I will take this moment to announce that training for my first Ironman is going to be really friggin' tough this winter. I used my Kurt Kinetic Road Machine for the first time on Friday night and it was TOUGH!!! Granted, I probably didn't ride it like I was supposed to, I probably rode in too low a gear, I probably should have had a fan in front of me cooling me down, I probably should have had a plan in mind. Unfortunately I didn't have any of the above and instead just decided that I was going to climb on it and try to bang out twenty miles in an hour. Piece of cake....nope!
In short, I was struggling to maintain 20 MPH and 80 RPMs while riding. When I ride outside on a relatively flat route, I can easily maintain 20 MPH and 90+ RPMs. This is not the case on a trainer. It wasn't until the end of my session that I realized I should drop to a larger rear gear and increase my cadence to try and get where I needed to be instead of trying to muscle a smaller gear and keep the cadence up. It was like learning to ride all over again. I ended up doing 13 miles in 41:55 (avg speed 18.6 MPH). I will definitely be a bit wiser the next time I climb aboard.
Saturday I took the day off from training because of a few things, I had my daughters last soccer game, then a post-game pizza party with her team, and lastly because I had a 5K race on Sunday. It was nice to chill out for most of the day, not something that I am accustomed to doing. Really quick, the pizza party was great and I believe everyone had a good time. I was surprised to hear that a lot of the parents of the girls on my team want me to coach their girls in the spring. This really meant a lot to me. I coach my daughters soccer team for a few reasons: first and foremost to spend some time with her, second to be involved in a sport that I really love, third to share my passion of the sport with young girls in hopes that they too will learn to love it and have fun playing it. The fact that just about all of the girls would like to play again in the spring and have me coach them means that I am doing what I set out to do. It isn't always the case when this happens, and I am really happy that it has.
Sunday morning, after vacuuming the house (yes, you are welcome dear), I headed over to Delaware Valley College to run a 5K, the proceeds go to support the cross country team. I only heard about this race two weeks ago via IamTri.com and decided to run it. I was surprised that there were only about 70 - 80 people that showed up to run the race. This meant one of two things, I would finish near the top 10 or they were all good runners and I would be hanging on to finish in the middle. As it turns out, there was a handful of "good" runners there and I am pretty sure that I finished in the top 10....I know that I did beat the first female finisher. The race was on the schools cross country course which meant it was run on rutted out grass and had some changes in elevation. Despite a pretty solid first mile (~6:50), I couldn't hold on to that pace and I slowed over the next two miles. I did manage to pass a youngun' with about a half mile to go and held him off to finish in 21:41 (6:59/mile pace). I really wanted to get closer to 21 minutes flat, but based on the course I don't think I could have done it. I was happy with my race.
Weekend recap:
Friday: 13 mile bike, 41:55, 18.6MPH, 153 BPM - very rough training session on trainer, heartrate was way too high. I will get better/smarter the next time around.
Saturday: Off day
Sunday: 3.1 mile (5K) race, 21:41 (6:59/mile) - tough course but ran it hard and finished strong.
Today: 4.05 miles, 33:00, (8:10/mile), 154 BPM - a nice easy run today to work out any residual soreness remaining in my legs from yesterdays race. Did encounter a crazy driver in the back roads of Whitehouse Station....drivers can be such pricks!
I hope to have a solid week of training this week, get out an run three or four days and get on the trainer at least two. Ironman Arizona is this weekend, I will hopefully be watching it online!
My NEW journey to compete in Ironman Arizona...and hopefully KONA!
2 comments:
Jamie,
You've probably heard me talk about the Trainer before, but if not let me say to not be discouraged. It is very difficult to compare riding the Trainer to the rode. I mean that. So don't try. Instead focus on effort.
I trained for my last two Ironman races doing most of my work in the winter on the Trainer, and never did I have to do over 2 hours. I rode no more than 3 times per week, but it was all quality work. I never, ever just sat in easy gear and spun randomly. I got on, did a hard workout that was part in a progression of workouts to make me stronger (not faster), and I did my work. Then in spring I got on the roads and layered in speed and came out the other side averaging more than a mile per hour on my favorite routes. I kid you not.
The Trainer is hard. I won't go into all the reasons why (e-mail me if you'd like to chat more: thor at kirleis dot org).
So don't be put off it you struggle to avg 20 mph on the Trainer. It is an irrelevant number. The work you do is not. And it will be MORE than you can do on the roads. So a interval-laced 50 minutes on the Trainer is more like 1:10 on the roads.
Thor
Thanks for the advice Thor. I did another session last night, around 50 minutes. I dropped to a bigger rear gear and tried to keep my cadence at 90 RPMs (~18.5 MPH). I felt like it was much more productive than the work out last Friday night.
Post a Comment