Ocean Swim & HR Data Collecting Benchmark Session

Used to be that on Aloha Friday mornings we would ocean swim in Kailua. Most of the time it's just Mark and me. For a while (several months) we didn't go because 1-2x/week there was a reported shark siting or attack. These were happening on all shores of Oahu, but since Lanikai/Kailua was included in that, well, it effectively scared us away. I knew at some point I'd go back, though I wasn't sure when? Today was the day.

It was much colder than I remembered it being (last time we swam it was still summer and that El Nino thing is legit- ocean temps were WAY warmer this summer than normal). I would guess water was like 74-75 this morning, which should be fine but next time I'll wear a wetsuit so I won't have anything to whine about. I admit I had a little bit of concern getting in… wouldn't call it 'fear', just concern… but then as I was swimming I started thinking about how danger is everywhere, really. I mean a (seemingly) normal guy could come barging into any public place and shoot me with a gun at any time so I might as well take my chances with the sharks. Yes that's what I was thinking when I started swimming. As is most common, I had nothing to be concerned about this morning so we will bring back the Aloha Friday ocean swims again. :)

Afterward, since I was in Kailua where the land is flat as a pancake, I decided to run a sort of MAF Test. I pretty much despise the word 'test' when it comes to any training session… so really I thought of this more like a data collecting benchmark session, not a 'test'. A test seems so pass or fail. A benchmark session is just a check on where fitness currently stands.

Anyway, I strapped my HR monitor on and jogged a mile super easy, HR 130's (which for me is quite low), 10:07. Then into 4 straight miles HR 148-150. I went 9:16, 9:40, 9:53, 10:00. Def wasn't stoked about that fall-off in pace. To be honest, it wasn't nearly as bad as the fall off I experienced last spring when I did a few HR benchmark sessions just like this on the same stretch of road (back then I was falling off to 10:30+ pace!). I think it has more to do with my body not effectively dissipating heat than it does lack of fitness. Maybe that's wishful thinking? It's true though when I do a HR run inside on a treadmill where I have access to Osmo and temps are cooler I hardly slow down at all. Regardless, I opted to run the 6th mile at HR 158-160 just to get a data point on that HR and that mile was 8:46, a full 75seconds faster at just +10 beats (and it felt good). Usually I'd expect to see a pace change closer to 40"/mile for every 10 beats, so if 8:46 is HR160 pace, then 9:26 should be HR150 pace, and 10:06 should be HR140 pace. I think those numbers are pretty close, the issue is just the drop off as my body heats up. Not exactly sure how to fix that other than to actively work on cooling myself down, which I didn't do at all today (i.e. had no fluids during that 6 mile run).

Back in 2011/2012 when I raced faster I could run 9:00-9:15 pace at HR 150 so I'd like to get back to that point. Gonna spend Dec running mostly aerobic HR 140's then I'll get another benchmark and see if there's been a change?

My legs are still sore all over so I didn't take Maia running this afternoon. We went for a walk instead, which she didn't mind because she knows where the stray cats live and she went straight to them and stalked them until they were out of sight (up a tree or back in the woods). Maia is OBSESSED with chasing cats outside, which makes it even more funny that she will stand aside and lets Ozzie eat her food.

Boring Swim Sets, Big Steel Challenge, and Pee Sticks

Sometimes (ok often), endurance training is not very exciting. I think athletes like to talk all about their fast/hard workouts but the reality is that the bulk of the work we do is fairly monotonous and boring.

I didn't get in the pool for ~5 days. I could tell you all the logistical reasons why but the truth is that I just prioritized other stuff ahead of swimming (my choice, it's almost always a choice, even when it doesn't initially appear to be). It's not normal for me to do that so I don't stress about it, but when I got back in the water yesterday I didn't expect to feel great (consequence of my choices, I can accept that). Rather than getting to do something fun and fast, we just knocked out a moderate volume aerobic set.

1000 easy w/u then main set all off 50"/50 base send-off, no extra rest between rounds:
3x150's; 3x100's; 3x50's
2x150's; 3x100's; 6x50's
1x150; 3x100's; 9x50's

It was steady and fine and I held it together well enough and as I was jogging home I had the thought that I could probably get away with swimming 1-2x/week and not really slow down very much. I won't take that route for a few reasons: 1) I genuinely enjoy swimming, mostly b/c of the people I swim with and 2) I think swim fitness (or lack thereof) shows itself later in the day if you're racing a triathlon so even if I only lost a minute on the swim itself, I'd likely lose more time later in the day simply from being overly fatigued.

Funny that is my view on swim fitness and yet I haven't been on my bike in at least a month now.

My legs were (are) still quite sore from lifting heavy things on Monday. I didn't run much yesterday other than jog commute to the pool then a short dog jog in the afternoon. I did however do another lifting session, maybe against my own better judgement... but I'm a sucker for silly online competitions and since I'm in one right now with the Big Steel Challenge, I did the session and for sure did at least twice as much as I would have had I not been logging it online. Whether that's good or bad is yet to be determined. Walking is uncomfortable today but jogging with Maia this morning was tolerable and I will head out this afternoon on my own and see how far I can reasonably go.

Talking trash on Twitter is fun and probably the real reason I am participating in the Steel Challenge.

In other news, a few of my local athletes and I had the chance to have dinner with Stacy Sims last night. I knew she was smart but damn, she pretty much blew our minds with all the stuff she said... I took pages and pages of notes and am still trying to process it all. Really I think I could have sat there for several more hours and just let her talk. She did say she's in the final stages of writing a book that's supposed to come out in February so I'll have that on pre-order I'm sure. In the meantime, per Stacy's advice, I just ordered a bunch of pee-sticks and am going to start experimenting with those.

Running Tantalus & Non-Stop Girl Talk

Today I ran Maia in the morning. Our routine, if I am not swimming, is that we walk Moana down to the bus stop then when the bus comes we go for our jog. I think she is figuring out pacing on our runs b/c she pulls less now in the beginning and finishes stronger than she used to. She's a smart dog.

Then I drove into town and met Stacy Sims for a run up/around Tantalus. It's a decent sized mountain, about 5 miles up then 5 miles down, about 1500 ft elevation at the top I think. Lots of switchbacks. Gorgeous scenery. Very lush/green.

I'd never met Stacy in person before but we've exchanged lots of Facebook messages and she has helped me (and my team!) out tremendously, educating us about hydration and fueling for exercise performance and recovery (read, she created Osmo and it has changed my life). I've been such a fan of hers for such a long time… listening on on every podcast she does and trying to learn as much as I can. So naturally I was super excited to have the opportunity to run/chat with her today! We did not stop talking from the second we met it was non-stop chitter-chatter all the way up/down. It was so refreshing to have an intelligent conversation with someone who truly understands physiology and a woman's hormonal cycle. I think in the past a lot of people have thought that I was a head case about how my performance would tank right before my period starts- like I've been imaging it or something? I've been tracking it for ~4 years now though and have figured some stuff out about how my body functions at different times of the month and explaining it all to Stacy was quite validating b/c she was like yep yep yep and she explained the physiology right back to me. 

There was so much good energy in that run I hardly even noticed how much my legs hurt. They hurt now. All over. I think the 100x kettle bell swings yesterday combined with all the running I have done recently is finally taking its toll. It's a good kind of fatigue though and I like it!

Half way up the mountain we were running and some guy drove up to us with his window down and was like "Hey do you ladies lift weights?" Ha! Um, yes. "Has anyone told you that you're beautiful?" Not today, buddy! Thanks for the compliment now scurry along we have a lot of talking to do...

Months End

It's been a while since I've really focused on volume as a metric. For a while there I started to believe those people who say that volume isn't the thing we should measure, but need to focus on intensity and recovery and that's the way to improve. Well, maybe for some people that's how it works. Volume is what works for me. 100% I believe that the more I run, the better I feel running. There must be a limit at some point, where more is no longer more, but I haven't found that point for myself yet. The same holds true for swimming and cycling, and I've proven this to myself several times over the last ~6 years but somehow allowed myself to be swayed in recent years. I'll look at that as having an ability to be open minded and having a willingness to try things a different way.

Today was mostly a recovery day. Just an easy 30' jog with the dog. It felt exceptionally smooth and easy/relaxed. No struggle at all even up the hill to my house. I also did a decent amount of lifting of some heavy things this morning (in particular, a kettle bell, a medicine ball, a big bar, and some weight plates). More on that in another post.

November was a 'Back to Basics' month for me. I ran almost exclusively by HR, keeping it low. For whatever reason I hesitate to call it MAF, but that's essentially what it was. I did a little bit of tempo running and some strides here and there (maybe 1-2x/week) but the vast majority of my miles this month were HR 140's, which for me means easy running. I think when you're going for volume, you (I) have to do the bulk of it easy easy. I just added up miles for November. I ran 237. I think that might be my biggest month ever? It's also possibly the most I've truly enjoyed running in quite some time. My plan is to keep up the bigger volume for another month or so, then we'll see where I'm at and figure out how to progress from there.

The Durability Project

As I was heading out for my 2nd run today (the dog jog, starring Maia and now including Moana on her bike), I was thinking that it was really going to be quite the durability type run for me. I ran long this morning and didn't feel great at all. I've been increasing my overall run volume recently, mostly via frequency vs single long runs. Long runs still tend to take a legit bite out of my legs even though the shorter ones really don't. Anyway, I took my pounded legs out this evening for 2.5 miles of hilly fartlek style intervals… Maia is attached at my waist with a race belt and an old bike tube. When she smells a cat, we sprint. When Maia has to poop, we jog easy easy, then stop- sometimes very suddenly- while she poops on the sidewalk. At the top of every hill we stop and wait for Moana. On the downhills when Moana coasts ahead, we sprint. (Turns out, Maia is quite competitive and likes to lead our runs, so having Moana out front is unacceptable.)

It was interesting to me that at the end of that run I felt 100x better than I did before we started.

I ran 11 times this week for a total of almost 60 miles. 7 of those runs were 3.5 miles or less. I think the short frequent runs are quite good for durability, which is good because I have some goals for 2016 that are going to require a high level of durability.

In other news, this picture wasn't taken at my house, but it totally could have been. Add a white chicken (and 2 guinea pigs) and this is pretty much it!

Excuses

I was planning on doing a short little run/swim biathlon this morning, but bailed at the last minute. I had a lot of excuses, some of them maybe valid. Wanna hear all my excuses?

~My dermatologist had his way with me on Wednesday, cutting out 8x basal cell spots. He suggested I stay out of the ocean for a week or so, for fear of infection risk. Had this been my only excuse I don't think it would have been enough to keep me out of the race, but combined with everything else, it was probably the tipping point.

~I was up at midnight cleaning up projectile vomit off Moana's body, clothes, hair, bed, and floor. A sick kid would definitely be a valid excuse to skip a race, especially just a little race that you don't care about. Turns out, she's pretty much fine today with energy levels near normal, but I didn't know this would be the case when I shut my alarm off at 5:30AM.

~Last night when I went to bed my throat felt a little scratchy. Not terrible, but just felt like my immune system was fighting something off. This morning I felt the same way and spent several hours sneezing and blowing my nose. I figured it was possible that a hard effort (for example, a 5K run) would throw me over the edge into full sickness. Or maybe it wouldn't have. I don't think I was imagining it, but I feel pretty much fine now so it turned out to be nothing.

Instead of racing, I slept until 7AM when Maia woke me up asking for breakfast. I drank a cup of coffee then took her for a walk where she clearly wanted to hunt for something in the woods. Later I went for an aerobic jog ~80minutes. I figured it would be pretty slow b/c my HR would likely be elevated since I wasn't feeling 100%. Indeed, on avg I was ~20"/mile slower than I did that same run earlier in the week at the same HR. Not concerned a bit about that b/c I have a clear understanding of what was up. I actually thought it was going to be worse so only 20"/mile off was a pleasant surprise. I do firmly believe that in the physical state I was in this morning, aerobic running wouldn't hurt me. A hard threshold effort very well might have. Knowing these things and being confident enough to make decisions about what's best on any given day feels pretty cool.

I'll probably take Maia on a dog jog later this afternoon. The wind is howling today but for the first time in ~10 days, it's not raining. She's stretching now.

Black Friday

I've been thinking that I want to start updating this blog more frequently again. I think blogging is easier when you do it a lot b/c then you're less overwhelmed at all the stuff you could potentially write about. :)

It's Black Friday. I'm not much of a shopper, but I did buy some new bathing suits and a new espresso machine that were on sale. Our espresso machine died the other day and it was really sad. I would have bought a new machine immediately but I had a feeling if I just waited a few days I'd save some money. Indeed, waiting 3 days saved me $45. Worth it to miss my morning espresso? Debatable.

Yesterday I ran our local Turkey Trot. It's super fun- 10 Mile "Guess Your Time" run and many in our local running community turn up. It's $7 and they give you a popsicle stick where you write your estimated finish time. No watches allowed. I've done this one a bunch of times over the years but haven't really 'raced' it since 2011. The night before I went back through my training logs to see what I ran the last few years (to give me an idea what I should guess)... I found 1:29:10 and 1:32:30. I've been running a fair amount recently but almost all relaxed/aerobic (read: walking up hills to keep HR low). I figured I could run at least as fast as last year, where I noted that I jogged easy for ~6 miles then felt good and ran strong the last ~4. So yesterday I guessed 1:32:00 which made me comfortable to the point where I didn't feel any pressure. I jogged super easy to start for the first maybe 2 miles, then as I started to feel better I picked up the effort. I had a feeling I was below 1:32 pace but since my legs felt good and my breathing was 100% controlled I opted to go for the long tempo effort and finished in 1:30:06. It was fun and a stronger workout than I would have done on my own. Had I guessed 1:30 flat I might have won a pie. Live and learn!

The rest of the day was social and centered around eating and drinking. All summer/fall I didn't drink much alcohol at all but recently I've been pretty liberal with the wine. I woke up this morning and my first thought was that I needed to cut back on my alcohol consumption, but then I remembered that tonight is another party with friends. Maybe tomorrow I'll go dry.

This morning we swam (as is standard M-W-F mornings). Good group this morning- Once again I was the weak link which is fine by me most of the time. We did a main set of 5x400's pull @6:20 (lcm), descend 1-5. Funny- you tell a set like that to non-swimmers and they're like um, no thank you. Tell it to lifelong swimmers and they just want clarification about whether or not the descend is within the 400 or across the set. I was in the mix for the first 1-2 as no one was going that hard yet (6:07/6:03) then the effort picked up. I hit 5:53 on the 3rd one and wasn't in the same zip code as Lectie, Mark, or Hudson. Then the trash talk started (this is the best part of swimming with swimmers). The 4th rep in a set of descend 1-5 is tricky bc it's going to be hard but you have to save another gear for the last one... I hit 5:49 which I was quite happy with but again was no where near my compadres. I joked with them about the racing they were doing and Hudson said no the racing hadn't started yet (ha!). Lectie took the boys to school on the last one I don't know what she swam but I finished in 5:42 (happy with that!) and I'd guess she had at least 25" on me, maybe more. I was gaining on Mark who'd spent all his pennies on the 4th one trying to keep up. In fairness, we had paddles and Mark did not. He reminds us about this (cheaters!) when he starts getting tired. Afterward we hung out and ate left over coffee cake and it was delicious.

I have to say, I'm really enjoying training at the moment. It feels fun. A lot of it I am sort of making up as I go along (What feels like the right thing to do today? What is fun?) and I've been running a lot with Maia which is also super cool. Having her has added ~15 miles/week to my running mileage (bonus!). She's pretty fast for the first 2 miles or so then tends to get tired and runs beside me instead of in front of me. Our new favorite loop is 3.25 miles and I'm going to take her on it right now.

Aloha!