Training to train

Like all resolutionists, I started the year fast and furious spitting out 3 blog posts in three days, then I left you hanging for 10 days. But I had a good reason. I caught THE flu. I thought I had the flu before, but no, this one was IT. I could barely keep my eyes open and my head up without passing out. Seriously, last Saturday I was two glasses of orange juice away from a ride in an ambulance (thank you Montana's manager for offering those to me when I scared you by turning cadaveric white and lost my feeling in my hands and feet). Yup, I had to lie down in one of their booths at lunch time. Anyway, the next day I ended in the doctor's office and I was put on Tamiflu which did the trick. I could return to the office three days later without the feeling of carrying a ton of bricks inside my head. Seriously, don't get the flu. Wash your hands often and stay away from the crowds. It's not fun.

But I also knew that you needed those 10 days to really appreciate the awesomeness of my recap posts (1, 2 and 3). What, you don't want to read them again? Okay, okay, you're excused if you already read them at least twice.

Now, what happened since? Not much because 1. I was in symbiosis with my couch 2. I was busy watching the first season of Orange is the New Black. Yes, there is lesbian sex in it. Get over it. It's really a good show.

Once I started feeling human again, I went to a new therapist and she got me doing some interesting strength training (I'll sure get buns of steel after this) and stretches that made me curse my body with new and colourful words. I also got my IT bands taped to show them who's the boss.

With renewed hope, I returned slowly to riding my bike and swimming. This week I managed to work out for 3h so far, including one hour at masters swim with my tri club. And you know what? I could keep up! It made me super happy about how little pool fitness I lost over the past 2 months. Alas, I also know that I won't finish the IM with swimming only and I still need to start putting in some serious biking and running workouts. So I did more spinning this week: 30 min, then 10k, then 45min. Next stop, 1h!! This may just end up as a date with hubbs and Trainer Road in our Pain Cave on Monday.

I also plan on running 30min on the treadmill tomorrow morning and see how my IT bands and hip hold up. So far, with the biking and swimming, no real negative impact, but I am still cautious. Not going crazy with enthusiasm or I'll pay the price. Learned that lesson once.

Bottom line, things have started looking up and I try to stay positive and take it one day at a time, celebrating every little ounce of progress. The IM is now 7 months away, exactly 31 weeks from now. Time to start the count down!

In the meantime, I leave you with some hypnotic footage of my swim analysis which I had done along with 3 private lessons with Sean Bechtel back in November.

Trial and error

Triathlon training is getting fun, folks. My weeks are now full on tri-mode: swimming and biking 2-3x week, running 3-4x week plus a few walks in between, with total volumes from 80 to 100 miles and guess what? I'm loving it! My body is adjusting pretty well, I think, and I am becoming rather obsessed with everything triathlon related, but I don't hide it, I am a bit anxious about what is coming. So much to learn and so much room for improvement, I hope.

Swim -
I am very slow in the pool, averaging 2:10/100m and loving the pull buoy because it's so much easier to swim with it, and I have a somewhat ok technique, but with a weak catch and pull (I think I am of the Bambino type). One thing I know I've improved upon is bilateral breathing - no issues there, however I know I am still lifting my head a bit and not relaxing my neck properly. Another problem is endurance, without the pull buoy I feel like drowning and I'm trying really hard to find a slow kicking rhythm, otherwise I don't last more than 50m. Also working on using my core muscles more by trying to rotate my body so I don't look like a floating pancake. Hopefully I can take another video of my swimming soon and you can point out all my flaws.
One thing I have not mentioned though - I am terrified of open water swimming. I used to swim in the ocean, without a wetsuit, so I know I can do it, but I haven't tried since I was 20 years old (that's quite a long time ago!). Thankfully today I made the jump, so to speak, and I bought a wetsuit because once you're committed to this sport, and I know I am, there is no point in spending 45 bucks in a rental when new suits go for $160, like this XTerra Vortex 4, which seems to be a good bet, given its popularity amongst triathletes.

Bike -
On the bike, I can hold some decent times for long-ish distances, averaging 16-17mph for a 2h workout, but having some issues with my saddle and aero position. The saddle is supposed to be good, it's a fizik Arione, but it may help if I tilt its head down a little - my lady bits are screaming in pain after most long rides even if I wear the most generously padded bike shorts. I also need to pay attention to my head position when riding in aero as neck gets stiff and a little achy if I don't switch positions every 15 min or so. One last thing is bike control and using appropriate gear ratios. I am not quite sure what to do because I don't have an onboard computer that counts RPMs and I am in love with the big gears like every newbie, so I must be overusing those in climbs instead of gearing down when needed.

Run -
With 2 marathons under my belt this year and another one this coming October, I feel rather confident there, I am definitely enjoying my runs - so far!, but again, I'm not the speediest mouse out there. I am hoping to finish my next marathon somewhere between 4h15-4h30, but today I got a taste of the (Ironman) endurance training medicine, and more precisely, running in zone 2, and it was horribly bitter. I don't know how my coach chose the 139bpm as my zone 2 average, but this better be wrong, it was the most painfully slow, crawling, trying-to-keep-a-running-form-when-I-could-have-walked run ever!! To put it into perspective, today I run 1h at a 8:17min/km pace, 3 full minutes slower than my 5K race pace!! WTF. Even when I started running 3 years ago, I was running faster than this. I know it's normal to feel this way about these runs, but I didn't feel like I was putting in the effort described here: "Starting to work just a little and you can feel your HR rise". This was no workout at all, damn it. Anyway, my coach gave me a Lactate Threshold test to do on Tuesday, so I will come back with my results then, but I think I know where this is going - all over the spectrum. My resting HR is 52 while my max HR is close to 200. When I ran the Paris Marathon I averaged 165bpm, so I was nowhere near my max. I think my zone 2 is rather beween 140bpm and 150bpm, but we shall see.

In the meantime, I found some good links about HR training on Beginnertriathlete.com.
Zone 1 and Zone 2 training explained
Lactate Threshold Heart-Rate Testing Protocol

Enjoy while I torture my brain.