The Road to Boston 2007

Carole · Post by **Carole** » November 7th, 2006, 12:17 am

(((big hugBob)))you will be back .....

Stein you are going from strength to strength kind of glad I won't be at Boston for you to whoop my arse lol....

seat5 · Post by **seat5** » November 7th, 2006, 12:58 am

Carole wrote:
Stein you are going from strength to strength kind of glad I won't be at Boston for you to whoop my arse lol....

Don't worry, there will be plenty there to whoop mine!

TomR · Post by **TomR** » November 7th, 2006, 9:06 pm

Another 30r20 tonight.

Did 2.02.8 v 2.03.0 last time.
HR 159 v 155. Pulled 2.02.4 for the final 10 min and saw some 1.59s in the final minute.

Was pleased at the end, but . . .

I wanted to put the handle down in the first minute. It felt too hard. I couldn't quite explain to myself why I should quit, since this was the day after a rest day and I'd done this workout the previous week, so I just heaved along. With a little less than 20 minutes to go I started to think I could finish the workout. Perhaps I need a longer, more intense warm-up to prepare myself. I did 15 mins. Or perhaps I need to stop being such a girly man, as Arnold would say.

Tom

seat5 · Post by **seat5** » November 8th, 2006, 12:42 am

I wanted to put the handle down in the first minute.

But, the fact is, you didn't; you pulled a better time than your last effort; that workout you have every right to feel proud of. It's easy when you feel good and are motivated and ready to go! Gold star!

An easy workout for me today, just 1 x 12' AT. Max pace is supposed to be 1:59 but it was just one dumb little interval so I aimed for 1:58 and hit 1:57.8/26. I had exactly 1 hour to change, warm up, work out, cool down, shower, dress, and leave, so only 2K w/u and 1K c/d. Tomorrow is the same thing--since I swapped the 3 x UT1 the other day for a 30 min it put two identical days in a row. Maybe I'll swap it with the 2 x 8' AT that follows it just for variety's sake. I am assuming this is an easy week because I have a test next Sunday...da da da dum.....whine

whaskell · Post by **whaskell** » November 8th, 2006, 8:35 pm

Tuesday Morning
10min WU - 2245m
UT1 4x11min / max pace 1:54.5 / 22-24spm
Target:- 4x11min / avg pace 1:57.0 / 23spm / 2:15min rest
Actual:- 11min / avg pace 1:56.6 / 24spm / 2830m
Actual:- 11min / avg pace 1:56.6 / 23spm / 2830m
Actual:- 11min / avg pace 1:56.4 / 23spm / 2835m
Actual:- 11min / avg pace 1:56.4 / 23spm / 2834m
Total session: 13255m

Felt a little erratic and rough today, but results came out ok. No training on Wednesday due to work conflicts. Next session will be TR 2x6min on Thursday morning.

Bob S. · Post by **Bob S.** » November 8th, 2006, 8:43 pm

Well the suspense is over, so it is time to get on with the old routine. As many of you may have seen, I didn’t make the cut. I had not counted very heavily on it, since a newly turned 80 year old has been knocking off my WRs from last season right and left. The surprise to me was that he is not on the list either. With 36 or so categories open, it is no easy job to narrow it down to just 12 on the team.

For today’s IP, I had a 2x8’AT. The pace band is 2:11.3-2:18.3, and, of course, the AT rate is supposed to be 26-28. I decided to try to keep the pace to 2:13-2:14 and not worry too much about the rate. I am still working on trying to get the full length out of my stroke.

I started with a 21’ pyramid warm up and followed the workout with a 10’ taper cool down.

The 8’ workout pieces were:

1799m, 2:13.4, ave. rate 25spm, ave. HR 138, data splits 1’ each.
Pace range 2:13.3-2:14.5. Rate range 24-26, with a 23 for the last split. HR range 116-153, mostly increasing.

Rest: 5’

1804m, 2:13.0, ave. rate 24spm, ave. HR 142, data splits 1’ each.
First minute pace 2:15.1. Last minute pace 2:11.0. Range in between 2:12.7-2:13.9.
Rates: 24/22/22/22/24/25/27/26. HR: 115/132/152/142/149/150/149/151.

The paces were not as controlled as I would like, but it is getting a little bit better that when I first started working on a longer stroke. The rates were too low, but I expected that as a natural consequence of using a longer stroke. I did use a slightly lower drag factor, 116 instead of 123. That helped somewhat. I don’t really like to go any lower, so that will have to do.

Bob S.

seat5 · Post by **seat5** » November 8th, 2006, 10:33 pm

Sorry, Bob! But it doesn't take anything away from the good training you're doing!

Will, by erratic do you mean you had a hard time keeping the splits/rates steady, or was your technique in a jumble, or what?

I had the same workout today, 2 x 8 AT, 3K w/u and 3K c/d
Actual: 2055m 1:56.7/26
2036m 1:57.8/26

I think I read too much stuff on the forum about BIRC and just went out too fast on the first one. I'd rather do them with the second peice faster but that wasn't happening today! However both are 1 or 2 seconds faster than the max pace they were supposed to be at so that's fine.

Though I like having just one hour so that I am forced to do the workout and not procrastinate, it is also nice to have enough time after the hard part to really do a cool down, which I have not had in over a week.

The Dastardly Test looms on Sunday. I don't know what pace to go out at as I've never really done what I would call a successful 2K. Help!

TomR · Post by **TomR** » November 8th, 2006, 10:56 pm

Will, That workout doesn't look erratic.

Bob, You did a great trial. The competition for spots seems to have been fierce.

Carla, The 2k is just practice. Have a sensible plan. Go out in full control, ratchet the pace up by small bits. You want to have a good 2k and build confidence. The trial isn't going to change your training, You're already working at agressive paces, so you just want to get a reading.

Today I did UT1/4x13, 52 mins and 12,000+ meters. Managed 2.06.2 for avg pace, which is about a full second faster than avg pace for UT1 during the last "hard week."

Tom

seat5 · Post by **seat5** » November 8th, 2006, 11:47 pm

Anne, haven't heard from you in a bit. How's it going?

whaskell · Post by **whaskell** » November 9th, 2006, 7:04 am

Thursday Morning
15min WU - 3368m
TR 2x6min / max pace 1:44 / 30-34spm
Target:- 2x6min / avg pace 1:45.0 / 32spm / 5:00min rest
Actual:- 6min / avg pace 1:44.8 / 32spm / 1718m
Actual:- 6min / avg pace 2:01.4!!! / 27spm / 1483m
Total session: 5282m

Ugh. Legs felt like lead after the first interval. Put the handle down on the second one but ended finishing it slowly. I thought I would feel pretty good today having had yesterday off. I had a long work day yesterday with meetings in Boston, etc. I guess I have had too many good days, so an off day is not the end of the world. Makes me worry a littel about next week's TR 3 x 6min. I guess I'll see how I feel between now and then and decide whether to back the target pace off a second or so.

Re: Tuesday's workout - I know the results did not show it to be erratic, but I felt erratic. Usually I can stick right on my desired stroke rate, but during that workout I was waivering on either side of the desired rate. One of those days that is hard to explain but you just don't feel quite up to par.

Bob S. · Post by **Bob S.** » November 9th, 2006, 7:17 am

whaskell wrote:
Re: Tuesday's workout - I know the results did not show it to be erratic, but I felt erratic. Usually I can stick right on my desired stroke rate, but during that workout I was waivering on either side of the desired rate. One of those days that is hard to explain but you just don't feel quite up to par.

Will,

Reading between the lines, I get the impression that you are not getting enough sleep. When I have especially bad days, I can often relate it to not having enough sleep the night before — and just the reverse on particularly good days. Just a thought.

Bob S.

seat5 · Post by **seat5** » November 9th, 2006, 10:22 am

I cheat and use a metrenome. I have this amazing one called Dr. Beat. For 26 strokes a minute (since you can't set it on 26, there's no music that slow) I set it on 78, and tell it that there are 3 beats/ measure. Then I set it on voice, and it bellows at me, with an empahsis on ONE:

ONE TWO THREE
I drive on ONE, arms up and back forward on TWO, up the slide on THREE.

Stroke rate is always perfect and the hollering voice really keeps me going!

TomR · Post by **TomR** » November 9th, 2006, 10:52 am

Will,

On the 6 min TR pieces, don't you have to work at the slow end of the pace range? 6 min is almost a full 2k. I'd be inclined to do the first interval slightly faster than my AT pace and work down. I'm not doing TR workouts yet, so I'm guessing.

Tom

DavidA · Post by **DavidA** » November 9th, 2006, 2:54 pm

seat5 wrote:I cheat and use a metrenome

Do you have to enter that in the rankings

seat5 wrote:For 26 strokes a minute (since you can't set it on 26, there's no music that slow)

What about some of that new music, with one note per year or so?

Good luck with your continued training.

David

whaskell · Post by **whaskell** » November 9th, 2006, 6:24 pm

I have to admit, by mid to end of the week I start to get pretty tired from work stress and training. I think I have also been fighting off sickness for a few weeks now. My son was sick for about a month and my wife has been sick for a couple weeks. I have been on th edge of it, but so far have avoided getting the nasty cough that they both had.