Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Monday, May 27, 2013
Take a break. Have a coffee, Pal.
This is what I hear every day at work. I have a mighty work ethic, be it training or shovelling iron-making materials into metal bins. I can definitively say I've earned a recovery in training - I've finished out my second tough build week. 12.5 hours this week, and tied for the highest training stress in a week (against my 14 hour week). Today I'm taking the day off completely, then will slowly ease into training. I expect a pretty quick recovery, then it's back for two more weeks of work. Actually, two and a half weeks. I plan on starting some good quality this Thursday. Three days should be enough.
My Friday-Saturday-Sunday were as follows:
Friday
SWIM - 50min - 800m wu (standard 1k minus the 50's), 2x (3x100m on 2min, 2x50m on 2min from blocks, 100m kick easy, 100 swimdown)
RUN - 30min - easy, treadmill run
Saturday
BIKE - 120min - Moderate, hilly ride with a couple hill sprints and some long steady climbs
Sunday
RUN - 45min - easy 10km
SWIM - 45min - 400m warm up (IM stuff), 2x (50fists-50swim-50paddles long slow, low stroke count
50fists-50swim-50paddles hard, try to match stroke count 100 kick), 300m cd w paddles, IM stuff
My last couple days weren't all that high-impact, but I consider it steady, aerobic icing-on-the-cake and done on pretty tired legs. Today I've got that dull, aching pain in the legs. It's a good thing.
This week I'm going to keep working on the swim, but won't do a dedicated hard run until Sunday. On Sunday I will be racing a local 10k to get the second build week started. Thursday I plan on doing some quality riding with the Sault Cycling Club. Always do a bit of running off the bike. Always always always.
Last year I had a personal best 10k time of 35:28. I had paced this poorly as I got over-excited chasing some really fast guys. This Sunday I'm likely going to be in a good position to run my own race so I should be able to see another new PB. In contrast to my last 10km attempt I'm going to start conservatively, something around 3:30-3:32/km for the first 2km. If I'm coming through the first 5km in 17:30 after that, I know all I have to do is sit at that pace. Any extra speed I can find will just put me even further under that 35min mark. Last year the winning time was something like 36, so I'll hopefully have someone around to help me push the pace in the last 5km. Before then I should think about getting a racing singlet or something. I don't want to be that guy in a tri jersey again.
Anyway, I still have a nice chunk of content I'd like to write out but there has been a good amount of current stuff to write about. Maybe the next thing I'll post is something about my summer race schedule. In short, I'm racing the Muskoka 5150 and Toronto Triathlon Festival olympic distance event. These are both AG World Qualifying events.
Adam "Time to roll the legs" Fortais
My Friday-Saturday-Sunday were as follows:
Friday
SWIM - 50min - 800m wu (standard 1k minus the 50's), 2x (3x100m on 2min, 2x50m on 2min from blocks, 100m kick easy, 100 swimdown)
RUN - 30min - easy, treadmill run
Saturday
BIKE - 120min - Moderate, hilly ride with a couple hill sprints and some long steady climbs
Sunday
RUN - 45min - easy 10km
SWIM - 45min - 400m warm up (IM stuff), 2x (50fists-50swim-50paddles long slow, low stroke count
50fists-50swim-50paddles hard, try to match stroke count 100 kick), 300m cd w paddles, IM stuff
My last couple days weren't all that high-impact, but I consider it steady, aerobic icing-on-the-cake and done on pretty tired legs. Today I've got that dull, aching pain in the legs. It's a good thing.
This week I'm going to keep working on the swim, but won't do a dedicated hard run until Sunday. On Sunday I will be racing a local 10k to get the second build week started. Thursday I plan on doing some quality riding with the Sault Cycling Club. Always do a bit of running off the bike. Always always always.
Last year I had a personal best 10k time of 35:28. I had paced this poorly as I got over-excited chasing some really fast guys. This Sunday I'm likely going to be in a good position to run my own race so I should be able to see another new PB. In contrast to my last 10km attempt I'm going to start conservatively, something around 3:30-3:32/km for the first 2km. If I'm coming through the first 5km in 17:30 after that, I know all I have to do is sit at that pace. Any extra speed I can find will just put me even further under that 35min mark. Last year the winning time was something like 36, so I'll hopefully have someone around to help me push the pace in the last 5km. Before then I should think about getting a racing singlet or something. I don't want to be that guy in a tri jersey again.
Anyway, I still have a nice chunk of content I'd like to write out but there has been a good amount of current stuff to write about. Maybe the next thing I'll post is something about my summer race schedule. In short, I'm racing the Muskoka 5150 and Toronto Triathlon Festival olympic distance event. These are both AG World Qualifying events.
Adam "Time to roll the legs" Fortais
Friday, May 24, 2013
Quick training update
I lost a couple pounds when I got sick a few weeks back, and I've finally put them back on. Last I checked I'm right on 72kg. In likely related news, I'm really starting to hit my stride with training. Last week took a bit of time to get moving again, but I'm hitting all my times, intensities, volumes, and coming back fresh each day. All this on top of adding 40 hours a week of labour at my new steel mill job. Some specifics...
Starting May 13:
Monday
RUN - 45min - 4x (2 on-1 off-1 on-30 off-30 on-30 off) on = 3:20/km pace, off = easy running
SWIM - 30 minutes, rotation and catch drills, low cadence 50s (down to 14/length), 100 hard kick for fun
Tuesday
BIKE - 1 hour - steady tempo ride (~230W) and some 1-leg stuff
SWIM - 1 hour - 1km warm up (various things), 4x400m (swim-pull-pull-swim) on 6:45, 7, 7, 6:45 (swims in on 6:10)
Wednesday
BRICK - 75min - Bike (warm up, 2x Maki hill which is about 3km of steady climbing) into run (25 minute tempo at 3:38min/km pace)
Thursday
SWIM - 50min - standard 1km warm up, 3x100m on 2min, 2x50 on 2min all out from blocks, 100easy kick, 100 easy swim, 3x100m on 2 min, 2x50 on 2 min all out from blocks, 100 easy kick cd
Friday
OFF
Saturday
BIKE - 70min - TAG TT
RUN - 100min - Loooong run
Sunday
BIKE - 90min - moderate, hilly ride, unstructured
Monday
BRICK - 100min - Bike (4x6min 5-10% above ftp (300-315W), 4 min rest, 10min 300-315W), Run (30min tempo off bike (3:38min/km))
Tuesday
SWIM - 1 hour - standard 1km warm up, 3x200 on 3:10 (under 3:00), rest, 4x200 w/10 sec rest (swim-pull-swim-pull), swims under 3:00, 100m cool down
Wednesday
BIKE - 80min - 2x20min at ftp (285W), 5 min rest in between
Thursday
SWIM - 75min - 1km warm up, 5x400 with masters team (pull, kick, even 100s sprint, 6th 25 fly, hard for time), 100m cd
BRICK - 2:30 - Bike (long warm up, group ride with Sault Cycling Club, 10km uphill TT, short recovery ride), Run (5x1km between 3:13 and 3:16, 1:30 rest)
It wasn't until about Thursday that I really felt like I was coming into my own. Now, however, I may wake up tired if I had a long day before, but I feel ready by the evening to put in some more good work. I am sticking to my initial plan, but if by the end of the week (I admit, I front-loaded this week) I am still feeling great, I will add more work. Today I am scheduled to only do a swim, however I may add in an easy run or bike later tonight depending on how I feel. My legs are certainly tired from yesterday's great work, but I think I could benefit from a recovery workout.
I have a feeling this great block of training is due in part to getting back to that 72kg mark. I felt like I may have been just slightly under weight for a little while. I'm also back at home in the Sault which makes taking care of myself a little easier. That has got to help. I think the best training tip I can give someone is to let their parents take care of them. Haha...
You may notice that I'm doing a lot of "brick" workouts. I'm happy where my pure running is right now. Now is the time to make sure I can run off the bike. That's what I'm really training for, so I might as well make sure I'm great at that. I've pretty much moved all quality running to the back half of a cycling workout. In scheduling these weeks, I didn't write out any particular brick workouts. I wrote out workouts that would target the energy system I want to exercise, then arranged them... To create the brick workouts I decided what the most important pure cycling workout was and left it alone. Then I coupled bike and run workouts that would stress me in slightly different ways so I could still try and hammer both of them. I matched short, fast intervals on the bike to a tempo run, and a hilly time trial to a VO2Max interval run. In the coming weeks I will be moving even more towards very specific training. I am planning on practising my race-pace and hard, steady riding in my brick workouts and doing my over/under distance intervals in isolated sport workouts. The opposite of what I'm doing now. This transition will happen in the next week or so as one of my big important races is in about 4 weeks.
Here's a picture of me leaving the house in cycling gear to go run:
...my house has surveillance cameras.
Adam "You can never be too safe" Fortais
Starting May 13:
Monday
RUN - 45min - 4x (2 on-1 off-1 on-30 off-30 on-30 off) on = 3:20/km pace, off = easy running
SWIM - 30 minutes, rotation and catch drills, low cadence 50s (down to 14/length), 100 hard kick for fun
Tuesday
BIKE - 1 hour - steady tempo ride (~230W) and some 1-leg stuff
SWIM - 1 hour - 1km warm up (various things), 4x400m (swim-pull-pull-swim) on 6:45, 7, 7, 6:45 (swims in on 6:10)
Wednesday
BRICK - 75min - Bike (warm up, 2x Maki hill which is about 3km of steady climbing) into run (25 minute tempo at 3:38min/km pace)
Thursday
SWIM - 50min - standard 1km warm up, 3x100m on 2min, 2x50 on 2min all out from blocks, 100easy kick, 100 easy swim, 3x100m on 2 min, 2x50 on 2 min all out from blocks, 100 easy kick cd
Friday
OFF
Saturday
BIKE - 70min - TAG TT
RUN - 100min - Loooong run
Sunday
BIKE - 90min - moderate, hilly ride, unstructured
Monday
BRICK - 100min - Bike (4x6min 5-10% above ftp (300-315W), 4 min rest, 10min 300-315W), Run (30min tempo off bike (3:38min/km))
Tuesday
SWIM - 1 hour - standard 1km warm up, 3x200 on 3:10 (under 3:00), rest, 4x200 w/10 sec rest (swim-pull-swim-pull), swims under 3:00, 100m cool down
Wednesday
BIKE - 80min - 2x20min at ftp (285W), 5 min rest in between
Thursday
SWIM - 75min - 1km warm up, 5x400 with masters team (pull, kick, even 100s sprint, 6th 25 fly, hard for time), 100m cd
BRICK - 2:30 - Bike (long warm up, group ride with Sault Cycling Club, 10km uphill TT, short recovery ride), Run (5x1km between 3:13 and 3:16, 1:30 rest)
It wasn't until about Thursday that I really felt like I was coming into my own. Now, however, I may wake up tired if I had a long day before, but I feel ready by the evening to put in some more good work. I am sticking to my initial plan, but if by the end of the week (I admit, I front-loaded this week) I am still feeling great, I will add more work. Today I am scheduled to only do a swim, however I may add in an easy run or bike later tonight depending on how I feel. My legs are certainly tired from yesterday's great work, but I think I could benefit from a recovery workout.
I have a feeling this great block of training is due in part to getting back to that 72kg mark. I felt like I may have been just slightly under weight for a little while. I'm also back at home in the Sault which makes taking care of myself a little easier. That has got to help. I think the best training tip I can give someone is to let their parents take care of them. Haha...
You may notice that I'm doing a lot of "brick" workouts. I'm happy where my pure running is right now. Now is the time to make sure I can run off the bike. That's what I'm really training for, so I might as well make sure I'm great at that. I've pretty much moved all quality running to the back half of a cycling workout. In scheduling these weeks, I didn't write out any particular brick workouts. I wrote out workouts that would target the energy system I want to exercise, then arranged them... To create the brick workouts I decided what the most important pure cycling workout was and left it alone. Then I coupled bike and run workouts that would stress me in slightly different ways so I could still try and hammer both of them. I matched short, fast intervals on the bike to a tempo run, and a hilly time trial to a VO2Max interval run. In the coming weeks I will be moving even more towards very specific training. I am planning on practising my race-pace and hard, steady riding in my brick workouts and doing my over/under distance intervals in isolated sport workouts. The opposite of what I'm doing now. This transition will happen in the next week or so as one of my big important races is in about 4 weeks.
Here's a picture of me leaving the house in cycling gear to go run:
...my house has surveillance cameras.
Adam "You can never be too safe" Fortais
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
TAG Time Trial (Race Report 4)
Welp, what more can you do but pace yourself correctly, stay aero and hit a new highest average power for 30ish minutes? I didn't win, and I didn't set a new 20km PB, but I can't help but call this a success.
http://www.sooeveningnews.com/article/20130520/NEWS/130529964
My previous best CP20 test yielded a watt average of 294. I haven't been very focused on cycling lately, but I have been doing an all right amount, so I endeavoured to hold 290W for the 20km time trial (higher by 15W over last year's PB, which was at the very end of the season). The weather was a brisk 12 degrees C with a slight wind. The course was more or less flat with one very small hill at the end and a riser over a highway somewhere near the middle.
I rode around the race area for a couple minutes to shake my legs out before anyone else in the area started warming up, but quickly moved onto my trainer. Typical warm up, do a couple race-pace efforts. Chatted with some Sault Cycling Club members, and just generally relaxed. I felt pretty good and ready to hurt.
I started fairly near the back, 1 minute gaps. I made sure to keep warm and did a couple efforts while waiting. I got up the start ramp and POW, off.
I started the first 2 minutes strong to get up to speed and all that. 320W. This brought me to the first corner where I regrouped and got ready to get into a rhythm. The next 9 minutes I held 293W comfortably hard. It was tough but not stinging-hard, and that brought be to the second corner. I chickened out of my aero bars on this corner and surprise, that's where the event photographer was waiting. SPOTTED - out of the aerobars. Oh well. The next 12 minutes featured a tiny riser, and this probably accounted for my 295W average over this section. Only one turn, took it like a boss but no one was where to see it. The last section was headwind and this is where my pace and rhythm started to suffer. However I still managed to crank out the power. I was suffering at this point, but a new batch of "carrots" started appearing in the last 5 minutes which helped keep the motivation high. With about 500m to go I knew I wasn't going to be cracking the course record, or my PB, but I knew I threw down the best TT I could on the day, and was satisfied.
I ended up coming in at 30:33, averaging 293W. Good enough for second place. I was bested by one Tim Best, with a time of 29:24 or something.
I'm happy with this race, and it has provided a good re-test of my cycling zones. I'm starting to feel it's time for a cycling specific period fairly soon. I'm happy where my run is right now, and I'll never be happy with my swim, but I think I can do some good work on my riding. I can't right now, but after my two A-races I think I'll dedicate a month to solid riding. I'll ride like, a billion kms. I'll ride all the kms.
Adam "All the KIMS" Fortais
http://www.sooeveningnews.com/article/20130520/NEWS/130529964
My previous best CP20 test yielded a watt average of 294. I haven't been very focused on cycling lately, but I have been doing an all right amount, so I endeavoured to hold 290W for the 20km time trial (higher by 15W over last year's PB, which was at the very end of the season). The weather was a brisk 12 degrees C with a slight wind. The course was more or less flat with one very small hill at the end and a riser over a highway somewhere near the middle.
I rode around the race area for a couple minutes to shake my legs out before anyone else in the area started warming up, but quickly moved onto my trainer. Typical warm up, do a couple race-pace efforts. Chatted with some Sault Cycling Club members, and just generally relaxed. I felt pretty good and ready to hurt.
I started fairly near the back, 1 minute gaps. I made sure to keep warm and did a couple efforts while waiting. I got up the start ramp and POW, off.
I started the first 2 minutes strong to get up to speed and all that. 320W. This brought me to the first corner where I regrouped and got ready to get into a rhythm. The next 9 minutes I held 293W comfortably hard. It was tough but not stinging-hard, and that brought be to the second corner. I chickened out of my aero bars on this corner and surprise, that's where the event photographer was waiting. SPOTTED - out of the aerobars. Oh well. The next 12 minutes featured a tiny riser, and this probably accounted for my 295W average over this section. Only one turn, took it like a boss but no one was where to see it. The last section was headwind and this is where my pace and rhythm started to suffer. However I still managed to crank out the power. I was suffering at this point, but a new batch of "carrots" started appearing in the last 5 minutes which helped keep the motivation high. With about 500m to go I knew I wasn't going to be cracking the course record, or my PB, but I knew I threw down the best TT I could on the day, and was satisfied.
I ended up coming in at 30:33, averaging 293W. Good enough for second place. I was bested by one Tim Best, with a time of 29:24 or something.
I'm happy with this race, and it has provided a good re-test of my cycling zones. I'm starting to feel it's time for a cycling specific period fairly soon. I'm happy where my run is right now, and I'll never be happy with my swim, but I think I can do some good work on my riding. I can't right now, but after my two A-races I think I'll dedicate a month to solid riding. I'll ride like, a billion kms. I'll ride all the kms.
Adam "All the KIMS" Fortais
Sunday, May 19, 2013
(Very late) Race Report 3 - CN Tower Race
Race 3 was up the freakin' CN Tower!
It was a fundraiser for WWF, required a bit of donation money and my family and friends certainly stepped up to the plate on that one. I needed $75 raised to participate but got to $100 almost instantly. Thanks everyone!
So the race was vintage chip-timed, as in, you were given a card which was time-stamped at the bottom, then time stamped at the top.
But wait, let me rewind. This was obviously in Toronto, and it was April 27th. The rules required you to arrive to receive your race kit between 6 am and 10 am. I decided I didn't want to go the day before, so I resolved to just wake up super early and suck it up. That meant waking up at 3:00 am to be on the bus at 3:30 am. Whatever, I survived. I rolled into Toronto at approximately 5:30 am, laced up my shoes and strapped my backpack on nice and good and warm-up jogged to the tower (3 km or so). What I encountered upon approaching the tower was quite surprising.
The line of people leading up to registration was literally* as long as the tower was high! This isn't actually a very interesting story. I'll skip to actually running it.
I have never done this before, so I had no idea what to expect for time. A friend of mine had done 15 minutes, and I saw the World record was just shy of 8 minutes... So I figured I would be somewhere in there. I decided I wanted to shoot for single digits. Under 10 min... I calculated how long it should take to run each floor... but that number was too small to keep myself on pace. I resolved to break it into quarters - 36 flights - 2:30 each. After surfing lines and trying to get ahead of the giant girl guides group or whatever (so they wouldn't hold me up in the tube), I got my card punched and was off!
Pow! Reminiscent of high school track season (we did a lot of early season stair running because many people didn't have snow running gear), I began sprinting up 'dem stairs! ...and I mean sprinting. I got very excited, and was going all out man. I got to flight 30 and realized I was in the red-zone and right on the verge of being toasted. Crap. 114 flights to go. I didn't even check my watch since I knew I blew the race already. There were also a heck of a lot of people in the way. From here on in, I would "jog" up the stairs the best I could, then be forced to walk a flight whilst being stuck behind groups of people walking two-abreast (despite the rules oh so clearly asking you to stay to the right if you will be walking). Regardless, I felt like I had ample ability to go fast. I may have been able to reduce 20 seconds at best if it were an empty tower.
Half way up the tower I was nearly weezing. I don't normally get sore, hurting lungs when I run, but this was certainly the feeling I had. By about 70 flights my ears popped from elevation. I was really suffering. I really underestimated this challenge... However, I kept the countdown going as fast as I could.
With about 10 flights left, it was imminent I would be passing a very tall, strong looking man amidst a horde of specimens of a physically lesser quality. He who would refer to himself as "Coach J" started hollering and clapping. Coach J wanted everyone to know that "this ain't hard!" and that "no matter what your fitness level is, this IS NOT HARD WOOT!" He did this by yelling it non-stop until we reached the top of the tower. He also took the time to make the comment "Toronto's finest! Emergency response. Give it up!" very loud, into the face of one of the volunteer emergency responders. Coach J, I love the enthusiasm. Really, I do. But please please please, some people don't find that kind of reinforcement helpful. In fact, I can imagine someone who could find it derogatory and offensive. I personally don't care, I've got enough self-motivation for everyone. What I really care about is how obnoxious this guy was!
Ways for Coach J to improve:
1) If it's not hard, keep up with me.
2) Keep your clapping arm in your own lane so I don't have to dodge it and get slapped
3) Say thank you to people you would like to thank. Don't shout impersonally compliments into their face.
I'm not mad at Coach J, I liked that he was there because it gave me something to be exasperated about. It's like being held up by the driver so hopelessly trying to back into their space that it becomes funny. Hold on, I'm bad at describing this. Here, this is Coach J:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf4TIWECZ30
So how did I do? Just a hair under 12 minutes. That was good enough for 6th out of about 4000 on the individual climb day, 3rd for the team climb. 8th out of everyone. That's kind of cool! But pretty far from randomly-assigned-goal-pace. Whatever, it was fun!
So uhm... when I got to the top, my lungs had collapsed, felt like they had been clawed by every animal that WWF has ever tried to save, and I tasted blood. Daaaamn. And this lung pain lasted for about a day and a half. I could barely take a full breath and I had wet coughing for about the same amount of time. If anyone knows why I would get this kind of reaction, I would be interested in knowing. I hypothesize that on top of going very anaerobic, maybe the number of people in that tube and elevation change caused me to have a simulated asthma response? Anyone? Bueller?
Adam "The Elevator" Fortais
*Using literally figuratively
It was a fundraiser for WWF, required a bit of donation money and my family and friends certainly stepped up to the plate on that one. I needed $75 raised to participate but got to $100 almost instantly. Thanks everyone!
So the race was vintage chip-timed, as in, you were given a card which was time-stamped at the bottom, then time stamped at the top.
But wait, let me rewind. This was obviously in Toronto, and it was April 27th. The rules required you to arrive to receive your race kit between 6 am and 10 am. I decided I didn't want to go the day before, so I resolved to just wake up super early and suck it up. That meant waking up at 3:00 am to be on the bus at 3:30 am. Whatever, I survived. I rolled into Toronto at approximately 5:30 am, laced up my shoes and strapped my backpack on nice and good and warm-up jogged to the tower (3 km or so). What I encountered upon approaching the tower was quite surprising.
The line of people leading up to registration was literally* as long as the tower was high! This isn't actually a very interesting story. I'll skip to actually running it.
I have never done this before, so I had no idea what to expect for time. A friend of mine had done 15 minutes, and I saw the World record was just shy of 8 minutes... So I figured I would be somewhere in there. I decided I wanted to shoot for single digits. Under 10 min... I calculated how long it should take to run each floor... but that number was too small to keep myself on pace. I resolved to break it into quarters - 36 flights - 2:30 each. After surfing lines and trying to get ahead of the giant girl guides group or whatever (so they wouldn't hold me up in the tube), I got my card punched and was off!
Pow! Reminiscent of high school track season (we did a lot of early season stair running because many people didn't have snow running gear), I began sprinting up 'dem stairs! ...and I mean sprinting. I got very excited, and was going all out man. I got to flight 30 and realized I was in the red-zone and right on the verge of being toasted. Crap. 114 flights to go. I didn't even check my watch since I knew I blew the race already. There were also a heck of a lot of people in the way. From here on in, I would "jog" up the stairs the best I could, then be forced to walk a flight whilst being stuck behind groups of people walking two-abreast (despite the rules oh so clearly asking you to stay to the right if you will be walking). Regardless, I felt like I had ample ability to go fast. I may have been able to reduce 20 seconds at best if it were an empty tower.
Half way up the tower I was nearly weezing. I don't normally get sore, hurting lungs when I run, but this was certainly the feeling I had. By about 70 flights my ears popped from elevation. I was really suffering. I really underestimated this challenge... However, I kept the countdown going as fast as I could.
With about 10 flights left, it was imminent I would be passing a very tall, strong looking man amidst a horde of specimens of a physically lesser quality. He who would refer to himself as "Coach J" started hollering and clapping. Coach J wanted everyone to know that "this ain't hard!" and that "no matter what your fitness level is, this IS NOT HARD WOOT!" He did this by yelling it non-stop until we reached the top of the tower. He also took the time to make the comment "Toronto's finest! Emergency response. Give it up!" very loud, into the face of one of the volunteer emergency responders. Coach J, I love the enthusiasm. Really, I do. But please please please, some people don't find that kind of reinforcement helpful. In fact, I can imagine someone who could find it derogatory and offensive. I personally don't care, I've got enough self-motivation for everyone. What I really care about is how obnoxious this guy was!
Ways for Coach J to improve:
1) If it's not hard, keep up with me.
2) Keep your clapping arm in your own lane so I don't have to dodge it and get slapped
3) Say thank you to people you would like to thank. Don't shout impersonally compliments into their face.
I'm not mad at Coach J, I liked that he was there because it gave me something to be exasperated about. It's like being held up by the driver so hopelessly trying to back into their space that it becomes funny. Hold on, I'm bad at describing this. Here, this is Coach J:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf4TIWECZ30
So how did I do? Just a hair under 12 minutes. That was good enough for 6th out of about 4000 on the individual climb day, 3rd for the team climb. 8th out of everyone. That's kind of cool! But pretty far from randomly-assigned-goal-pace. Whatever, it was fun!
So uhm... when I got to the top, my lungs had collapsed, felt like they had been clawed by every animal that WWF has ever tried to save, and I tasted blood. Daaaamn. And this lung pain lasted for about a day and a half. I could barely take a full breath and I had wet coughing for about the same amount of time. If anyone knows why I would get this kind of reaction, I would be interested in knowing. I hypothesize that on top of going very anaerobic, maybe the number of people in that tube and elevation change caused me to have a simulated asthma response? Anyone? Bueller?
Adam "The Elevator" Fortais
*Using literally figuratively
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Bike test (and fit), Run test attempt 2, Return to Sault Ste Marie
As alluded to before, I gave myself some time to recover and set out to test my 5km speed again. I did this yesterday in Sault Ste Marie, around my neighbourhood with my dad biking along side for fun. And it was fun. I went out conservatively, knowing what happened last time. My km splits were 3:25 - 3:21 - 3:20 - 3:20 - 3:11. So two things to glean - super negative splitting... to the point of definitely not hitting the fastest time possible, but also a new PB (16:37). I compared my heart rate data from both days and the story was drastically different. The first attempt had me crawling up to about 190bmp by 7 minutes, then sitting above 192bpm, crawling into 203bpm. I held 6 minutes above 195bpm before blowing up, at about 13 minutes. Yesterday I peaked at about 192bpm around the last km, but held it in the middle 180's for the majority of the run. Perfect. This means I will be updating my training paces a little bit, and I'm starting to figure out quantitatively when to start backing off. Crossing into 192bpm is certainly the redzone.
Insert comical transition. Pause for laughter.
I got a bike fit at Multisport Zone in London on Thursday. My fit seemed... all right I guess, but I knew I could push the saddle forward and I wasn't sure about saddle height. It wasn't uncomfortable per se, but it wasn't great. And I knew I could get a little more aero. So off I went to meet Jeff. Short story even shorter, My seatpost angle was adjusted from 75 degrees to a proper, agressive 78 degrees, my saddle height was lifted by almost 3 inches (!!!!) and I received recommendations to move my armrests back. The armrests were as far back as the two-bold design would allow for, but I have since eschewed the second bolt to try out the waay further back position. Updates on that to follow. The fit feels a lot better, though during testing I was still sucked into riding on the nose of the saddle, likely due to the arm rests being too far up. I attempted my outdoor 30 minute TT but was held up by way too many lights to have a reliable test. Around 90 seconds of waiting for lights, etc... but still received a graded normalized power of 290 watts but actually averaged 280 watts, covering about 19.2km in those 30 minutes. Not bad, but it doesn't really tell me much. I just know it's pretty good. If all goes well I will be racing a 20km TT next weekend in Sault Michigan so I will get a definitive number then.
I'll try and get a picture of my new position for interest-sake and critical purposes.
Speaking of Sault Ste Marie, guess where I am! Sault "covered in snow, no really, it's been blizzarding for 20 hours" Ste Marie. I will be back home working at Essar Steel, in the mill, all summer for good money. But I really don't want to work at all. I'll just have to suck it up though. These race fees ain't gunna pay themselves. Hopefully I'll get a good pile of time off or something and manage to get back to London a couple times.
That's enough for now I think.
Adam "That's enough for now" Fortais
Insert comical transition. Pause for laughter.
I got a bike fit at Multisport Zone in London on Thursday. My fit seemed... all right I guess, but I knew I could push the saddle forward and I wasn't sure about saddle height. It wasn't uncomfortable per se, but it wasn't great. And I knew I could get a little more aero. So off I went to meet Jeff. Short story even shorter, My seatpost angle was adjusted from 75 degrees to a proper, agressive 78 degrees, my saddle height was lifted by almost 3 inches (!!!!) and I received recommendations to move my armrests back. The armrests were as far back as the two-bold design would allow for, but I have since eschewed the second bolt to try out the waay further back position. Updates on that to follow. The fit feels a lot better, though during testing I was still sucked into riding on the nose of the saddle, likely due to the arm rests being too far up. I attempted my outdoor 30 minute TT but was held up by way too many lights to have a reliable test. Around 90 seconds of waiting for lights, etc... but still received a graded normalized power of 290 watts but actually averaged 280 watts, covering about 19.2km in those 30 minutes. Not bad, but it doesn't really tell me much. I just know it's pretty good. If all goes well I will be racing a 20km TT next weekend in Sault Michigan so I will get a definitive number then.
I'll try and get a picture of my new position for interest-sake and critical purposes.
Speaking of Sault Ste Marie, guess where I am! Sault "covered in snow, no really, it's been blizzarding for 20 hours" Ste Marie. I will be back home working at Essar Steel, in the mill, all summer for good money. But I really don't want to work at all. I'll just have to suck it up though. These race fees ain't gunna pay themselves. Hopefully I'll get a good pile of time off or something and manage to get back to London a couple times.
That's enough for now I think.
Adam "That's enough for now" Fortais
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Race season swim test, Specificity and testing protocols
I am fresh out of the pool after my first new swim test and have a bit of extra time so why not another post before I forget some details?
First and foremost, my new swim test is a simple 1000m TT, short course. I completed this in exactly 15:00, or, 1:30/100m. My first 100m was 1:26 and I held that little time gap up until about 700m. I hit 11:13 at 750m and dropped a little further off the pace, but in the last 100m I managed to climb back to that nice, round 15:00. HR tested after completion was 198 BPM. I have no direct comparison, but I do have times from other races this year. I've done 1:33/100m for 1000m long course at the UWO Splash and Dash, and 1:27/100m for 750m at the Queens Spring Fling. Both had enough of a gap between other events that I went all out, and both had competitors in other lanes which helps bring out your A-game. With a completely empty pool and only my brain to keep me motivated, I am satisfied with this time. I'm certainly no Phelps, but I've definitely improved a lot this year and seem to be holding on to those gains despite shifting my focus to overall triathlon fitness as of late.
Secondly, I believe I've briefly touched on this subject previously but would like to make it emphatically clear why I've changed my testing protocols, and why I chose now to do it. The next two paragraphs contain a large portion of boring personal details. I've underlined the main point I'm trying to get across. I won't be offended if you skip the fluff.
My understanding of the idea of specificity in training has been somewhat of a roller-coaster ride and perhaps you can identify with me on this. Early on when I first started in sports (and I'm talking baby-Adam) it made complete sense that if you want to be good at something, you have to practice that thing. I want to be good at kicking the ole' soccer ball? I'd best be kicking that soccer ball a lot. I want to be able to beat 3 of my friends at Super Smash Bros. at the same time? I best practice 3-1 matches. I want to beat my neighbour at running 1 lap of my block? I should be running around my block a lot more than him. However when I began taking training more seriously I was introduced to interval training, periodization, and many other fancy training methods. I loved reading about this stuff and would eat up every piece of writing I could get my hands on - perhaps way more than a young, driven, naive boy should have read. I think I was sucked in and overstimulated with ideas about training and began to hyper-focus on new-to-me concepts that seemed to really make sense. In particular, interval training just made sense. If you're stuck at 60 seconds for your 400m (I was an elementary school track-star!) but can only do 28-29 seconds for a 200m, then if you focus on lots of very fast 200m intervals, holding 30sec/200m will be no problem. I became obsessed with fast intervals all through high school to my own peril. I think there were only a handful of times through my entire high school career where I ran more than 9km in one day, or 40km in one week despite claiming to be a XC runner. I suffered from burn out, and hard, by grade 12, never having a truly successful year of racing.
Fast-forward to now. I've matured a lot, and completely changed my training. Yes, I still feel drawn to short, fast intervals but I've severely curbed my addiction to overspeed training. I consistently run long and slow, I worry about weekly volume, and I'm faster than I ever thought possible. I attribute the difference to a number of things, but the number one improvement is specificity of training. No longer do I focus on 200-400m intervals while eschewing the tempo runs and long, slow days. In fact, I may have done 3 or 4 workouts this year that included speed work like that. I've realized that the stress it provides is too great for the return on fitness in most cases, and the returns I do get may not be beneficial for my goal races. This year I will be making the jump from sprint to olympic distance triathlon. I will be increasing race duration from 1 hour to 2 hours. I will have to run after 1 hour of cycling, not just 30 minutes. My current 10km PB is 35:28, and my current 10km PB off the bike does not exist. Now, if I were to worry about anything running related, would it be that I don't have enough top-end speed this year, or that I need to work on my threshold and running strength to be able to run well off the bike? (It's the second one.)
Thesis: Think about what the goal of your training is and focus on the things that hold you back.
This relates to my choice of testing protocol throughout the year. In the early season, far out from races, I thought about my fitness, selected aspects of my fitness that I believed were holding me back or would allow for greater improvement this race season. In swimming I could hold a pace fairly close to my maximum 100m time for a good length of time, but that 100m time was pretty pathetic (1:27). Cycling, it was threshold endurance. In running... well, I pretty much just wanted to hit my peak fitness from last year at the same time as swimming and biking were hitting their peaks. If I can maintain that fitness and bring the other two events up I would be in a good place. So for swimming I knew the main energy pathway I would be using during an olympic race is that threshold area, that "comfortably un-comfortable" region you probably know and love. This means that the majority of my training should be targeted at improving my speed at that effort level. Specificity tells me I should train at that level to be better at that level. However, a whole year of focusing right at that level would suck a lot and in the long run probably not get me the results I would like. So in the base seasons I take one step back and take the same approach as before but rather than think about what is holding me back in my race, think what is holding me back in training at that level. Base is the perfect time to work on these supplementary skills and effort levels. So I recognized that technique was holding me back, and short, max speed fitness was holding me back. Therefore I allowed my training to target these things - I had my stroke analysed, worked on a lot of drills, and worked on bringing my 100m time down with short intervals. Now, during this phase as with any other, you had better find a way to measure your progress. Hopefully you can guess where this is going. If I'm training my short interval speed and my technique specifically, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to have a test set which tests my threshold fitness. I need one that focuses on short intervals and technique if possible.
With this in mind and a little help from my friend Theo, I designed the short test set described in an earlier post. 50m on 45 seconds, coming in at any time I'd like, until I can't make the pace time any more. I know, not a pure speed test set, but straddling the line between endurance and speed, with an emphasis on speed. I knew I was making progress because my results increased from 6 to 10 throughout the winter. Additionally, in workouts I noticed my 100m time dropping significantly... My 100m PB was once 1:27, but within a workout I've hit 1:17.
Fantastic. But now the Base period is over. Summer is upon us and I'm but a month and a bit out from my first important race. The focus has switched from training the supplemental skills that will allow me to train at the most important effort levels, to training those specific effort levels I will be using in a race. My swim focus has moved from a fast 100m to a fast 1500m swim split, so I am starting to train like it. But as I've said above, you have to be able to measure your progress (or lack thereof). And so alas! We arrive at the conclusion. :. QED. I care about my threshold speed, so I will test my threshold speed. 1000m TT. Very similar to a 1500m swim split, but toned down to reduce the stress and fatigue after doing it (I do these on my rest week, I ought to be resting). I am also switching my bike test to 30minutes max power outdoors, and my run test to a 5km TT.
Adam "Makes sense to me at least..." Fortais
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Base 2 review
This is some serious back-tracking but I thought I may as well document it. Base 2 was from March 4 - March 31 and consisted of mainly long, low intensity work, strength and force-training and the introduction of some longer, higher-effort intervals.
Run weeks focused on very short, hard, steep hill intervals to build up some run-specific leg muscle. The other main focus was to begin increasing the duration of my weekly long-run. This went from 50min to 60min to 75min. The Splash and Dash 1km swim - 10km run race fell on the first week... which wasn't ideal timing wise, but I made sure I didn't over do it. Week two I kept it easy with a 30 minute fartlek run, and I threw in a basic, easy 6km tempo run at 3:50/km in week three.
Bike weeks focused on bike-specific strength training in the form of big gear steady intervals. The weather was still less than great so everything was done on the trainer. A typical workout may include up to 10 minutes of gear-grinding with less than half the interval time recovering, or, getting off the bike to wall sit or squat for a minute or two. Second focus was similar to that of the run weeks, slowly introduce longer, higher effort intervals. Week one was 30 minutes at my "sweet-spot" (80-93% ftp ~ 240W). Week two was 60minute tempo interval (220W) and week three was 3x15minutes (10min tempo (220W), 5 min SS+ (260W))
Swimming was swimming. Just following the UWO tri club's workouts. Hitting about 10km/week in the form of Tues-Thurs morning, 45 minute workouts, and a 2 hour workout on Saturday.
End of month testing went well for cycling, but not so much for swimming. I chalked the poor swim test up to not fully recovering since I hit a new record during the Splash and Dash. The swim test protocol I had been using during base session was 50m invervals on 45seconds to exhaustion, holding whatever pace I want. I picked this since it doesn't take a lot of time, has some amount of specificity, but also focuses on top-end speed which is what I've been trying to increase outside of the competitive season. Last test I managed 10x50m before calling it quits. This month my 10th interval missed the pace time... but again, just like my last post about my most current running test, I did this on a Tuesday after a full training block. From now on, no testing until at least Wednesday.
As I mentioned above, cycling went well. I upgraded my all-time best power over 5 and 20 minutes WHILE ON THE TRAINER... I don't know if anyone else notices this, but hitting your watts on the trainer feels a lot harder than on the road. Physically I don't know how this could be, but it seems to be a real phenomenon. However, I still managed to up to 20 minute critical power to 294W, and my 5 minute critical power to 342W. CP5 was done on a Wednesday, and CP20 was on a Friday. It seems like Wednesday is all right for testing. With this new CP20 value, my estimated FTP (functional threshold power, or, power I can expect to hold for 1 hour) is about 280W. Not bad, not bad.
I decided not to test my running, as the results from Splash and Dash as well as my increasing long runs provided enough feedback to tell me I'm heading in the right direction.
Adam "Catching up on old news" Fortais
Run weeks focused on very short, hard, steep hill intervals to build up some run-specific leg muscle. The other main focus was to begin increasing the duration of my weekly long-run. This went from 50min to 60min to 75min. The Splash and Dash 1km swim - 10km run race fell on the first week... which wasn't ideal timing wise, but I made sure I didn't over do it. Week two I kept it easy with a 30 minute fartlek run, and I threw in a basic, easy 6km tempo run at 3:50/km in week three.
Bike weeks focused on bike-specific strength training in the form of big gear steady intervals. The weather was still less than great so everything was done on the trainer. A typical workout may include up to 10 minutes of gear-grinding with less than half the interval time recovering, or, getting off the bike to wall sit or squat for a minute or two. Second focus was similar to that of the run weeks, slowly introduce longer, higher effort intervals. Week one was 30 minutes at my "sweet-spot" (80-93% ftp ~ 240W). Week two was 60minute tempo interval (220W) and week three was 3x15minutes (10min tempo (220W), 5 min SS+ (260W))
Swimming was swimming. Just following the UWO tri club's workouts. Hitting about 10km/week in the form of Tues-Thurs morning, 45 minute workouts, and a 2 hour workout on Saturday.
End of month testing went well for cycling, but not so much for swimming. I chalked the poor swim test up to not fully recovering since I hit a new record during the Splash and Dash. The swim test protocol I had been using during base session was 50m invervals on 45seconds to exhaustion, holding whatever pace I want. I picked this since it doesn't take a lot of time, has some amount of specificity, but also focuses on top-end speed which is what I've been trying to increase outside of the competitive season. Last test I managed 10x50m before calling it quits. This month my 10th interval missed the pace time... but again, just like my last post about my most current running test, I did this on a Tuesday after a full training block. From now on, no testing until at least Wednesday.
As I mentioned above, cycling went well. I upgraded my all-time best power over 5 and 20 minutes WHILE ON THE TRAINER... I don't know if anyone else notices this, but hitting your watts on the trainer feels a lot harder than on the road. Physically I don't know how this could be, but it seems to be a real phenomenon. However, I still managed to up to 20 minute critical power to 294W, and my 5 minute critical power to 342W. CP5 was done on a Wednesday, and CP20 was on a Friday. It seems like Wednesday is all right for testing. With this new CP20 value, my estimated FTP (functional threshold power, or, power I can expect to hold for 1 hour) is about 280W. Not bad, not bad.
I decided not to test my running, as the results from Splash and Dash as well as my increasing long runs provided enough feedback to tell me I'm heading in the right direction.
Adam "Catching up on old news" Fortais
Brief run-test debriefing
1) Eat appropriately prior to testing
Eggs, bacon, cheese and coffee do not provide your body with the proper nutrients to keep from crashing with low blood sugar
2) Take some time off before testing
1-2 days isn't a very long time after 3 weeks of the highest volume of your life. Consider testing at the end of the week
3) Watch your heart rate
Don't be surprised if you crack after 6 minutes above 195 bpm. Especially if last test you maxed out at 195.
4) Know when to pack it in
If you notice your test has been a perfect storm of failure, don't be afraid to call it quits early. You can always retest later in the week.
So all of these things just happened. The test was a 5km TT. I held my goal pace for about 13 minutes before cracking. The speed didn't feel too bad, just everything else wasn't firing today. I called it quits around 4km and plan on retrying later this week. Before quitting I was holding 3:20min/km which seemed completely reasonable. The first couple km were no problem at all. I will be shooting for that again later.
Adam "Keep that frown concave down!" Fortais
Eggs, bacon, cheese and coffee do not provide your body with the proper nutrients to keep from crashing with low blood sugar
2) Take some time off before testing
1-2 days isn't a very long time after 3 weeks of the highest volume of your life. Consider testing at the end of the week
3) Watch your heart rate
Don't be surprised if you crack after 6 minutes above 195 bpm. Especially if last test you maxed out at 195.
4) Know when to pack it in
If you notice your test has been a perfect storm of failure, don't be afraid to call it quits early. You can always retest later in the week.
So all of these things just happened. The test was a 5km TT. I held my goal pace for about 13 minutes before cracking. The speed didn't feel too bad, just everything else wasn't firing today. I called it quits around 4km and plan on retrying later this week. Before quitting I was holding 3:20min/km which seemed completely reasonable. The first couple km were no problem at all. I will be shooting for that again later.
Adam "Keep that frown concave down!" Fortais
Friday, May 3, 2013
Base 3: (Mid-Week, Big-Week)
I'm just about finished the biggest training week of my life and thought I would quickly update with regards to that.
Base 3 was re-designed (or rather shifted) by essentially 2 weeks as per the last post. When you're sick, you gotta do what you gotta do. The hour structure was maintained at 10-12-14-Restandtest, but the focus shifted a little bit. I caught myself doing more very focused race-pace stuff, ie medium-length intervals very near my predicted racing wattage and speed, so I decided to change it up a bit for this last "training to train" period. I moved more above race pace intervals and below race pace intervals into the schedule and plan on training very specifically in the coming build blocks.
More specifically, my quality workouts looked like this (excluding swims, because I don't really know what I'm doing in the pool)
Week 1:
Bike
3x10min at ftp (1 hour TT pace, 280W) w/ 5 min rest
-To get used to intervals in that range again, not too stressfull
3x(5min top-gear low cadence, stand at 2 and 4min, 2 min rest, 2min standing, 1min rest), 2:30 high cadence -Functional strength training, a perceived limiter for my tiny runners legs
30min tempo (210-250W), 10min w/ single legging, 25min tempo+5min Sub-threshold (210-250, ~270W) -I have to be ready to ride hard for ~ 1 hour, rather than 30 minutes this year
Run
6x 200m hill repeats, 1:40 rest
-Gotta be strong
30 min tempo @ 3:40/km
-Right about threshold
Long run
Week 2:
Bike (first week outside)
2x10min ftp (5min rest), 20min ftp, 2x1min HARD efforts
-Building on last week
6x ~1min hills, about 400W
-Pumpin'!
Run
5x(2min I - 1min E - 1min I - 30sec E - 30sec I - 30sec E), I = <3:20 km="" p="">-Worth noting, I did this workout faster and with more reps than I did about 1 month out of my 10k PB last season. Training the high end speed.
Long run
-20km
CN Tower race
-Race report to come. 144 flights of stairs, ~1750 stairs. You can imagine what system I was training here.
Week 3:
Bike
20min @ 280W (100% ftp) - 10min rest, 15min @ 285W (102% ftp) - 7min rest, 10min @ 290W (105% ftp) - 5 min rest
-Keep on building. The goal is to build my tolerance to the longer intervals. I'm used to 10 minute sufferfests, but I need to make 20 minute efforts my bread and butter.
90 minutes of searching and destroying various hills around London. 6 big efforts from 1:30-4:00 climbing.
-Lots of recovery means high watts!
Run
5x400m including 200m of hill, 78 seconds w/ 400m jog recovery
-Speed and strength
4x200m w/ 200m recovery (32sec), 3x1km, 2min rest (3:14), 2x400m w/ 400m recovery (68sec)
-More VO2Max training with some very fast running for economy. Again, running better than last year
Long run
-Nearly 20km
Week 1 and 2 had the workouts spaced to get good solid quality out of every interval session. Things went very well and I was feeling a bit of fatigue creeping up near the end of week 2. The CN tower race demanded that I front-load week 2, and the race itself hurt quite a lot, so some easy sessions followed.
Week 3 has been amazing - I've been quite tired through most of the sessions, but I've still been hitting all my numbers, or exceeding them. The beginning of the week saw well-spaced quality sessions, but I've been exceeding the speeds I was expecting at this point of the season, so I've been doubling up some workouts in the latter half of the week to try and get a bigger endurance stimulus out of the training. What I mean is I'm sacrificing some potentially raw speed and freshness - "workout PBs" for a bigger endurance load. Specifically, I doubled up running and bike quality sessions on Thursday (VO2Max running work in the morning, hill work on the bike in the evening). This was followed today by 90 minutes in the pool doing some above race pace work, and some technique and strength work... into my long run... leaving me "trashed".
Here is the reason I'm doing this. I believe my Base 3 period is meant to be more about training your body to be able to take on the race-specific, high intensity loads you will be giving it during the Build periods to come. Also, you want to be maxing out your pure endurance at this point, so you can put nearly all your effort into race specific work. With that in mind, I noticed I've been hitting my swim, bike and run workouts faster than I ever have, even with all this fatigue building up. However, I am also moving up in race distance this year which plays a huge role in my training plan. Therefore the decision process was that
1) "The hey is in the barn" as far as short speed work is concerned since I've already seemed to have exceeded my speed from last year in every sport
2) I have 2 entire blocks to come that will be concerned with raising my race specific speed even more
3) My biggest limiter is volume and endurance based - I've never raced longer than 1 hour and I believe I have more to gain at this point by addressing these issues.
I don't even see this as a gamble - I hit the times and watts I was hoping to ahead of schedule, so I re-arranged the work I was going to do anyway in such a way to tax my recovery and endurance systems more. That being said... I can't wait for this recovery week! Only 2 more workouts to go... A short swim involving 25m all-out sprints and pushups (a workout that I will drop upon reaching the build phases), and a long slow endurance bike ride. No problem!
In the near future, be prepared for a much shorter review of Base 2 training (a lot less interesting), another race recap, and my thoughts on my swim season.
Adam "lol, the hey is in the barn" Fortais
Base 3 was re-designed (or rather shifted) by essentially 2 weeks as per the last post. When you're sick, you gotta do what you gotta do. The hour structure was maintained at 10-12-14-Restandtest, but the focus shifted a little bit. I caught myself doing more very focused race-pace stuff, ie medium-length intervals very near my predicted racing wattage and speed, so I decided to change it up a bit for this last "training to train" period. I moved more above race pace intervals and below race pace intervals into the schedule and plan on training very specifically in the coming build blocks.
More specifically, my quality workouts looked like this (excluding swims, because I don't really know what I'm doing in the pool)
Week 1:
Bike
3x10min at ftp (1 hour TT pace, 280W) w/ 5 min rest
-To get used to intervals in that range again, not too stressfull
3x(5min top-gear low cadence, stand at 2 and 4min, 2 min rest, 2min standing, 1min rest), 2:30 high cadence -Functional strength training, a perceived limiter for my tiny runners legs
30min tempo (210-250W), 10min w/ single legging, 25min tempo+5min Sub-threshold (210-250, ~270W) -I have to be ready to ride hard for ~ 1 hour, rather than 30 minutes this year
Run
6x 200m hill repeats, 1:40 rest
-Gotta be strong
30 min tempo @ 3:40/km
-Right about threshold
Long run
Week 2:
Bike (first week outside)
2x10min ftp (5min rest), 20min ftp, 2x1min HARD efforts
-Building on last week
6x ~1min hills, about 400W
-Pumpin'!
Run
5x(2min I - 1min E - 1min I - 30sec E - 30sec I - 30sec E), I = <3:20 km="" p="">-Worth noting, I did this workout faster and with more reps than I did about 1 month out of my 10k PB last season. Training the high end speed.
Long run
-20km
CN Tower race
-Race report to come. 144 flights of stairs, ~1750 stairs. You can imagine what system I was training here.
Week 3:
Bike
20min @ 280W (100% ftp) - 10min rest, 15min @ 285W (102% ftp) - 7min rest, 10min @ 290W (105% ftp) - 5 min rest
-Keep on building. The goal is to build my tolerance to the longer intervals. I'm used to 10 minute sufferfests, but I need to make 20 minute efforts my bread and butter.
90 minutes of searching and destroying various hills around London. 6 big efforts from 1:30-4:00 climbing.
-Lots of recovery means high watts!
Run
5x400m including 200m of hill, 78 seconds w/ 400m jog recovery
-Speed and strength
4x200m w/ 200m recovery (32sec), 3x1km, 2min rest (3:14), 2x400m w/ 400m recovery (68sec)
-More VO2Max training with some very fast running for economy. Again, running better than last year
Long run
-Nearly 20km
Week 1 and 2 had the workouts spaced to get good solid quality out of every interval session. Things went very well and I was feeling a bit of fatigue creeping up near the end of week 2. The CN tower race demanded that I front-load week 2, and the race itself hurt quite a lot, so some easy sessions followed.
Week 3 has been amazing - I've been quite tired through most of the sessions, but I've still been hitting all my numbers, or exceeding them. The beginning of the week saw well-spaced quality sessions, but I've been exceeding the speeds I was expecting at this point of the season, so I've been doubling up some workouts in the latter half of the week to try and get a bigger endurance stimulus out of the training. What I mean is I'm sacrificing some potentially raw speed and freshness - "workout PBs" for a bigger endurance load. Specifically, I doubled up running and bike quality sessions on Thursday (VO2Max running work in the morning, hill work on the bike in the evening). This was followed today by 90 minutes in the pool doing some above race pace work, and some technique and strength work... into my long run... leaving me "trashed".
Here is the reason I'm doing this. I believe my Base 3 period is meant to be more about training your body to be able to take on the race-specific, high intensity loads you will be giving it during the Build periods to come. Also, you want to be maxing out your pure endurance at this point, so you can put nearly all your effort into race specific work. With that in mind, I noticed I've been hitting my swim, bike and run workouts faster than I ever have, even with all this fatigue building up. However, I am also moving up in race distance this year which plays a huge role in my training plan. Therefore the decision process was that
1) "The hey is in the barn" as far as short speed work is concerned since I've already seemed to have exceeded my speed from last year in every sport
2) I have 2 entire blocks to come that will be concerned with raising my race specific speed even more
3) My biggest limiter is volume and endurance based - I've never raced longer than 1 hour and I believe I have more to gain at this point by addressing these issues.
I don't even see this as a gamble - I hit the times and watts I was hoping to ahead of schedule, so I re-arranged the work I was going to do anyway in such a way to tax my recovery and endurance systems more. That being said... I can't wait for this recovery week! Only 2 more workouts to go... A short swim involving 25m all-out sprints and pushups (a workout that I will drop upon reaching the build phases), and a long slow endurance bike ride. No problem!
In the near future, be prepared for a much shorter review of Base 2 training (a lot less interesting), another race recap, and my thoughts on my swim season.
Adam "lol, the hey is in the barn" Fortais
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Race Report 2 (Queen's Spring Fling)
"You can't win 'em all... So when you lose, make sure you have some excuses."
- me
Race specifics:
This "triathlon" was a two-day affair, with a 750m TT swim on day one, and a 3k-20k-5k, time-gapped duathlon the next. The swim was in a pool, the duathlon was on the cold, wet, windswept roads (and bushes) of Wolf Island, right next to Kingston. This was to be the University Multisport Series' championship event.
Me specifics:
This event was to take place during the weekend of my first week of Base 3 training. This meant I would be hitting about 10 hours for the week including some fairly strenuous training leading up to it. I certainly would not be at my top form, but I should have been fairly fit and ready to go.
The race:
The ride down was uneventful. I managed to get a ride with some tri club teammates, had a burrito or something for lunch, and simply relaxed. I was feeling very confident in my abilities as training had been going splendidly, I felt a bit tired but on the whole ready to go, and was excited to test out my swim speed.
My group arrived earlier than most. We checked into the hotel, hung around a coffee shop, then headed to the pool. The pool, I was told, was fairly new and I could tell. Iunno. It was nice. We were there very early, but I wanted a chance to shake out my legs and get my arms moving. I had completed a fairly long swim workout the day before including a main set of 400m - 2x200m - 4x100m, long course, coming in close to what I was expecting for short course race-pace. I got about 2k of warm up, including some fast 50s, and was amazed how smooth and fast I felt. I could tell it was going to be a good evening.
Official warm ups started a while later, but I was already pretty much good to go. I did a couple more 50s mostly to keep warm.
One lesson for next time - during the warm up, if you plan on using a pace clock for racing, work on sighting the pace clock. During the race I lost it and was swimming "blind". A second lesson - KEEP COUNT OF LAPS!!! After 200m I had lost track. I don't know how my race would have been affected knowing the accurate distance to go, but for the last 250m or so I kept thinking, "probably only 2 more laps to go..."
Regardless, I cruised into a massive new PB, 10:5-something, or, 1:27/100m. My previous PB at this distance was something like 1:35/100m. Huge success. This set me up to start first in the duathlon the next day (by 15 seconds).
I spent the rest of the evening watching the other divisions, eating a pizzaburger, and figuring out how I would get to Wolf Island. Nothing special to report except pizza burgers are things! It's a burger wrapped in, essentially, a pizza pocket. Yes I had that the night before a race. Who are you, my mom? I don't have to answer to you.
Oh, I also had to share a bed.
Oh, apparently he was sick with something.
So I started waking up at about 2:00 am, then almost every 30 minutes thereafter. My dreams in between involved me and the people I know becoming infected with red crablike alien monsters which would then control the host's body. Every time I'd wake up, my throat would be more sore, and my skin a little more sensitive. By 5:00 am I gave up on sleep and layed awake until it was time to pack my stuff. My throat was filled with mucous and I could barely breath. I had a meagre breakfast as I couldn't really stomach to eat too much and decided I would just shut up with all this "I feel sick" business and get the day over with.
The temperature had dropped about 5-10 degrees (C) from the day before, the wind had increased by about 25km/hr, and it was very overcast. As I should have guessed, the wind would only get worse on the island, and of course, surrounding yourself with water will only make it colder. So I decided I would just shut up with all this "the weather is disgusting" business and get the day over with.
I went through the motions of setting up transition and warming up. I tried to do a couple minutes at ftp on the bike as warm up but had quite a bit of trouble. My legs were fried and I could hardly breath being so filled with mucous. So I cut the warm up short and decided to try and just stay warm.
The girls went first, and there were reports trickling in of people making mistakes on the course and running the 5k instead of the 3k at the beginning. I took a quick look at the map and it seemed clear enough. Just kidding. It made no sense at all. I asked the race director for some insight... "It's really not that bad, start here, take a left then a right, but not that right, that right is for the bike, then left but make sure not to turn onto the street, but weave through this backyard..." Ok, it wasn't exactly like that, but in my state, and well, it might as well have been that bad. I'm not kidding about running through backyards, the race started by cutting through a field behind a community centre, and exiting in a residential area... I gave up trying to learn the route and assumed I would figure it out on the go.
I lined up on the start line, cleared my mind of how bad this would probably turn out, and told myself if I could hold an honest pace for this first 3km, I could catch my breath on the bike. The 3k felt hard, and I forgot to look at my watch due to my suffering. I got on the bike proceeded to get knocked around by the wind more than I ever had. Sadly I only managed to hold about 250W and come in around 39:00 for 20km... which is very very far from what I would consider a riding to my potential. I was extremely unhappy with that. Later in the day the race directors decided to make the bike optional. I don't know how that works in the context of a race, but it was a good thought to cut that hellish suicide run out of the race.
I got to the 5k still leading... although it was an absolute death march. At times I was running above 4:00/km. I finished in first by about 1-2 minutes. The worst was over. Now all I had to do was be disgraced.
Apparently I had made a mistake on the 3k run at the beginning. I was running up the proper road and saw a pilon with arrows pointing into a path through a bush. Obviously this was a sign to go into the bush... However, the true route required me to pass this pilon, turn around a little further up the road and then go through the bush. So for my mistake I was (and rightly so, don't get me wrong) penalized 5:00. This slotted me comfortably in 2nd, about a minute and a half down. So be it. Just because I didn't know I cheated doesn't mean I didn't run less than everyone else. It just sucks. Lesson 3 - preview the route.
I'm sure there were some more lessons to be learned in there. Something about trying your best, you can't win 'em all, get back on the horse, whatever. I was pretty bummed for a while, and being sick certainly didn't help, but never once did I get discouraged. The hardest thing was accepting I needed some time off to get better before I could put more time in to get better. That's a good sign.
Anyway, my effort garnered a new pair of compression socks which I gladly wore all the way home. It also earned me a sinus infection which essentially halted all training during the next week. This forced me to start Base 3 all over again on April 15th. I then had to work on re-organizing my schedule leading up to my A races. Speaking of which, I have some A races planned! Actually, there is a plethora of news! But I will make a separate post for all this good stuff. In the mean time, I am writing this mid-week of my last big week of new Base 3, my biggest week of training ever... and I think it is going very well! I've hit 10 hours, 12 hours and am on my way to 14 hours this week... But I'll get to that shortly. Look forward to another race report, a review of Base 2, and my summer plans.
Adam "hard race? race hard" Fortais
- me
Race specifics:
This "triathlon" was a two-day affair, with a 750m TT swim on day one, and a 3k-20k-5k, time-gapped duathlon the next. The swim was in a pool, the duathlon was on the cold, wet, windswept roads (and bushes) of Wolf Island, right next to Kingston. This was to be the University Multisport Series' championship event.
Me specifics:
This event was to take place during the weekend of my first week of Base 3 training. This meant I would be hitting about 10 hours for the week including some fairly strenuous training leading up to it. I certainly would not be at my top form, but I should have been fairly fit and ready to go.
The race:
The ride down was uneventful. I managed to get a ride with some tri club teammates, had a burrito or something for lunch, and simply relaxed. I was feeling very confident in my abilities as training had been going splendidly, I felt a bit tired but on the whole ready to go, and was excited to test out my swim speed.
My group arrived earlier than most. We checked into the hotel, hung around a coffee shop, then headed to the pool. The pool, I was told, was fairly new and I could tell. Iunno. It was nice. We were there very early, but I wanted a chance to shake out my legs and get my arms moving. I had completed a fairly long swim workout the day before including a main set of 400m - 2x200m - 4x100m, long course, coming in close to what I was expecting for short course race-pace. I got about 2k of warm up, including some fast 50s, and was amazed how smooth and fast I felt. I could tell it was going to be a good evening.
Official warm ups started a while later, but I was already pretty much good to go. I did a couple more 50s mostly to keep warm.
One lesson for next time - during the warm up, if you plan on using a pace clock for racing, work on sighting the pace clock. During the race I lost it and was swimming "blind". A second lesson - KEEP COUNT OF LAPS!!! After 200m I had lost track. I don't know how my race would have been affected knowing the accurate distance to go, but for the last 250m or so I kept thinking, "probably only 2 more laps to go..."
Regardless, I cruised into a massive new PB, 10:5-something, or, 1:27/100m. My previous PB at this distance was something like 1:35/100m. Huge success. This set me up to start first in the duathlon the next day (by 15 seconds).
I spent the rest of the evening watching the other divisions, eating a pizzaburger, and figuring out how I would get to Wolf Island. Nothing special to report except pizza burgers are things! It's a burger wrapped in, essentially, a pizza pocket. Yes I had that the night before a race. Who are you, my mom? I don't have to answer to you.
Oh, I also had to share a bed.
Oh, apparently he was sick with something.
So I started waking up at about 2:00 am, then almost every 30 minutes thereafter. My dreams in between involved me and the people I know becoming infected with red crablike alien monsters which would then control the host's body. Every time I'd wake up, my throat would be more sore, and my skin a little more sensitive. By 5:00 am I gave up on sleep and layed awake until it was time to pack my stuff. My throat was filled with mucous and I could barely breath. I had a meagre breakfast as I couldn't really stomach to eat too much and decided I would just shut up with all this "I feel sick" business and get the day over with.
The temperature had dropped about 5-10 degrees (C) from the day before, the wind had increased by about 25km/hr, and it was very overcast. As I should have guessed, the wind would only get worse on the island, and of course, surrounding yourself with water will only make it colder. So I decided I would just shut up with all this "the weather is disgusting" business and get the day over with.
I went through the motions of setting up transition and warming up. I tried to do a couple minutes at ftp on the bike as warm up but had quite a bit of trouble. My legs were fried and I could hardly breath being so filled with mucous. So I cut the warm up short and decided to try and just stay warm.
The girls went first, and there were reports trickling in of people making mistakes on the course and running the 5k instead of the 3k at the beginning. I took a quick look at the map and it seemed clear enough. Just kidding. It made no sense at all. I asked the race director for some insight... "It's really not that bad, start here, take a left then a right, but not that right, that right is for the bike, then left but make sure not to turn onto the street, but weave through this backyard..." Ok, it wasn't exactly like that, but in my state, and well, it might as well have been that bad. I'm not kidding about running through backyards, the race started by cutting through a field behind a community centre, and exiting in a residential area... I gave up trying to learn the route and assumed I would figure it out on the go.
I lined up on the start line, cleared my mind of how bad this would probably turn out, and told myself if I could hold an honest pace for this first 3km, I could catch my breath on the bike. The 3k felt hard, and I forgot to look at my watch due to my suffering. I got on the bike proceeded to get knocked around by the wind more than I ever had. Sadly I only managed to hold about 250W and come in around 39:00 for 20km... which is very very far from what I would consider a riding to my potential. I was extremely unhappy with that. Later in the day the race directors decided to make the bike optional. I don't know how that works in the context of a race, but it was a good thought to cut that hellish suicide run out of the race.
I got to the 5k still leading... although it was an absolute death march. At times I was running above 4:00/km. I finished in first by about 1-2 minutes. The worst was over. Now all I had to do was be disgraced.
Apparently I had made a mistake on the 3k run at the beginning. I was running up the proper road and saw a pilon with arrows pointing into a path through a bush. Obviously this was a sign to go into the bush... However, the true route required me to pass this pilon, turn around a little further up the road and then go through the bush. So for my mistake I was (and rightly so, don't get me wrong) penalized 5:00. This slotted me comfortably in 2nd, about a minute and a half down. So be it. Just because I didn't know I cheated doesn't mean I didn't run less than everyone else. It just sucks. Lesson 3 - preview the route.
I'm sure there were some more lessons to be learned in there. Something about trying your best, you can't win 'em all, get back on the horse, whatever. I was pretty bummed for a while, and being sick certainly didn't help, but never once did I get discouraged. The hardest thing was accepting I needed some time off to get better before I could put more time in to get better. That's a good sign.
Anyway, my effort garnered a new pair of compression socks which I gladly wore all the way home. It also earned me a sinus infection which essentially halted all training during the next week. This forced me to start Base 3 all over again on April 15th. I then had to work on re-organizing my schedule leading up to my A races. Speaking of which, I have some A races planned! Actually, there is a plethora of news! But I will make a separate post for all this good stuff. In the mean time, I am writing this mid-week of my last big week of new Base 3, my biggest week of training ever... and I think it is going very well! I've hit 10 hours, 12 hours and am on my way to 14 hours this week... But I'll get to that shortly. Look forward to another race report, a review of Base 2, and my summer plans.
Adam "hard race? race hard" Fortais
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