Monday, May 21, 2007

Triathlon - Why not?

I am happy with the results of my major events so far this year. I already have beaten my updated goal of 45 minutes for my 10K, scoring 44:53. In the same race I have got my PB in 5K - 21 minutes for the first half of the race. My next category "A" activity, Niagara Falls Half Marathon is planned for the end of October. I will start targeted training in early August. I will try to improve my 5K result, maybe to run it in less then 20 minutes this year, when I will test my training progress during the Waterfront Trail on 15 of September.
My plan for now was to build and maintain a good aerobic base. But there is more.

I want to try triathlon also. It isn't just something completely out of the blue. I have build a solid running base. I run more then 1200 km since the October of last year. I rode 3075 km last year, and 670 km on stationary bike and 250 km outside so far this year.
Here is my running and cycling summary for this year:



Years ago swimming was my strong point. I haven't done a lot of swimming lately as my log shows:


Swimming isn't my strong discipline at this moment as I have learned when I went to the pool a few days ago. I discovered that I don't have endurance in the water at all. For triathlon I will have to work hard to improve my crawl technique. I know that swimming will be my weakest point, but I already started to work to make it better. I am planning to swim at least twice a week for the five weeks left to the race.

There were two races I was considering:
# Try-A-Triathlon - Swim 375m, Bike 10km, Run 2.5km
# Sprint Triathlon - Swim 750m, Bike 19km, Run 5km

Based on advice from my friends at runningmania.com I registered for the Sprint Triathlon.


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Sunday, May 13, 2007

10K in Mississauga - better than expected

Short:
My predicted time, based on the 5K was 46:30. I would be happy with anything below 46:00.
My time 44:58 (chip time 44:53). My Garmin GPS time 44:57, showing 10.05 km.
From race profile it seemed before the race like it was a downhill race, my feeling during the race was that it was quite a hilly course.


Longer:
I am a beginner, this was my first 10K race. I did plan to run negative splits 23:30-22:30. But I also didn't want to look at my watch for my first few kilometers. I was scared when I have seen my time after 1 km in a 5K race in Waterloo just a few weeks earlier - I was running far to fast, couldn't help it and slowed down worrying that I will not be able to finish that race running but will have to walk.

Similar story today. This time after 500 hundred meters I have picked up a guy, who looked old and wise, at least from behind, he was in my age group as I discovered after the race, and I decided to race him ( he didn't know it, so it was more like I have followed him) for as long as possible. Around the 3rd kilometer the distance between me and my opponent started to increase. I begun to look for another person to race with or to follow, from the fifth kilometer it seemed like all racers in front of me started to drift forward, I also noticed more people - fast like rockets - passing by me to the front. I checked my time - way ahead of my plan - scared again, I think more than in Waterloo - decided to slow down or didn't have will power or experience to keep the fast pace. My 7th kilometer was painfully slow, I was able to pick up the pace on the 8th km, the 9th was again very slow as I was able to see the finish line across the water and it seemed so far away. I was able to increase my speed on the last kilometer. My first 5K - 21min, my last 5K - 24min.

Finish in less that 45 minutes, 4th in my age category, 86th of 1124 runners, much better than my expectations, although for sure overall it was downhill course, especially in the first part. The biggest problem I had during the race was on uphills - I was losing a lot on them. Learning to run hills will be my priority in my preparations for my Half Marathon race.

results
photos

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Tuesday, May 08, 2007

My Training Plan

I could almost say I don't have any plan, but based on my results I revised my planned goal times. This year I would like to go below 21 minutes for 5K, and below 45 minutes for 10K. My predicted time for Half Marathon is 1 hour 43 minutes - I would be very happy if I could run it in less than 1:45 - I have noticed that my aerobic base, which plays greater role as the distance increases, is not optimally developed.

I have collected bits and pieces of information from the web. I am trying to learn as much as possible to have good results in a very short time. There is an overwhelming amount of information available on the subject. Sometimes theories and specific approaches are conflicting between each other. How often should one run, for how long and how intense? There are multiple theories and multiple answers.

'No pain no gain' school is presently replaced by 'scientific' approach - base your training on HR (heart rate) or LT (lactate threshold). One have to find out the value of MHR (maximum HR) to build a training plan based on HR zones or even better one should measure the lactic acid level in a blood to determine exercises intensity.
There are multiple formulas to calculate the value of MHR, those formulas are not very accurate and can produce result as far of as 30 bits per minute simply because people are different. So the best way to measure MHR is to take it when the body is reaching this point during very heavy exercises. Even when those values are determined zone training could be done in many different ways. There are schools of Low Heart Rate training like Maffeton method, producing good aerobic results leading to improved times for some distance runners, and doing nothing or even decreasing performance for others.

It gets much more difficult to determine the values off Lactate Threshold, one basically needs a lab to do so. What it means and how to apply those values to real training? There are multiple theories and schools. I am not ready for this yet.

I heard that increasing millage is good enough for a new runner. Increased miles by itself will produce great improvements. So my plan is to add as many miles as possible and watch the result. Or it was my plan until not so far ago. I was running around 30 km a week (kmw) in January, I have been adding more kilometers, I run 50 km a week at this point. I am feeling good and probably could go to 70-80 kmw. There is one problem - It takes many hours to run so many kilometers. In addition, during the summer months I love to ride my bicycle. I could cut hours on the bicycle if I haven't been planning to try triathlon this summer.

At this point I am thinking that I will have to improve quality of my workouts. There are speedworks, intervals, tempo runs, fartleks, and many more ways to improve running performance. I did try some but in a really casual way. I will have to study those workouts and apply it to my training especially if the result of my 10K run in Mississauga (12 of May) will be weak.

Based on my 5K race time my 10K time is predicted by various sources to be around 46min 30 sec. If my time will be worse it means that I have to make a serious revision of my training.

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