Weather/ME=R+R

I'm breathing much easier now. A mild cold played tag with my emotions all week. I ended up coming down with something on Tuesday. Go figure combining emotional and physical stress along with some air travel and lack of sleep last week. And not to mention some honey kisses from my little germinator. Consider it a toll to pay on the long bridge that is my Annual Training Plan. Damage control reports very little as I was still able to get in 6.25 hours of training, with two full days off. I was basically waiting for the bomb to go off and it fortunately was more like a sparkler that just sort of fizzled. That's the Cod Liver Oil and knowing when to "not go" that helped a ton. I have high hopes as I'm feeling alright after tackling a long run yesterday.

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I was able to get in:

2 runs

1 swim

2 rides

2 strength sessions

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Monday.

Strength+Run(treadmill)
started feeling sick.

Tuesday.

Swim.

Felt okay to swim but definitely worse by afternoon, bagged a tough run.

Wednesday.

Trainer.

Still sick but not completely out of commission. Trainer was the smartest option to keep moving.

60 min. steady @ 200W.

Thurdsay.

Off. A few strength moves that night.

Felt a little worse in the lungs. Conservative play was to chill and see if that helped.

Friday.

Off.

Same. Okay do nothing, damn.

Saturday.

90 min trainer. felt better, but didn't want a setback but did get a full 60 min at Tempo~220W.

Sunday.

Extreme chilling at Estancia Hotel and Spa. (see details) Felt awesome in the afternoon and took off for my long run of 90 min. I was willing to cut it short but felt great and moved on. I basically had a taper week, so to feel that good despite being sick was nice to enjoy.

R+R weekend.

pretty much the nutshell. I like to nutshell.

It was Jess' birthday and Valentines day weekend combined so we dropped off the little 'choo at grandma's and headed up to the Estancia Hotel in La Jolla. It was all about decompression as we had no plans but to get some good rest and then enjoy the spa on Sunday. That place is amazing.

Beautiful grounds, nice pool, secluded and close. I got a killer 80 min rub in the morning and spent the next couple hours in the eucalytpus steam, stretching and kicking it in and by the pool with beautiful weather.

poser.

The toes knows.

This week is looking up. Rested with some good energy levels and great DVR action with the Amgen Tour of California. I love watching cycling on Versus. Classic commentary+ visuals to remind me that there is some world class riding in the golden state that needs to be done. Nothing makes me chron to ride like watching Pro Cycling. It's weird because I can watch marathons but don't necessarily want to run one. go figure.

Bizarro Weak.

Thank GOD its monday. I guess Monday is officially the start of a new week. Time to go shopping, set out the schedule and renew weekly goals and motivation. I got back from PHX yesterday spending the weekend with Jess' family. They are truly Mexican-American, meaning they have been here before the border moved. It's refreshing and exhausting spending time with them. It's all about family(refreshing) and food(exhausting) when we go out there. Enough beans and tortillas to levitate an airship. It's interesting to recognize how marginalized this lifestyle has become. One that revolves so tightly around staying healthy. Quality nutrition appears to be an eccentric quirk. 10-15 hours of training per week is enough for a month. For an instant it's embarrassing like exposing a repressed fetish. But alas validation is often times achieved through understanding and communication. Alot are both intrigued and confused by those who don't drink, consume something that is not "tasty", go for a workout when tired, not to mention monitoring heart rate. To most...beating good, not beating bad. I am happy to be a missionary of lifestyle without a stump. It is truly a noble endeavor. Having said that I must admit I have been really tired. Sleep has been at ration proportion all week and I'm feeling it. Ever since last Satuday I've been getting between 4 and 7 hours at questionable fault of my own. Its mostly the X factor of having a toddler in the house. She sleeps, we sleep, if not, nobody sleeps. It's a trip how sleep or lack of affects my mind. I may have brief episodes, encountering cryptic revelations and perceptions, coincided with memory loss, clumsiness and absent congeniality.

I had high expections for the week and was probably a little naive at how much Saturday's race had taken out of me. (For the record I finished 25th of 50 starters and 47 finishers. MOP for sure but I was both conservative and new. With BT numbers, I'm satisfied with the results.) The ensuing training week was tainted by fatigue/ lack of sleep and some confusing and frustrating training sessions.

Monday.

Five hours interrupted sleep. Beat, but dragged myself to the gym for some strength training with lots of rest interval. "Dready" for 30 min. immediately following trying to ride any leftover adrenaline.

Tuesday.

normal sleep 8.5 hrs.

3100m in the pool including 1600 at Tpace+5s(8x200) MS. Big swim for me so far. But I continue to swim well following strength sessions, strange but true. One wierd thing happened. I got really disoriented after pushing off the wall on last 50 of last 3 200's. I think a combination of being fatigued and CO2 accumulation, nonetheless swam well. I wanted to run right after to stay motivated but I was tired and used some drivetime to recover a little.

I had a choice to run 40 mins mellow but couldn't fight off leaning into a mostly Z3 run at Fiesta Island.

Wednesday. (this is where it gets weird)

Long ride. with 2 hours steady at 146-150 bpm(tempo). 3 hours total.

I warmed up for a good 30-40 mins. It normally takes longer for me to warm up but HR was extremely sluggish. I was pushing Z5a wattage with Z2 HR. I finally started my test when HR hit 145 but still had to keep it above 290 watts or HR would drop! As a point of reference my best 20k TT is 29:54 at 265 watts. I rode for 60 minutes like this and averaged 287 watts.

WoW.

My legs were tired but not an all out effort at all. Just didn't know if I could ride 120 minutes at that PE. I was really confused and didn't want to trash my legs on bogus numbers so I stopped to Zero torque. I must of pushed the wrong buttons and ended up resetting my display to only HR and wattage stopped recording. At this point I was ready to throw my bike. No power, no test. Not to waste my time, I was sick of clicking laps at the island and finished off 3 hrs on the road. I was shocked to review the data. It was like the bermuda triangle of training. Super adaptation or technical glitch. Time will tell when we try to repeat the effort again this week.

Thursday.

Swim. 2700m. tired again. This time I had to really push through 1800m @ Tpace (4x300/4x150).

I had another episode of strange feeling on the last 50s and took a little extra on the RI on the last 300 to be safe. Not that anaerobic sensation, just dizzy. I was torched after this swim and rested over the gutter for a good 10 mins before leaving the water. I took maximum recovery and strolled through a strength session that night at home focusing on legs core and a lot of stretching and T-balling.

Friday.

Up early (5am) after packing for our weekend to get 60 min's on the trainer. That S.O.B. is incredibly uncomfortable at that hour. Still my "hill" efforts were focused and strong making the previous CP60 a little more credulous.

Cranky traveler man hit the tarmac running upon arriving in PHX for a 30 min session of strides. I was tired, in need of an attitude adjustment, still cranky. The topper was sleeping in a postage stamp bed with Jess and eventually my baby (2am) who insisted on not sleeping until 5am. With a full house I searched in vain for a couch, opted for the floor, the bed, the floor.....hilarious in hindsight.

Saturday.

Morning couldn't come soon enough to try to shake off the night with caffeine. I had an exciting day planned. I headed up to Saguaro Lake,

can't wait to race here!

to run the course for AZ extreme. A thirty minute drive seemed worth it to get out of the house for a long run in the beautiful weather and desert hills. I was greeted by this sign.

I guess you gotta know before you go. Not even a drop box. Weak!

So close to getting down.

At it's best.

In a true test of patience I was so close to my "querencia", yet unwilling to pay a $50 dollar ticket and returned to base in a flurry of mixed emotions. I didn't say a word and hit the "canal"

Beautiful but polluted, smelled like laundry soap.

to get in 70 of 80 minutes of a seemingly punishing run. It was easy, hard, then got harder. HR rose and pace slowed, legs heavy and heart heavier. Shook it off with a PowerBar and a Burrito.

(I swear the only thing in the house).

Sunday.

Rest day. This is the first day off in at least 4 weeks. I got good sleep but was willing to pay my mortgage to be able to "hyperspace" back home. My bed felt like a field covered in velvet and clouds. My daughter slept through the night despite coming down with a cold, (thank you) and I'm relatively recharged and thankful to be able to share my experience. I know I'm not the only one who can hang on to a lifestyle that provides so much satisfaction on a shoestring percentage.

So much hard work to approach the intangible. But when disappointment is relative, Life is good. Praises.

"Where The Hell Is Boulevard?"

Saw this on a bumper sticker on the way up to the road race on Saturday. I've got to say it was a really good time. Definitely happy I stuck with it, showed up and raced hard even though there were about a million excuses I was coming up with to not go. I suppose some apprehension was understandable given I had never raced that style before and had no idea what to expect and also no strategic experience except from watching Versus. Doing is a lot harder than watching, but you got to start somewhere.

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My race preparation started on Friday, finetuning my ride with some quick and easy equipment upgrades. I headed up to B+L to pick up some Ultra lite tubes and tires. I threw them on my Velocity Aeroheads and was stoked to have some kind of weight advantage since I wasn't going to ride my ZIPP combo 404/808. It took much longer than expected and missed out on the talk with Conrad Stoltz. I just had to make sure my bike was safe and race ready. I still had to see the mechanic on race morning.

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I woke up to clear skies and no wind and headed east to watch the weather deteriorate. Driving up into the only clouds in the sky. It was 37 degrees, light breeze but cloudy which gave little chance for warming. At least everybody was freezing while fumbling through paperwork at check-in.

Loving the weather.

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My warmup was cut short to 25 minutes after I found a loose rear hub. Got it fixed and just made the rollout at 9:40. It had warmed to maybe 43 degrees by then but I was stoked to have a good choice of technical gear. I was towards the back (because I was late) but soon found myself in the back of the pack, like no one behind me. Knowing that wasn't good I made my way carefully about a third of the way up during the first descent. There were some sketchy riders, sure, but the highlight was when some cracksmoker hillbilly jumped in the middle of the road and started waving his arms trying to hit people off their bikes. The field skidded to a stop and I got a look in the iceman's eyes. SCARY! He looke like a zombie staggering around flailing his arms. We continuted with the descent and it was a lot mellower than I expected with the pacesetters taking it easy. Just a few more dogs down the road. There were some accelerations after turning uphill into some rollers. I was in a bad spot to stay with the lead group. I had to pick my way through the dropped riders trying not to do too much work on my own. I was starting to hurt and hadn't made it to the main six mile climb. Luckily the wind was at our backs on the climb and I could settle into a rhythm without worrying too much about sucking any wheels. My steady state training helped me to pass quite a few riders on the first climb and I was feeling strong.

First climb. 39 minutes.
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As we reached the summit I tried to get some guys to work with me but they were already crushed so I headed into the second descent solo. (Luckily the abominable ICEMAN was gone. serioulsy he looked like the cavemen from GEICO) Not good because at this point because the wind was in my face and had to pedal hard at least 3/4 of the way down the descent. I kept looking back, no one. Finally two larger blokes working together pull past me yelling to grab on. Sure guys. I heated it up and caught the wheel and relaxed for a little bit. We were soon going back up hill and I said goodbye and thank you. I bridged some gaps through the rollers but was mostly working solo through some carnage. Finally on the last climb I passed about 5 riders. With 2 k to go a guy in my race caught my wheel. I could hear him breathing hard so I slowed slightly and let him take an extended turn at the front. sucker. I was planning something and tried to remember the longest all out sprints that I've done in training, hmm about a minute. He pulled me to about 500m then I put a decisive move on him. I looked back at 100m and had put a serious gap on the guy and cruised across the hilltop finish. That was fun. I didn't pull too many gimmicks and probably didn't race too smart from the start but at least I was able to try some strategies and they worked.

Second climb.

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All in all the weather turned out to be a non factor having to take off my gloves and armwarmers on the final climb. I don't know how I ended up at this point it'd be nice to be top half of 50. I recovered a bit spinning back to the start area and put on dry clothes and my running shoes for a 20 min slow run. I was dead tired and glad I had a safe race.

Glad to be done. At least my feet were warm.

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I posted some really good numbers for being this early in the training and having spent very little time in the hills. One thing I didn't take advantage of was bringing more calories on the bike. I took in 300 calories 30 mins till start and only took in 200 liquid on the bike. I could be taking in at least 200 more calories. I just wasn't sure what there was time and room for. A Gel flask would work well.

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The rest of the training from the week was full of ups and downs mostly fighting my schedule with computer problems at work on Wednesday. I had to shift some stuff around but only missed one run and had to move a ride into a strength training spot. All my swims were great even after some hard strength work on Monday. I'm swimming my Tpace at around 1:38-1:40/100m on the same PE, which is nice. I should probably test again soon too make sure I'm not going too hard. Just nice to see some improvement in that zone after a blown test set last weekend.
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Of other news we found out Friday that we're going to have a BOY this time around. I couldn't be more stoked to have a little T. Freddy, to share everything that guys do. Everything looks good and things are shaping up well. Life is Good!