You have seen the best, now the rest

I agree, that 88 MPH on Tyler Farrar’s Stage 3 win seems questionable – even fantastic.  But if you look at the speed chart it is not even a spike – there is a large block at the end of the stage that is 70+ MPH.  INCREDIBLE. -

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/97231307

Now for the rest.  I decided to jump on the Wednesday Night Race Ride.  I rode these most weeks last year but this is the first time this year.  This is the “You better know your way home because your gunna get dropped” ride.

And you know what?  I had a fantastic time.  I sat in, didn’t take any real pulls until the end and finished strong.  Here are the stats:

Distance:  34.39 miles
avg speed:  21.7 (22.1 for just the group ride)
max speed:  35.3 MPH (??? seems high)
elevation gain: 876 feet
Not as impressive as the Garmin Cervelo crew but a good effort.

Wednesday Night Race - BREAKING AWAY

After Tuesday Night’s Trek the Trace I had another early morning with the Master’s Swim. Now I am an early riser. I am almost always awake around 5AM; however, I am rarely out the door at 5AM. This is an adjustment.


Master’s Swim was more drills focusing on balance, form and general mechanics. Coach Steve says that once you have the dynamics of swimming down pat then adding speed is the easy part. I could not agree more. Swimming is not like running! If I want to run faster I just run harder. In swimming this just makes you tired quicker – there is no speed gained.

At lunch I was back on the treadmill – massive rain outside. I got another 6 miles in at an 8 minute pace. I have been loving me some treadmill.

I had planned on riding to work and I even put my fancy light on the bike. However, because of the rain I had had to drive into work. That meant I had to drive home and hop on my bike. I got to the ride just in time. There would only be 5 of us for tonight’s ride. I would definitely be sucking a wheel. My legs were tired and all of the others are strong riders. We have started riding a loop out in the countryside. It has a little bit of everything. A couple of hills, some perfect pavement and some crap. The loop takes about 12 – 15 minutes to complete. At the start of the second loop there was a two person breakaway. Matt and Raland were out front and pulling away. Butch told us to let them hang out in the wind for a while. The three of us, Butch, Ty and me just paced them. After the first loop Raland was blowing up and drifting back. Matt continued to put time into all of us.
Our little pace line of three absorbed Raland but Matt continued to stay out front. At the start of another lap we picked up the pace. We were gaining on Matt but it was slow. I felt like I was blowing up even on a wheel. I have never seen Matt that strong. At the end of the second lap we catch up to Matt and turned towards home. The ride was challenging and we still kept the pace high. There were attaches and sprints all the home.
Good times were had by all. Matt kept us honest and made us work our butts off. The R2W guys plus Raland and Keith have a road race this weekend. That should be exciting!

Running mileage and the Wednesday Night Ride

I am already signed up for the Mardi Gras marathon at the end of February and I will soon sign up for the Boston Marathon on Patriot’s Day (April). So I have started to increase my running mileage. I have really been slacking in the mileage. And on top of that all my runs have been at intensity. I have been running stadiums, tempos and intervals exclusively. I have enjoyed the intensity but I have dwindled my base.

So, over the next 3 months I have going to increase my running mileage to approximately 50 miles per week. After that I am going to cut back for several weeks and then resume training. I would like to run all of the build races that I did last year leading up to the Mardi Gras marathon. However, this time I would like to max out at close to 70 miles a week. If I can accomplish these goals progressively and injury free then I truly believe a sub 3 hour marathon is possible.

The heat has been overwhelming but I have managed several runs at the noon hour. The heat has taken a toll on the pace but they have been solid runs. My mileage this week is at nearly 20 miles.

Now back to the current. I have received so many positive responses’ regarding http://hattiesburgmultisport.com/ . I have added a calendar of standing group rides, runs and swims. The calendar has really filled out. Just a little bit of PR has gone a long ways.

The Wednesday Night Ride Race had a huge turnout! There were 13 people who showed up and the race did not disappoint. The peloton was primary pulled by only two people and everyone else was holding on for dear life. The group did eventual get split in half but it was a lot of fun for everyone. I do not know the exact mileage or speed but there were several stretches at 28 – 29 MPH. It was challenging, brutal and a whole lot of fun!

When I got home I looked like I had just gotten out of the swimming pool. I was soaked to the core from the intensity.

The return of the STADIUMS

I slept in just a little bit this morning. I got up at 5:30AM instead of the usual 5:00AM. It felt pretty good getting the extra sleep. I have a cup of coffee (no sweetener or anything – not on the diet) and prepared my meals for the day. The structure of the meals has been good for me. I like many concepts and had previously adopted them – so conforming to this diet has been easy. I like numerous small means. I like healthy food. This has simply refined the process. I made myself breakfast, lunch and an afternoon snack. I will report after the first week on what has worked and what I need to improve on.  But so far it has helped me redefine some of my habits! 

I then hopped on the bike. I took it easy this morning and just rode the bike to work.

English muffin, two eggs, tomato, and avacodo - yum

Well, I’m still playing and not training. But I am having good time. I was planning on swimming at lunch but I got to the gym and noticed that my goggles were at my desk. Well, the race was last weekend so I guess I could go ahead and kill it for lunch. It was supposed to be 98 degrees outside and it felt like it.

We made our way to the STADIUMS. It was hot. I have not done the STADIUMS in several months. I will be sore tomorrow from the stairs. I like to run up every other stair as fast as I can and control the recovery. There is no lollygagging. Every rep is intense! The fastest that we have done this is 15 seconds up and 1:15 recovery – the amount of time it takes for you to get back down the stairs and ready for the next set. If you run down the steps you will have about 40 seconds to recover. As will all intervals the first few are no problem. It is only with the building work load that you start to suffer. I ended up doing 21 sets! I was pleases with the result considering that I have not done the in so long and the intense heat!

One of the early reps - Vic right on my tail.

I really had second thoughts about the Wednesday night race ride. My legs were fatigued from the STADIUMS. As I left campus Steven (the guy visiting from Purdue) joined me at the stop light. We rode out to Jackson Station together for the ride. When we arrived I was surprised at how many people had come out considering the heat. There were 8 or 10 of us and we picked up a couple more while on the trace. As soon as we left the trace Sam sprinted ahead. There was a huge gap opening up and I gave it a hard effort to bridge it. So, there I was, only a minute or two into the real ride and I was blowing up. My heart rate reached 181 BPM – it is not often that my heart beats that fast during cycling. I was happy to have some riders join me. I quickly grabbed a wheel. I would spend most of the rest of the ride holding on to the end of the train. I never got dropped but I sure didn’t pull much during the ride. With my commute I again got about 39 miles on a Wednesday. You add that to the 30 I get on each of the Tuesday / Thursday rides (including commute) and my weekday mileage is adding up – I am getting about 100 miles a week Monday – Friday. The weekends are just gravy! I really should be logging this stuff better – no training equals no longing. I guess I still have the Garmin website!