Saturday and Sunday (May 28 and 29)

Saturday = the P-Ride! 

Another great P-Ride followed by an extra hour on the bike.  I put in some strong efforts on today's ride and I'm extremely happy with my fitness on the bike. 



After the 3:15 on the bike, I ended up at the track for 3 X 800 meters.  I knocked out the 800s on the 2:40-2:43, not as fast as I wanted to go, but still a great workout.  The map below may be the most boring garmin map ever.   



In the last couple of days I have begun to acclimate to North Carolina's summer.  Wow, it's significantly warmer than a San Francisco summer!  I've enjoyed pushing myself in the heat the last few days because it's only going to make me a stronger athlete.   

Sunday was another great day of training.  After a 30 minute ride on the trainer I headed out for a 16 mile run.  Again, I was very impressed with how warm and humid it can get here.   

This was an excellent week, I put in 20+ hours of training and billed nearly 40 hours.

I have signed up for Eagleman 70.3 on June 12. 

My fitness and form are really coming together.  My run is still a question mark but I am expecting a good performance with a strong swim and bike. 

THURSDAY AND FRIDAY (May 26 and May 27)

Thursday
Pro Swim (5300 yards)
Another great swim workout.  This may have been the best work I have done in the pool in the last 5 years!  The main set was a long one, 3000 yards.  It was a pyramid set with the following:
100, 200, 300, 400, 500 on the 1:15; and 500, 400, 300, 200, 100 on the 1:10.  I made all the intervals and felt tired but great at the end of the swim. 

I ended Thursday with my first track workout in over a month.  It was a tough one but went well.  The workout called for 6 X 1000 with a 400 jog in between each.  I hit my target times (3:07 for each 1K) and was very happy to be back running again.    

After the two solid workouts Friday was an easy day of running and swimming (and lots of work).

Below is an interesting video about head position while swimming.  Over the past few weeks I have focused on this aspect of my swim stroke.    

TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY

At the moment, I'm feeling fit.  My run is not there yet, but my swimming and cycling have consistently improved over the course of the year.  Tuesday's and Wednesday's workout were further evidence of this. 

Tuesday

Tuesday's Pro Swim Practice was another example of just how much Dave knows about getting athletes into shape.  Dave gave us a tough and fast set.  Main set was 5 X 100 all out.  Between each 100, we had 60 seconds of work on the stretch chords.  My arms were burning,  but I came through strong, swimming all of them between 57 seconds and 59 seconds.   

Tuesday ended with a 9 mile run at 6:30 pace.  

Wednesday

Early in the morning was full of attorney work, then I headed out to the pool.  I put in a solid 4600 yards at the pool.  Since I often hear I have one of the ugliest swim strokes around, I've been trying to work on my swim stroke and swim form.  Wednesday's set called for some one arm drills and finger tip drills, so hopefully I am learning. 

After the swim, I headed home shot off a few emails, and then jumped on the bike.  The weather is getting warmer now and I am hoping that by training in the heat, I will race well in the heat.  I did 4 loops on the ride, putting in a good effort to start off each loop. 



After the ride I threw on the running shoes headed out for an easy transition run around the neighborhood. 



Wednesday was an awesome day.  Any day I can get 4+ hours of training is a good one. 

Monday May 23, 2011

On Monday morning my legs were definitely feeling the 15 mile run on Sunday.  Fortunately, Monday only called for a moderate swim followed by an easy ride of 90-120 minutes. 

The swim was fantastic.  Elizabeth and I met up with fellow pro triathlete Alex McDonald.  Alex is an inspiration.  Alex was involded in a serious cycling accident about 3 months ago, breaking both his legs and suffering a number of other injuries.  However, Alex has stayed positive throughout the healing process and is already walking.  He's also back to swimming and riding.  It's truly amazing.  Check out the video below. 

We hit the pool for 3750 yards and all felt great afterwards.  Another good swim.    

Following the swim Elizabeth and I went for an easy ride around Chapel Hill.  I got lost only once on the ride (as you can see we were riding towards HWY 40).  Some of my friends in Berkeley will not believe I got lost only once, since I seemed to get lost on nearly every ride in Northern California.     

A Great Weekend of Training (BACK TO RUNNING!)

Saturday means the P Ride and as always it delivered.  A great, fast and hard ride. 



Sunday, time to get out for a run, a long run. 

My calf did all right and I remembered how much I love to run.  It was nice run around Chapel Hill with Josh and Mark, two training partners from swimming.



Before heading over to a friend's home for a BBQ, my better half and I hit the pool for a short swim.

This was nice weekend of work.

RECOVERY AND A FUN MONDAY (Guest Post by James' Better Half)



Waiting for the ferry to the
 Outer Banks!



With James' calf still a bit tender, we decided to take an easy weekend and went out to explore the Carolina coast.  We had great weather and James even got to swim in the Atlantic for the first time since, well... maybe the first time ever!  It's already 74 degrees in the water, quite a bit toastier than our old friend the NorCal Pacific, even at its warmest.



James' calf is definitely on the mend, but he still wanted to take it easy at the start of the week, so he decided to stick with riding and swimming. On Monday, James went for a fun ride with his better half (me) around Chapel Hill.  It was our first ride together in a long time, and it was nice to have to be James' wheel again. Plus, I'm a great action photographer. 

After our quick ride together, James hopped on the spin bike for another 75 minutes to put in some hard efforts. I request that you, dear readers, take note of  my awesome xtracycle in the back of the photo-- it's an amazing cargo commuter, and I commute to UNC every day on it.  James' tells all his friends that "she's in love with it." see: http://www.xtracycle.com/

After all of that, it was time to refuel and rest before James' evening swim.  James is gearing up for the rest of the week and excited to start running again.

INJURED AND SICK (APRIL 25 - MAY 8)

After the sprint triathlon I was looking forward to getting back into some high volume training with a focus on the run.  My run has underperformed this season and with a tweak in the training program I was to start to put in some more mileage. 

Monday's workout called for a swim in the AM and then a brick workout  (bike/run) in the PM.  The swim went well.  I swam 3500 yards and each day I am beginning to feel stronger and stronger in the water.  The bike workout for the day was a 20 minute warm-up followed by 25 X 1 minute low cadence/high watts intervals, with one minute recovery between each.  The bike was going to plan, I was really putting everything I had into it, riding at a cadence of 40-55 and putting out about 320-340 watts.  On the last few I gave it everything I had.  After the bike, I jumped on the treadmill which called for 4 sets of 5 minutes at 5:40 pace and 3 minutes at 5:20 pace (with a minute between each interval).  I only made it 9 minutes into the run before my left calf started to hurt with each step.  Deciding that this was not good, I ended the run and started to ice my calf.   I had strained a few tendons around the soleus muscle.   The next few days were spent only swimming, riding and icing.   

Saturday means the P-Ride.




As always the ride delivered a great workout. I love this ride and really pushed it today. I jumped on the trainer after the ride and put in an additional 45 minutes of riding. A funny thing happened on the ride. I made an attack on a long climb, trying to really push the pace.  While climbing, I looked down at my cycling computer and thought, that's good I'm riding 18.4 mph up this hill. Then I looked again, I was going 18.0 mph, but the number I saw was my heart rate, 184 beats a minute! I did not think this old man's heart could get that high. I chuckled a bit and then kept hammering away.

After a training regiment of only swimming and riding, I had not seen any improvement in my calf and was still unable to run.  After Thursday's (5.5.2011) bike workout, I decided to take some time off my legs and only swim.     

In addition to my calf giving me some issues, my Crohn's has flared up and I am struggling to get it under control.  Each flare up impacts my daily activity and also my affects my confidence as an athlete.  That is, it is tough for me to think I'm a top triathlete when I know first hand my body is not functioning the way it should .  I've seen a couple doctors, started a new medication program, and hopefully will put out this flare up shortly. 

Time to rest up and heal.