Running Form

On another educational topic, this week was the start of a 4-week clinic at Big Peach Running Company on Good Form Running. Since it's not news to me that my running form is pretty awful, I'm hopeful that the classes will help. Right now, I usually struggle to get my cadence as high as 80; the ideal of 90 has seemed unreachable.

The first session had a few drills, that didn't do much for me. What did help, though, was viewing a video of my running. It's on youtube here and here. What an eye-opener! Forget about cadence, the real problem is posture. The day after the session, I did a quick 2-mile trail run focussing entirely on posture. To be fair, I was running in a pair of minimalist trail shoes, and no doubt cadence was on my mind. But I wasn't consciously trying to speed it up. The data doesn't lie; average cadence was 86!

Now this is promising. I can't wait until the next session.

School Days Chapter 4

Key lessons from Chapter 4 of Going Long:

Nothing. Nada. Nil. Zip.

School Days Chapter 3

Not much of interest in the third chapter of Going Long, but I did like the following tidbit about cycling:

There isn't a much harder session to do perfectly than a four- to six-hour steady ride in the flats because that is a very long time to concentrate.

Consistent with my observations in a previous post.

School Days Chapter 2

Key lessons from the second chapter of Friel and Byrn's Going Long.

The main theme seems perfect for a first time Ironman: consistency, moderation, and recovery. They claim (reasonably) that the biggest limiter for an athlete new lo Ironman is aerobic stamina, and addressing that limiter is the only thing to worry about during training. They rely on three key workouts—build to 4000m swim, 5 hour ride, and 150 minute run. The plan is to first work toward completing all three in the same month, then the same week, and finally over a single weekend. Furthermore, the main focus every week is getting to the key workouts fresh and injury-free. Anything or any workout that compromises that focus must be eliminated.

There are two things I like about this approach. First, it's refreshingly simple. Just three workouts a week to really worry about; everything else is extra. The approach is also unambiguous. If something gets in the way, drop it. No doubt I'll find some way to obsess over some minor hill repeats or track intervals, but when that happens, I now have an out. Stress elimination at its finest!

Progress Report

Warning: high geek content ahead.

As noted in a early post, my short term focus is getting to a good racing weight rather than training. Today I dropped below 150 pounds, so there is less than 15 pounds to go. (I'm using a weighted moving average instead of daily scale readings to track weight. It's a much more accurate approach.) Over the past month, that's a little less than 1.8 pounds per week, which is more than I was anticipating. As long as it's less than 2 pounds per week, though, I won't worry.

Looking at the numbers from my bio-impedance scale (in which I put very little stock), I'm carrying 24.2 pounds of fat. Assuming as a (doubtlessly unrealistic) best case that I reach my goal through fat loss only, my body fat would be 9.5%. While definitely lean, that's not a crazy insane number; it's not at the 6% to 8% level of professional triathletes. More realistically, I'll probably end up between 10% and 12%. So for now I conclude that it will still be very tough to get to 135 and stay there, but if I do make it, it won't require restructuring the fabric of Einsteinian space-time.

School Days Chapter 1

Or what I learned from Chapter 1 of Going Long.

Since it's pretty much the Bible for Ironman training, I'm trying to study Friel and Byrn's Going Long very carefully. In lieu of notes, blog posts will serve as summaries of each chapter. As it's just an introduction, chapter 1 doesn't have a lot of content that merits its own summary; better to wait for more thorough coverage later on the book. But there is a real doozy of a suggestion at the very end: don't do your long ride and your long run on the weekend. Instead, separate them by doing the long run mid-week. This approach seems like a great way to reduce physical stress. I'll have to see how the schedule works out, but a long run shouldn't be much more than a couple of hours. And a pre-dawn run is a lot more doable than a pre-dawn ride. Duly noted.

Florida is/is not Flat

Over the holiday weekend I had the chance for a couple of long rides from Tallahassee. The first was pretty much due south to the coast and the second was a loop around Lake Miccosukee. If you ignore the hills in the Tallahassee area itself, the first ride was pancake flat:

In contrast, there were quite a few hills to the East:

What I found interesting is that the second ride actually seemed easier. On the first ride there was simply no variation (and no shade either, which might also be a factor ;^). The later ride had enough variation to keep things more interesting. Sure some of the uphills sucked, but there was also a bit of coasting (or at least easing off) on the downhills.

It seems a stretch to claim that the Mont Tremblant course will be more enjoyable because of its elevation profile, but I suppose it at least won't be boring.