Rain and Sun, 10 in 90

A purpose for every workout—that's something that took awhile to digest, but I get it now. I especially get how important it is with running. I used to go hard to very hard nearly every time out. This kind of training will improve your fitness, but it increases the risk of injury. Plus, it won't improve your fitness as much or as quickly as a thoughtful mix of track repeats, tempo runs and long runs—and doing a lot of miles that don't hurt. That's what today's run was, a run that didn't hurt. Ten miles in around 90 minutes, that's my the one that puts miles in the bank and allows me to come back the next day with no soreness and ready to take on the most sinister of intervals on the bike, in the pool or even on the road. Typical Portland May day: cloudy and rainy as I get some work done in the home office. Suddenly, there's sun shining in the window. I get ready to go and like a curtain being drawn, it grows dark. Rain comes. What the hell, I'm out the door in it. Ten minutes later, the sun is out, and it stays out for the rest of the run. I'm a little overdressed for sunshine, but at least the alleged raingear I'm wearing is a vest, not long-sleeved. It's fine. It's beautiful.

Later, I hit the pool. My 10x100 set is a little different than usual. I give myself more rest, going on the 2:30, but also try to go faster. I start at 1:45 and work my way down to 1:35. Then I do 10x50 on the 1:15, bringing each one in around :45-:47. My heart is really pounding late in that set. I swim a couple of easy 250s, concentrating on my form, to round out the 2000-yard workout.

Life in the City

I'm too distracted to write about triathlon tonight. I just had an encounter with the neighbor behind our house. I'd never met the guy before—he's the owner of the house but it's a rental, on Glisan, the busy street parallel to and south of ours. For the second night in a row he was running his leaf blower at 9:30 p.m. The Lad's room is upstairs and to the rear of the house and he's a good sleeper, but this was keeping him up. Understandably. There's something especially obnoxious about the sound a leaf blower makes. I asked the guy nicely—I swear—if he could please do his yard work at a more reasonable hour. He asked my name and where I lived. I told him. Why not? I was being neighborly. He says, with a bit of a smirk, "Well, Pete, technically I can run this thing until 11 p.m." I reply, "Technically, too, I bet you could shove that thing up your ass." With that, he turned on the leaf blower. What an idiot. (In fact, the city noise ordinance prohibits use of leaf blowers after 7 p.m. But seriously, why is it even a question? I mean, leaf blowing at 9:30 in a residential area?)

Well, OK, a little triathlon (it's 10 p.m.; he's stopped, it appears)… It was rainy today: trainer. I'd taken the Cervelo off the Computrainer and wasn't going to put it back on. It's just too much of a hassle taking it off and on, with all the cables and shit. Plus, I'm counting on lots of good weather the rest of May. (What an idiot.) Anyway, I could have put the old Lemond on the Computrainer, but I like to have that bike at the ready to just hop on and off at any time. So I retired the Computrainer for the season and hauled out my old CycleOps trainer and set the Lemond up on that (takes about 15 seconds). I rode for an hour and 45 minutes, mixing in some hammering with some mellow spinning while watching Wolf Blitzer in The Situation Room. What an idiot. (Wolf, I mean.)

The house had warmed up and even with a fan blowing I sweat buckets.

Tuesday Tri Brain Dump

I don't know if it will work for you. Actually, I don't know for sure what it's done for me. But I think running on uneven surfaces has served me well. This was another aspect of my wacky podiatrist's prescription for solving my Achilles problem: there was the thing about wearing shoes with little in the way of raised heel or toe lift, very little padding and plenty of room for your toes to wiggle, and he suggested I run as much as I can on soft but not necessarily smooth surfaces to strengthen my feet and all the muscles, tendons and ligaments that connect to them. So I've been doing that and my Achilles feels great, as does everything else. And even when I go over to the hard stuff, which I do run on occasionally because, after all, that's what I'll encounter in races, I feel plenty strong and comfortable. OK. I don't have scientific evidence. I understand the danger of drawing casual cause-effect linkage. Yet I think this program has worked. I will certainly say this: six months ago I would not have been able to pull off a workout like the one I did today. I warmed up for a couple of miles with some slow jogging and a little striding. Then I alternated hard one kilometers at under 5K pace with jogged one kilometers. Five hards, five easies. The last couple of hard ones hurt but that's always the case with repeats. What was unusual here was that these weren't done on a smooth track with gentle curves and long straights; no, these were done on the grounds at Normandale, a well used public park with grass that is hardly golf-course quality and these wet days is rather slippery and sloshy to boot, and dirt that in addition to the usual rocks and tree roots now features more than a little mud. Plus, there are six tight, right-angle turns to negotiate on around the course. This is active, alive, engaged running. Running around a track, you lock in and go almost as though you're working a machine, like you're pedaling a bike: there's a steady rhythm, a constancy to it. You don't even have to think about your steps. Normandale is all about constancy, too—constantly adjusting. You've got to be mindful of so many of your steps and your brain has to make a million more little calculations about how to work the muscles to keep you upright and moving along safely, and your muscles have to do that extra work. It's challenging, but great fun. I was doing these kilometers in 4 minutes but I'd guess the effort was equal to a 3:45s on the track, maybe even faster.

An hour or so after I finished running it was time to get to the pool. I was exhausted. I plopped down on the couch and in five minutes was dozing. Rest. It was what my body wanted, what it needed. But this swim workout had an expiration date—in about 90 minutes, I'd need to be at school to fetch The Lad. So I dragged my drooping ass to the pool. Along the way, I kept wondering if this was the right decision. Maybe rest would be better for me? Maybe I’m pushing too hard? I did offer my body a compromise: I'll make you swim, but I won't make you swim hard. We'll enjoy the water, how about that? Stupid body fell for the gambit and after 10 minutes of sleep-swimming, I actually began to feel pretty good in the water. I kept my promise and didn't swim hard, but I got in 2000 yards, yards that felt like they actually did something good for me, if only by continuing my swimming momentum. And now, several hours later, I feel fine, like it was a good day, a day of continued progress.

Bike Love

Today was strange. At times my mind drifted back to yesterday's fairly inconsequential but joyous—yep, that's the right word, joyous—trio of workouts and for a moment triathlon was the bestest thing in the whole wide world. Mostly, however, I muddled through the first half of the day toting a vague sense of letdown, which wasn't unloaded until I got The Lad at school. A natural thing, I suppose. The days can't all by transcendent, during these six months to Coeur d'Alene; otherwise they wouldn't be transcendent. Outside: cool and drippy, then downright soaking. I bet if the sun were out I would have hopped on my bike, rode 30 or 40, and been sky high again. Boy have I been surprised how much fun it's been to get out on the Cervelo and ride. You know, I really didn't ride that bike very much last year. I didn't get it until May. Sure I rode it several times before CDA, but not much afterward, when running pretty much gobbled up my athletic life. It takes a while to get to know a bike and though I didn't realize it until now, the Cervelo and I seemed to develop a bit of a connection over the winter, attached to each other and tethered to the Computrainer. So now, when we get out and ride I feel comfortable, confident and actually kind of fast. I wish I could ride every day.

But, as I say, not today. Today, just a swim, a 2500-yard swim highlighted by a 10x50 set on 1:05, working my way down to a :43 50, my best ever, I think. Still slow, but not as!

Run, Swim, Bike, Grin

After coffee and the newspaper and NPR, the days starts with an hour of loping around the damp freshly mowed Normandale grass, going for seven easy miles while the clouds and sun duke it out overhead. Then straight to the pool for 10x100 on 2:05, working my way gradually down from 1:50 to 1:40 through the set, followed by a lazy 1000 in 20 minutes just to relax and swim. Arrive home. Noon. Air is cool but not at all cold, sun is out, some puffy unthreatening clouds are scattered around. That forecasted rain? Not here, not yet. In May, in Portland, this is an opportunity only a fool or a fraud passes up. Within 10 minutes I’m on the bike for 33 miles in 1:45, averaging solidly over 20 mph when I’m not stopped at lights or otherwise dealing with traffic. I push it a little on this ride, but gently. You know what I mean? Not hammering, but definitely not slacking. I’m wearing a short-sleeve technical shirt with my electric lime vest over it. I didn’t bring anything to eat but I’m feeding off the fresh spring air, the brilliance of this slice of the day. It occurs to me that one of the side benefits of doing periodic really long workouts is this: Everything else becomes short and sweet.

A few hours later now and the clouds have thickened, it's dark and gloomy, rain is spitting. I’m gonna grab a beer and watch a movie.

The week that was (and what a week it was)....

Monday: 1 hour swim (3000 yds); 1 hour run (8 miles)
Tuesday: 3 hour bike (53 miles)
Wednesday: 3 hour trail run (20 miles)
Thursday: 1:25 swim (4000 yds)
Friday: 5:45 bike (100 miles)
Saturday: walk
Sunday: 1 hour run (7 miles); 0:40 swim (2000 yards); 1:45 bike (33 miles)

Run: 5 hours, 35 miles
Bike: 10.5 hours, 186 miles
Swim: 3 hours, 9000 yards
Total: 18.5 hours

Walking It Off

Unless the plan blows up, I won’t do any walking in Coeur d’Alene on June 21. Not even from the lake exit to the wetsuit strippers, or from the changing tent to the bike. I’ll jog those intervals, like I’m Macca at Kona or Potts at Wildflower, like it matters, those 6.7 seconds I might gain. No walking. And yet walking is a key part of my training for Ironman. I’m not prepared to argue strenuously that it does a lot for me physically, although I will note that I’ve read more than once that recovery runs are too often done too fast. “Go as slow as you can stand,” I’ve heard people say. Well, for me, that’s walking. Sometimes I’ll walk as much as 10 miles in a spell; usually, it’s three to five miles. Sometimes I walk to get something done, a rare trip to the bank or, more frequently, to get groceries (I almost never drive for groceries). I walk the third of a mile (one way) to Fred Meyer when I need a quick item or something from the hardware department; the half-mile to QFC when I want fish; or the mile and a half to Trader Joe’s to load up on organic baby spinach, apples, lowfat plain yogurt, almond milk, nuts, oatmeal and other staples. Often, though, I’ll walk only because I want to be outside and I want to move, and I want to do so without stressing my body. It’s how I take a day off. Hell, I don’t think I’d take a day off if I couldn’t at least walk. So it was today, after three hours of running on Wednesday, an hour and 20 minutes of swimming on Thursday and nearly six hours of cycling yesterday. Today, I walked.

Century City

Call this ride the Aero Special. I did a course that was, yes, repetitive, but had the significant virtue of offering literally hours of riding uninterrupted by impediments to getting in a Levi-like tuck (oh, sure) and becoming a stupid pedaling machine. Impediments like hills, as this course profile reveals:



But it was more than the lack of hills that made this course perfect for trainer-like riding continuity: Once I got out to Marine Drive—where the yellow line above meets the Columbia River west of the Airport—I could ride unmolested for 12.5 miles to where Marine ends at I-84 in Troutdale. Zero traffic signals or stop signs. So I did that back and forth three times, basically, and that with the miles it took to get to the river added up to 100.44 on my Garmin. (An extra 44, as in Willie Mac, it occurred to me.)

What made the ride interesting was that there was a killer Gorge wind blowing today. Afterward I checked the data for PDX, which I rode by six times. While I was out there, sustained winds ranged from 20 to 25 mph with gusts up to 35 mph. So when I was going east, I was struggling to maintain 15 or 16 mph. Then on the way back, I’d zoom well up into the 20s, occasionally topping 30. The whole texture of the ride was defined by the wind. Heading east, the only sounds were the wind. Even when a giant plane would take off and pass seemingly just a few hundred yards above me, the sound of the wind won out. It was a roar, and I need to emphasize that while heading east, it never let up, that roar.

One thing the wind sure did was motivate me to stay as aero as possible. I was amused to see a couple of guys with aero bars riding into the wind totally upright. If you’re not going to go aero when you’re taking on a 25 mph wind, I say yank those suckers off your bike and use ‘em to stake your baby tomato vines. Me, I was aero for at least 98 of the 100 miles, pulling up only when I was heading to and from the river and dealing with traffic. Also, I did not stop pedaling. I never coasted. My average speed was 17.4 mph, but that includes the aforementioned riding through traffic as well as three stops, one of about 10 minutes for food, another of about five minutes to refill my water bottle and one of about five minutes to pee and stretch a bit. So my riding pace was probably around 19 mph, which I’m abundantly pleased about given what a challenge it can be to maintain intensity on a long solo ride.

Lastly, the nutrition report: I set out with one full water bottle, a PowerBar and two Hammer gels. I consumed all that by Mile 65, where, at Blue Lake Park, I refilled the water bottle, drank half of it, then refilled it again. At Mile 75 I hit the McDonald’s for a dollar McDouble. I finished off the water bottle by the time I got home. Immediately used the last of the Hammer Revitalize (or whatever they call it) powders I got in a race goodie back somewhere along the way.

By the way, did I forgot to say explicitly that I was bagging My Wildflower? My Wildflower was a private half-iron race—1.2 miles at the Dish, a 56-mile bike ride around town and 13.1-mile run on Mount Tabor—I got a notion to do after recoiling at the expense, in time and cash, of heading down to California for Wildflower. My Wildflower was set for today, but to make a long story short I figured going hard at shorter distances wasn't going to do anything but wear me out. So instead I decided to do three consecutive days each featuring a single very long effort. So Wednesday I ran 20 on the trails; yesterday I swam 2.25 in the pool; and today was century time.

Of these three, the 100-mile ride was the workout most likely to be trimmed (with extensive and well-crafted rationalizations, of course). So while I’m pleased that I rode it aero and rode it at a good pace, I’m mostly pleased that I rode it all.