Wburg Half Build 5

I did it! I biked Mountains of Misery conservatively, and ended up with a total time of 9:15, 6 hours of which, I was in Z1! I'll have to go back again some day to try a bit harder and see how much faster the day could have been.

So many hills!

After MoM, I was both elated and a little wistful that I'd potentially been too conservative. The next weekend, I turned that around with a hard brick, where I tried out riding at my HIM goal power, and then running how I'd like to run the last hour of the race. I hope that the flatter WBurg course helps me see the speed outcomes that I'd like to see, but at least I know I can put out effort, and as long as I'm not making myself into a non-aero wind-block while working hard, it should be a great day.

Mini-goal assessment

• Build strength - Get to all scheduled bootcamps, and two SolidCore classes - Almost -- I only made it to one SolidCore class, and missed bootcamp the day after MoM. 
• Do MoM in a 2016-brave-flexible frame of mind - Success! Even at the end, when the penultimate hills shoed up, I was ready to see what they held for me.
• Maintain health - Do PT exercises for hip and shoulder 4x per week - Success! I have some tune-up appointments scheduled for this next build, but overall, I've at least been slowing the rate of injury on my own
• Look forward - The "A" race is Williamsburg - start race-specific work with a focused brick - Success! After Mountains I am a little worried that I haven't spend enough time biking and running at a harder effort level, so I dialed it up with a challenging brick

Review of last three weeks

• 8 Yoga
• 4 Strength
• Swam
• 5 practices
• 1 open water half mile at Rock Hall Sprint Relay
• Ran
• 3 Run Lead
• 3 track practices
• 0 midweek easy runs
• 12 mi long run
• 6 mi hard run as part of brick
• Biked
• 3 outdoor bike rides
• 100 mi long ride - Mountains of Misery
• 30 mi long ride
• 24 mi bike commuting

Mini-goals for next build cycle

• Maintain health - Do PT exercises for hip and shoulder 4x per week
• Focus on "A" race - Make a race plan and get a hotel already!

Wburg Half Build 4

The last 3 weeks have flown by. I've definitely been pushing some limits for how much exercise my body can absorb, and did end up choosing sleep over exercise a few times in this build cycle.

I still feel strong, but the tired-ness has made it hard to consistently make rational food choices, so I think I'll be climbing up all the hills of Mountains of Misery with a few more pounds than I'd wanted.

So many hills!

Mini-goal assessment

• Build strength - Get to all scheduled bootcamps, and two SolidCore classes - Success! The strength is showing itself mostly in yoga, but I know my leg muscles are excited for this weekend
• Respect the event - Prep for Mountains with Culpeper ride and two weekday Alexandria-hills-toodles - Partial success. I rode well at Culpeper, enjoying my new 11-32 cassette, but didn't try my new hills-route out at all.
• Maintain health - Make PT appointments for hip and shoulder - Success! My hip is doing ok, and I have new exercises for thoracic mobility for my shoulder. It's exciting to think that after all these years of having a slightly angry right shoulder I could get it to feel better by doing some work on my own.

Review of last three weeks

• 8 Yoga
• 8 Strength
• Swam
• 5 practices
• 1 open water mile at Kinetic
• Ran
• 3 Run Lead
• 3 track practices
• 0 midweek easy runs
• 12 mi long run
• Biked
• 5 outdoor bike rides
• 90 mi long ride - Culpeper
• 50 mile long ride - Kinetic cheering

Mini-goals for next build cycle

• Build strength - Get to all scheduled bootcamps, and two SolidCore classes
• Do MoM in a 2016-brave-flexible frame of mind
• Maintain health - Do PT exercises for hip and shoulder 4x per week
• Look forward - The "A" race is Williamsburg - start race-specific work with a focused brick

Wburg Half Build 3

Tulips!

I can hardly believe I'm halfway through the builds for Williamsburg already! I still feel like I'm shaking off some of the running sluggishness from the winter and might have missed some of the glorious spring track practices when you are winter-run-focus-strong and the weather hasn't yet turned hot. I am pleased that my hip pain hasn't returned, and hope that yoga and strength will keep the imbalances at bay.

I'm feeling very strong on the bike, which is nice. In the last build cycle, we ended up with three long-hilly bike rides and I think that has translated nicely to extra strength. The rides aren't clocking in with a brisk speed, but I certainly feel good for early spring.

Speaking of biking, I just got some new bits for my bike, including an 11-32 cassette. I'd thought I had an 11-28 and wasn't strong enough to aerobically get up big hills, but once I took my bike into the store and took a close look at the rear wheel, I realized I had an 11-25, and am now super excited to take the strength I have an use physics to help me toodle lightly up steep inclines.

I also smushed in a few free trial CorePower yoga classes during this build cycle, but the classes I would've liked more didn't fit well with my schedule and I'm loving the yoga instructors I already have access to, so I didn't continue after the free trial.

I am feeling pretty tired, and if that doesn't turn around in the next few days, I might scale back a bit, but I'm hopeful that it is a transient thing related to regular training, not a symptom of looming over-training

Mini-goal assessment

• Build Strength - Get to all scheduled bootcamps, and two SolidCore classes - Success-ish! I made it to 4 TeamZ bootcamps, 2 CorePower "Yoga Sculpt" classes and 1 SolidCore class.
• Respect the event - Prep for Mountains with optional Culpeper ride - Success! This ride ended up being changed to a route that I believe was even harder, so I certainly did that!
• Celebrate spring - Get out to Cherry Blossom Parade or National Arboretum to see azaleas - Success! A rainy morning tried to derail my azalea trip, but a leisurely lunch at Union Market gave the skies time to clear up. It was beautiful!

Review of last three weeks

• 10 Yoga
• 7 Strength
• Swam
• 6 practices
• Ran
• 3 Run Lead
• 2 track practices
• 1 midweek easy runs
• 14 mi long run
• 12 mi long run
• Biked
• 4 outdoor bike rides
• 50 mi long ride - Harp Hill!
• 60 mi long ride - Ice Cream Social!
• 70 mi long ride - Hamburg!

Mid-ride break, with icecream and sunshine

Mini-goals for next build cycle

• Build strength - Get to all scheduled bootcamps, and two SolidCore classes
• Respect the event - Prep for Mountains with Culpeper ride and two weekday Alexandria-hills-toodles
• Maintain health - Make PT appointments for hip and shoulder

Swim notes

I sort of quit swimming after IMChoo for a few months, and it's been  interesting trying to get back up to last spring's strong numbers. Interesting might not be quite the right word :)

I was not 2016-brave-flexible enough to sign up for the 1000yd race at Colony Zones this year to see how my racing self compared to last year's racing self, but have some glimmers that triathlon racing might work out ok. Yesterday we had a main set of 200y, 400y, 800y, 400y, 200y with the goal of even pacing. We ran out of time for the last 200, but the times were 3:22, 6:46, 13:25, 6:45, which are a 1:40 to 1:41 pace, so I'll take it! I was leading the lane, and using the clock to help, so it wasn't intuitive swim pacing like I did last year when I did a similar set around the equivalent pace in a 25m pool, but it's a good sign.

Other positive swim things:

1. I am stronger in many ways than I was last year at this time, and am working on increasing physical flexibility, thanks to the 2016-yoga-thon. I think this will help if I start to increase the volume of my swimming
   
2. I am working on correcting my hip drop in running, and am working on translating that awareness to fixing the very similar hip-rise that I'm doing on the opposite side for swimming
   
3. I have new toys coming to try to fix this! Yay toys! First off is a snorkle so I can work on just swimming with symmetric rotation and remove all the weird things I do while breathing. Second is also something that should help with symmetry, and hopefully also timing. This thing (called the "Tech Toc") looks a little ridiculous, but I'm curious to try it out, and we had a half-price discount code through the masters swimming team, and half price toys are twice as good as full-price toys, right?

Hopefully I'll get to add some more noteworthy progress results to my swim log, moving forward.

Brave Flexibility as applied to 2016

If it were easy for me to be brave or flexible, I probably wouldn't have started this year with those as my focus words. Attempting to use these words in my life is a work in progress, and sometimes a non-work in non-progress when I just give up on it all together and cautiously choose a prescribed plan that has worked before.

The idea of having a focus word for the year came from a meeting with the dietitian I've worked with. We started with flexible, since I had few goals for the year at that point except trying to get to yoga more often. I can't recall what motivated me to add brave to the list, but it's been with me for a few months now and I like the challenge the two present.

Brave

Things that have been brave

• Attempting, repeatedly, crow pose in yoga, especially after having my first crow flop where it all fell apart. While I magically recovered to end up on all 4s after that, it was still pretty scary, and going back to crow after that flop was even harder than trying it the first time
• Attempting headstand in yoga. This is requiring a lot of trust in myself when I do it without help, and trust in the instructor when she helps me get into it. It feels brave to challenge my body to support me in such a strange way.
• Signing up for Mountains of Misery! This wasn't a purely brave choice; I had some FOMO and peer pressure to help it happen, but in the training already, I am trying to tackle climbs with an open heart instead of with unbridled fear, and at least it's decreasing the pre-worry, even if it isn't making my legs stronger :)
• Trying something new at work. This wasn't exactly my choice, but starting a new position last November has put me in a much less confident state at work. I am trying to bravely ask for help when I need it and confidently ask for clarification

Flexible

Things that have been flexible

• Showing up with an open mind to workouts, and then if something different happens, I am trying to go with it. This is hard!!
• Working on physical flexibility with a lot of yoga classes. 
• Going on new bike rides! Until starting to try some new routes, I hadn't realized how comforting it had gotten over the last few years that I have ridden enough that my "regular" routes are  known to me. 

Wburg Half Build 2

Spring with all of it's transient beauty and temperamental nature has been in full force this build cycle, with a cold blustery weekend morning that was rough enough that the bike ride was postponed, and then snow during a run the next weekend.

Back in the day (2 weeks earlier), we rode in anything, including snow flurries. That was both a wonderful and terrible ride -- wonderful because it revisited a route I'd done in December, and I felt much stronger, and terrible because it snowed a bit towards the end and I was in shorts since I'd been solidly denying the winter-y forecast for the day.

But it hasn't been all terrible weather surprises. There have been a number of clear days and bright, post-DST evenings that are designed for evening playtime. I found some great tulips on my runs, and also found an epic hill near work that will be with me long after the daffodils and tulips have gone for the year :)

Mini-goal assessment

• Do work - Increase swim practice participation - Success! I made it to 5 swim practices which is a lot more than I had been doing.
• Respect the event - Prep for Mountains with 60 mile bike ride on Easter - Success! I was planning to do this on my own, but was surprised to find friends out riding the same loop, so I got some great company and got the work done
• Celebrate spring - Get out to kite festival, rugby game or stay up to see fireworks - Success (barely!) I tried to sabotague getting to the kite festival by locking myself out of the house and having to wait for a locksmith. 

Review of last three weeks

• 9 Yoga
• 2 Strength
• Swam
• 5 practices
• Ran
• 3 Run Lead
• 3 midweek easy runs
• 10 mi long run
• 10 mi long run
• Biked
• 5 outdoor bike rides
• 60 mi long ride
• 50 mi long ride
• 10 assorted commute miles

Mini-goals for next build cycle

• Build strength - Get to all scheduled bootcamps, and two SolidCore classes
• Respect the event - Prep for Mountains with optional Culpeper ride
• Celebrate spring - Get out to Cherry Blossom Parade or National Arboretum to see azaleas.

2016 Goals

Like years past, I have quantifiable goals for 2016. Early in the year, someone asked me to pick some focus words for the year, and I started with "flexible" and have since added "brave"

With this as a focus, and with some new opportunities available to me since switching work locations last November, I have made yoga my biggest "stretch" (haha) goal for the year. Besides that I'm sticking with my regular goals of getting work done

• Run - 150 hours
• Bike - 200 hours
• Swim - 200 miles
• Strength - 36 times
• Yoga - 100 times

I felt like some of the mileage goals that I had used historically for running and biking were making me run harder than I should on easy days, so changed those to hours this year. Swimming is less variable, so I left that as a distance measure.

Last year's yoga goal was to attend 30 classes, but I only had 2 opportunities every three weeks. Now, with 3-4 opportunities per week, and a year of brave flexibility, I am really increasing that.

So far, I'm on track with the yoga and strength goals, ahead in running, and catching up on biking. I had a bit of a hissy fit at swimming after Ironman, and haven't been putting in the time I should, so am already feeling that goal will be un-achievable, but am looking forward to the summer when the outdoor 50m pool opens to try to get some easy distance in the sunshine.

Like last year, I'm reviving my mini-goals which give some focus to the build cycle.

My outcomes I hope to achieve with the work represented by these goals are to be competitive in my age group at races. In the marathon last year, I was in the top third of my age group, and in Ironman I was in the 40th percentile. I believe that some stronger biking and solid running will get me a top third outcome, and am eager to see how it can play out.