Weekly Totals and Review, March 13th Through 20th.

Individual Workouts:

Tuesday Morning - Nice 3050 yd. morning swim. 48 minutes. Great weather today. :) http://ht.ly/4eNTF

Wednesday Morning - Nice morning run, first half with Roxy. Light and fast with the Nike Frees. 1 hour, 6+ miles. http://ht.ly/4fBjT

Thursday Morning - Hour forty ride on rollers this morning, 30 miles. Hardcore like @j_hirsch. So awesome, I sweated through two headbands. http://ht.ly/4gpNx

Thursday Evening - 12 mile run at a 9 min/mile pace. 1:50 of running bliss. Nice weather, too. Avg HR 130. http://ht.ly/4gVJn

Friday Morning - 4,150 yard swim, 1 hour. Carbo-Pro and coffee is the bomb. :) http://ht.ly/4hbDw

Friday Evening - Super sweet 2 hours biking on rollers. Listening to hardcore groove rap. Avg 20.2 mph, 129 BPM. HR graph and more - http://ht.ly/4hHHS

Saturday Morning - 75 mile ride at 18 mph. 4:09 hours. Beautiful & windy day. Busted my chain, but fixed it and kept booking. HR stuff - http://ht.ly/4hUFL

Saturday Evening - 2 hour, 13.2 mile run at 9:06' pace. 6.25 hours for the day. Good stuff. after a long bike ride in the morning.http://ht.ly/4i0Xm

Sunday Morning - 4 hour ride, 72 miles.  Practiced being in the zone. Figured out the face I make when I’m nailing it.  Kind of a grimace. LOL. http://ow.ly/4iWu6

Review:

Slow start to the week, probably went a little too hard on last weekend’s long workouts.  Had to catch up on some sleep and calories after that.  Feeling great by Wednesday.  The new Nike Free’s are really letting me fly!  Time Change starting doing me in by Wednesday night; I crashed at 8 PM and woke up around 1:30 the next morning.  Screwed around for a while and then got in an extra long bike session before work.  Had time Thursday evening, so I put in a longer than normal run, but didn’t bring quite enough fuel for the last half hour and struggled a little bit.  My regular pool is closed all the way through Saturday, so I went to a local gym that has lap lanes and paid 10 bucks to swim on Friday morning.  It was worth the money to not miss too many days of swimming in a row.  Interviewed Pro John Hirsch Friday afternoon and then the weekend became a blur of kick ass training.  I busted a chain, rode a while with a local group, ran like madman, overate, and much more.  

Most importantly, I found that sweet spot of where aerobic and strength potential meet and got a great feel for exactly how hard I can go for long periods of time.  It’s quite a bit harder than I thought and I’m really looking forward to exploring the potential of it all.

Totals:

Swimming - 1:48 hours, 4.09 miles

Cycling - 11:50 hours, 216 miles

Running - 4:49 hours, 31.52 miles

Strength - 6 minutes.

Everything - 18:32 hours, 252 miles

Get Your German Bike Ride On!

What are you doing on March 26th?  Washing your hair?  I don't think so.  Get your lycra-covered butt on down to Tomball for a great bike ride and then stay around for the German festival.  I'm going to be there, so come and join me for the fun!

Follow me on Twitter and we can meet up and hang out!  I'll have some Hornet Juice to give away. :)

Podcast - Armadillo Dash

Click Here to Listen to the Show!

Join in for another great episode of ZenTri as I run the Armadillo Dash Half Marathon with a blind triathlete!  It was a wonderful run with a truly inspirational athlete.  We captured all of the sounds of a race; the start, rolling through aid stations, and even hitting "the wall" at the end.  Big thanks go out to Cathy for her motivation to get this done.

Shownotes!

Fahrendreisen Bike Ride.

Mayday Challenge bike race.

Amy and Brian's Coconut Juice

This Week in Awesome - Crazy video of downhill urban racing.

Cathy is racing with us!

On the way to the race.

Emily talking in her sleep.

Cathy's nutrition plan.

Hitting the aid stations.

Race finish!

Janice doesn't know her sex toys.

In car, review of race.

Interview with race director.

Toast at Mexican restaurant.

Training Log:

Post swim, training in the pool by PE.

Using a lap counter on your finger and stopwatch.

GET OUT OF THE SHOWER!

Raw vegan advice.

On rollers in garage.

How to lose a soccer game.

Tips on how to get started.

Who is Rich Roll?

How to make training time "in the bank".

Ordered some Nike ID Nike Frees.

Using colonoscopy pictures as weapons.

How to use Twitter for motivation.

Tip on how to improve knee strength while running.

How to use Evernote for recording ideas while running or biking.

Getting back into Push-Runs.

Amy and Brian's contest coming up soon.

"Do you practice?"

Carbo-Pro and

Hornet Juice combo rocks.

What makes for a good show?

This is why I do this.

@Knockitoff PR'd by 5 minutes on a 5k!

Not everything is about you.

Nothing feels better than giving.

Cathy's awesome vegan dinner recipe.

How to say "NO!" and why.

Food-eating vs. eating for training.

Measure your bike for best fit.

Charlie Sheen Ustream. 

Click here to listen

Week in Review: 3-7 through 3-28

Quiet and hilly roads around the Training Farm

It was a pretty solid week, finishing with a great weekend of biking and running at the Training Farm with Triboomer.  It was so good, I needed to take Monday completely off to rest and recover.  I got some new gear (Nike Frees) and nailed my nutrition, so everything is coming together nicely.  Here's some totals:  

Swimming - 2 hours, 4.78 miles.

Biking - 7:18 hours, 116 miles.

Running - 6:15 hours, 40 miles.

Heart attack, anyone?

The highlight of the week* was running 14.5 hilly miles at a 9:12 pace on Sunday morning, despite having ran and biked over 5 hours the day before. 

Click on the links below ("Move") to see detailed numbers and notes from each workout.

Sunday Bike Move 2:00'00 hours, 30.19 miles.

*Sunday Run Move 2:13'31 hours, 14.50 miles

Saturday Bike Move  3:17'21.9 hours 54.45 miles 

Saturday Run Move 2:00'15.7 hours 12.79 miles

Friday Bike Move 1:00'06.2 hours 14.90 miles

Thursday Swim Move 1:00'17 hours 2.39 miles

Wednesday Run Move 1:00'40.7 hours 6.59 miles

Tuesday Bike Move 1:00'02 hours 16.61 miles

Tuesday Swim Move 1:00'00 hours 2.39 miles

Monday Run Move 1:00'53.1 hours 6.21 miles

Monday Core Move 0:16'48 hours 

How to Train in Zone 2 in the Pool.

Zone two is great stuff - it is that perfect level of effort that makes you faster but doesn't beat you up so bad that tomorrow's workout is compromised.  The problem is that most people need a heart rate monitor (HRM) to make sure they stay in that zone, but HRMs are difficult to use in the pool.  

The way to get it done with the least amount of fuss is to train yourself to know what zone two feels like while you are wearing the HRM when biking and running.  Hit the pool and try to emulate that exact same feeling while swimming.  How do you do this?  Easy:

1. Breathing - Study your breathing pattern while biking and running in zone two.  How hard is it?  Bump up into zone three and look for the changes.  Notice them and put them into your memory bank.
2. Muscle burn - How much more stress do you put on your muscles when moving from zone one to two and up to three?  You should be able to discern the difference and remember it.
3. Repetition - One workout of studying this isn't going to help.  It takes several weeks of training your mind to pay attention to the differences before you can get it done in the pool.  When you get good at it, you should be able to guess your heart rate within just a couple of beats at any time during your bike or run.  Give it a try by not looking at your HRM for long periods of time and then guessing what the value is before you look. 

That's really about it.  Keep practicing this and you should be on your way to great swims in a short time.  Big thanks for this blog post idea go out to the incredibly handsome Coach Adam on Twitter.