Ponyboy's Preseason Punishment

[ponyboy]

Yeah, but the scary thing is, not only am I enjoying it, but I'm not wasting away all my muscle at the same time.

Did a great swim workout yesterday - I got a new book on how to swim properly and it helped immediately. It told me to focus more on my stroke count, or the amount of arm strokes it takes to go one length of the pool. I did a lap just normally like I would swim anytime and I got 26 strokes.

Then I followed the principles of balance and slow movement, etc that the book described and ended up with 20 strokes! Plus I don't think my speed was any slower because my form was so much better. Over 750 meters that would be 300 strokes saved. Plus, once my form gets better I can probably drop that by another 4-5 strokes. Weird. The idea is to swim easier, not harder and reduce your drag so that you slide through the water like a fish rather than thrash around.

Running today - we'll see how it goes this week!

 

[ponyboy]

Did a good run yesterday at a bit slower pace than last week with one of the other trainers. We did about 9km with a break in the middle for about 10 minutes - I think it took us about 50 minutes in total. At the pace we were going yesterday I figure I can finish my half marathon.

With all this training I'm doing I'm really looking forward to racing in only six weeks. My first race is an easy 10k and my first goal is to break 50 minutes, which I have actually already done at this point.

Took today off from training and might do another swim workout tomorrow, but that's it - I can tell my body is getting tired.

 

[ponyboy]

Well, took Thursday off and then Friday I decided to push myself a little bit because I wasn't feeling 100% and figured I could use a good workout. I decided to do a 20km sprint on the stationary bike just to see how fast and how high I could get my heart rate. I set the bike at level 12, which seems to be a high enough level that there was some resistance but it wasn't killing me, probably equivalent to a nice cruising gear on my bike.

Results: 20km (or 12.5 miles) in 26 minutes. I was hammering at about 100-105 RPM's and my heart rate after the first 4 miles got up to about 150 and then stayed at around 160-170 for the remainder.

It's not like I could ever come close to that speed in real life, but it was fun to try it and see what happened. That would have me at a speed of 41.6 km/hour

Took yesterday off helping a friend paint her apartment and then today I'm going for a nice long run with my friend.

 

[P-funk]

when is the triathelon that you are planing on doing?

 

[ponyboy]

First one is only 8 weeks away, in the middle of May. It's actually a duathlon, which is a run-bike-run because the water is still too cold to swim in usually. My first real triathlon is in June.

May I've got a 10k race on the 2nd, the duathlon on the 16th and then the half marathon on the 30th. Going to be a busy month!

 

[P-funk]

damn, that is a lot of running! Good luck to you.

 

[ponyboy]

It's been a crazy week, so here's what I have gotten up to so far:

Monday - Bike workout - just did 45 minutes of riding, at a very slow pace because I wasn't feeling well. No point in killing myself if I'm only going to get worse.

Tuesday - played some squash with a client for about 30 minutes and that was about it.

Wednesday - Did a tempo run because I was feeling a bit better - only about 5km but I did 4 minutes easy pace, and then 1 minute hard pace with some changes thrown in every cycle. I did the 5km in under 30 minutes at a 1% incline as well, which is supposed to better mimic running outside and it still didn't feel extremely hard.

Today - Played some more squash with a client and then did some lifting for back, but I couldn't get into it. I gave up after a few sets of deadlifts and some cable pulls.

Tomorrow I'm going to try to get in a swim workout and if that doesn't work, then hopefully some core work.

 

[ponyboy]

Been having problems with my right leg this week - it is just very sore and tight - I've been stretching the snot out of myself for the past couple of days trying to get rid of it but it's not going away .

Sunday I ran 4km and did the same Tuesday. Today I biked for about 15 minutes and got through about 10k at Level 13, which is higher than normal and it felt just fine. It makes such a difference when you have something to distract you like a book or a TV show. I also played squash again yesterday and today for about 20-30 minutes each time.

Been trying to find time and motivation to get into the pool - but since I don't have to swim until July my motivation just isn't there.