8 Weeks - Louisville IM

A three day weekend of training began early Friday morning as Lou and Jan biked 26 miles to the Fleet Feet Fairport Firecracker 5 mile race. Lou finished in 37 minutes, 4th in his age group, Jan ran 40:50, good enough for 3rd in her age group. Jan and I biked another 21 miles in the afternoon.

Saturday Jan ran 6 miles, then Lou, myself and Jan drove to Braddock Bay and swam "between the rocks" for about 30 minutes. Too many boats were out on the lake for anyone to take a chance on swimming across the bay to the buoy. My first swim in Lake Ontario, it was kind of creepy for awhile. Trying to swim in a fairly straight line is a constant struggle for me. Staying calm while swimming along the tall seaweed growing and hoping not to see any live animals was more difficult. Luckily it was a peaceful afternoon. I don't know what I'll do at the Shoreline Triathlon (my first tri) if the water is rough. Jan also lifted weights when we got home.

Sunday Jan and I drove to Braddock Bay again, then biked 25 miles out to Jones Beach using the Parkway and some rural roads. We biked the parkway back to Braddock Bay to complete a nice 50 mile ride. Unfortunately we fought a stiff breeze all the way back. This course is a great way to work on maintaining your speed, since there are so few stop signs, corners, or traffic. View Interactive Map on MapMyRun.com We ran 3 miles after finishing the bike.

Speaking of the wind, how do those Tour de France bikers go so ridiculously fast even with gusty winds? Amazing. I have to stop complaining about the wind. I know many of the Tour riders are in the peloton, and shielded, but still, 25+mph for 100+ miles?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Motor Imagery

Image
In the book, " The body has a mind of its own " by Blakeslee, the authors state that, "While many types of mental practice are undoubtedly helpful, motor imagery is the only technique that alters your body maps in the same way physical practice does. Visual imagery (as from a spectator's point of view), relaxation, hypnosis, affirmation, prayer...may help you...but will not alter your motor maps." (page 60). Several experiments have been conducted that verify this information. A simple example is that if you imagine moving your little finger for ten minutes a day, after four weeks it will be up to 20% stronger. Motor imagery has been used by pianists, dancers and all types of athletes. It is not something that will help you overnight get better at swimming, running or biking, but over time, just like with physical exercise, it does promote stronger muscle memory and physical attributes.
Read more

Head Over Heels

Probably not the best way to ride a bike, looking at the pavement up close, arms stretched out, seeing the rear tire straight up in the air. Once Jan knew I was only bruised and my bike was okay, she had a nice laugh. Apparently I didn't look too graceful flipping up towards the handle bars, arms and legs spread out. Fortunately I was going very slowly making a turn when I hit a hole off the shoulder of the road. The result was just a leg bruise. Jan ran 11 miles and swam almost 2 miles on Saturday. On Sunday, a beautiful day for bike riding, we rode the 6 villages route . I went 76.5 miles, she completed her scheduled 80 miles by going around our block several times. The route is 66 miles, but we did an extra 10 miles around Churchville. Our overall mph time was pretty good, faster than the cutoff time for Ironman. The roads were in pretty good condition, not too much traffic except for .5 miles on rt. 31, and only a few barking dogs that scared the heck out of us, but didn't ...
Read more

Supportive Husband?

I'm having a difficult time drawing the line between "gentle" encouragement of Jan's Ironman endeavor and being thought of as an overbearing bully where whatever she does in training isn't enough. Yes, she has trained over 8 hours in the past six days. Yes, she will be doing some massive swimming, biking and running this weekend. But I still worry about whether it's enough to make the time limits at the Tupper Lake Tinman in three weeks and Louisville Ironman in twelve. So, I sometimes feel that if I'm not going to push her, who will? Yes, Jan is obviously self-motivated and highly competitive. But even the best athletes usually need an extra push now and then, don't they? I can't imagine being a real coach and a husband or wife of the athlete you are coaching. That seems like an absolute no win situation. Something would have to give in the relationship. It's one thing to coach, push an athlete to do an extra interval or two, have them get ups...
Read more