Stationary Bike

I'm in Raleigh Durham for 18 hours and it's a hot day in the upper 80's with lots of humidity. I had time on my hands, but I'm recovering from a cold and running outside just wasn't in the cards. This is when it's a prime situation to hop on a stationary bike at the Four Points Sheraton near the airport where I was staying and put those bike muscles to work.

There isn't a correlation to the bike positioning, but hamstrings, quads, glutes and calves still get a workout. I also like practicing building those slow twitch muscles. I sat down with a book I'm reading and hit the random program to keep me from holding the same monotonous pace. Two and a half hours later I was cooked.

Even though this is not a high intensity workout I still had to take in calories twice since I was only drinking water to keep my blood sugar up. It's not a race environment, but practicing drinking on a fifteen minute schedule is always a good habit pattern to keep your body in. Even though this was more of a time in the saddle workout in a saddle a third the size of the one on my bike, I still made sure to focus on the things I can do to support future rides. When building towards a strong 112 mile ride in November two and half hours on a stationary bike here and there can still be a great building block if used effectively.

I was sore all over my legs and butt the rest of the day while sitting up in the cockpit for a five hour flight from Baltimore to Phoenix later that evening, but happy I made the time to get it in. This just makes those outside rides with the wind at my back that much sweeter when I can get them in.

Running Plan for the Foreseeable Future

My knees are a little sore, and my achilles pretty stiff. I rolled out of bed with my quads feeling like a bruise this morning as I walked over to grab Daelen from the crib. Nine miles is not that far, but every time a new distance is reached I'm hurting when that alarm goes off. This is where a little bit of strategy comes in regarding rest and recovery.

After the long runs, I'm putting a focus on getting that elusive seven hours of sleep. Human growth hormones come out at night and do the best part of the bodies healing. There is no need to have a long run more then once per week. This gives me a chance to heal when I've pushed my body to a new limit for the season. I'll only follow a long run with a zero impact activity such as biking, or swimming and not running. I've seen too many shin splints and hyper tension in the soles of feet. I'm not sure I would have had to get orthotics had I taken this advice. On the road I'll only come within two miles of my longest run of the season so that I'm only pushing it on familiar courses with support around I can call if something doesn't go as planned. Those rest days will be spent with multiple long stretching sessions to keep those muscles from getting overly tight.

I was told by my podiatrist to work up to the marathon distance and then go back to build up speed. That is exactly what I hope to do. Each week if possible I'll add a mile to my workout until reaching 20 miles and then I'll start over at 10 miles attempting to do it with more speed and focus. In the mean time, I'll use the road to get in those four to eight mile runs that keep you in check and help build up that cardiovascular threshold. This will be the first time I've enlisted a plan that put restrictions on my schedule, or my progress in order to preserve my body. I love that feeling half way through a long run knowing I've got that same distance to get back to my house. I'm just trying to give myself as many of those mornings as I can without having to fall victim to the dreaded injury bug.

Let the Ironman Training Begin

It's 2013 and the training for Ironman Arizona in November has begun. It was a beautiful morning leaving the house at 4:30 AM to get my first 9 mile run in of the year. Why did I leave so early? To be home in time for my 11 month old baby boy to wake up. This is my new training reality. I'm riding with the Firefighter as much as I can and since my feet are still adjusting to orthotics I have to keep the high impact training to a smaller percentage. This means more swimming and biking. I'm starting the training earlier in the season and attempting to just treat the whole year like some phase of training for a race. This hopefully marks the end of my days going out for the first run, or bike ride of the year going half the speed and hurting twice as bad the next day.

Thirty years old isn't anywhere near midlife, but it does come with more responsibilities, time constraints and not quite the recovery time of my mid twenties. I also have enough on my plate now that I truly look forward to fantasy football podcasts while running as the sun comes up. I feel relaxed sitting in the aero position grinding out the miles for the 37 miles to ride with the firefighter to work and back. I'm trying to be more responsible with training so that I don't hurt myself, and to eat better to get the most out of each day. When I trained for my first race it was a mountain to attack as hard as I could. Today it's my stress relief to get out of the way before Daelen(my 11 month old) wakes up in the morning. Either way, I'm shooting for my first under 11 hour race and hoping to stay healthy enough to pursue a few marathon PR's in the spring.