Weekly Totals and Review, Jan 3rd - 9th.

I have to quit doing those blog posts where I compile all the workouts for the last week.  I doesn't look like it, but they take at least an hour or two to get done.  I mean, if that's all I did, it'd be worth it.  But look, we're triathletes and we got better sh*t to do!

So let's just look at some highlights and totals for the week instead.  That's where the meat is anyway, even for all you vegan-gladiator types out there.  Let's even do it in bullet points so all you ADD triathletes can stay focused. (You know who you are)

• I totalled just over 16 hours for the week, so that's nice.  Anything over 15 makes me feel productive.
• I've upped my resistance training time and it's paid off.  I've added about 10 lbs. of muscle in just a few weeks.
• The pool opened back up, so now I'm back in it and got in three sessions last week.  I swam around 1200 yards total.
• I'm fighting some kind of weird tiredness issue I get only on the bike.  Since it's single sport related, it's making me think it's a nutrition habit I have centered around that sport.  I'm betting that I don't intake enough sugar while biking.  Here's an HR graph from a bike ride where I simply quit after a while after not "feeling it."  If I knew what "it" was, then maybe I could "feel it" better.  I also can't tell you how exciting it is to find out that one of the symptoms of overtraining is the denial of being overtrained.  Hey Stephen Hawking, you're a black hole.  Disagreeing with me just proves it's true, so back off.
• I've cut back on the number of speedwork sessions.  I think I've gotten all I can out of those for a while without having them wear me out like a pair of old underpants.
• In my never-ending habit of creating distractions, I bought a jumprope.  With nearly zero experience, I immediately tried to go 30 minutes nonstop.  I'll be paying for that later with calf-pain dollar bills.

So we got ZenTri Base Camp coming up this week and also the Rocky Raccoon 100 soon after that.  I'm also going to spend time figuring out if I'm overtrained or just under sugared.  Of course, over sugaring may make the overtraining feel better, but in the end, you end up just an oversugared and overtrained mess of jogging shorts and HR straps weeping in the corner, hating your parents and USAT.  I'd have more to say, but I'm busy drinking a milkshake. :)

Nutrition Tips for Endurance Athletes

How to Focus on Your Swimming Instead of Counting Laps

Tips on how to count swim laps and putting pumpkin seeds in your smoothie.

Podcast - Merry New Year!

Hey, freaks and geeks!  This episode of the ZenTri Podcast is chock-full of training and nutrition tidbits.  It's just the thing you need to start off the new year right!  Listen in for some epic training fun and have a great January!

http://m.podshow.com/media/2245/episodes/262770/zentriathlon-262770-01-03-2011.mp3

Click here to listen!

Weekly Totals and Review, Dec. 27th - Jan 2nd.

This was kind of a crappy week.  Not enough sleep and bad food around the house sucked the energy out of me.  Still, I'm always glad that a "crappy week" can still total over 10 hours of solid training.  The highlight was learning to ride no-hands on the rollers.  I got pretty good at it and below is pic I shot after trying to play Angry Birds on the iPhone while riding.

So let's move on and check out the specifics.  As always, most of the workouts are hyperlinked to HR graphs so you can see the performance metrics. 

Totals:

Everything - 10.22 hours.

Cycling - 4:49 hours, 75.53 miles

Running - 4:27 hours, 28 miles

Sledgehammer - 1:06 hours

Monday AM - Sledgehammer Workout, 11 minutes.

Kind of a half-assed effort here. Not feeling it today. Need more heavy metal or something.

Monday Afternoon - 1 hour on rollers (NO HANDS!), 17.16 miles.

WOOHOO! I learned how to ride NO HANDS on rollers after watching and getting motivated by this vid by Holisticguru. It is such an awesome feeling! I started calling people and tweeting while I was doing it. It puts me in Zone two for the hour no problem. Super stoked.

Monday Evening - 1 hour barefoot run on treadmill, 6.05 miles.

Felt super stoked to be back into the start of a good week. Two a days on a Monday is good stuff. Started off easy and watched Colbert Report to get going. Nice! Barefoot felt good, too.afdf

Tuesday AM - 12 minutes with sledgehammer.

Had a tiny bit of trouble getting up, until I put iPhone Pandora station on death metal. That'll wake you up! A little slow getting going, but still nice. Noticing a little pain in right shoulder when working the delts, so I've started taking it easy on that problem spot.

Tuesday AM - 45 minutes on bike rollers, 11.94 miles.

Whoa, quads are blasted after yesterday's 1 hour no-hands roller ride. Today was painful in the most awesome way. Deep pain. Good pain. Found a nice groove of 2 minutes sitting, 2 minutes no-hands, 1 minute standing, repeat. Nice. Felt almost high for the hour after finishing.

Tuesday PM - 1 hour run on treadmill, 7.63 miles.

Did half barefoot, had to put on shoes second half because of the heat coming off the treadmill. "Heartbreaker" workout, hitting 140 bpm at midpoint and trying to raise it by 1 bpm every minute afterwards. Hit failure at 165 bpm and nearly 6 min/mile pace.

Wednesday AM - Sledgehammer workout.

No notes, so must've been fine.

Wednesday PM - 1 hour bike on rollers, 14.79 miles

Nice little zone 2 jaunt. Legs still hurt.

Saturday AM - Sledgehammer

Nice. :)

Saturday AM - 1:01 run, 5.7 miles.

Super easy run just to start the day. Forgot to pause the watch a couple of times while stopping to let Roxy pee.

Saturday PM - 1:03 bike on rollers, 15.11 miles.

Roller ride, doing 1 minute standing and 1 minute no hands out of every 5 minutes.  Repeat until done.

Saturday Noon - 54 minute run, 6.22 miles.

Nice and easy jog with Roxy. Slowed down the pace so she'd last the hour.

Sunday AM - Sledgehammer

Nothing new to note here, except that the SLAP tear in right shoulder is acting up. 99% sure that it's from doing the deltoid lifts. Gonna have to back off of that move for a while.

Sunday Noon - 1 hour bike on rollers, 16.53 miles.

Nice little ride on the rollers, staying in zone 2. Legs still blasted from the no-hands riding earlier in the week.

Sunday PM - 30 minute run, 3 miles.

Was planning on going a full hour, but the treadmill belt needed lube. After doing that, Kai started playing on it and got shot off the back into a wall and I had to take care of him for a bit. 30 minutes into the run, I was getting sleepy and decided to stop and hit the sack.