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.

I'm competitive marathon runner with a marthon best of 2:20:54 experimenting with using PowerCranks as a cross training tool. I plan on bloging my experiences using the PC over the next 10 weeks. So lets get on with it and see how it goes.

I heard about Powercranks from a friend of mine who follows biking and running extensively. He sent me a link to a video about how PowerCranks can possibly help your running. I thought the concept was interesting and did some more reading on it. My understanding is that PC insures that the rider pulls smoothly around the entire pedal cycle with each leg to get the leg back over the top vs. the leg being helped over by the down cycle of the opposite leg. PC also develops the coordination of both legs to keep the cycling action smooth. Similarly, in running, one leg does not help the other leg get back over the top of the running stride and the unison of both legs is equally important to leg turnover. From what I have read, the PC seems to simulate the running motion quite well.

Before purchasing PC I tried to take notice of my running form and weak points and what PC would possibly be working on with respect to them. I noticed that my left leg was weaker than my right (surprise, surprise) and that my turnover at the end of my long runs slowed down (although it could have been due to the heat that day also).

I have been in the middle of ramping my mileage up to maximum scheduled training levels for a fall marathon. For this next marathon I wanted to really throw everything at it and run up to 110-115 mpw with all my normal speed work sessions worked in. This is a 25% increase in weekly mileage over what I usually have done. The reason to run over 100 mpw is for increased aerobic capacity. Muscle specificity should be sufficient at even 80 mpw if my long run and speed work is done correctly but I can still get more aerobic capacity. I’ve had some of my best marathons when running 80mpw. My goal was to get even just the slightest improvement over what I had done in the past. Even 1% improvement is big in the marathon because it’s such a long event.

Well, things don’t always go as planned--I’m having some soreness/tendonitis in my left Patellar tendon. So I’m going to plateau at my current 95-100mpw of running to keep my tendonitis in check and not risk injury.

This is where the PC comes in. I figured why not substitute PC workouts for the additional training I had planned instead of settling for 95-100mpw. Maybe I’ll get more benefits out of training on PC than I would have just logging in more base mileage. My view of what the power cranks will do is: help my turnover or at least turnover endurance, balance my leg strength a bit, and add more aerobic training above what I can handle running with out risk of injury.

Turnover is very important in running. There is only so much a long distance runner can do about stride length. Its not like you can go get longer legs and over striding isn’t efficient. Turnover is the key to going faster and usually more efficient. One of the main differences I see between the average jogger vs. a more competitive runner is how much faster the competitive running is turning his legs over.

So I purchased a setup of the Lemond Revmaster with Powercranks. I figured the stationary bike would be a better to setup in a running configuration and share between my wife and I. I’m very interested in seeing how the Powercrank addition to her workouts will affect her running turnover.

The literature on the web site relating to running indicated that the best way to simulate running was to have the seat all the way forward and the handle bars high. This would theoretically get you closer to the running position to better simulate running. With my bike I actually reversed the seat post to get me even more forward. With this setup it feels very similar to running and I’m sitting almost as upright.

I had heard about how difficult it was get used to the PC. It is a weird experience to get used to and the first couple times are hard for sure. Not cycling in many years it may have been hardest on my crotch though. The first ride I did was only 5 min to make sure the setup was correct and to make adjustments. My second ride was 15 min. I’ve been riding at a pretty low resistance level to make sure my RPM was at 90-100 all the time.

Now at the end of the first week I’ve progressed up to 30 min continuous rides w/o much difficulty at 90-100 rpm and low resistance. The place I’ve been feeling the workout most is in the core/abs.

My plan is to ride the PC 30-45 min per day. When I get strong enough to ride the PC for 1.5H I will cut out one of my junk mile days and replace it with the 1.5 hour PC workout.

A typical week for me will look like this: Mon: 8miles or 1.5H PC; Tues: 400 repeats or mile repeats 12 miles total running; Wed: 14-16 miles; Thurs: 12 miles; Fri: more repeats, Variable pace session, or 12-15miles MP; Sat: 20-25 miles long run; Sun: 20-15 long run based on Saturday run (all running mileage in single runs)--and everyday riding 30-45 min on the PC.

Have I noticed anything so far? Not really that can be nailed down to anything specific to the PC. Maybe some additional weight loss due to the extra training load. Its only week 1.

Riding the Lemond Revmaster with PCs at night is a nice change to just logging the miles for a second time in a day. On to week two.