TandemHearts

February was another month with iffy weather.  But I still managed to get in some good runs and a few good rides.   I did need to back off a bit on the running early in the month as the Tarantula Run injury resurfaced on my very first run in February.  I am learning how to manage it.  The trick is to run with good form, keeping my ankles and hips in alignment,  give myself some time to warm up and to ice after EVERY run or ride.  I’ve also done a lot of  yoga this month as the stretching really seems to help.  Only one swim, not the four I had planned.  Oh well.

My training with Shawna continues to be a lot of fun.  She measured me again at the beginning of the month.  I had only lost two pounds, but my clothes were starting to hang off me again.  Turns out I had lost nearly 2% body fat and I’m down to 18.9%.  Woohoo!   I also did my first totally unassisted pull up.  Very cool.  During the last week of February I started going to my training sessions at 5:15 AM instead of at 5 PM.  I really like the switch since even if I need to stay at work later then I like, I can still get in a ride or a run before Thom gets home.  Plus the time change is coming.  I’m really looking forward to the longer daylight hours.

I’ve got Parent/Teacher conferences next week and those are always a bit draining.   I need to remember my mantra – Discipline is remembering what you want.

I HATE January.  We have had exactly one sunny day the entire month that has coincided with a day off.  There have been other sunny days, maybe three or four, but they have been work days.  Some days it’s actually been raining, which does help with the drought.  But a lot of days, too many of them, have been foggy, drizmal, yucky days.  I loathe being cold.  Pretty much all I want to do on days like that is curl up with a good book, some hot chocolate and a bunch of cookies, but that doesn’t really fit in my training plan.

The one sunny day was yesterday and we took advantage of it and rode up Mt Diablo to the Junction.  It was a great ride.  My average speed was three tenths of a mile faster than last time I rode it, back in December.  Thom wanted to see how my power has increased since I’ve been doing so much work with my trainer.  I went a few gears higher than I normally ride and really cranked it for  about two tenths of a mile on a section with a six percent grade.   It was pretty cool to see how I could just accelerate on something that steep.  I went from 4.9 mph (soft pedaling before the hard effort) to 10.1 mph in a blink!  I do seem to have lost some of my aerobic fitness and I’m going to be focusing on that more this month.  The riding I have been doing in the bicycle trainer for this prep phase has been pretty low key.  It’s time to take it up a notch.  An interesting thing I discovered from riding in the trainer is that I had been riding bowlegged, with my knees canted out an inch or two from my ankles, instead of right over them.  We suspect I started riding like that because my  calves brush against my water bottle cage  and it became habit.    Thus, I’ll also be thinking about keeping my knees parallel to the  top tube as I ride.   It feels very different to use more of my quadriceps.

I haven’t done as much running as I wanted to this month.  But I am pretty happy with what I’ve done.  My runs have all been between three and five and a half miles long and I have not had any knee issues.  I’m a little slower than I was back in October, but I’m seeing improvement each time I go out and run.  I’m actually starting to think more about technique as I run and I’m better able to recover after a hard hill or a sprint section.

I did  swim once this month.  I had been thinking I would swim at the local city pool beginning in February, but their open lap time hours just did not fit with my schedule – 5:30 AM or 6:30 PM.  I want to swim at 3:30 in the afternoon, so I did a week long trial membership at a new gym.  I wanted to be sure I wasn’t going to have the sinusitis issues that I was getting at my old gym.  The old place had the indoor lap pool connected to the indoor play pool.  I think because of all the kids in the play pool, they had to use a ton of chlorine.  Plus it was always too hot.  They didn’t heat the outdoor pool.  The new place has two outdoor lap pools, one covered and one not, both are heated.  The play pool is a totally separate pool.  In addition, if you are not swimming laps, you are not allowed in the lap pools.  The trainer plan I’m following calls for three swims a week.  I’m cutting that down to one.  Without working very hard I’m swimming an average pace of 1:45 per hundred.  Ideally I’d like to get that down to less than 1:30.  But that’s only a five minute difference in my swim time for a 1.2 mile swim.  Not a huge deal overall.

I’ve done a lot of yoga this month, always after every run and occasionally after a trainer session.  I use to feel a bit guilty about how much of my training time is devoted to yoga, but the last two triathlon magazines I’ve read have had articles about how good yoga is for you – not just the stretching but also the mental focus.  I’ll work on feeling less guilty because it’s not a “hard” workout.

I have been pretty focused on my diet this month, cutting out some of the fat and sugar and I’ve lost two pounds.  When Shawna measured my body fat at the start of the month, I was at 20%.  I’d like to get that down to 18% before my race in May.  The leaner I am, the easier that wicked hard climb on the bike will be.  It is just a number though. 

Thom had the day off so he came to the gym with me to take photos while I worked out with my trainer, Shawna.  We decided we could spend the hour doing some “fun” stuff since I have two more sessions scheduled this week. We started off with some plyometrics (explosive jumps) and then moved on to boxing.  I really like the high energy of this kind of workout.   These are a few of the things we did during the hour. (more…)

Lots of people at work asked me if I was doing anything special for my birthday.  They all looked a little askance when I answered, ‘No, but my trainer has a special workout planned.”  Of course I wouldn’t pass up a trainer session, just because it’s my birthday.   We did lots of fun things though.  I dragged a sled with weights on it.  The first round was with a hundred pounds, second set was at 145 pounds and the third was 201 pounds.  That extra one pound made it really hard. 

Next I  jumped rope with the weighted jump rope.  That thing only weighs a pound, but it’s killer!  I can consistently do over 200 jumps in a minute with a regular rope.  The best I can get with the weighted is 154 jumps.  It’s my wrists that get really tired.  I did some pliometric jumps, mountain climbers and push ups.   I used push up bars for the push ups.  The first set of twenty I just came down even to the bar.  The second set I tried to go a little lower and Shawna commented that eventually I’d be touching the floor with these.    I, of course, took that as a challenge and the third set I was touching my nose to the floor.  I whipped out the first set of twenty with no problem and the second set wasn’t too bad.  But going all to the floor on the third set?   OUCH!

And yes, it was fun!

I had an absolute blast on the Tarantula Run, and it convinced me that I have the potential to be a decent runner.  However, all that steep descending injured my right knee.  I can’t put a name to what I did, since I did not go to the doctor.  At first it hurt enough to keep me awake at night and it REALLY hurt when I did a certain yoga pose, squatted or jogged.  I have spent the last six weeks doing very little of those things.  I have still been going to see Shawna, my trainer, and we have been working around all my knee problems.  If an exercise  hurt at all, we switched to some other exercise.  Six weeks of babying it and icing after every workout and it is just about better.   Yoga and squatting are absolutely pain free now.  A chest cold has kept me from running the last two weeks.  I miss it.

Amazingly, my weight has been stable through all of this in spite of my lack of cardio in the last six weeks. I’m proof that muscle really does burn more calories than fat.    At first I did not want to bike since the injury felt a lot like my overuse injury in 2007.    I’ve started doing some of the easier Spinervals videos and that has not bothered my knee. I haven’t been swimming since the indoor pool at the gym always give me sinusitis.  In fact, I’ve quit my gym membership and when the outside city pool reopens in February I’ll start swimming  there.  BRRRRR!

January third I officially begin training for my first Half Ironman of the year.  I’ve decided to do the Auburn Tri on May 23.  It has a pretty tough bike course with 6,000 feet of climbing in its fifty-six miles.   I also plan on doing Barb’s Race again this year on July 31.  I may do a few local tris in between, just for fun.  I’m really excited about what I have planned.  I printed out my first week’s training plan a few weeks ago and I keep looking at it longingly.  I know, what a dork!

And just for laughs – here are our Christmas babies.

Click on the images to see the full size pictures.