesday with the 20min max power test.

Swim, bike, ... I forget the rest

Week two of no training starts! Work resumes October 31st for a 20-week block of bike focus.

Resting

HR was 45 this morning.

I keep going back and forth about what's going to happen with next year. Try again at a season of half, or stick to short-course again? I think the decision is going to hinge on 1) getting a place to sleep at TripleT, 2) going out west to Calgary 70.3.

ScotiaBank Toronto Waterfront Half

Felt really good during warmup, so I thought maybe I could hit my target of 1:30. Bad idea.

Place

Name

City

Bib#

Time

Chip

Pace

Category

Category Place

Gender Place

@10km Split 1

Split 10 21km

388

GRAHAM DUNN

WATERLOO

6465

1:35:43.4

1:35:21.5

4:33

M35-39

48/574

318/3742

43:37

51:45

Way too fast on the front half. Lots of suffering on the last 5k, couldn't even sprint at the end. My heart rate was quite a bit higher than usual, possibly sick, or the decongestant, or both.


Anyways, vdot 47.7, now I have paces to hit when I start up again in November. Going to try and go sub-2:20 at Around The Bay. Now where did I put that BarryP training plan ...

Kona

Watched dribs and drabs yesterday. Wow. Those guys are fast.

The amount of work you need to put into going to Kona as an age-grouper (in the AGs I currently populate) is tremendous. In the 30-40 AGs, you pretty much need a sub-10 IM to get a slot. That's several seasons of 15-20 hours/week of peak training (say 4 months), with my current hours the rest of the year.

Would developing that sort of self-discpline carry over into other parts of your life? I think of the hours I spend to be moderately competitive (say top 10 in AG for local races), and wonder if I spent 8-10 hours / week at karate / playing piano / teaching orphans to read, what levels would I get to?

That said, I'll probably enter the Kona lottery this year...

Almost done

The Scotia Waterfront half is next weekend. This weekend is Thanksgiving. I'm so screwed on weight. I know, first world problems. This is the last event of my racing season, and I'm going to take a month where swimming twice a week and the occasional easy run is the extent of my training.

I'm still not sure what I want to do with next year's season.

An early season marathon sounds sort of interesting, I might do Triple T again, AmZof duathlon also sounds fun. However, I might just take a season to focus on short-course. This works with my time constraints that I expect to continue next year.

TourDeHans : 96k ride + 4k walk

The Good
Stuck with a large pack through to 96k ... lots of work at the front, went off the front a couple times, but it was so windy there was no way that was going to stick.
The Bad
So cold waiting for the start... violent shivering for 15 minutes.
The Ugly
Around the 7k to go sign, I decided to "attack" up a short hill, and see if I could get anyone to go with me. They, having seen my previous efforts, decide to hold off, so I'm dying alone in the wind for 5 minutes until they catch me, and spit me out the back. I'm in the midst of collecting myself in preparation to at least bridge back up, when suddenly, my chain starts to skip like mad. I look down at my rear freewheel and keenly observe that it's not typically hanging at a 45-degree angle, as it is now. I coast to a stop beside the "4k to go" sign.
Sigh. 
I realize that this is not a road-side repair, and start trudging towards the finish. I pass a volunteer who asks if I want the support van. I agree that's a fine idea, but that it's maybe 10 degrees above freezing, and they can catch up with me.
At "2k to go", another volunteer helpfully offers to radio the support van, I go over how they should be on the way, and again, it's really cold, and I need to keep walking.
At 500m to go, the support van pulls up beside me. I say thanks, but I'll just walk it in from here...

Graham DUNN

Waterloo

86

3:18:06.0

31.0

Male 35-39

11/20

87/156

again?

I'm planning on going back to Ohio for Triple T in May (or have at least expressed interest in reserving a bunk in the cabin). Registration opens October 1.

Belwood

7th in AG, swim was meh, bike felt measured, run felt smooth and easy. Happy except for getting out-sprinted at the line (went too early).

34

Graham DUNN

Waterloo

ON

CAN

92

1:40:13.6

M35-39

7/27

9 61 18:09 1:49

9 50 51:10 35.2

9 40 28:59 4:09

0:59

0:58

Putting Fast ahead of Far

So since I decided that sanity was more important than long-course triathlon, and re-jigged my schedule accordingly, I've had a couple interesting results...

Bike CP is now up at 250Watts (up from 215 at the start of the season), and my run has gotten faster (6 x 1 mile repeats at 6:20).

My last(?) event this season is coming up in a week and a half, so I'm working on logging a bunch of meters this week and next (season pass to Moses springer). I figure if I can put in 10k / week (4 lunchtime swims) that will give me a little boost to get back to where I was  in the pool at the end of the winter.

Change of plans...

So the long hours for half-iron distance were not working ... I was trying to log them, and just going crazy -- no sleep sucks. So I scratched the 70.3 events, and am now planning to just hit a couple short-course local events.

I'm falling back to the EN out-season plan plus local squad training.

Ohio TTT race report

 Quick results:

- 54/74 in AG
- 12:33:33 total time

Friday (Super Sprint):

Swim: Saw several people (including myself) saying "oh, the swim is only 5 minutes, it can't be worth wearing a wetsuit", wading into the lake up to their knees, turning around and heading back to transition to grab their wetsuit. During a warmup swim that wasn't very warming, and included some nasty toe cramps, I was wondering exactly what I had gotten myself into. Everyone got out, and assembled into a vague line by race number for the time trial swim start. Once into the water and working, things warmed up, but then I was out of the water and onto the bike.

Bike: The 5 mile ride is up a very steep and long climb back to the lodge, then a loop around the cabins, then a very fast descent back to transition.

Run: The 1 mile run is an out-an-back that gives you a short taste of the up-and-down Lamp Black trail that the rest of the runs are on.

Everyone was refuelling like they had finished a much longer race, especially on the race-provided buffet. The Muscle Milk tent was popular. I think I drank at least $20 of it over the weekend.

Saturday Olympic AM:

Swim: The water had warmed up 2 degrees to 58. Luxury! My strategy at this point is to just cruise the swim. Of course, the urge to race plus the desire to get warm overrides this somewhat, and I got a little agressive until I got back to start the second loop and took stock, and realized I had to back off a little. This would be a dominant theme for the rest of the day. I finished the second loop, feeling good.

Bike: This was a single 40k loop that included a 90-degree left right into a hill that started at 22% grade for the first 100m, then levelled off to merely 10-15% for another 3.5km of climbing. The rest of the course was as much up and down as anything else, then we head down the other side of the mountain we climbed up. This was a narrow, winding descent with a very sharp turn at the bottom. The race stationed three volunteers with flags warning you to slow down. There's also an ambulance parked at the bottom, because each year, someone thinks they're a good enough descender to not need to slow down and isn't. The loop ends up back at the park. I was watching my watts on this loop, trying to keep under 200 watts. I was still thinking of this as a slow Olympic (around 200 watts), which was an error, the pace should have really been closer to a 1/2 Iron-ish 180/190.

Run: The first real taste of the Lamp Black Trail run... an out-and-back 6.5mile (10.4k) run that is basically divided into a long steady climb to 1/4 of the way in, then a mild descent to halfway, then a steeper climb to 3/4, then a steep descent to the turnaround. The footing is hard-packed dirt and gravel, with the occasional large rock and run-off washouts to make the surface slightly treacherous if you're not paying attention. The trail is 3/4 covered by trees, so you get a bit of relief from the sun, but there's not a lot of breeze until you get to the higher points of the climbs. This run felt great, I was cautious on the uphills, let my legs run down the descents.

The few hours before the next race were spent lying down with compression socks, legs elevated, hydrating.

Saturday Olympic PM:

Bike:

The course was much busier with traffic, the terrain was simliar to Muskoka, but with one long steep climb. I ended up chatting to a motorcyclist going up this climb, as they were stuck behind a car who wouldn't pass a group of racers further up the hill making about the same pace as me. While a pleasant distraction from the climb, I ended up totally blowing my wattage and making the climb at about 275 because I wasn't paying attention. This scenario repeated further along, but during a descent, I got stuck behind a line of cars who were going more slowly than I wanted to descend. Frustrating for everyone involved, I'm sure.

Swim: It was much quicker to get a wesuit on after a bike ride than I expected. A plastic bag on the feet and hands really speeds things up. Water temperature up to 60. Same swim as the AM Oly, the first lap I was all over the place, sighting-wise. On the second lap, I resolved to go in a straight line, at the expense of speed, if neccessary. Started sighting every three strokes and keeping my head straight as I looked up to find the buoy. This seemed to work and I came up to the end of the second lap feeling pretty good. However, going around the last buoy, I did two or three whip kicks to get through the traffic jam, and my quads just seized for a second. It felt like everything between my knee and hip had locked. Ouch. Pulled the last 100m to shore, then struggled to stand up and hobble across the bridge to transition. My quads relaxed after 30 seconds and I headed out on the run.

Run: Felt fine on the out, the back felt like I had lead legs. Just struggled the last 3/4 of the run, had to walk up one of the last hills. Made it in only with the vision of collapsing into the stream with a bottle of Recoverite driving me on.

Recovery socks + liquid recovery + legs up again before dinner, eating, then back to bed.

Sunday 1/2 Iron:

Swim: Two-lap swim, just cruised it, felt good.

Bike: Two lap course, there were two significant climbs, but these were mostly long and grinding, maybe 12% at the steepest. This was a beautiful course, and the field was stretched out, so it got a little lonely sometimes. There was one technical descent (where my Garmin leaped to its death :/), but then another nice long descent back to transition. This was a self-supported ride, so there was no bottle exchange, just a refilling / special-needs table where you could leave additional supplies for yourself. My first lap I was still feeling good, so I was trying to keep my wattage just under 200. Again, an error that I had to correct on the second lap where I kept it down between 180-190. It's very difficult to do this on long hills, it's basically an experiment in how slow you can go without falling over. Coming back in, I shouted to the police officer how this was the happiest I had ever been to see a cruiser with its lights flashing.

Run: Oh dear. My goal (more or less pulled out of the air) had been to not walk on this part of the race. I think I passed through all five stages of Kubler-Ross as I realized this was not going to happen.

Denial: I'm not walking, I'm jogging. At a slower pace than I usually walk.

Anger: Who the hell designs a run course where you need a Sherpa?

Bargaining: OK, I'm just going to walk up this hill, but then run quickly down the other side. Ok, I'll do 10 and 1s until the turn-around, then push it home.

Depression: These are all actual thoughts I had on the run.

"You're out of ice? Why don't you just shoot me now?" 

"I suck. I'm going to take up something more suited to my fitness level. Like lawn darts."

"I have to do this loop again? Maybe I could just go hide in the woods for 45 minutes."

Acceptance: It's the last part of the second loop and I'm walking. It's 31C and I have to spend 8 hours in a car tomorrow. There's always next year.

The run eventually ended. I remember being honestly suprised to see the forest open up into the field that lead down to transition. Crash into the stream, which by now was a balmy 65 or so.

This race is hard. You're racing an Iron distance over two days, over the most challenging terrain I've ever been on. The organization is great, there is excellent support in transition -- post-race food, Inifit, water and massage-for-hire if you want it. It's a tremendous value, there are no minimum three night stays (though you may want to take the Sunday night before driving any distance home), and the lodgings are reasonably priced.

Rain rain rain

All weekend. Got a very short, very wet ride in on Saturday ... also, boy is sick again, so no sleep and less training since Sunday. TTT is looming large.

Good run

Beautiful weather to bust my ass mostly keeping up with Dickie...

2 x 1.6k @3:30/km
2 x 800 @ 3:48/km, 3:52/km (not sure what happened there)
4 x 400 @ 3:30/km

oh yeah ...

I'm down to 73.6kg, should be able to hit race weight goal of 73kg by next weekend.

The past and the future

Ran the Waterloo half in 1:32:something ... Just over 4:20/km I think. Jeff says I should be aiming for 4:10/km in an open, so I guess there's more work to be done.

Had a really good brick last night, 4 x 10min ended up 217,218,225,225, then a quick run that felt good. Made Ed suffer to get by me :)

TripleT in 9 days... Goal is to run the half in under 2 hours.

4 Weeks to Triple T

Time to tighten everything up ... food, training.

Going to try and break 1:30 in the Waterloo Half. Optimistic.

Paris to Ancaster

There was a lot of mud. And snow. And a killer wind (which was mostly a tailwind, but occasionally not). I only fell off twice. There was 4km stretch where three of us averaged 50km/h.

heavy snow, lots of muddy singletrack, 45km/h winds gusting to 70km/h. Still better than a trainer ride :) The race is unusual, because it's sort of a combination road/cross/mountain hyrid; there are extensive sections of each terrain. My EN time trialling skillz were appreciated as I towed a bunch of MTBers through the paved sections. Just a final note, all races should end at a community center with hot showers.

Place	Plate	Name	Team	Category	Cat Place	Sex Place	Time	Gap	Speed	Wave

276

875

DUNN, Graham

INDEPENDENT

LM30-39

77/282

267

2h 26' 41"

0h 41' 55"

24.5

P2A2

Budget!

So in the spirit of fiscal conservatism, I'm paring some items from my exercise budget and hoping to replace them with free equivalents.

I will cancel my EN subscription. I think I've gotten a lot out of it, but I'm duplicating a lot of the functionality of my team energi membership.

I'm not renewing my training peaks premium account -- the only premium feature I'm using now is the ability to schedule workouts in advance. In its place, I'm using google calendar.

ATB Results

Summary: The best execution of the worst fitness possible.

The stats:

Time: 2:30:12.4

Chip: 2:28:48.9

Pace: 5:01

Category:  M35-39

Category Place: 113/412

Gender Place: 700/2963 

@10kmSplit : 51:03
@15kmSplit : 1:15:59
@20km : 1:40:39

I kept to the plan pretty closely, though I was faster in the opening 7km, by the time the race had started, I had revised the plan for the first 7k to be 5:15-ish, I think was around 5:08. I had to constantly force myself to slow down here ... going backwards through the field, hating every second of it.

Middle 16 were just under 5 (4:56, I think). Slowly moving up through the field, but no great advances. Holding back, but not as hard.

KM 20 signals the start of the rolling hills, I wasn't sure if I could hold my 4:45 plan, but I managed 4:46 for the last 7k. I made some serious advances here, especially on the downhills when I could let my legs go.

I negative on the overall split (even would have been 1:32:00), so mission accomplished there.

Next year, I'm going to get a silver medal (2 hrs to 2:15).

Slow recovery

Coming off the antibiotics ... had a long run Thursday morning, just to see what Sunday's going to be like. Managed 5.15s for an hour, then 45 minutes of interval work (4.05-4.15), but only got through six of the eight planned sets before I blew up.

I'm hoping to average 5:15 min/km for ATB on Sunday. Going to be very careful about the pacing (5:30 for the first 7km, 5:10-5:15 for the middle 16km, then 5 or better for the last 7). That's 2:37:30. 13 minutes off my PB. Stupid cold. Negative split is the only silver lining here.

On the plus side, it should be cold and icy.

Had enough

Ran the Chili half in 1:43:31 -- which is mediocre, unless you consider that I was in the midst of a two week chest cold, then it's stupid.

Boy's sick, I'm sick, I'm done my OS, and am taking two weeks to do sweet F A. Except that I'm sick (as mentioned), so I couldn't be training anyways. So now I'm restless (not doing anything), yet exhausted (boy doesn't sleep well when sick) and cold (down to 75.0Kg), except when I'm hot because of my cold.

And it's snowing again.

meh.

beat

swimming did me in this morning, I think it was the kick set followed by the inverted IM pyramid.

Linux and Garmin

Found this link to some scripts that will download from a Garmin 305 and then convert to a ctx file, suitable for upload to TrainingPeaks, or Garmin Connect. Combined with Golden Cheetah, I can do all my analysis in Linux (more for the benefit of having it all on my laptop, rather than any dislike of Windows or OS X).

So here's something ...

I was looking at my old weeks in trainingpeaks, and seeing that I max out around 12 or 13 hours week.

So here's the thing: If I spent that much time at the dojo, or practicing piano, or guitar or something else that was learning a skill, rather than just bumping my VO2/FTP, how far would I get in those things, as opposed to something that will fade in a few months if left untended...

Feeling better ...

The massage therapy and easing back on the frequency (two runs turned into XC skis this week), helped quite a bit, no more shin pain.

Pain fixes pain

I was having some shin and hip flexor pain, so after some queries to Dr. Google and the EN team, I booked a session with a massage therapist.

I'm feeling much better today, last night I felt like I had been beaten about the legs though. The therapist emailed me this morning:

Just wondering how you are feeling after your massage?

Your muscles were quite tight and shortened- so I stretched them out elongating them.

Well I hope you don't hate me too much.

 I think I need to stretch more.

Confusion of stiffness

I wonder what a collection of sore muscles is called? I don't know if the stiffness in my shoulder blades is from swimming this morning, or karate last night. Or maybe it's from the bike on Tuesday morning. So many choices.

Arrivals

PT Pro 2.4 CPU arrived ... pulling data off with PowerAgent in OSX, saving to file and analyzing with Golden Cheetah in Linux.

Local squad meeting is next week, going to have to start making decisions about how I want to allocate resources between EN and Energi. There's a team swim on Sunday afternoon as well. I can make it, not sure how many SAUs I'm going to burn with that.

I'm not sure I can juggle EN workouts to fit into the Energi schedule.

Moving on up

Up to lane 5, that is. Started last Wednesday, and after today I think the move is for reals (i.e., I didn't puke or end up floating face down under the diving board).

Still waiting for the yellow PowerTap CPU... training with power is working out pretty well without post-ride analysis in the meantime, I'm just doing my work in interval mode and watching average power.

I'm purchasing a little motivation : "Fight Club" from www.thesufferfest.com