One more week down and 8 more to go to the marathon. It was a tough week being sick. The running is progressing slowly but I'm a lot better on the PCs.

Well things can’t always go well.  I came down with a cold this week so training hasn’t been that fun.  I still completed what I was scheduled to do but I’ve been pretty tired and my recovery is lagging.  Everyday I think I’m finally over the peak of the cold but I just can’t seem to shake it completely.  My fellow workers are probably happy I’m not hacking in the cube next door as much either.

This week I moved up to a goal of 35+ min on the PC each night. Being sick I didn’t feel like riding much more. I was lucky some days to just do 30 at night after my morning runs left me so tired.  For half the week I was feeling better and rode for 40 min with the majority of the time around 100rpm and will continue this as the standard workout.

I’ve been experimenting on riding the majority of the time at 100rpm for at least 30 min.  That keeps my HR up at about 117-122  at the end of the workout vs. 110 at 90 rpm. Since I don’t really know what my max HR is I used the 220-age (ouch that’s getting up there) rule to estimate my max HR at 185bpm maybe 190 (because I’m young at heart).  So 120 is about 65% MaxHR which is ok and at the very lower limit of the aerobic range but at least with some thought behind it.

 You have to remember that I’m riding a very low resistance to make sure I stay in the RPM target zone.  I’m working mostly on turnover so I’m not overly concerned with HR or anything else.

 I still haven’t notice anything significant in my running yet other than: I’m getting used to the training load everyday; 12 mile runs are a joy vs. the 15 and 20 mile runs in the heat; I’m getting used to getting my butt out on the track every Tuesday and Friday for speed sessions; even with all the training its still hard to get down to race weight.  I haven’t really felt like pushing myself on my runs due to the heat (usually its been no less than 70 deg and 90% humidity at 6am in the morning here in Chapel Hill, NC).  I save myself for the track sessions and long runs.   I’m acclimated to the heat now and I know I have to take a water bottle and drink water no matter how short the run is to keep running day after day in the heat.  If one day I get dehydrated it makes the next days run really unpleasant.

 It would be nice if there was some magic workout that would get you into top shape in just 2 weeks.  Unfortunately it takes weeks and weeks of dedication, physical stress, and faith that your training plan is going to work before you see significant results.  Once you get in pretty good shape it takes even longer to see improvement.  Most of the time several factors need to align together to get that break through workout that gives you the confidence that your on track.  My body weight is usually the big factor in seeing my times start to drop but I have to do all the other things as well to be ready once I get to my goal race weight.  If the extra PC workouts help just in that regard and I don’t get injured then I would be ok with just that.  I’m guessing that I won’t see much effect of my extra training for several more weeks, and probably not until it cools down to a reasonable temperature that running is more enjoyable and I can just run w/o thinking about where the next water stop is to fill up my water bottle.  I’m dreading my 12-14 mile marathon pace runs coming up in the next 2 weeks if it doesn’t cool down some.

 In regards to the actual PC workouts I’ve seen a lot of improvement there.  Maybe all the running is improving my PC workouts J.  I started with 15-20 min at 90 rpm and I am now up to 40min at 100 rpm with my HR about the same as those first workouts. I’m at 2x the duration at higher RPM and I am riding at night after my morning running workouts.  I don’t’ feel my core/abs as much when riding anymore like I did when I first started riding the PC.  The PC duration per week is about 4 hours vs. 11 hours of running time. Not too bad for cross training.

 It’s hard to correlate time on the PC stationary bike relationship to running.  General riding vs. running principles are 4:1 ,miles bike to run, is the relationship of relative activity.  That would put the additional training at somewhere equivalent to 12-16 extra miles of running.  This is assuming that I’m not riding very hard and only riding 16-17MPH on the bike if I was outside.  Aerobically I’m still doing 35+ min per day extra at a HR of 120BPM, for at total of 4 hours a week.  If I was slogging my junk miles I may have been up in the 135-140BPM range for up to 2 hours per week as a comparison.

 Last weekend my long run was going pretty good until about mile 16 when I started feeling the affect of the 80 deg weather and high humidity.  I went through 42 oz of water (I’m running with a fuel belt and a hand water bottle) on a 20 mile run.  The last 2-3 miles I was dragging.  I lost 5 lbs of water even after drinking all that water during the run and was crushed the rest of the morning trying to rehydrate on top of not feeling well.  This is my first summer training hard in hot humid weather.  Fun stuff compared to being weather pampered growing up in Santa Cruz, CA. 

 Now that I’m up to the complete load of mileage, 2 sessions of speed work a week, and riding PC everyday I’m ready for my planned September core marathon work before I sharpen in October. 

 I still have 7 weeks of hard training left and 9 weeks total to the marathon.  At times it seems like a short time to get in shape but every morning when I have to get up at 6am and out the door with a head lamp in the dark it seems like a long time.