My legs are uneven

Sunday workout: Bike Fit

Bike fit was today. We discovered a couple things during the fit:

Blake making changes

• My left leg is 1cm shorter than my right
• The arches on my feet are not equal
• The front of my left foot is rotated counter to my pronate
• I have really good aero posture on the bike
• Back in the day when I was last fit, they put wedges underneath my cleats to solve the short leg and foot rotation. They did it wrong. It should have been an external riser and an internal wedge. I have been riding with a forced poor position.

 The hardest part of the fit was finding a good saddle. We tried probably 10 saddles and on a whim tried out a mountain bike saddle, which worked. I need to get some mileage on in the aero position to test that it's correct, but that's just time. I have a follow up in 2-3 weeks once I've gotten some road time on.

Spent the rest of the day working on replacing sprinklers in the yard. I ended up having to add spacers to 13 of the 16 and I still have one left. The outside of my hands are ruined from dragging against the concrete edges of the driveway and sidewalks. I probably spent a solid 6 hours working on it today (including Home Depot trips).

For a break in the middle, I finished putting Haley's Little Tyke car together. My parent's got it for her birthday, but it has been a massive pain in the ass to build. I got frustrated and quit about 1/3 of the way through. Dad made it another 1/3rd, got frustrated and quit. I took the rubber mallet to it and finished it. Haley loves it. When you put the foot base in, she can't get her feet caught. So....

Hot, hot, hot.

Saturday Workout:
Morning: 50 minute run
Morning Result: 5.03 miles / 208 feet climbing / average heart rate 154 bpm

Hot run. I spent the morning putting the sink back together so I was unable to do an early run, so I caught late-morning. Even though it's only 80*, when it's 80* is direct exposure and our relentless sun, it's hot. 10 minute mile pace, so not exactly record breaking, but steady. Running to heart rate is keeping to roughly that rate when running outdoors.

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Just pack it all in there.

Thursday workout:
Rest Day

Friday workout:
Morning: 1200 yards, 500 yards at race speed

Evening: 30 minute run
Evening result: 3.53 miles / average heart rate 154 bpm

Weird workout schedule this week. Sarah was in Dallas for work so I was left with Haley. Doing workouts with her is hard. My Wednesday bike didn't get started until 9:00pm and I couldn't do my Thursday workouts. I pushed my Friday rest day forward to Thursday and did my Thursday workouts today.

I ended up pushing both workouts until this evening, so it was my first back to back workout. The swim was 1000 yards, with an at pace 500 yard piece in the middle. I made a serious point to keep my form proper as I am pretty tired. The most recent points from Peter are for breathing and gliding. I wanted to focus on using my forearm to pull more water too. My pace felt slower than normal, but it was amazingly faster: 8:25 minutes,which is faster by over a minute.My guess would be pulling more water and turning my head vs. turning and lifting for breathing.

I immediately got out of the pool and did my run. 3.53 miles in 30 minutes. An average pace of 8:30 minutes per mile which is also a best. My calf doesn't hurt and didn't cramp up either. I am crediting that to changing my running stride some. I went back to a more mid-foot strike and it felt much better. I'm thinking that my physiology just lends to that type of run.

As silly as it sounds, today was also my best stretching day. I was able to get my hand almost all the way around my toes doing the hurdlers stretch and can almost touch my toes standing up. These are areas I have had consistent trouble with since my back surgery.

Today was a good workout day.

My weekend is going to be screwed up too. I have a 50 minute run Saturday and 30 mile ride on Sunday. I will be running back to back days because of today's workout and I'm not sure how good my bike will be on Sunday. My fit is Sunday at noon and while I will be there for 3 hours, I will be getting on and off the bike frequently. Hopefully I can get some cadence time down while he's testing the fit.

Beyond the workouts, this will be a very busy weekend. On Saturday I need to get the garbage disposal installation completed, tend to the yard, do our normal household chores, and be back home by 4pm to meet with the SolarCity rep. While we are very efficient with out electricity usage, we would definitely be using the AC more if I wasn't concerned about doubling our bill. Sunday will be meeting with the Home Depot rep regarding the counter tops that we are thinking about installing, I have my fit, and Sarah has a ton of work to do. We're going to be very jam packed this weekend.

Late night riding

Wednesday workout:
Morning: Off

Evening: 25 mile ride
Evening result: 1:29 hours / average heart rate 137 bpm

Sarah is on a business trip until Friday, so it's just Haley and me. Normally we take a split approach to getting her ready for bed; me for dinner and bath, Sarah for bedtime. That allows me to get onto the trainer by 7pm. Last night I didn't get started on my ride until 8:30pm. My ride and stretching weren't over until almost 11:30pm, which is after I normally go to sleep. I am using the late night and Sarah's traveling to justify my  pushing of rest day to today instead of Friday. That will allow me to not have to figure out how to handle Haley while I go on my run.

We did play all night instead of turning on the TV last night. Most of our time was spent on blocks. While she might have had a little help, we were able to  make a nice castle. Thankfully I wore her out last night, because she let me sleep in until 6:40am today. She was just playing in her room instead of coming into ours and waking me up.

We have a busy weekend coming up. I have a long ride and run this weekend. Somebody from SolarCity is coming out to give us an estimate on what electricity costs would be if we  installed panels. I have my bike fit, Sarah has a friend in town from London, and we're trying to get to Home Depot to price out new counter tops. Plus I'd like to get to Runner's Roost to see about getting some new  shoes. Mine are starting to get worn out and the pronate is amplified, which might be causing some of my calf issues.

It's just sprinkling. I'll keep running.

Tuesday workout:
Morning: 1000 yard swim - 300 yard warm-up; 10 x 50, 10" rest; 200 yard cool down

Evening : 40 minute run
Evening result: 4.27 miles / 205 feet climbing / average heart rate 157 bpm

...And it's hailing. About 1.5 miles into my run the light rain turned to a real storm and hail. Thankfully it was only pea-sized, so I just kept running. The run is my large "block" on the major streets around our house.

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The swim was uneventful. Worked with Peter a bit more on my breathing. I'm definitely getting more efficient, but the shortcomings of my strength are apparent.

My training log and schedule can be found shared on my Google Drive. Feel free to pull it down to see how the training is going and what is coming up next. As you can see, things are going to start getting intense, especially once we start to get into the 2 hour run range.

I did receive a follow-up email from the race promoter of last weekend's race. Apparently they are going to be taking a large portion of the climb out of the run for next year. not very many people were happy about the hill climb.

Here are links to a few of the race pictures:
Bike
Run 1
Run 2
Clearly not a lot of happy in those run pictures, but I wasn't doing it to be happy during the race.

I also found that the local running store, Runner's Roost, has Thursday group runs in the evening. I'm hoping to get involved in those soon. Sarah is out of town for two days this week, so I will have to try for next week.

Yep. It's Monday again.

Monday Workout:
Morning: 1000 yard swim - 300 yard warm-up; 5x100, 15" rest; 200 yard cool down
Morning Result: 500 yard swim / 9:52 minutes

Evening: 20 mile ride
Evening Result: 20 miles / 1:11 hours / average heart rate 127 bpm

I didn't workout yesterday because of the race Saturday. The training program says to consider a race day both weekend days of training. Given how piss poor the run in the race was, I should have run yesterday, but what can you do. We spent most of Sunday looking at counter tops. We are thinking about refinishing the kitchen, so we are doing our research currently. Choosing a material and pattern (would you call natural shaping a pattern?) is amazingly difficult.

I got a good swim in this morning. At 100 yards, today's intervals are the longest I have done so far. I didn't feel like I was going to asphyxiate from lack of oxygen until the last lap, which is a step in the right direction. I also did my second fastest at speed 500 yard block, and it was longer intervals.

Bike was another PR. For my bike "off" day, it's the fastest average speed and lowest average heart rate to date.

We'll see how tomorrow's run plays out. I have been having incessant cramping in my left calf when I run and I can't figure out why. I have a feeling that my pronation has killed the outside edge of my shoes and proceeded to force additional roll to the outside. Who knows. My shoes have about 500 miles of running and walking in them, so it's probably time for a new pair anyways.

 Sarah took a few good (and bad) pictures from the race over the weekend. I've pulled a few together from the cell phones. Supposedly there were also pictures on the nice camera, but I haven't seen them.A couple of Haley looking cute as always. And a couple of the fat boy. It's hard to tell that I've already lost 20 pounds. It just means that I have that much farther to go.

Fat boy or the green whale? Your call

Haley had her 2 year appointment today. She's 36" tall and still comfortably in the 99th percentile for height. Doctor is estimating her at being 5'10". She's going to be a ridiculously cute, tall chick. What did I do to deserve this? (Rhetorical question)

That's a whole lot of man meat on some spindly ass legs. Also, how cute is she with her backpack?

The results are in!

Saturday workout:
Lookout Mountain Sprint Tri: 1:33:24 / 5th of 9 in age group
Swim: 525 yards / 10:36 minutes / 4th in age group
Bike: 10 miles / 1139 feet climb / 41:39 minutes / 5th in age group
Run:  5k / 385 feet climb / 36:51 / 8th in age group

And I came up just short on the goal of upper half of my age group. 

The swim went well, but I got very winded, very quickly. The suggestions Peter had for my stroke made a huge difference and I ended up catching the person that started almost a length ahead of me. With the stoke being more efficient, I am taking less breaths per length, which mean I am breathing less. I expected that to be an issue, but didn't factor in the elevation change. The race was at 7800 feet vs. 5800 feet where we live. The reduction of oxygen took me from being winded at the end of lap 6 to lap 4.5. I definitely was taking breaks at the ends of the pool. If I could go through without stopping, I would probably be in the low 9 minute rage.

First transition was smooth. I forgot to bring a second towel so I had to use my event t-shirt instead. I need to make sure that I take a GU while I am in the transition zone as it's harder when you start moving.

Bike went, not surprisingly, well. It started with a long, fast downhill and proceeded to a relatively steep first mile climb. There was no warmup, which was unpleasant. From that point, it varied between steep climb and descent. The climbs were steep, so carry speed on descents was critical. Given my comfort at reckless speed descents, I was able to take advantage of it quite a bit. Once I ran out of momentum though, the climbs were grueling.

Transition two was also smooth. I had laid everything out cleanly before and it made a difference in my turn-around time. I will probably get a number belt, as it took extra time to get the safety pins for the number into my jersey. Still need to focus on eating GU and Bloks in the transition area.

No shocker but the run was by far my weakest leg. It was incredibly hilly, which is not something that I have been training for. It took about a quarter-mile to get my legs working properly. The first half-mile wasn't bad, then it turned straight up. I ended up power walking a lot of the hills, as I just didn't have the power to run up them. My average mile speed was 12:10 per mile, which is ghastly compared to my training run times. I must work on my running.

Looking at everybody else in my category, I am thinking that I should have registered for Clydesdale. In my age group, there were a whole bunch of skinny guys, and then my wookie self.

Results for the race can be found here. I was competing in Men's 30-34