Wednesday Track Workout 5/21/08

With legs that are a little tired from the previous evening's time trial, it'll be a little tough to feel good for Wednesday track workout. But, the benefits will be great with some rest afterward.

Since I suffered such a defeat last week trying to mimic my best 5k times for the 1,200 meter intervals, I think I'll suggest what Jeff Johnson mentioned in his comments to my post about having so much trouble making my target times. He's correct to say that you can still make big gains by going under your top 5k times in intervals, but still being above your lactate threshold (LT), which is not so hard to do. Just make it a little bit uncomfortable with some harder breathing, and you'll probably be there.

So today, I'm going to suggest going a little shorter and perhaps not quite so hard as your goal 5km pace. Let's try this:

• 800m warmup w/ last 200m pickup
• 4 or 5 x 1,000m (2.5 laps) at LT or just over (probably your goal 5km pace time + 10% to 15%)

My goal 5km time is approx. 16:20 right now. That would make it 3:16 per 1,000m. That's much too fast for how I feel, so I'm going to add 30 seconds (~15%) and make my target interval 3:45 and try to negative split it each time by just a little and get down to something like a 3:35 by the end. I should feel good on the first one, as it'll be right at my LT (you run a race 5km at quite a bit over your LT...more at your anaerobic threshold, or AT), and then I'll gradually increase it more toward my AT, but still staying well below that.

Hope this helps you with your workout. Good luck!

Monday "group" swim workout 5/19/08

Good Monday to everyone. Hopefully you all had a fun and active weekend. I'm pretty tired and a somewhat sore from riding hard in the Santa Fe Century. It was a nice day, though, and I feel really good from the effort. I just needed to take some time off of too much running, apparently.

Anyway, I will not be able to "lead" the group swim workout tonight, but hopefully, you all will go and get the sessions started. I'll be there every week that I can from now on.

Here's a suggested workout for this evening's session (I'll do this at noon):

• warm-up 300 to 500 yds: 1x200 easy crawl, mix strokes 1x50 breast, 1x50 back, 1x50 kick (do this twice to make 300 total)
• 200 yds drill: 1x50 swim one arm (25 yds left, 25 yds right); 1x50 swim w/fists; 1x50 pull-buoy emphasizing rotation and lengthening stroke (almost match hands); 1x50 rotated side-kick (extend arm forward, rotate 90*, kick in freestyle rhythm, then stroke and rotate naturally to other side -- it's about 3 or 6 kicks per side, depending on how you kick in freestyle...look this up if you don't understand it).
• main set (1,200): pacing pyramid. Find your 400 yard pace by building up to it: 1x50 (send-off at 1:00 if possible), 1x100 (send at 2:00 if possible), 1x200 (send at 3:30 if possible), 1x400 (send at the next full minute rotation [i.e. send at 7:00 if you swam a 5:30 etc.]), then pyramid back down using the same send-off intervals
• 50 yds easy kick: catch your breath and prepare for 400 yds time trial
• 400 yds "time trial": swim a timed 400 yds set & keep your time for records
• 100 yds cool down

Total = 2,300 to 2,500 yds

Work hard and good luck!

Breakfast ride

For those that are here this Memorial weekend, there will be a breakfast ride to the Tesuque Village Market.  We're meeting at Totavi (the gas station at the bottom of the main hill) at 9am on Sunday, May 25.  Hope to see you there!

RE: Wed. Track Workout

Ooof, sometimes the matador wins; sometimes the bull wins. In this case, the bull won.

That metaphor is from a Spanish joke, but it applied today if the bull represented all things conspiring against me feeling good in training today. It seems that my blah stretch is continuing a bit and it showed on the track workout today. Those numbers I posted for myself are usually quite reasonable and pretty easily attainable on the track, but nothing doin' today. It was windy, chilly and a bit drizzly, but that shouldn't have accounted for being as off as I was. I saw only one 1:22 lap all day and was mostly in the 1:25 to 1:27 range. That is a lot.

I was happy to negative split every interval, but I still ended up being over 15 seconds off of goal pace the fastest one. I stuck it out, though. Sometimes you gotta keep going and make a few adjustments.

Guess I'll take a couple of days off of running and put it in neutral to coast through until Sunday. Hopefully, the moist weather will help clear up some allergies and help me to feel back to normal again. Until then.....

See ya out there!

Wednesday Track Workout 5/14/08

The skies look a little threatening at the moment, but it may hold off until afternoon. The (suggested) track workout for today will focus on pacing and endurance. It's pretty simple (3-lap intervals):

Advanced -- 4 x 1,200m @ 5km pace (~1:20 to 1:22 per lap)

Regular -- 3 x 1,200m @ 5km pace

walk/jog 200m between sets


2:00 lap = 25 minutes for 5km
1:30 lap = 18 min, 45 sec for 5km
1:20 lap = 16 min 40 sec for 5km
1:15 lap = 15 min 38 sec for 5km

Remember, get a good warmup and do a little stretching before (and hopefully after) the workout. See you there around noon.

Great to be a member of Triatomics!

Here are some basic reflections of the Jay Benson Triathlon from a different perspective. Rob has already stated how great all of our members did at Jay Benson. Dina has already pointed out how great we looked. There was no problem identifying our members. So what else could there be to say?

My soaking up the moment an attempt at avoiding the nervous jitters waiting for the start of the race looking for familiar faces my eyes began to notice the hats that people were wearing. This club has had an impact in the multi-sport community in New Mexico. I didn't have time to count the number of Atomic man hats but I did notice a few Atomic man hats on some Outlaws dressed in black. This made me feel proud to be associated with such a great multi-sport organization.

Time Trials to begin and Group Track/Swim Workouts

Looks like the weather is finally warm enough, sort-of, for the time trials to begin on Tuesday evenings....although, tomorrow looks not so great, so let's plan on starting them the following Tuesday, May 20. We'll go with the usual format of meeting around 5:30 for a warm-up to the ski hill road turn off (approx. -- you decide what works for you) and then head back down to send the first rider off (me) at just about 6pm.

Please try to show up at least by 5:50pm to get your name on the list.

Also, I am going to start going to the track on Wednesdays at noon. I think a group track workout was going on Thursdays, but if you're interested in yet another one, meet at the high school track at about 12:00 noon (or just slightly after). Be warmed up and ready to go, as we'll pretty much hit it right away.

Between Jeff, Pat, and myself, we'll probably get a track workout posted on the blog every Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning.

One last group workout we usually have is the Monday evening swim. This may not be possible for me to lead each Monday night, with "Baby" stuff going on, but I will post something on the blog and hopefully either I, or someone else can "lead" it. We usually end this session with a weekly 400 yard swim for time that we can post each week on the blog and on the website.

Jay Benson and new uniforms!

Seeing as how I didnt race, I probably shouldnt call this a race report. But I did spend most of the day volunteering in the transition area, so I even had a chance to snap a few shots of those who went through during a low volume moment (note, they are mostly butts, as I had to do my job first and shoot later and usually they have already gone past me :).

Quite a nice showing from Triatomics with 15+ racers including Rachael (her older son did the kids tri too!), Tina, Rob, Jim W and his daughter Beth, Jeri, Laurie G, Paul, Karen Y, Jeff, Clay, Amy, Frank, Nathan, Deb K and John B (new club members from Santa Fe).

Everyone did extremely well, with lots of personal bests, age group placings as well as two women and two men in the top 5 overalls!! Click here for results.

So here are some shots with our new uniforms!
Tina is ready to go and waiting for women's start:
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Here is Frank and I believe part of Jim Wendelberger (ahead in mostly red) during the men's start.
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Here is Clay in T1. He came in just behind Nathan Romero from the run. Nathan slipped and fell as he was running out of the transition with his bike - all the spectators and Nathan's whole supportive family gasped as it looked quite painful! Later there were quite a few more of such slips in bike shoes. Be careful running in bike shoes and maybe that's a good argument to try and learn to do it like the top guys and gals - run barefoot with shoes already in pedals. Although dont do what Jeff did yesterday - apparently he accidentally clipped left shoe on the right and right shoe on left pedal and discovered that as he was mounting his bike - but at least he didnt slip while running out :)
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Here is Jeff's backside as he heads out on the bike - he only wore the triatomics shorts, or as his daughter Heidi likes to say "Daddy is naked!!"
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Here is Paul sporting our fancy new gear heading out on the bike on his fast Quintana Roo!
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Here is Amy heading out for the bike. She is also a TriSports.Com athlete, which means she cant wear our cool club tops that often in races (she did get one though! :)
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Also, Sportz Outdoor, as the only sponsor of the event put a lot of money into the race: along with medals, top three in each age group also got gift certificates to Sportz Outdoor and the raffles were amazing! Best of all Clay won a Giro aero helmet in our club colors - couldnt be better as the one he was racing in that day was held together with some carefully placed duct tape (and was blue)! :)

Btw, those of you who've done the race before - they still start women 30min after the men which means top women have to swim around the backend of men's wave. Its totally unfair, both to the top women and the men they are trying to run over! Deb and Amy who got 4th and 5th overall, both had to deal with it and Deb even had a huge bruise on her cheek from a guy kicking her in the face when she tried to squeeze by between him and the lane line as he wouldnt stay right.
Supposedly next year they may consider an elite wave to avoid this scenario - I hope so, although I wonder how they would define 'elite'.

A Mighty Wind (almost)

The Jay Benson triathlon was held this past Sunday, and Los Alamos had a great showing for the race.  On Saturday, the winds were as furious as my mother when I didn't pick up my Legos, and Sunday's forecast didn't look any better.  Luckily, race morning was very calm (relatively) and made for a fast race.  Most of the club members (looking at you Laurie) showed off our new club uniforms, and are they bright!  Clay took 2nd and Jeff took 5th overall.  That's two in the top 5 from LA!  Amy, Laurie, and Frank took 1st in their age group (did I miss anyone?).  Ted's son, Nathan, had the fastest run, at 16:39, but couldn't hold onto the lead on the bike.  Although, this was the first time he rode his bike this year.  

I had my PR for the course, despite the swim and run.  My bike was the fastest I've ever had in a race; jeez, considering what I paid for the new bike, I better have!  The lack of swim training showed in the water.  Between 200 and 300 meters, I wasn't swimming, as much as I was simply flailing my arms.  Luckily, the life guards didn't think that I was drowning.  All in all, it was a great race, and a good start to the season.

Atomic Man 2008 with pictures

Clay and Tarik have already written race reports, so this is really just meant to add pictures that Clay was missing when he wrote his. Clay's is below (or click on Race Report label at left and scroll) and to check out Tarik's report go here - if you've ever read Tarik's race reports (loads on SW nordic blog) you know its worth reading!!
Main action shots from the race are courtesy of Cyndi and Mike Warren of Pet Pangaea - you can access them from the race site. The ones below are a few of the ones I had time to snap as I was frantically running around. To see all of the pictures I took go here.
Luckily Timbad was able to make it (his dad is sick), so we had some serious speaker-power and a great announcer! :)
Here is the FatMan start:

We also had the honor of having Don Perkins of the Dallas Cowboys spectating and hanging out. Check out the highlights of his spectacular career here and more here. He was there to watch his grandson Wyatt while Judy and Dave did a relay. Here is a shot with Dave, Timbad, Don and Wyatt - Dave is waiting for the bike leg while Judy is out doing Run1.



Here is a shot of Clay (1st FM) and Martin (5th FM) after the race:

and here is Judy kicking in for the finish (man, that uphill there must just SUCK!):

Here is Derek getting his award for Little Boy - he was one of our younger competitors but a race veteran having done it before:

Here is Denny finishing Fat Man while Alexis cheers him on:

Well, I can keep this up forever, but I'll stop now - so to see all my other pix go here.

Jarrod, Jeff and the race committee did a great job on the race! volunteers were amazing - we are becoming famous just for our fantastic volunteers. Thanks to everyone!!

Triatomics Spring Party recap!

Here is a belated party recap and some pictures. The complete set of pictures can be found here.
With the help of all the cooks (food was awesome!) Rob put together a great party! We did missed Timbad and his music - but he had to be away due to his dad's health. We made do with a few ipods which worked out well in the end.
The party started with packet stuffing for Atomic Man Duathlon - thanks to everyone who helped out! Here are the 2008 race directors Jeff and Jarrod right after all packets were put away:



After that the festivities began with large amounts of awesome home-made food. We also celebrated Bill B. 60th birthday with a delicious cake that Cathy had made and with 60 candles on it!!!! - dont tell the Fire Dept! He needed a lot of help to blow them out and the kids obliged (sorry Bill, with all the fire and kids, I somehow didnt actually include your head in the shot... :):



Here is a shot of Bill talking to Tom and Sue to make up for the one above:



And here is the party organizer, El Presidente (aka Rob) with his son Ethan:



And the swarms of kids had a blast - some chasing others with bats... Its ok, it was a girls against boys thing and I think the girls must've been winning :)


bat-woman! :)


Alright, then there was dancing and socializing, but since I was dancing there are no pictures of that part :). You can see more pictures at the link at the very top of the post. To clean up we made Nora and Heidi Johnson wash the floors... :) :) :) They did a GREAT job!
Here is Heidi:


And here is Nora:



And that's all! Next party is post-LA Tri BBQ - BE THERE!

Maxxis order to come in on Thu 5/8

Maxxis order should be here by Thu according to UPS tracking system. Let Clay know how/when you want to pick it up. We can do it similar to uniform pick up since there are relatively few people ordering on this one.

Who is going to Jay Benson?

My first race of the year...only real goal is to improve my time from last year....but I am going to rest rest next week, and bring the full fast kit, including the Triatomics ourfit my wife bought for me. anyone else?

Maxxis order already in for this go 'round

Well, if you didn't get your order in, you'll have to wait until the next round, which might sometime during the summer. The order was placed yesterday and hopefully, we'll see the tires come in by late next week.

Hope to see you all at the Sinko de Mile tomorrow, or at the Viva La Recreation Day at Ashley Pond.

Also, is there anyone interested in going to Buffman and Squeaky?