Things have been a bit hectic lately and as a result some things have been suffering. That includes my time to write any posts.

And, of course, time to train.

While I have been getting some training in and also doing the Tri-Fit classes, I haven’t been doing anywhere near as much as I should be.

Unless one of my Tri-Fit coaches are reading this; in which case I didn’t mean any of that, I’ve actually been training like crazy. Yeah, that’s what I really meant to say!

But that has all started to change this weekend. Along with my usual long walks with the girls, I got a run as well.

I also picked up some more running clothes to help get me a little more motivated.

And tomorrow night I will get the bike hooked back up to the trainer and log a few quality miles on that bad boy as well.

The weather is starting to warn up so it’s time to get serious about this stuff!

Later,
John W.
A Clydesdale in training

One of the tougher decisions, that I believe I’m getting closer to making, is how hard do I want to push myself in doing a half-marathon. I found one that I could do at the end of March, or one of two that I could do in the middle on May.

While I don’t mind pushing hard, I’m just not certain I can be ready to go by the end of March. So from that perspective alone I’m pretty sure which way I’ll go, but for now I’m keeping my options open.

Later,
John W.
A Clydesdale in training

And my lack of posting commitment should be evidence of that.

I mean come on think about; we are already into the training season, this past week was the third week of Tri-Fit and I’m still very nonchalant about my training habits.

For instance; Shelly went to the gym today and I didn’t consider going with her. Okay, so I did feel a little bad about it afterwards. But really only a little bit and I got over it pretty quickly.

My solution, start to pick out my races for the year.
In particular, I need to find my first tri so that I have that next race out there looming over my head.

I also need to find a couple of 5k’s in the next few months so that I can give myself some motivation to get out there and run some more.

I actually didn’t do all that bad at the Run into the New Year 5k given the fact that I hadn’t trained in quite a while. So if I can start to pick it up again and really focus on my running for a little while I might be able to finally crack that elusive sub 30 minute 5k that I’ve been trying for.

And yes, I have Tri-ing for Children’s that I know is coming up, but that is still a long ways off at this point. Or at least it seems that way.

So this weeks goal is simple and straight forward, I need to pick out a 5k race for each of the next 3 months and I need to figure out which race is going to be my first tri, and then get them written on the calendar.

It’s time to train!

Later,
John W.
A Clydesdale in training

But enough about that, back to our topic.

Nutrient is important; not just during a race or training, but all the time.

But more even more important than that would be proper nutrient. Once I really got into all the training and how both the training and the food that I ate affected me I realized something; food is fuel.

And you need the proper amount of it and the right type to make sure that your body performs correctly. If you don’t do that things can get out of whack fast.

And this past off season that is exactly what happened to me.

I burned out after the Devil’s Tri and just backed way off on my training. From there I all but completely stopped for most of November and December, with a few exceptions.

What I didn’t back way off of or stop was how much I was eating.

Now during peak training time I can eat like a machine and actually have to in order to see any kind of weight loss. If I do that, I can drop 4-5 pounds in a week. If I try to eat good and watch what I eat during that time I won’t drop any weight.

Shelly hates that, so if you see her in the summer time Don’t bring that up!

Well, once I stopped training I should have changed my eating habits. I didn’t and as a result of that I gained 20 pounds this past off season.

My Clydesdale status won’t be in jeopardy for a long, long time!

But, training has started back up and I’m now watching what I eat and making sure that it matches my workout schedule. So hopefully I can get rid of those 20 pounds pretty quickly.

Later,
John W.
A Clydesdale in training

Some of the highs came at work with some big opportunities popping up, but that meant that I had a lot on my plate that needed to be addressed. As a result, I had more than a few late nights.

Some of the lows, as mentioned, came from the weather with some seriously cold temps.

Thanks to the weather and the cold temps I even decided to scrap the walk on both Thursday and Friday. And to my surprise (okay not really), the girls didn’t fight me on that one bit. Although they did have a little cabin fever and were quite ready to go by the time Saturday morning rolled around.

All of that was just a long way around the point, and that is that I ended up calling this an off week and didn’t really get any training in.

But now that I’ve gotten a bit acclimated to the colder weather, I’m ready to pick things back up next week.

Later,
John W.
A Clydesdale in training

Ergo, if you stop training you can lose that technique very quickly. And I just discovered that the hard way this past Saturday when I got in the pool for the first time in over 2 months.

The lack of training hurt my running a bit, but overall I didn’t lose that much time and what little that I did lose I was able to get back pretty quickly. If anything suffered with my running it would be stamina. And I could pretty much same the same thing about the bike now that I’ve gotten back on it a few times.

But the swim! That’s a whole other story.
I really felt the lack of training right from the first few strokes and it never got any better from there.

On both my easy 100 and my fast 100; I was slower by over 15 seconds. That may not sound like a lot at first, but multiply that out to either a half or full mile and the number becomes significant.

And while I’ve never been the prettiest swimmer out there when I’m going all out for time, I could feel that even my slow pace was sloppy, ugly and anything but smooth.

Oh yeah, and I could really feel it in the muscles both right then and there as well as the next day.

Next time (hopefully I won’t, but you never know) I lose my motivation I need to make sure that it isn’t for as long of a period as it was this time.

I think the better thing to do is to just take some planned time off with a set schedule as to when training will start back up. That way I can let myself slack off for a little bit, but there is a fixed end to it rather than just flailing around aimlessly which is definitely what I did.

At least I’m back at it now, now the only trick is finding the time to get to the gym and get in the pool.

Later,
John W.
A Clydesdale in training

In working on this training plan Shelly got me from Runners World, one of the things that it makes you do is run at a pace slower than normal based on the info that you give it when you setup the plan.

At first this wasn’t an easy thing at all; the mile pace that it was asking me to maintain was only slightly faster than my walking pace. But, figuring that they know a thing or two about training people to run long distances, I thought what the heck I’ll give it a try.

Much to my amazement, I’m starting to see some improvement. I’m not quite able to maintain the exact pace that they setup, but I’m able to get close to it. And in doing so I no longer need to take a walking break during my runs; this has resulted in my 5k training times to be only slightly slower than what they were before.

Okay, I know that slightly slower is not faster like I mentioned in the title. But here is the kicker, I have energy at the end of the run to do just that; kick!

And at the end of each run I’ve been feeling stronger than the previous one. I’m still only doing my kick for the last .2 of a mile, but if I can keep feeling that much stronger each time that I would mean that I could start the kick sooner and see an improvement in my time.

At least that’s my theory.

But no matter what; if I can keep getting stronger as I add to my distance, I should see an overall improvement in my time for those longer runs.

Later,
John W.
A Clydesdale in training

I ended up with a conference that I had to go to for work up in the Dells the last week of October and as a result I missed the Lakefront Discovery Run.

The conference was great and well worth it, but the fact that I wasn’t going to do the run caused me to slack on my training.

And that caused me to lose even more motivation and slack off completely for the last couple of weeks.

But that cost me big time, let me tell you.

As a result of all that lack of training I managed to gain back 10 pounds over the last few weeks.

However, I did get back out on the road this past week and started a new training plan with a new goal in mind.

The new training helped me to drop 2 pounds for the week, so that’s headed back in the right direction.

And the new goal; well if all goes well, Shelly and I will be doing the Disney Princess half-marathon.

I know what you’re thinking and yes you read that right, it is called the Disney Princess half-marathon. But they actually allow coed teams to enter as long as the guy runs with the girl.

And for me to finish a half-marathon, I’ll be very happy just keeping pace with Shelly and not worried about tearing up any records which I have no hope of doing anyway.

Plus the race will help to keep me training through the winter and I need to get up to that distance any way so that I can start to plan for my half-Ironman. It’s still 2 years out; but that’s a lot of training, so why not tackle it in chunks rather than all at once.

I figure I can get up to one distance, and then work on maintaining that level as I add another one.

We’ll see whether that is a good idea or not in the end.

Later,
John W.
A Clydesdale in training

And it turns outs Shelly’s motivation has been lacking as well. So, this weekend we watched a handful of Triathlon races that we recorded on the DVR to get us going. It worked, we both felt guilty for slacking off and started working on our new training plans.

As for next weekend’s plans for a 15k, it’s a scratch due to work. But we have 5k’s coming up in the next few months which will help keep us honest.

Later,
John W.
A Clydesdale in training

We have both decided to do the Lakefront Discovery run 15k which is coming up at the end of this month.

And looking at the calendar today, I know realize that I have exactly 4 weeks to get myself ready for it.

Now that may not seem like a big deal to most, but running is not our favorite part of this whole thing. In fact our favorite saying (and one we will have on a t-shirt very soon) is “Hate to run, gotta Tri!”

Add in the fact that I have lost the last two weeks of training due to the flu and I’m really behind on getting ready for this race. I do finally feel like the worst of it is behind though and I’m ready to get back out on the road starting tomorrow night.

We both have our training plans from RunnersWorld.com and we’re going to do our best to stick to that. Shelly used it when she trained for her half-marathon and she felt like it really helped, so I’m hoping it gets me ready for this run.

Besides, if I’m going to work my way up to the next distance in triathlon (the half-Ironman) I need to start training for longer distances in the run.

Plus, I already told Shelly I’d do the half-marathon with her down in Florida next spring. SO, I have no choice but to get running so that I can get up to that distance.

Hate to run, gotta Tri!

Later,
John W.
A Clydesdale in training