OMG, OMG, OMG .....

The new Ceepo Climax (appropriately named):

via Tri-bikes.com

I just drooled all over my keyboard!

Jeff

Welcome Back NFL ...

- What a great day to watch football!  The Steelers played Steelers Football today and pulled out an OT win against the Falcons.  In case you are wondering what is Steelers Football the definition is: physical, violent, enforce your will, pound your opponent until they break, win ugly.   Gawd, I love football!

- I have two Fantasy Football teams this year.  Looks like I am going to finish 1-1 to start the season and of course the better of the two teams is the one that is going to lose?

-  My long run was brutal!  At 6:30am it was already in the mid-80's with humidity near 100%.  I am really, really tired of the heat and humidity.  It is the middle of September and it should be gone by now?

- My long bike was only 1h 30m this week with a 40min brick after.  The plan called for both to be done in Zone 2. I went out alone instead of with a group.  I set my Garmin by time and HR and tried to keep the HR under 140 BPM. Usually I have the Speed and Mileage as well but I wanted to focus on staying in Zone 2 so these two stats were hidden.  Well, my average HR at the end was 136 BPM and when I checked my average speed later it was 20.2 MPH.  I am very please I was able to maintain that type of pace in Zone 2.  If you would have asked me to guess my average speed I would have said maybe 18.5 MPH  -- all this time in the saddle is definitely paying off!

- This whole week was very hard on me both physically and mentally.  This was week 12 of the training plan and it was an extremely well timed recovery week.  My motivation was lacking and my legs did not want to play the game anymore.  Each and every workout was a battle and toss in the little stomach bug  that was with me most of the week (at least I lost that last 5lbs) and I am extremely happy week 12 is in the books.

- Here are the Week 12 numbers:
Swim: 3 workouts - 3h 40m - 8100yds
Bike:  3 workouts -  4h 20m - 81.30mi
Run:   4 workouts -  3h 31m - 24.07mi
----------------------------------------------------------
   Totals:  10 workouts - 11h 31m 


- I missed 1hr 30m of Speed Intervals on the bike on Tuesday evening due to my stomach and then decided to skip this evenings swim due to overall fatigue.  Good call because I already feel 10x better and tomorrow is a rest day so 40+ hours of being off should do wonders.  I think the stomach bug is done so hopefully by Tuesday morning things will be back to normal and I can give it hell!

- I have been wearing CEP Compression Sleeves for the last few days for recovery and I gotta say that I am impressed!  Even though my legs are beat up overall because of the Build Phase of my training the soreness that usually comes after a run or long bike has been missing!  In fact, I am thinking I might need to buy the full tights!

-  Early this morning I dropped my iPhone on the concrete and cracked the screen.  Really it is impossible for me to have nice things (SEE - Garmin 305).  I am a klutz with electronics. Now the upper left hand corner has a nice big spiderweb looking crack ... lovely!

-  Also early this morning something shocking happened!  Yep, it is bad - I noticed a substantial amount of grey hair in my beard!  I haven't shaved since Thursday and the beard is pretty thick and as I was washing my hands over the sink I looked up in the mirror and noticed all the grey.  It was bound to happen but I just am not ready to be grey.

- Okay, so the upcoming training week is going to be around 20 hours - I actually am excited to try and climb this mountain.  The most I have ever done is 18.5 hours so this will be an all-time high.  Hopefully my body used this recovery week well and is ready to excel.

Thanks for Reading and I hope everyone has a great week,

Jeff

Mind Dump Friday ...

-  Usually after a Hurricane blows through the area the temperature drops and it becomes very comfortable.  Well, not this time.  The forecast for the next 10 days is:  Hi -95; Low - 75; Humidity - Ridiculous.  Please make it go away.  I have reached my tipping point (write that down Malcolm Gladwell) and can no longer take the heat. (Yes, I would gladly get out of the kitchen right now)

- Does anyone else find this 2011 Felt B14 extremely sexy?:

 Felt B14

- This has been a poor training week for me so far.  For some reason my motivation has been in the crapper and my intensity has been lacking. Luckily it is a recovery week and it might be my bodies way of saying it needs a break, but mostly I believe it is mental. Today that changes as I am about ready to do intervals on the bike and am going to BRING IT!

- Keynesian Economics = FAIL!

- Dear Nevada:  Over the years I have been a big contributor to your economy (SEE: Las Vegas) and would like to continue these contributions indefinitely.  However, if your citizens vote for the continuation of the train wreck Senatorial career that is Harry Reid I will be officially denouncing you as my favorite domestic  "vacation" destination. We will forever be done. You are on notice - that is all.

- Does anyone else find this 2011 Trek Speed Concept 7.0 extremely sexy?:

Trek Speed Concept 7.0

- Good times in the world of Fantasy Sports right now!  I have Pierre Thomas as one of my RB's on my Fantasy Football Team and he had a decent game last night and my Fantasy Baseball team is a finalist in the  Championship round and has a commanding lead.  The finals are conducted over two weeks so I'll know the results next Sunday AND if I win then one of the bikes above might become a reality! (Really I do not have a gambling problem, really).

- I am so excited for this Sunday because of the return of the NFL that I can barely contain myself.  The morning is going to be a nice little 10mile run, followed by 2000 easy yards in the pool, then an entire day of ass-in-front-of-the-TV watching games!  My favorite time of the year!

- Joel @ Tri Madness has an excellent interview with Ironman Stud Craig "Crowie" Alexander up on his site. Joel has been running a series of interviews with endurance sports folks over the last few weeks and this one is quite the scoop.  Nice work Joel!

-  Finally, Yes I did make the switch from a Blackberry to an iPhone.  My initial thoughts are that the iPhone has tremendous time wasting potential.  I came to this conclusion as I was sitting on the couch last night playing a game called African Safari, which was a free game I got from the App Store.  However, I do not view this as a negative but rather a challenge and will continue to download every mindless app I can locate.  The iPhone is awesome but the touch screen text messaging is not as user friendly as the Blackberry.  Surely over time I will adjust to the iPhone touch screen but I fear that it will never be as efficient as the Blackberry.  I am okay with this because  where else can you shot a Zebra while waiting for you wife to try on shoes?

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff

Triathlon Workouts: Running - Speed Intervals

As my training has progressed I have learned that each and every workout needs to be planned in order to maximize the efficiency of the workout.  As my workload increases so does the time commitment and since we only have so many hours in the day/week/month the ability to maximize the positive effects of each workout becomes increasingly important.

With that in mind, I am going to begin a new feature that explains the Triathlon specific workouts I am doing and why I am doing them.  The first installment is going to be on Running Speed Intervals.

What is a Speed Interval?  Here is the description by Matt Fitzgerald:

Speed Intervals are short (30-second to 1-minute) bursts of speed-intensity running (10 RPE) seperated by long active recoveries (4-5 RPE).  They increase stride power and efficiency.  Speed intervals are not full sprints; rather, they should be performed at the fastest pace you can maintain through the end of the last prescribed interval without slowing down.

The reason I decided to start with Speed Intervals is that I did this workout this morning.  The workout required a 10-12 minute warm up run, followed by 6x1min of Speed Intervals with a 3min active recovery period, and then a 10-12 minute cool down.  Sounds pretty simple right? Well it is, except for the actual interval part - this is hard!

I have been doing a Speed Interval workout at least once a week for the last 6 weeks with the interval increasing in time each week.  I try and maintain a 5min/mi pace during the length of the interval and then hold around an 8:45ish pace in the active recovery period.

Speed Intervals have become a key component of my training and I have noticed and increase in both my anaerobic threshold and aerobic conditioning.  Now Speed Intervals have their place in every training plan and, IMO, they are most effective when used after a running base has been established.  This means the most effective time to implement Speed Intervals into your own training would be during the Build and Peak phases of your training plan.

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff

Labor Day Ramblings ...

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Labor Day!

Just realized that it has been six days since my last post so a ramblings seems to be in order:

• Yesterday morning I was in the last mile of a 15mi run and as I was coming up to a cross walk two cars were coming out of a parking lot.  The lead car stopped and gave me a wave and a smile to cross and as I was crossing I noticed the second car with a woman driving.  Her window was down and she was smoking.  As I made eye contact with her she yelled out, "Hurry the F*&$ up!" in a very agitated voice.  I just smiled because the beauty of it was that the parking lot she was pulling out of was the Catholic Church and the morning service had just finished.  168 hours in a week, 1 hour of being holy, 167 hours of being an asshole -- Hypocrisy just cracks me up!

• This week was an extremely difficult but beneficial week of training.  My legs were beat but I pushed through and the added gains in fitness will be felt in the long term.  On Saturday myself and a buddy (Dave) drove up to Montgomery for some hill work.  We ended up doing over 65miles and many, many, many hill repeats.  The best part was that the last 10 miles were directly into a 20mph headwind.  Great Ride.  Then on Sunday I did a 15mi run in 2h 18m.  This was a  easy 9:10ish pace run.  This was the most comfortable long run I have ever done.  The weather was perfect and my legs felt great the entire run.  My run fitness is at an all time high right now and I can't wait to see how I perform in the next HIM run.

• Here are the Week 11 stats:  SWIM (5h - 10,500yds); BIKE (7h 57m - 137.87mi); RUN (3h 43m - 25.35mi);  Totals - 16h 40m.

• Week 12 is upon me and it is a Recovery Week (yeah!) here is the schedule:

(Click image for larger view)

• Patrick @ The Road is doing a virtual Triathlon called VirtualMan.  He sent out a spreadsheet and I completed all the workouts - just need to fill it out now!  Good job Patrick!

• 61 Days until the IronStar Half Ironman.  256 Days until Ironman Texas.  Man, time is just flying!

• I am thinking of doing a post about Training by Miles vs Training by Time.  Was wondering what everyone else does?  Do you do all of your training by mileage  (or yards/meters) or do you train by overall time or by a combination?

• We finally got a new camera since Annie lost ours.  This is the 4th camera in the last year - we are hell on electronics!  This is the reason why pics have been missing from my posts over the last month.

• So I have been a Blackberry user for years.  I can type a message faster on my BB keypad than I can on a computer.  I love my Blackberry but it has seen better days and a new device is needed.  Well, after careful thought I think it is time to jump into the world of the iPhone.  The apps are just to damn cool to ignore and I already use AT&T so by tomorrow I might be a former Crackberry addict!

• Yesterday we went to a BBQ and ate like crap and had a bunch of beers.  It has been forever since I have put this type of garbage in my body and am feeling it today.  We have another cookout-type thing to go to today and I am going to eat nothing but Chicken and bring my own green tea to flush the system.  

I hope everyone has a great week of training!

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff