Longest ride to date....just in time for recovery week!

This past Saturday morning, I FINALLY managed to get my butt out of bed in Brooklyn in time to be up in midtown by 8am, suited, booted, and ready to ride with the NYAC tri club up 9W to Nyack, NY.  Door to door it is approximately 56 miles, and while the first 9 miles between NYAC and the George Washington Bridge are not fast, it was very difficult for me because it involved a lot of city biking, with the accompanying potholes up in Harlem and traffic near New York Presbyterian Hospital.  Thankfully Riverside Drive is smooth, but it felt pretty perilous getting there.  I am still fairly loath to attempt it on my own, as safety in numbers is key for city riding, as cars will see a group of you, and there are more folks to look for things.

This is what I felt like in the beginning.

Then on to the GW Bridge.  The bridge itself is quite stunning, actually...so high! The views! But hot damn is the ramp to get up and on, and then down and off, it really perilous.  Hairpin turns, barely wide enough to fit two people next to each other, let alone two people on bikes going opposite ways, and quite crowded to boot.  I busted once on the way up, and I was not surprised when two of the folks in our NYAC group admitted to always walking up.  I definitely did that on the way back, condescending looks from the other cyclists who were able to navigate it be damned!

Once off the bridge and after a re-group at a bike shop at the base of the bridge, we started the ride in earnest.   I was part of a mini pace line with two other guys, and as a result, did not pay quite as much attention to the few turns I needed to make as I should have.  I was more focused on my burning legs, pot holes, traffic, and heavy breathing!  Not that I felt like I was out of shape, but dang, those guys were fast on the downhills, so I had to make use of the fact that I'm pretty decent on hills (if only because I'm a lot lighter) and catch back up so I could take advantage of said pace line.   It was sad.  Everytime I was the leader, they would be right on my butt.  When I was in the back, I was waaay back.  Oops.

Nevertheless, I made it all the way to Nyack State Beach Park and the glorious looking Pallisades Cliff without betraying how bewildered I was.  I felt pretty good, considering I had just done 33 miles, which was the longest I've ridden all season, and was priming up to do it again. 

After re-fueling at the Runcible Spoon, the famous coffee shop in Nyack at is TEAMING with cyclists (aka, without spandex, don't come in), one of the guys in our group took off as he needed to be back in NYC by noon.  Chris, who is my new best friend in all the land for being so nice and guiding me, and I made our way back.   Little did I know that there is a HUGE hill on the way back (about a mile long), and of course I made a wrong turn heading in to it and had to come to a complete stop to turn around (traffic) and so went in to it with zero momentum.  I was in the lowest of low gears and could not have been happier to reach the top. 

Overall, 9W has a lot of rolling hills, and overall I felt I handled them well, minus that biggie, but I could use more practice on them in the months to come.  On the flat sections I felt great, and even got my P2 to make that lovely "whirring" sound I always hear other riders make.   The rumor is still out there that IMAZ is relatively flat, so that makes me feel nice and slightly less nervous.

Wow! The view from the end of the road in Nyack

When we got back to the bridge, I was a weenie and walked the tricky bits as I said, and then it was back to the brake clenching/sweating/wrist aching city riding, but thankfully I was with Chris and another friend we found along the way to get through traffic and back to Central Park without too much scariness.  We went through the second half of the Central Park loop to get back down to NYAC, where I store my bike, and the Harlem Hill was a cinch compared to the ones on 9W that is for sure! Or maybe I was just so numb and glad to be out of traffic that I just didn't care!

The next day, I woke up sore in all sorts of weird places (neck! wrists! crotch!) but the legs felt pretty decent and I had a solid 7 mile run with pacework in Prospect Park to bring week 8 and our adaptation period to a close.  Sasha and Claiborne ran with me for the first 3 miles, and then the last four I picked up the pace (or at least held a steadier one, since I didn't have to sprint/slow down for squirrel and pigeon sightings for the pooch), and did some hill repeats at the end.

I decided to reward myself the rest of the evening with stuffing my face and watching Game of Thrones.  Is anyone else hot and bothered now from watching John Snow and Ygritte? Yowza.  And how about that interplay between Jamie and Brienne? 

Last week of adaptation!

Of course the recovery week timing would have been much better this week, when I have TWO authors in town, instead of next week, when I have nothing, but nevertheless, I'm feeling pretty good and confident about the next phase ahead.  My biking is feeling strong, and my runs off the bike are feeling great, too.  It's funny,but I actually never did any real brick workouts prior to starting this IronMan training plan.  For all of my Olympic distance races, I would just wing it.   Not that I wasn't in shape running-wise (it's probably where I am strongest/most dedicated training wise, in large part because it is the easiest of the three disciplines to fit in to a busy schedule), but I had never trained off the bike in any fashion. 

Now that I've started doing it quite a bit, I am actually REALLY excited for the NYC Triathlon in July and Age Group Nationals in August!  I don't know if I'm neccessarily feeling confident about the Iron Man....looking ahead to the longer workouts still gives me nervous gut and sweaty hands...but at least I'll nail my summer races!

My sister and I had our last turo sprint trainer session this week, and from here on out as I look ahead in our training grid, all the bike workouts from here are just long, longer, and longer still, and always followed by a run.  Fine by me as the weather is finally warming up (my bike last Saturday was COLD...thank goodness for my thick cycling gloves and shoe booties to keep me warm), and I think I have finally crossed the threshold of being intimidated/nervous about my Cervelo.  Amanda and I are both so chicken shit about our bikes, I don't know why.  I am sure a good bit of it is because these P2's are the most expensive things either of us own (unless you count my wedding dress, but I don't plan on spending countless hours on that fighting crowds and traffic this summer). 

Nevertheless, I finally don't feel so hunched/crunched in aero and my legs have finally adjusted to the new position...it still amazes me how differently the pedal stroke feels, strength wise, once I'm in aero.  I am even able to now build up some speed without feeling wobbly and scared and feel that it's about comprable, if not faster, than what I was doing in the standard position before, too. And my neck isn't quite so sore anymore, either. Progress!

Next on my list!

Now all I need to do is finally get my butt out of bed in time to make a ride with the NYAC group out to 9W on Saturday mornings! I have been getting up early for my rides, of course, to beat the crows in Central Park, but to make the group ride start time coming from Brooklyn has been a bit more than these lazy bones has been able to handle.  Thankfully, the warmer weather should help.  Last time I tried, it was 30 degrees! No way! Much easier to snuggle up with sweet little Sasha for another hour, who is always so warm and cute.  Maybe a dawn squirrel hunt pre-ride will be in order to assuage my guilt!

Yeeeesh. It's been TOO long

Okay, okay, I know it's been months since I last posted, and honestly my physical fitness reflects that :( These past couple weeks have reallllllly proven to me why most medical students don't train for an IronMan while in school.  Loads of tests, labs, exams, etc. and the studying that needed to be done for them overtook my life so much that I felt I couldn't take time to workout everyday.  But after taking my PT test for the Army, watching a zillion inspirational IronMan youtube videos, going on some long runs this week, and volunteering at the Wounded Warrior race, I have re-inspired myself and will be 100% sticking to the workout plan.  I'm embarrassed to admit that I even had to ask my sister what week we were on in our training schedule...we're about to enter week 8 in case anyone was wondering, signaling the last week of our adaptation stage, which all in all has been an overall failure for me.

As with any failure, there are always good things to take out of it and this case is no different.  I have figured out how to fit in all my academics with working out...just in time for the real training to begin!  It helps that we are nearing the end of two modules that were so difficult and intense that the professors at school called this period "the crucible".

Just to get some sort of exercising topic in this post, I did do a ten mile long, loping run yesterday after volunteering at the Wounded Warrior 5k/10k race (which EVERYONE should do next year!) and plan to do a swim this afternoon.  Tomorrow starts WEEK 8 and my new adherence to the workout plan!

"Go out and watch a marathon.."

"If you are loosing faith in human nature, go out and watch a marathon."  That's a famous quote from Katherine Switzer, the first woman to ever run the Boston Marathon.  I, and I am sure a lot of other people out in the world today, have lost a lot of faith in human nature over the years, even over the past months.  Sandy Hook is still raw in my mind (I still think about one little boy, Chase Kowalski, who completed his first triathlon a few weeks before he was murdered), and tomorrow is the anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre.  Oklahoma City is in a few days, as is Columbine. 

This is a human tragedy first and foremost, but I think a lot of athletes, endurance athletes, runners, etc. have taken this especially to heart, because we all know and love the chaos of a race day--the crowds, the cheering, the rubbing sweaty, greasy elbow to sweaty, greasy elbow of your fellow participant--and that same chaos was used to do something evil.  It's been said a thousand times that there is something special, sacred even, about a marathon, and I do believe that's true.  It's still true.

Running the NYC Marathon was one of the most special moments of my life.  Watching my beloved city come to life that morning was truly one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced.  I swam competitively for years, and while there were some awesome times, nothing compared to my first marathon day.   I think that was the moment where I became truly addicted to endurance sports and what initially planted the seed in my mind about doing an IronMan.

 I love triathlon, but running alone possesses a simplicity and purity that the marathon brings to life on a grand scale.  You never know who you'll meet in the starting corrals, and whether it is someone conquering their own inner demons or someone who has raised thousands for charity, it's hard to find a bad story.

Watching the news/checking the web/following Twitter and Facebook with updates, people have said time and time again that they could not believe how many people ran towards the explosions to help, how many runners kept running after they finished to see if there was a need for blood donations, Boston residents opening up their Wifi links and homes to stranded athletes.

Two soldiers in fatigues, who themselves had ran the race, were seen running right in to the fray the second the explosions went off.  I think of course of my sister, whose job it will be one to day deal with nightmare triage scenes like the one on Boylston Street.  She already has her own tourniquet--meant to stop the bleeding when limbs have been blown away.  We were playing with it the other night as she squeezed it on to my arm, in what has now become a morbidly real shown-n-tell. 

She sees a lot of amputated limbs and missing legs in the Army hospital every day, shares lanes with Wounded Warriors in the pool whenever she trains.  She and her amazing brothers and sisters in arms have a calling to serve, but judging by how people reacted en masse today in Boston, that calling is deep within many of us.

I myself will be cheering loudly along the streets of Brooklyn next year for NYC, pre-IronMan tapering "rest my legs" be damned.  Because I still want to see something incredible and have my faith in humanity restored.  So I'm going to go out and watch a marathon.



Now that you've read my rambling, the internet/Twitter is abuzz with ways to help/donate.  http://www.redcross.org/support/donating-fundraising/donations is a good place to start!

Heads are heavy. Legs are amazing.

When Amanda started her Brain Module in her anatomy class recently, she had two things to say:

1. Brains are cool.  She already likes it better than the kidney and lung, if she were to rank her "favorite organs" like one would rank one's favorite animals.

2. Brains are heavy.  Surprisingly so. When she held one in her hands after taking it out of the cadaver (yikes!), that was her takeaway.

I may not know much about brains beyond what she tells me, and despite my paradoxical goals at college to simultaneously expand my mind through reading, class and brilliant professors while simultaneously killing brain cells through shots of Popoff Vodka and far too many helpings of cheap beer, I can at least now attest through personal experience that brains, and therefore, heads, are heavy.

The neglect to mention the neck and head!

I had a lovely 33-ish mile bike ride on Saturday, the first on my Cervelo since last autumn, and while my legs felt in fairly decent shape thanks to the trainer, my neck started killing me after about an hour.  I realize now that it was because holding my head up in the aero position was using all these strange muscles in my neck that hadn't really been used before.  I always tried to stick in aero during the trainer sessions, but never realized that it was not just the arms and back but the neck/head, too.  I was always looking around/watching the TV/whatever.  When I am actually ON the bike, I have to have it forward 99% of the time so that I can see where the hell I'm going and watch for rumble strips, potholes, wayward pedestrians, etc.

So I spent the remainder of Saturday with a sore neck, but a few aspirin, a light 2 mile job with Sasha, and a FANTASTIC MICHIGAN BASKETBALL VICTORY cure everything, as does a good nights sleep. Today, my neck felt fine, and I had a nice swim to further loosen it.  2,000 yards total, and then a 6 mile run in the park right afterwards.  I was a bit worried my legs would feel weak/sore/tired after the bike yesterday, but I felt great on the run! Loose and smooth.  Granted, a swim-run is not a bike-run/brick, but the legs seemed to adapt to the relative fatigue level I was feeling when I started amazingly well.  

Week 6 starts next week, and to coincide with the warmer weather, bricks and outdoor riding are starting in earnest.  I need it!

Turbo sprints and week 5 update!

Week 5 of our IronMan training schedule is almost drawing to a close, and as indicated by the fact that neither Amanda nor I have posted since week 3, one might deduce that the past 2 weeks have been a bit intense/scattered.  I know she's swamped with all sorts of crazy tests, and well, there is always something with work--the peril of running your own company with your husband....you're the ones left holding the bag for anything and everything!

But I actually have had a solid two weeks of training, riding a bike OUTSIDE (shock of shocks) twice and getting some solid swims and even a mini brick in Easter Monday.  I deviated from the formal training plan a bit, but worked out everyday and was consistent if nothing else.  This week I've followed the plan a bit more closely, and did turbo sprints on my trainer today for the first time.  Once I move my bike back up to NYAC and out of Brooklyn (likely this weekend if the weather holds) that will be the end of the trainer for a while, so this trainer session may likely be by last, and it was a doozy. 

I have had complete bird legs my entire life (and so does most of my family, including my father, brother and my other sister...Amanda thinks she doesn't but I think she does, just not compared to the rest of us), and so while speed work isn't necessarily an obvious part of IronMan training, like building an extreme aerobic base, building overall leg strength is something I'm desperate for, and if it gets me even 30 seconds or a minute faster per mile, when multiplied by 112, that's a lot of minutes!

Here's the workout.  It doesn't sound like much on paper, but in practice, damn.  4 minutes is a loooong time.  Those seconds ticking down on my watch crawled by slower and slower in direct proportion to how badly by legs were burning!

15 minute warm up

I might have had my last day with you!

1 minute sprint (more than 100 RPM for all sprints....I tried to keep it in the highest gear I could while maintaining spin speed...and boy does the bike computer keep you honest)
2 minute steady recovery....higher RPM than warm up spin
2 minute sprint
2 minute steady recovery
3 minute sprint
2 minute steady recovery
4 minute sprint
2 minute steady recovery
4 minute sprint
2 minute steady recovery
3 minute sprint
2 minute steady recovery
2 minute sprint
2 minute steady recovery
1 minute sprint
10 minute cool down spin

I was dying! I was dying after the first 2 minute sprint, haha, and sweating like crazy. Grunting too, it was super cute.  Sasha came in periodically to check on my to see what all the fuss was about.  She's now learned that when I'm on the trainer, bringing me her favorite tug toy won't work (sad) but rather, she just comes in and checks or stares at me with a glum curiosity until I'm done.  And then she goes and gets her tug toy.