I haven’t really had any races lately, so I thought it would
be a good idea to really try and push myself by either increasing the endurance (how long)
or the intensity (how fast) of my training.
That plan worked well for about a week before life took the priority
over training.
Week 1: Keep pushing until you crack.
I’m not sure if “professional” coaches would recommend this,
but I wanted to really push myself in training until I cracked – the point
where I had to quit. Obviously I didn’t
want to injure myself, but I did want to see how far I could push myself before
I had to stop. So during the week I went
hard. Lots of tempo runs, intervals on
the bike and brick workouts where I would bike hard and then immediately
run. Monday through Friday I was able to
meet every challenge but Saturday I finally cracked. The plan was a 50 mile bike ride with a lot
of hills, followed by an 8 mile run at 10K pace (approximately 5:40 min/mile). Apparently this was my limit because I
cracked on the run – at the 7 mile mark I couldn’t go any further. I was trying to crack and accomplished my
weekly goal however I was upset the rest of the day because I was so close to
completing the entire workout. Even
though I couldn’t finish, I ended up with my biggest training week of the
year: Bike: > 200 miles; run: > 30 miles; swim: > 2 miles; time: > 13 hours.
Week 2: Travel keeps me off my bike.
I had to travel to Boston for work for the better part of
this week which I knew would mess up my schedule. It meant I wouldn’t be able to ride much and
would have to find other ways to work out without my bike (in other words,
mainly running and swimming if I could).
First of all, let’s just say I don’t know how people in big cities
manage to do any sort of endurance workouts.
Even at 5:30 am, it was difficult running outside in Boston. There is so much traffic and the fact that
you have to slow down or stop basically every block really makes it hard to get
into a rhythm. One day I was able to
find a nice park with about a 2 mile loop that I could run repeats of, however
the rest of the time I was stuck in the hotel fitness center. This basically means beat down treadmills,
spin classes and a 50 ft. (about 17 meter) swimming pool. Needless to say, not the most inspiring set
up.
Week 3: Single dad and more travel, plus a hometown
5K.
I’m not a single dad; in fact I have a very accommodating
wife who allows and encourages me to spend all of this time and money doing
triathlons and other sports.
Unfortunately though, no less than 4 hours after I returned home from
Boston, my wife had to leave unexpectedly for 3 days. This meant that I had 3 days of “training”
while being the only one home with my kids…so much for getting back in a good
routine after my Boston trip. But I did
what all good parents do that want time to themselves, I let the kids watch a
bunch of cartoons while I rode my trainer and ran on the treadmill! It was after I finished on one of those days
that the kids confessed they got bored and raided the kitchen pantry. Their “snack” consisted of oatmeal bars,
crackers and cheese sticks. The next day
I tried to get in a swim at the beach.
This time I had them sit on the beach and read a book while I swam
intervals, stopping every 2 minute so I could look up and check on them. I was only able to hang in there for about 12
minutes (6 intervals!) before deciding it was a workout with diminishing
returns. After that, I decided to just
stop trying to workout and enjoy my time with the kids until my wife came home.
My wife returned just in time for a planned visit to
Illinois where we were going camping over the Fourth of July weekend and visit
with family. My wife, kids and I ended
up racing a 5K in my hometown along with a cousin of mine (thanks Kevin Rudkin!). It was a good time and I was actually really
pleased with my time (17:09; 5:24 pace according to my GPS), but I was
anxious to get home and return to a set schedule, not to mention sleep in my
own bed.
No matter how hard you try to keep a set schedule when
training, you sometimes just run into a stretch like the past 3 weeks for me
where you can’t control things. I was
able to get in one really good week, but then life just got crazy and you have
to realize training can’t always be your top priority (this was difficult for
me to admit, trust me). Of course it’s
easier to say that now since I didn’t have a race during this time, which will
not be the case a couple weeks from now.
I have more traveling to do for work and this time I have a race the day
after flying home. I’m not sure how I’m
going to handle that – being off my bike for a week and then having to race it the
day after coming home is kind of freaking me out. But I guess I’ll just have to get in as much
quality training now and hope for the best, right? I’ll let you know in my next post how that
plan works out.
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