Phew, we made it through this block

What a solid week!!  Jaime and I just wrapped up our 2nd three week block of training today.  I think we are both very ready for a recovery week to recharge our bodies.  We both had a really solid week, capped off by a nice, relatively speaking, weekend.  In addition to good training sessions, we went to a comedy club in Westminster on Friday night which was a really good time.  Good to get some laughs!

This weekend had a nice long run on Saturday around Bear Creek Lake park, then a long swim at Wheat Ridge Rec Center.  Today we had a nice long ride from Morrison to Golden, 3 trips up lookout mountain, and back to Morrison.  The ride was very well attended by the Adrenalin powered by EPC team with a good combination of various paces.  It was so nice to finally get back outside.  I think I actually got a bit of a sunburn on my face today!  Not positive, but I think I set a PR up lookout on the first trip up.  I'll have to go back through my training logs to find out.

Next week will be a much needed recovery week for Jaime and I.  I'm really looking forward to doing the next round of swim and run fitness tests after some days of light activity and recovery to see where my fitness is at.

It is looking like the plan to qualify for the World Champs at the race in Alabama has had a wrench thrown in.  The Alabama race is now the ITU world championships, so I will now attempt to qualify at the West Championship race in Las Vegas in less than 2 months (yikes!).  Press release here:  http://www.xterraplanet.com/news/press_article.cfm?id=3200 
This is relatively suboptimal, since I'm really just building back the fitness from last year and most of the athletes in the southwestern part of the country are in the middle part of their season.  I will go and do my best and if things work out, great, otherwise, I'm not going to get too worked up over it.

There were 2 great paleo meals that we made this week.  On Saturday night Jaime went out to dinner for a girls night, so I made a grilled flank steak with my favorite rub and sauteed onions, peppers and garlic, with roasted Yam chips.  The key to this steak is the rub.  It is a mixture of cocoa powder, ancho chili powder, garlic powder, cinnamon, salt and pepper.  You can play around with the proportions, but generally speaking I like to go in declining % of the total as ancho, then cocoa, then garlic, cinnamon, salt, pepper.  Rub the steak down, brush with extra virgin olive oil and grill to medium rare.  I prefer to cook the food while listening to my Wilco station on pandora on the TV, but that is your call.  Top the steak with the onions and peppers, serve with the chips on the side.  Delicious!

 The other good paleo meal was sauteed salmon with roasted butternut squash, crispy kale chips, all dressed with a maple sherry vinaigrette.  Kale chips may be my new favorite food.

My favorite workout this week was probably today's ride.  We had a solid group out there today and pushed each other.  Best workout song was Moth by Audioslave, which came on during Wednesday's AeT run (which happened to be one of my best runs of the year).

Keep training hard and don't forget to rest when you body says to.

NS

New stuff is fun!

Last week was a big week for me.  I took the plunge and bought my first new bike since Jaime and I got married 3+ years ago.  It certainly doesn't seem like I've been riding my Specialized S-Works Epic for that long, but it's true.  I went with the Cannondale Flash Carbon 29er 1.  That was definitely the highlight of the week for me, even though the time spent at the shop cost me a run.


The week started off pretty bad training wise, with some stomach problems from some evil non-paleo superbowl food, then we had some visitors, then the night at the shop.  Things got on track Thursday and I pushed it pretty hard through the weekend.  I netted 2 swims, 3 runs and 2 rides, plus one day of weights/core.  Not bad considering I missed 3 days.  Extra recovery isn't necessarily a bad thing though.  Better to be 10% undertrained than 1% overtrained, or so some very smart people have said.

It was another pretty rough weather weekend.  A small, hardy group of 5 joined in on the Saturday run.  We cut it to about 1:15:00 since it was about 7 degrees out when we started.  Snow and cold temps kept the riding inside again, so I had another 3 hour cruise in the living room.  Here's how that went:
 
Description, Time, Watts


Warm up, 10
Spin up 90-120 rpm, 3
easy, 1
Spin up 90-150, rpm 3
easy, 1
Big gear ILT, 7
easy, 1
Easy gear ILT, 6
easy, 2
Standing Climb 50-60 RPM, 15, 210-220
easy, 2
Seated Climb 50-60 RPM, 15, 210-220
easy, 2
Standing Climb 50-60 RPM, 15, 210-220
easy, 2
Seated Climb 50-60 RPM, 15, 210-220
easy, 5
Endurance, 5, 170
Tempo, 10, 200
Sweet Spot, 5, 215
easy, 5
Endurance, 5, 170
Tempo, 10, 200
Sweet Spot, 5, 215
easy, 5
Endurance, 5, 170
Tempo, 10, 200
Sweet Spot, 5, 215
Spin out at 110-120 rpm, 3
Easy, 2

Hopefully I won't have to do that again, but the odds are not in my favor.

Song of the week:  Running up that hill by Placebo.

Goals are Powerful Motivators

Another week is in the books.  Last week was a solid week despite the huge snowstorm last Friday.  I managed to get in 3 swims, 3 runs and 3 rides, along with 2 strength sessions.  The weekend training was where the goals as powerful motivators came into play.  Jaime and I did our long run on the track and treadmill on Saturday for 1.5-1.75 hours, then swam for about an hour.  The next day, we followed it up by riding our trainers for 2-3 hours.  Talk about boring.  If it wasn't for the goal of getting faster and qualifying for worlds, those workouts would have been pretty much impossible for me to mentally get through. 



We finished up the week by going to a friends house for the Superbowl.  Great game, tasty food, but when you don't eat outside of the paleo diet, it really hurts the stomach when you do. 

Best workout song of the week was definitely Renegade by The Styx.  Heard it during Tuesday's trainer class, and it came back on during the long run on Saturday.  Oldie but a goodie!

That's all for now.  Remember, spring will be here soon.