Thursday, October 21, 2010

FTP, Speed work and abs

I really enjoyed the BQ dialog in the comments.  I wonder - would the race fill just as fast regardless of the qualifying times?  I bet there are 25,000 people that could qualify at almost any time.  How many people qualify for the New York City Marathon?

I was exhausted after the weekend. 4:30AM Monday morning felt like it came early. I woke up in time for Adult Swim but I 86’d the session. I just don’t think I could have mustered a good performance. I got an extra 2 hours of sleep. I did not regret this decision.


At lunch I did jump in the pool. I did a warm up and cool down but in between I did 5 x 200 yards at a hard effort. I was trying to see if I was indeed faster than before. I thought back to my first 200 yard time trial – damn I smoked that thing. I remember that Raland was in the next lane and I was trying as hard as I could. Well, I was not able to beat that 2:44 from the very first time trial. I had a couple in the high 2:40’s and all were under 3:00 but I did not beat the initial swim time trial. Fitness wise I would say that I have progressed – I mean I was able to complete 5 efforts at close to my maximum but I did not edge the time lower.

After the swim I headed upstairs for a strength training session. I don’t think I have hit the weights since the Pump and Run (if you remember I was on the bench press a couple of times a week). I did not have a format but I have always loved chin ups (palms facing towards you). I remember when I was heaver and I could not even do one. The exercise was a challenge but I enjoyed the fact that you could do more and more whether you got stronger or lost weight. I still like the exercise. Anyway, I did 7 or 8 sets of chin ups – each to failure. I then played around with some machine rows and other such back work.



Monday night was another get together – I went to the monthly Poker Night. There was homemade lasagna and garlic bread and leftovers from the runner club meeting. I lost a couple of dollars and had a lot of fun.

I started anew on the training front for Tuesday. I woke up early and jumped on the trainer. I dialed in a single 20 minute effort at 10 watts higher than my previous best. I killed it like it was standing still. It was no problem. The effort was solid.

At lunch I planned on doing some intervals. It has been a couple of months since I have done structured speed work. I dragged Chad out with me to the trace. We dialed in 12 x quarter miles with 1:30 rest. All efforts should be at 1:30 (6 minutes per mile pace). This was achieved with several efforts in the low 1:20’s (like 1:21). The weather was cooler and the session was solid. I am not sure how we did these things when the temperature was 20 degrees warmer.

All Tuesday night my arms and abs and lats were killing me from the chin ups. I expected the lats to burn and even the arms to ache a little bit – but the abs? I know that we use our stabilized muscles all the time and especially in something like a chin up. However, I was surprised at the abdominal workout. I mean I am pretty damn active with the run, bike, swim and all the other stuff. I can’t believe that my abdominal strength deteriorated so easily without dedicated core workouts.

4 comments:

Ryan said...

Hercules Hercules!

I struggle just to lift the bar up higher to do squats... I have never thought about putting weights on it to lift up and down using my arms. People really do that? Ha!

Luke said...

FTP!!! Great job!!!

lindsay said...

I wonder how well-known the NYC qualifiers are. I didn't know I had NYCQ'd until someone tol me you could even do that. I know when I ran it last year te qualified window is open for a period of time an you can register then, before it goes to lottery. Wonder how many spots are set aside hmm.

Jason said...

I am from NY and I knew there was a qualifying time but it is just not like Boston in terms of knowledge of qualifying. People talk more about the lottery of NYC then Boston so I'm not sure how many people even know that they have qualified for NYC.