Chilly Run and thoughts...

Last night was chilly. It was only -2 C (28.4 F) outside but the wind was strong. The weather channel said it felt like, -10 (14 F) outside. The wind was blowing at 60 km/hr (37 miles/hr). Good thing I wasn't running into the wind for too long. My hands were freezing and I had to keep blowing at them to stay warm.

I was listening to endurance radio (enduranceradio.com) the entire time. What I do is I go to the archieves, picked up the ones that are related to training and tri, and dump them in my mp3 player. Last night I was listening to Gordon Bryn (the interview can be found here). The speaker was asking him the most frequent ask question about training.

Obvious, most people ask him "what is my potential and put the plan on paper and I will just do it". Gordon explained that for him, it took about five years to get to the Elite level (that's the same amount of time I am giving to myself). At the end, he was talking about strategy and medium of resistence.

Water is the most dense object in the race. Swimming between 50 min and an hour is only 10 min. In an Ironman that span 8 hours or more, ten minutes will not make a big difference. But the energy spent to swim 10 min will be alot more.

On the bike, as we ride faster, we face greater resistence. When we are going down hill at 50 miles/hr (oh that's fast), it will take a lot more energy for us to overcome the wind resistence to increase the speed. Example it takes more energy to go from 30 mile/hr to 40 mile/hr than from 10 mile/hr to 20 mile/hr. The faster we go, the more resistence we will face. Which it also means to go faster, we have to use a lot more energy.

Wheras when we are going up hill where there is less wind (and less resistence), our energy can put into good use there. Getting the most bang for a buck.

He mentioned by using all these strategy and keeping some gas in the tank. At the last half of th run, when everyone is falling apart, you will race much better b/c of the mental edge you have over the competitors.

This is the same plan I have for the two 1/2 IMs. Get myself out of water in a relax mode. Bike steady and consistent. Hold myself until the last 10 km of the run. Then become a hare and go.

I was really tired after the run last night. I ran for 1 hr 55 min. Maybe I am increasing my time on the road too fast. Instead of increasing the time on the road next week, I will run the same amount of time. My pace was slow and my HR was low. I drank 700 ml of water the whole time. Maybe I am not getting enough liquid. Scrapped Rodney Yee and snooze. Today I am feeling much better.

I am meeting my swim coach this coming Mon night. It was interesting to note that the instant I bounce an email to ask him for a consultation, that night (this Mon), I swim much better. Coincidence?? :)