When The Cat Looks At You Like You’re Insane, It’s Too Damn Early…

Date: Wednesday, May 7, 2008, 5:00am (Gah.)

Workout: Two A Day - Session 1 - Bike

Location: condo gym - recumbent cycle

Heart Rate Range/Zone: Zone 1

Total time: 00:49:35

Time in optimum HR zone: 00:42:47

Average HR: 119

R.P.E. : 10-12

Average Speed/Pace: 13.5 MPH

Pre-Workout Hydration: 500ml of water 15 minutes before session

Pre-Workout Nutrition: three slices of Canadian Back Bacon

Post-Workout Hydration: 250ml of water within the hour

Post-Workout Nutrition: one power smoothie less than 30 minutes after workout (2 cups of ice, 1 cup of water, 2 scoops of soy protein powder, 1 banana, 1/2 cup of plain yogurt)

KCalories: 543 (45% from fat)

Activity:

• 5 minute warmup at 50% of max HR
• 40 minutes at endurance pace (70% of max HR), 75-80 watts average, 10.82 miles covered
• 5 minute spinning cooldown

Positive improvements/habits: I was aiming to cover the full 20K of the bike portion within 45 minutes…if I’d actually started at pace right off the bat, it would’ve happened. That’s a major improvement over my last endurance session. Once again, I set my vitamins out and made sure they were taken first thing in the morning. Also, followed up my session with a protein shake - another positive habit. I feel good, nutritionally, today. Absolutely no challenges getting my ass out of bed at 5am this morning, which bodes well for the rest of my training, although the cat looked at me like I was insane. That was a bit disconcerting…he actually looked concerned for my mental wellbeing. I don’t think I’ve ever received a look like that from an animal before…I’m used to it from Cin.

Daily.

Valuable lessons: More hydration needed; if I’m going to continue doing two-a-days with an early morning session, I’m going to have to figure out how to get hydration and nutrition into my body well before I head out for my workout. I don’t really want to get up at 4:30 just so I can fuel up…I’m going to do some research into this. Starting out with some light spinning really helps my legs adjust and work into a good pace.

Strains and Pains to Note: Thighs are still a bit sore. I did push a little hard to keep my heart rate up in the mid-120s, and my legs paid a bit of a price for it. Luckily I’m taking tomorrow off from training and I’m going to take a long soak in the hot tub downstairs before Friday’s T.I. session with Peter. Inversion on my legs last night really helped my recovery. I’m going to look into buying a collapsible inversion table.

Why I’m A Champion: 5am baby….FIVE IN THE FREAKING MORNING. The weirdest part is that my eyes basically snapped open and I was up within a couple of minutes of my alarm going off. It’s like my body knows it gets a workout and is actually looking forward to it now. I find myself actually enjoying these early morning sessions far more than I thought I would.

Today’s Menu:

• Breakfast: 3 slices of Canadian Bacon, full dose of vitamins with 1 cup of iced tea, 1 medium bagel with 2 tbsp of cream cheese, 1 mug of coffee with 2% milk and four raw sugar cubes

• Lunch: the other half of yesterday’s spaghetti and meatballs, 1L of water, 2 rice crackers

Workout: Two-A-Day Session 2 - Run

Location: City of Vancouver track

Heart Rate Range/Zone: Zone 2

Total time: 00:42:00

Time in optimum HR zone: 00:20:56

Average HR: 141

R.P.E. : 14-16

Average Speed/Pace: 8:51KM

Pre-Workout Hydration: 250ml fifteen minutes before session

Pre-Workout Nutrition: none - still full from lunch, and more on that later

Post-Workout Hydration: one 541ml bottle of G2

Post-Workout Nutrition: one Clif Carrot Cake bar, one banana

KCalories: 667 (40% from fat)

Activity:

• 5 minute walking warmup
• 3 x 800M runs, complete recovery between sets
  • Set 1: 5:00 - 10:23 (5:23 total time), HR range 118-168
  • Set 2: 17:11 - 23:26 (6:15 total time), HR range 120-166
  • Set 3: 30:00 - 36:25 (6:25 total time), HR range 122-168
• 5 minute walking cooldown
• 10 minutes of stretching and yoga

Positive improvements/habits: Just getting to the track and doing drills instead of plain old 3/2 or 4/1 splits is a big improvement. Nutritionally it was a positive day aside from the slight spaghetti related issue (more on that below). I’m steadily reinforcing daily health habits - vitamins, water, exercise, hot soaks, leg inversions to stimulate circulation - most of my time now that I’m less than 3 weeks from racing is taken up thinking about or doing something about my training. It’s becoming part and parcel of a complete lifestyle change now.

Valuable lessons: Avoid spaghetti during the day at all costs. Actually, avoiding pasta during the day is a good plan. I’m allergic to wheat products to begin with, but I love my pasta so much I just can’t part with it. Unfortunately, mowing down on a nice sized platter of pasta four hours before running left me feeling like Han Solo had come along, sliced me open like a Tauntaun, and stuffed Luke Skywalker into my gut.

Great visual, eh? Cin loved that one.

On a workout day, especially a Two-A-Day, I think I need to stick with light fare rather than carb-heavy meals. I’ll leave that to my taper week, and load two days before my tri.

Also, I really worked on my breathing during sets 2 and 3…I noticed that I was starting to chest-breathe, and was getting short of breath quickly. Remembering Eric’s breathing exercises, I consciously worked on breathing through my diaphragm and even though I felt like a pregnant penguin, waddling around the track pushing my belly out, within a minute I felt the difference in my stamina and endurance. Ye Gods, it works!! Now if I could just look a bit more studly whilst doing it, cause man I was getting some Looks Of Pity from the high school kids who were practicing their relay baton drills on the track.

Strains and Pains to Note: Thighs still sore, no change there. It’s becoming a constant now. You know you’re a triathlete-in-training when you learn to live with a slight constant humming level of pain. Took a long hot bath when I got home, had some dinner, and inverted my legs for 5 minutes before heading to bed early.

Why I’m A Champion: I did what I needed to do to ensure success today, even though my guts and my lungs didn’t want to let me win the battle. I made little deals with myself - just five minutes on the track, then if I still feel like projectile vomiting the contents of my stomach all over the javelin hurlers, I’ll go home. Those little deals made the world of difference. I could’ve stopped after two sets, but I really wanted to do three and even through the pain of that extra little effort, I smiled during my last turn and 100M, cause I won.

Today’s Menu:

• Dinner: reminder of last night’s Lamb Tagine, 1 cup of iced tea, 1 slice of lemon meringue pie, 1 mug of tea with skim milk and 1 1/2 tsp of raw sugar, 250ml of water