Hammer down!

Well, spring was almost here and then we got another 6" of snow this past weekend.... but the forecast looks promising!!

This is the 3rd week of my vo2 training block and my body is starting to feel it! Tonight's ride was very tough, plus my legs felt a little flat due to some of the challenging workouts on Monday and Tuesday with some tough morning swim sessions sprinkled into the mix. I've layed a pretty basic overview of what I've been doing this week (which is pretty similar to what I've been building off over the winter).

Monday was a 2 hour ride (on the trainer of course) with 6x5 minute climbing reps at Zone 5 with 5 minutes rest between reps. I would start out of the saddle as if I were starting an attack for about 20 seconds and then sit down and hammer away for the next 4:40. My heart rate would be screaming at around 180 bpm for a good chunk of the climb. Normally my Monday rides have been 2+ hours of tempo work on the trainer, but in this past block I've switched over to some hard core hill climbing (with my front wheel on a 5" block to simulate a hill).
Tuesday was a 12 mile run with 6x4 minute reps at 5:20 min/mile pace. I would jog easy for 5 minutes between the reps. The rest of the run was done at a zone 2-3 pace followed by a leg lifting session at the Y. Great workout!
Wednesday (tonight) was an epic trainer session with the first hour filled with a fifteen minute lactate thresh hold set (basically a TT effort)...15 minutes of overgear (low cadence/ extremely hard gear).....and an 11 minute spin-up set involving 4 minutes of spinning at 140-165 rpm. The final 65 minutes was a grueling climb involving long challenging reps in zone 4 and some "attack" or sprint reps in the zone 5 range. Due the morning swim workouts and the hard bike/run workouts on Monday and Tuesday, my legs were pretty shot by the end of this one. In fact, my heart rate is still elevated and I can't sleep.....which is why I'm writing this at midnight!!!!! My fitness is really coming along though. I'm anxious to get out on the road and do some real suffering (plus I need a scenery change after being stuck in my basement on a trainer for the past 5 months). Well, I gotta swim this morning and I'm feeling tired enough to sleep....so adios for now!

Beat Down Those Winter Blues!!!

Living up here in the arctic circle can make training and staying motivated a daunting task this time of year. Most if not all of the cycling workouts will be done on a trainer indoors and swimming is obviously done in a pool (unless you are part polar bear and can hold your breath between holes in the ice). Running can be done outside, but basically all of my speed work is done on a treadmill or indoor track when it's available.

All this lonely indoor training can really beat down even the most motivated athletes. A friend starting to get into racing asked me how I stay motivated through the winter. I guess you have to remember why you are doing this crazy stuff to begin with. I keep my goals written down and I look at them often. For example, Sunday was the end of a hard 4 week training block. I was feeling pretty sluggish and unmotivated for my last hard training swim to say the least. But after a slow warmup in which I was contemplating cutting the workout short, I started thinking about my goals and the split times I should be nailing to reach these goals. I'll also think about my competition and I like to pretend they are in the lane next to me or right on my heels. Suddenly instead of hoping for the end of the workout, I'm fired up and pushing harder....before long I had completed a solid 4000 yard workout.

The other thing that really helps is to not try to "swallow" the whole workout at once. On an indoor trainer workout for example, you can't be dreading the ball busting sprint sets at the end of a 2 hour workout when you are just getting warmed up. It can actually be enjoyable if you learn to live in the moment and let the future take care of itself. The same mentality applies to racing. So many people get nervous before a triathlon because they are thinking about how much things are going to hurt for the next couple hours or how many things could go wrong through the swim, bike, and run.
If you are up against something that seems unbeatable or impossible....you must first reduce it in your mind to something that is beatable. I had an experience with this last fall while I was getting ready for my first half marathon. My coach had me doing 75 miles of running per week with a weekly speed workout consisting of 5 x 2 mile repeats on 5:45 pace with 4 minutesof slow jogging between reps. At first I thought he was nuts, but then he once again proved his genius. It hurt, but I found that if I just concentrated on each rep individually and formed mini goals during each rep (such as holding pace during each quarter mile split) the reps went by easier. If I would have tried swallowing the whole workout at once and picturing it as a 10 mile race pace workout, then I would have been mentally beaten in the first lap!! The same goes for a race. At the beginning of a triathlon, think about swimming hard to that first big buoy....once you get there concentrate on turning the corner and swimming to the next big buoy. When you get out of the water don't think about the bike right away, instead think about flying through that transition.... one thing at a time makes everything bearable...if not enjoyable (afterall, that's why we are doing this stuff)!

I guess these are just little motivational tricks I've found work for me. It's also important to make sure you do a very easy training week at least once a month to recharge the batteries/motivation a bit (it's especially important to be human once in a while during these long winter months)! That ground hog can kiss my ass for predicting a long winter this year, but we've survived and the spring thaw is near!!!!! Happy training.

Done With Base Training and on to Build Phase I

Finally, I get a chance to do some writing! This week is a recovery week which marks the end of my third and final base block of the season. The workouts from here on out will still have plenty of volume, but will incorporate more and more speed. I was hoping most of the snow would be gone, but unfortunately it could be another 3 or 4 weeks before I'll get to do some solid riding outdoors. I still think I've put a solid effort in on the trainer down in the dungeon and hope to see improvements on my cycling this season.