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.