Ben’s Training Blog

It’s been a pretty stress filled spring for me and I am realizing that my races take a very very low priority this year.  I have been stretched way to thin and not able to fulling devote the time needed to important people in my life. So as of now, I’m not really doing much as far as active race traing. My wife and kids come first and with the outcome of Hannah’s situation being uncertian, I don’t even care about racing now. So we’ll see what happens, but I’m not going to be updating anything for a while.

~Ben

I have been bike commuting to work now for a couple weeks and that has helped pound out a lot of miles.  On Saturday is was pretty nice out so I investigated a new connection path that dumps right into Bunker Hills regional park and a larger network of trails. I was pretty excited to find that since I can cut out a very sketchy 1 mile section of road by my house that has about a 6 inch shoulder and a lot of debris/potholes.  On Monday, I did my 48 mile bike route and then followed up with a 1/2 mile swim at the pool.  Felt pretty good and only experienced a slight amount of soreness in my right shoulder.  Which doesn’t surprise me since that shoulder tends to feel sore after I push it a bit. 

I’m a litle concerned about my lack of training on the running side of things. I have been running a couple days a week, but usually for only 3-4 miles at a time.  If I don’t get my butt into gear, I’m going to really regret not putting in more base miles come race time for my longer races.

I did pick up a few new pieces of gear recently that I am stoked about.

• New shoes: I have been using the asics 21xx series for a couple years now and it was time to replace my 2130’s from last year with some new 2140’s.  They are almost broken in now and I really like the new shoe feel after they loosen up a bit. 
• Bike Light: Princeton Tec Yukon Extreme Bike Light.  I have been leaving my house as dawn and that can be a bit scary at times.  So I picked up a stronger bike light from chainlove.com when it was 75% off.  I like it a lot and it’s pretty light for it’s power.
• Sunglasses: Nike Skylon EXP RD.  I broke my cheapo glasses last year and have been looking around for some cheaper nice glasses that offer light amplifying lenses.  These come with both smoke (gray) and also some awesome orange lenses that really boost the light.  These are great glasses.

After talking with Rachel about this summer’s race schedule, I signed up for the Turtleman Triathlon and Rachel signed up for the MinneMan Triathlon.  We were planning on doing the Timberman triathlon up in Grand Rapids in July, but we have had some conflicts come up and we are not sure we can do it now.  This was going to be Rachel’s first tri and she still really wants to do one. The MinneMan is just up the road from us and has a “Novice” class, so it should be perfect for her. 

I’m very excited about the Turleman as its about 1 month before my Half Iron man and should be a good dry run for me on the longer swim distance.  It is pretty close to use as well and will be easy to get to in the morning. 

Tonight I am going swimming, I didn’t get much sleep last night, so its going to be a drill workout I think.  I am still pretty bad at breathing on my non-normal side, so I may work on that tonight. 

~Ben

It’s been such a long winter that I nearly forgot what it felt like to bike the 20 miles to work.  Yesterday’s huge warm up cleared all the ice and snow from the paths, so my ride in was pretty easy going.   There even was a few street sweepers out clearing off all bike lanes.  I was a little worried about flatting out on the way in since there is usually a lot of junk on the roads in the spring.   Since it was my first time out for the year, I took it a little easier then I normally would and I averaged 19.2mph over the course of the trip in.  Total time was 72 minutes because of having to stop frequently once I get into the downtown area and then wait for the lights to change.

Highlights of the ride in:

• Wildlife: I saw a total of 13 deer, 1 fox, and countless ducks, gulls and other birds.
• Sunrise over the Mississippi river just as I was crossing the Coon Rapids River Dam
• Fog nestled into marshes along the Mississippi river.  The sun was just burning off the fog, but I was riding along side the entire area for about 4 miles and it was stuffing to see the sun bursting through it all.

I can’t wait for my ride home tonight.

-Ben

I am so sick of the icy grip of winter here in Minnesota.  It just can’t seem to be nice for more then a day or two. I am really itching to get outside more to bike and run.  The pool has been close for the past week for spring break and at the same time we received 4-6 inches of snow, so I’m going a little nuts right now. Thankfully this weekend looks decent and I should be able to get a ride in, at least that’s the plan for now. 

Planning ahead. . .

I have my first race of the season in 9 weeks (Oakdale Classic Duathlon).  With that on the calendar, I really need to start with my base prep workouts soon.  Next week looks like highs in the mid teens, so we’ll see if I get the motivation to run in that. The good news is that Daylight Savings will add an hour of light to my evenings, so I’ll have light until 7pm now.  I can deal with a little cold as long as I have some sun on me.

In order to get my base miles down for biking, I have decided to commute to work more aggressively this year.  Last year it was more of a “when I feel like it” kind of bike commuting schedule.  That worked out okay since that triathlon had a 18 mile bike distance.  This year I have multiple races building up to a Half Iron Man distance Triathlon that has a 54 mile bike distance.  So I need to put a ton of base miles both running and biking to I can work on speed work later.  In order to get those miles on the bike, I am going to be biking to work at least 4 of the 5 days a week starting the week of April 1st.  I currently take a bus most of the way to my job located in Downtown Minneapolis and I have a highly discounted bus pass through my employer.  I made the call yesterday to turn that off (saving me 52 dollars a month).  The idea is that this will motivate me to ride most of the time since I hate wasting money on parking and bus fees.  My commute is 18-20 miles each way, so I’d be putting in a total of around 40 miles a day.  I will also put in some long slow 50-75 mile rides on weekends to get used to being on my saddle for that long.  Since my capstone race will be in the middle of September, I am also expecting to be racing in cool weather.  So getting some miles in now no matter the weather conditions, will be great training for that.

My commuting route to work:

Running short on time and need to get there faster route: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2612239

Fun route that I usually take since I like it better: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2612232

-Ben

Last night I wanted to do a Long Slow Distance (LSD) workout in the lap pool to see how well I could maintain my form after I began to get tired.  I started out with the goal of doing 32 laps  (1 mile in our pool) with only 1 stop if I needed it.  However, as soon as I felt my form go to hell, I was going to quit.  No sense in drilling down on bad form and making that a habit.  I started out with a 1 lap warm up and stretched out my arms/shoulders a bit.  From there I just slipped into a zone and checked out for a while.  I really never got tired and was able to keep my balance pretty well throughout the entire swim.  I have been really trying to develop a better sense of balance and awareness while I’m swimming.  I began reading “Total Immersion Swimming” about 4 moths ago and the difference between last year and this year has been pretty incredible. I highly recommend reading it if you want to feel more natural in the water and actually enjoy what your doing.  I am going to try and do a LSD workout every week now to push the distances I’m comfortable with.

• Warm-up: 1 lap
• Main workout: 32 laps
• Cool down: 3 laps
• Total time: around 30-35 minutes

~Ben

I was having a hard time getting the motivation Tuesday to do my usual sets in the pool.  So Kevin and I mixed it up today by doing some different stroke drills.  I hadn’t do the breast and side stroke in forever, so it was kinda fun to refresh myself with them.  I’m not even sure how many drills we did, but we swam for about 45 minutes in total and had a pretty awesome time with it.  When I was a kid, my friends and I would see how far we could swim underwater without coming up for air.  Well I thought, since today is a fun day, lets try that out again.  I was surprised to see that I could swim 25 yards underwater on one breath and that was after we had been swimming for a while.  Would be interesting to see how far I could go if I wasn’t half tired already.

Thursday’s going to be a long slow distance day for me.  I need to pop the “Scary Distance” mental block and start getting used to swimming for 1-2 miles. 

~Ben

I have been itching to lace up my shoes and go for a run outside.  Well today I had the day off and it was a sunny 15 degrees outside, so I went for it.  I had picked up a cool weather breathable jacket earlier today and curious as to how it would perform in the somewhat cold weather. I had been using some hard-shell windbreakers in the past, but they didn’t breath very well and I usually ended up getting cold because the sweat wasn’t able to escape.  I started out on a 1 mile warm-up down to the Coon Creek Park. I love this park because they made almost 5 miles of path that follows a series of small creeks that cut right through dense forest.  Once I was done with my warm-up today, I stretched out a bit at the entrance and then started off by carefully running over a large patch of ice that greeted me.  Last summer I used my bike to mark out mile markers so I could chart my distances better.  Today I ran 1 mile out along the path before I turned around to make my way back to the entrance and then on my way home again.  The water is quickly eating away at the ice and the snow is almost all gone at this point.  It still smelled like winter, but I was remembering runs last spring when I would be caught in a downpour of rain. As much as I can’t wait to be out in shorts and a t-shirt again, just being outside with the sun blasting me in the face was more then enough for me today.  One my last gruelling hill-climb, I purposely left some of the daily drama at the base of the hill.  I was tired of carrying it with me all day and didn’t want to bring it back with me.

I can’t wait for my next run

~Ben

- - - - - - - - -

Distance:  1 mile warm-up, 3 mile main run, 1/4 mile cool down

Time: no idea, it was for fun today.

Effort: RPE 3

Rachel and I had our second daughter on the 31st of January, so the last two weeks have been a readjustment to just about everything.  I did manage to swim 3 times in the past two weeks, but very little else as far as working out.  My weight has held pretty constant and my diet has been pretty normal.  So at least I haven’t gained any weight over my little relapse.

After last weeks fun time with flu, I eased into this week for a couple days.  On monday night I did my usual 30 minute shred circuit workout and felt like somebody had drop kicked me.  I am still on level two, but I think I was going a little deeper into all the positions.  My legs have been sore everyday since then and I have had that sore leg waddle going on.  Tuesday is swim night with Kevin, so we went out and worked on some new balance drills.  I have been reading the Total Immersion swimming book for the past week and it has completely changed my style for the better.  It is still a little foreign to me, but I’m sure it will feel natural by the time I am racing this summer.

On wednesday, I felt pretty miserable all day at work and didn’t get much more then 3 hours of sleep the night before. So I took the day off to rest and get caught up on things around the house before baby Hannah comes.

Tonight, I felt awesome.  I did a 50meter warmup and then 1600m lap swim broken into 4 sets.  I only gave myself a 1-2 minute break between sets to keep my heart rate up and my body loose.  For a cool down we did 150 meter mix of walks and side steps.  All and all a great workout and I feel really good.  This was a good confidence booster for me and I will have to do longer distances more often.

~Ben