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
Showing posts with label the hey is in the barn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the hey is in the barn. Show all posts
Sunday, May 12, 2013
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
Sunday, March 10, 2013
There Aren't Any Cobwebs to Shake... (Race Report 1, UWO Splash and Dash)
Preamble: I have just completed my first race this season. I went into it this morning at my lifetime peak swimming fitness (not saying much) and EXACTLY 100 miles of easy running as of January 1st. No quality whatsoever. The goal was to use the Western Splash and Dash 1km swim, 10km run as a swim test, and a shake-of-the-cobwebs, get-ready-for-some-real-running effort. This is the last day of my first week of Base 2 training, so was the tail end of a decent 9 hour week of training. I decided to do a full 2 hour swim workout last night since a race at such an early point in the year was not a top priority for me... So without further adieu, the classic Race Report
Classic Race Report 1: UWO Splash and Dash, (1000m swim, "10 km" run)
5:00pm Saturday - Begin long swim workout. Anticipated a full 4-5km workout but Zorian came prepared with a <3km 100m="" 200m="" 2x200="" 2x50m="" 33sec="" 34sec.="" 3:08-3:10="" 400m="" 4x100m.="" 5x200m="" a="" about="" after="" all-out="" and="" ankles="" because="" between="" blocks.="" both="" buoy="" but="" choice.="" definitely="" do="" ellen="" extend="" had="" i="" im="" in="" intervals.="" into="" just-shy-of-4km="" kyle="" less="" main="" more="" nbsp="" need="" next="" no="" off="" opted="" or="" p="" pace="" people="" per="" proceeded="" pull="" pulled="" race.="" recovery="" rest="" set="" sets="" short="" some="" strong="" swim="" tempo-paced.="" territory.="" the="" then="" there="" these="" this.="" through="" time="" tired="" to="" was="" were="" whatever="" with="" work="" workout="">
Hahaha what happened up there?
7:30pm Saturday - Wait in Monte's Pizza for what seems to be my traditional Saturday night pizza. I wonder if this is turning into a habit...
8:30pm Saturday - I finally remove myself from my couch and begin setting out my things for the race
5:45am Sunday - I am awake, again, as I have been waking up nearly hourly since I went to bed at 10:00pm. I decide I might as well just get up since I was going to start moving at 6:00 anyway. I finish packing, eat some yoghurt and berries and muslix and hemp seed and am out the door, off to grab a 7-11 coffee (meh...) and get to the Rec Centre.
7:45 am - I'm all registered, I have set up my transition zone, and begin my run warm up. The race is set to start at 8:30 so I plan for 15-20 minutes of running and 20-25 minutes of swimming.
8:00 am - I arrive at the pool deck, ready to start my warmup. As I am about to enter the water, I notice a large group of girls are also ready to enter the water. They fill every lane. The women's race is starting right now. I am promised warm up time once they start exiting the pool. I wait and finally get a chance to hit the water. I swim 200-300m then practice a dive and do 2x50 accelerations. I head to the bathroom to blow my nose with plans to do a little bit of easy back stroke before the start. I get back out to the pool and am told "25seconds to go"... Yikes. I find my lane and am stepping on the blocks as they count down from 5. Good job, me!
It's long-course so I'm expecting slow, but I find myself hitting the wall after the first 100m at 1:27. Woah. That didn't even feel hard. I decide (smartly) to slow anyway, and hit my first 200 around 3:03 I think. From there I lost track of time, but I knew I was holding nice and steady through 500m. 600-700m was a tough mental exercise but I made the best of it as I could tell I was beginning to lap the guy in the lane beside me. I pulled on through to 800m and used the "only 200m to go, only 150m to go..." game. I popped out of the water with an alarming 15:30! Even more alarming was that aside from Kyle and Zorian in the relays, I was first out of the water.
Transition was somewhat relaxing as they insisted we take 5 minutes before leaving. I opted to run in my jammers, but put on some long sleeve underarmour-type shirt, and my UWO triathlon jersey. The shirt was hard to get on, but I had plenty of time to get everything in order. I had time to watch the other guys come out of the water and saw I had 1:00, 1:30 and 2:00 on the next three. I've yet to have someone come out of the water after me and pass me. I was determined to keep this streak.
My GPS watch was unable to get a signal for the first 200 meters or so, but it didn't matter really. I was more interested in my heart rate, though I didn't really look at my watch at all. Started quite hard, and consciously backed down the pace by about 400m. So I'm getting better at that. There is not much to be said for the run, I saw the other guys but only at turn-arounds. I tried to ballpark how far behind me they were but wasn't having much luck. Interesting note, adding the 200m I believe it took to get a signal, the 10k course was only 9.4km. This makes sense as I finished my run split in 33:40. Either way, assuming I held that pace I would have come in for 10km at about 35:48. Only 20 seconds slower than my 10km, exclusive, only-running PB. What cobwebs, homie?
As per usual, I had a theme song today. Actually, two. Kinda:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w4y1ekS_LE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LywyW0gLRX8
I won an XXL Sugoi tri top. It fits like a running singlet. Still a great prize.
So what does all this mean? Keep on swimming hard, my improvements are huge but I know I can make more. Running fitness has hardly deteriorated at all. Great news. Time to start quality training. There is a 5/10k I am scheduling myself to do in 2 weeks.
Adam "Happy" Fortais
Classic Race Report 1: UWO Splash and Dash, (1000m swim, "10 km" run)
5:00pm Saturday - Begin long swim workout. Anticipated a full 4-5km workout but Zorian came prepared with a <3km 100m="" 200m="" 2x200="" 2x50m="" 33sec="" 34sec.="" 3:08-3:10="" 400m="" 4x100m.="" 5x200m="" a="" about="" after="" all-out="" and="" ankles="" because="" between="" blocks.="" both="" buoy="" but="" choice.="" definitely="" do="" ellen="" extend="" had="" i="" im="" in="" intervals.="" into="" just-shy-of-4km="" kyle="" less="" main="" more="" nbsp="" need="" next="" no="" off="" opted="" or="" p="" pace="" people="" per="" proceeded="" pull="" pulled="" race.="" recovery="" rest="" set="" sets="" short="" some="" strong="" swim="" tempo-paced.="" territory.="" the="" then="" there="" these="" this.="" through="" time="" tired="" to="" was="" were="" whatever="" with="" work="" workout="">
Hahaha what happened up there?
7:30pm Saturday - Wait in Monte's Pizza for what seems to be my traditional Saturday night pizza. I wonder if this is turning into a habit...
8:30pm Saturday - I finally remove myself from my couch and begin setting out my things for the race
5:45am Sunday - I am awake, again, as I have been waking up nearly hourly since I went to bed at 10:00pm. I decide I might as well just get up since I was going to start moving at 6:00 anyway. I finish packing, eat some yoghurt and berries and muslix and hemp seed and am out the door, off to grab a 7-11 coffee (meh...) and get to the Rec Centre.
7:45 am - I'm all registered, I have set up my transition zone, and begin my run warm up. The race is set to start at 8:30 so I plan for 15-20 minutes of running and 20-25 minutes of swimming.
8:00 am - I arrive at the pool deck, ready to start my warmup. As I am about to enter the water, I notice a large group of girls are also ready to enter the water. They fill every lane. The women's race is starting right now. I am promised warm up time once they start exiting the pool. I wait and finally get a chance to hit the water. I swim 200-300m then practice a dive and do 2x50 accelerations. I head to the bathroom to blow my nose with plans to do a little bit of easy back stroke before the start. I get back out to the pool and am told "25seconds to go"... Yikes. I find my lane and am stepping on the blocks as they count down from 5. Good job, me!
It's long-course so I'm expecting slow, but I find myself hitting the wall after the first 100m at 1:27. Woah. That didn't even feel hard. I decide (smartly) to slow anyway, and hit my first 200 around 3:03 I think. From there I lost track of time, but I knew I was holding nice and steady through 500m. 600-700m was a tough mental exercise but I made the best of it as I could tell I was beginning to lap the guy in the lane beside me. I pulled on through to 800m and used the "only 200m to go, only 150m to go..." game. I popped out of the water with an alarming 15:30! Even more alarming was that aside from Kyle and Zorian in the relays, I was first out of the water.
Transition was somewhat relaxing as they insisted we take 5 minutes before leaving. I opted to run in my jammers, but put on some long sleeve underarmour-type shirt, and my UWO triathlon jersey. The shirt was hard to get on, but I had plenty of time to get everything in order. I had time to watch the other guys come out of the water and saw I had 1:00, 1:30 and 2:00 on the next three. I've yet to have someone come out of the water after me and pass me. I was determined to keep this streak.
My GPS watch was unable to get a signal for the first 200 meters or so, but it didn't matter really. I was more interested in my heart rate, though I didn't really look at my watch at all. Started quite hard, and consciously backed down the pace by about 400m. So I'm getting better at that. There is not much to be said for the run, I saw the other guys but only at turn-arounds. I tried to ballpark how far behind me they were but wasn't having much luck. Interesting note, adding the 200m I believe it took to get a signal, the 10k course was only 9.4km. This makes sense as I finished my run split in 33:40. Either way, assuming I held that pace I would have come in for 10km at about 35:48. Only 20 seconds slower than my 10km, exclusive, only-running PB. What cobwebs, homie?
As per usual, I had a theme song today. Actually, two. Kinda:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w4y1ekS_LE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LywyW0gLRX8
I won an XXL Sugoi tri top. It fits like a running singlet. Still a great prize.
So what does all this mean? Keep on swimming hard, my improvements are huge but I know I can make more. Running fitness has hardly deteriorated at all. Great news. Time to start quality training. There is a 5/10k I am scheduling myself to do in 2 weeks.
Adam "Happy" Fortais
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