Thursday, February 4, 2010

Power Drills

Triathletes out there, you knew exactly what I am talking about with that title. But I'm sure I'll get some google hits from those looking for a new Dewalt tool. Ha.

Back while training for IMFL '08, Nancy and I were both assigned by our respective coaches to do hard gear intervals on the bike. Usually, and surprisingly, they were quite similar, like I'd have 3x5 mins and she'd have 5x3 minutes. We would meet in the middle. Or do both. We loved them! We would warm up to Watkins, about 20 minutes, and do the rolling hills out to the dead end and back in our hardest gear. Of course, this was on 650 wheels, which helps a little, but most of the time we had a headwind in at least one direction. Don't you love when there's headwind in both directions? I swear it's happened to me. 



Winter is the perfect time for these. I don't have a powermeter (on the wish list-- can you register for that?), but I know my power averages must be somewhere in the 50%-of-mid-season-levels  range. So yesterday I headed out for some torture. 


But let me back up. After taking Sunday off completely, I made up for it by going to Monday spin class, swimming Tuesday, and going to track that evening. I'm trying to be super conscious of my running speeds lately, and not just going for the puke at every track workout. Except I've never done that. But I'm still not trying to "win" or even to make Coach Paul proud, like I've totally done in the past. 

Side Tangent: I find it funny and somewhat irksome (even though it's none of my business how others train) that when doing something like 6x400, people run so hard that they either have to walk the recovery interval, or even better, stop and hunch over for the minute or so in between. Is anybody training for the mile out there? The 800? If so, then fine, but I'd bet that 99.9% of us are training for distances of 5k or over. So what are you going to do in your 5k? Sprint a quarter mile, rest a minute, sprint another one, etc? If you can't even manage a jog for 100 meters after, maaaaaybe you should slow down those quarters. Just my opinion. 


After the quarters we did a mile, which I was perfectly happy with, given that I felt it was somewhat easy, about 2-3 seconds per quarter slower than my 400s, and thankfully at a pace faster than my last 10k. The final set was for form: building into sprints on the straightaways, jogging the curves. Next it was pullup time. Conveniently located just feet from the track are the bars. The boys decided we were to do 4 sets with different hand grips each time: pronated grip, supinated, pronated close grip, and super wide grip. I got incrementally worse each time, but was happy with my numbers given my heavy weight (see last post). I felt successfully fatigued after track, and headed home for recovery.


At approximately 4:55 the next morning, my alarm cranked up the music. When this happens before about 7, my first thoughts are usually, "why is my alarm going off this early? what am i supposed to do?" Before my thoughts formed, the Running with the Devil chorus played. Then I remembered: run with Nancy. :) It was a great run that loosened me up nicely.


Wednesday afternoons I leave work early and can hopefully start getting some riding in, now that it's getting lighter. It was power drills day, and I found that a few muscle fibers were willing to work. A nice headwind on the way out helped my cadence stay low, even on the downhills. Around about approximately the turn around point (which was decided by time left until darkness), I experienced a power failure. Luckily it was just a brownout. A few miles later, another one, then a complete power outage. A blown circuit. I watched my speed plunge just as I got to the last half mile before the turn off (which means cool down time).  


My jello legs made it home with a tiny bit of light to spare. I checked the computer for the first time, and found that in those 25 miles, I'd average a quite respectable speed (for me, for winter).  My favorite recovery drink, chocolate milk, helped reset the fuse (tired of my metaphors yet? :)) for the upcoming weekend. 

I think I'm getting into this training thing.

1 comment:

  1. What do you mean you don't race everyone at track? I thought that was the whole point....

    Glad training is on the up! Happy vibes, I can feel. Hey...can I join in on Wed?

    ReplyDelete