It Was The Best of Times, It Was The Worst of Times -- A 2018 Training Journal* Updated 9/27

[KSellers88]

I am fascinated by the idea of doing an Ironman, so I would pick it as well! I look forward to following your journey!

 

[Keels]

Week Zero v1.0 Update

First week of workouts in the books. Pretty successful, was able to make most of my "benchmark" workouts, but slacked a little on the other stuff - especially the yoga because I hate yoga.

I had to call an audible and switch cycling and swimming towards the end of the week, but I don't really think it made a difference and I like the flexibility of switching things up when/if I need to.

A look at last week:



So, basically, a lot of cycling in the past week. I can definitely feel it in my quads for sure! But otherwise, a pretty uneventful week. I think the sweet spot is to keep total workouts around 2 hours for the day. I think it will help with mental conditioning for longer singular workouts in the future - which will mostly be brick workouts or long rides/runs.

Other than that, not much to report. Just kinda going through the motions while getting back in the swing of things.

Week Zero v1.1

Let's take a look at this week, shall we?



So, pretty similar to last week. Putting a little more emphasis on the run this week, mostly because I need to build mileage for the overnight 25K. Only one outdoor ride (Wednesday night), so both the timed rides will be done inside on the trainer.

Biggest change is less of a plan for weights - I'll probably just go with whatever is available when I get up to the weight floor, because I mostly want to avoid GymBro that just wanders around the weight-room floor carrying his two-gallon jug of water and picking up one free weight every 15 minutes.

The biggest change is that the gals and I have decided to start a Squat and Plank Challenge for the next 30 days. Winner gets a bottle of wine from everyone in the group, which is 12 of us, so some pretty big stakes!! A look at the Challenge:



LOL - 5 minute plank on the last day ... GTHOHWT. If any of us make it to that, they deserve 11 bottles of wine.

Another change is that we all decided to participate in the Mayor's Triathlon again this year! The Mayor's Tri was the first tri for quite a few of our group last year - it's a sprint tri all through downtown Fort Worth, with a pool "swim" ... and I put swim in quotes, because it's done in a 4-foot pool with two-way traffic in each lane - AKA, unless you're one of the first 50 people in the pool you're walking the swim instead of actually swimming.


Look at this fabulous group of triathletes!

I think all but two of us will be returning for the Mayor's this year, but we may have a couple of newbies joining us! We all started cycling together on Wednesday nights with our new bike club, so it's awesome to have a close group of friends to train and compete with!

Of course, it doesn't hurt that we go straight from training and races into this:



A quick look at the weather for this week:



A cold front came through and is giving us a reprieve from four days of 100-degree weather!!!

Anyway. I think that's about it!

 

[Keels]

What the Hail?!

I should've known when I was awoken at 3:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning as a wicked hail storm blew through that maybe Wednesday just wasn't going to go my way.


(Weather is North Texas is always fun)

Yes, those are hails ... hail? Whatever, y'all get it - pretty crazy, right?

Anyway. On tap for Wednesday was another ride with our growing cycling group - BTBC! The plan was 27 miles:



Couple of nice little climbs built in there, so I was looking forward to see if the hill intervals I'd been doing on the trainer would pay off. We met up at our start location (just about a half-mile from my house) and we were off by 6 p.m.! It was a nice, balmy 97 degrees with a "feels like" temp of 103 - perfect conditions for a long ride, right?

About two miles in, after the first small climb and a sharp turn onto the trailer - DISASTER STRIKES. I hear a scraping sound, almost like sandpaper on the concrete, and I immediately realize I have a flat. UGH. Pull off to the side and attempt to swap out the tube and OH NO IT GETS WORSE.

So, my fancy speedy road bike is a "new to me" bike - I found it through a Facebook cycling exchange. It was a GREAT deal, less than 1/3rd of what the bike would normally cost and it had a couple of upgrades to it as the gal who sold it to me was upgrading to a carbon fiber bike. Little did I know, this bike also has tubeless wheels.

OK, no problem ... I've got a C02 cartridge, so I should at least be able to fill it up to get back to my house. Welp, by either operator error or technical malfunction (I'm going to blame the cartridge at this point and not myself, since I've never had to do this before), that didn't work. So, looks like I'm going to have to push the bike back.


(Prayers up for my poor broken bike)

So, broken bike now at home, the sun was still up and I still needed to get some miles in. I grab my hybrid, and head out. Unfortunately, I didn't have lights or any sensors/meters on this bike, so I didn't get to grab as much data as I'd like.

But 14 miles is better than no miles.



Definitely not as fast as I would've liked, but I did get in some good hills and got a nice workout for the back half of the mileage heading into a pretty strong headwind.

Dropping the wheel off tomorrow at the bike shop to get fixed - hopefully it's nothing more than some dry sealant. I think I may have "pinched" the tire on that sharp turn and that's what caused the flat. But just in case it's something more serious, I've told Cash that he needs to get ready to get a job to help me pay for it ...


(Hello! My name is Business Dog!)

Anyway. Hopefully the bike fix is pretty simple, otherwise it's going to be an interesting week of training next week!

 

[jennamfeo]

His little tie kills me!!

Cash on his first day of work:




I always worry that my bike will get a flat because I am a terrible cyclist and I don't carry anything to even fix a flat sooooo....

 

[Keels]

Oh, he's got a whole collection! For the Haunted Mansion fans out there - this is his more "formal" look ...

 

[Keels]

I always worry that my bike will get a flat because I am a terrible cyclist and I don't carry anything to even fix a flat sooooo....

Yeah ... If I'd stayed with the main group, they'd have been able to help me no problem - but I dropped back because I was afraid I couldn't keep up with the pace that they wanted to go (it was a REALLY fast main pack yesterday). I also could've taken the assistance from the half-dozen of other cyclists that asked if we needed help as they passed by, but I'm too stubborn.

Lesson learned.

 

[OldSlowGoofyGuy]

Yes, those are hails ... hail? Whatever, y'all get it - pretty crazy, right?

I am impressed with the artistic symmetry of your hail picture. Don't think I've ever seen or heard of tennis-ball sized hail.

 

[Keels]

I am impressed with the artistic symmetry of your hail picture. Don't think I've ever seen or heard of tennis-ball sized hail.

It's pretty crazy - this area hasn't had hail like this since St. Patrick's Day 2016. My bedroom is an attic conversion - so right under the roofline - and it sounds like someone is smashing the roof with a baseball bat!

Here's one a friend sent me with a measuring tape:

 

[garneska]

Sounds like a fancy bike. Are tubeless tires not supposed to get a flat? I have not changed a tire all by myself yet or when out on a ride. I think I could do it myself just might take me an hour. Cash is so handsome. More Cash pictures

 

[KSellers88]

OMG where did you get those ties and bowties? They are absolutely adorable. He looks so fancy!

 

[Keels]

Sounds like a fancy bike. Are tubeless tires not supposed to get a flat? I have not changed a tire all by myself yet or when out on a ride. I think I could do it myself just might take me an hour. Cash is so handsome. More Cash pictures

Ask and you shall receive:



He was real excited to see all the fire trucks that day!

OMG where did you get those ties and bowties? They are absolutely adorable. He looks so fancy!

I got them at the store right next to Beauty and the Beast at DHS!

He loves wearing things - especially bandanas. I usually give him a new bandana every other week or so and he gets so excited every time.

 

[KSellers88]

@Keels thank you! I think my puppy needs some! That is so cute, he is a handsome little fella!

 

[SarahDisney]

That is very large hail.

Also ... I'm not normally a huge fan of dogs wearing human-like clothing, but ... those dog ties are kinda adorable.

 

[jennamfeo]

I usually give him a new bandana every other week or so and he gets so excited every time.

This made my day.

 

[Keels]

This made my day.

I'll video it next time - he legit cocky-walks and struts around. It's amazing.

 

[Princess KP]

Week Zero v1.0 Update

First week of workouts in the books. Pretty successful, was able to make most of my "benchmark" workouts, but slacked a little on the other stuff - especially the yoga because I hate yoga.

I had to call an audible and switch cycling and swimming towards the end of the week, but I don't really think it made a difference and I like the flexibility of switching things up when/if I need to.

A look at last week:

View attachment 327200

So, basically, a lot of cycling in the past week. I can definitely feel it in my quads for sure! But otherwise, a pretty uneventful week. I think the sweet spot is to keep total workouts around 2 hours for the day. I think it will help with mental conditioning for longer singular workouts in the future - which will mostly be brick workouts or long rides/runs.

Other than that, not much to report. Just kinda going through the motions while getting back in the swing of things.

Week Zero v1.1

Let's take a look at this week, shall we?

View attachment 327203

So, pretty similar to last week. Putting a little more emphasis on the run this week, mostly because I need to build mileage for the overnight 25K. Only one outdoor ride (Wednesday night), so both the timed rides will be done inside on the trainer.

Biggest change is less of a plan for weights - I'll probably just go with whatever is available when I get up to the weight floor, because I mostly want to avoid GymBro that just wanders around the weight-room floor carrying his two-gallon jug of water and picking up one free weight every 15 minutes.

The biggest change is that the gals and I have decided to start a Squat and Plank Challenge for the next 30 days. Winner gets a bottle of wine from everyone in the group, which is 12 of us, so some pretty big stakes!! A look at the Challenge:

View attachment 327207

LOL - 5 minute plank on the last day ... GTHOHWT. If any of us make it to that, they deserve 11 bottles of wine.

Another change is that we all decided to participate in the Mayor's Triathlon again this year! The Mayor's Tri was the first tri for quite a few of our group last year - it's a sprint tri all through downtown Fort Worth, with a pool "swim" ... and I put swim in quotes, because it's done in a 4-foot pool with two-way traffic in each lane - AKA, unless you're one of the first 50 people in the pool you're walking the swim instead of actually swimming.

View attachment 327211
Look at this fabulous group of triathletes!

I think all but two of us will be returning for the Mayor's this year, but we may have a couple of newbies joining us! We all started cycling together on Wednesday nights with our new bike club, so it's awesome to have a close group of friends to train and compete with!

Of course, it doesn't hurt that we go straight from training and races into this:

View attachment 327214

A quick look at the weather for this week:

View attachment 327215

A cold front came through and is giving us a reprieve from four days of 100-degree weather!!!

Anyway. I think that's about it!

Nice Louis!

 

[Keels]

Week Zero v1.1 Update:

Another successful week, with the only "bad" workout being Wednesday's long ride when I suffered a flat and had to cut my scheduled ride short. Luckily, a little maintenance on both wheels (new tube tape, sealant, etc.) and my bike is back in good working order!

A look at the week that was:



Week Zero v1.2 (Peak Week):

With 34 days and roughly 5 training weeks until the Mayor's Tri, the training theory mixes up slightly for the next couple of weeks! This is going to be a Peak Week - each core workout will have Peak Mileage for this four-week cycle, and will also include the first Brick of this training cycle!

The following weeks will go as follows:

• June 11: Peak Week
• June 18: Recovery Week
• June 25: Base Week
• July 2: Build Week
• Jul 9: Race Week (aka hybrid Peak Week)
• July 16: Recovery Week

So, with that said ... let's take a look at what the first Peak Week of 2018 looks like!!



So we've got a long ride of 30 miles, a long run of 8 miles and a Brick (one hour cycling straight into 15 minutes of running) - all peak distances thus far! So, what about the swim? The overall distance is DEFINITELY shorter, but you'll notice that the two midweek swim workouts have an emphasis on sprint intervals! The thinking behind this ... I have four weeks to adjust my swim time for the Mayor's Triathlon. The reason this is important - the swim is REALLY tight, like two-way traffic in one narrow lane of the pool tight. I was in the first 100 athletes in the water last year, and after about 75m it was so congested, it was impossible to swim ... I ended up doing a combination of walking and swimming. Definitely not the way you want to start a tri. So, I'm going to focus on sprints to see what my swim time might look like in an effort to start further up in the pack so I can actually swim - otherwise, I'll just sandbag my time and start in the back with the rest of my girlfriends and "walk" the swim just to get it over with and make up the extra couple of minutes on the bike.

Meal Plan

I've posted on other journals about my meal planning, and in the past I've posted some of my weekly meal-planning tips and tricks. While this week isn't exactly normal, I figured I'd post what I'm making. I've noticed recently that I'm crashing REALLY bad post-workout and it either involves a lengthy nap or I'm just so famished I eat everything in sight. I don't remember any of this the last time I went through tri training, so I went back to my food journal and looked to see what the difference is. Long story short, I'm consuming about three-to-four times more units of protein than carbs - so, for the foreseeable future in this training cycle I'm going to trade a focus on eating for weight loss in favor of a plan to support my training efforts. I'm also going to start adding in real food to my fuel during my bike rides on the trainer - like pretzel Goldfish.

So - a look at food for the week!
Breakfast: Steel-Cut oatmeal, Yogurt, Cottage Cheese & Tomatoes
Lunch: Salad (one head romaine sans e. coli, one head Little Gem); grilled chicken breasts; turkey lunchmeat
Snacks: Avocado, Cucumbers, Hummus, Asparagus Spears with Dijon Mustard, Chopped Pineapple (more on THAT later!!!), Gouda Cheese
Fuel: Pretzel Goldfish, Peanut Butter Crackers, Grape Uncrustable
Dinners

• Monday: White Fiber Spaghetti with Turkey Bolognese
• Tuesday: Butter chicken, brown rice, Naan
• Wednesday: Shredded chicken soft tacos (in slow cooker), Mexican rice, corn & black bean mix
• Thursday: Beef Stir-Fry, brown rice, steamed edamame (frozen steamer bag)
• Friday: Rustic chicken thighs with spinach and mushrooms, white fiber spaghetti, garlic knots

So, that's pretty much it for this week!

Question of the Week
Let's talk food!! What's your favorite "Cheat Meal" or food reward for a hard workout well done?

One of my favorite restaurants here in the Fort is called Buffalo Brothers - it's a high-end sports bar that does great pizza and wings. My weekly treat is one of their combos - a slice of pizza, four chicken wings, a small salad and a schooner of beer:

 

[Jules76126]

So what is white fiber spaghetti? Is that different than normal spaghetti?

 

[JBinORL]

You can always defer MCM. We did it in 2017 when we were moving across the country to Florida AND training for Dopey...we just couldn't make it work. But the process was super easy to defer and reregister the following year. We're all in for MCM this October, and I'll do my 70.3 in 2019 I guess.

 

[Keels]

So what is white fiber spaghetti? Is that different than normal spaghetti?

So, it has the same nutritional value a whole grown/brown pasta - but I don't like the nutty taste that some whole grain pastas have (and sometimes, the texture is a little gummy to me), so this white fiber pasta tastes more like regular ole generic pasta.

You can always defer MCM. We did it in 2017 when we were moving across the country to Florida AND training for Dopey...we just couldn't make it work. But the process was super easy to defer and reregister the following year. We're all in for MCM this October, and I'll do my 70.3 in 2019 I guess.

I think I'm going to see where I'm at in early July and make the call then. I haven't had a really great long ride yet to get me jazzed about stretching out for the whole 70.3 just yet. I'm hopeful for tomorrow though.