Thursday, February 14, 2008

A week of tests…

Wow, it’s been a long week!! I had a bike FTP test on Tuesday…I do this test once/month to see if my bike power is improving. When I first got my powermeter (beginning of Dec) I tested my ftp power at 203watts. In January I retested at 211watts…a great improvement..so this week was my February test. This test includes a nice w/u with a 2x20’ interval with a 2’ recovery (easy) in between…you take the whole 42minutes and use the power over that entire time. So I rode hard (not too hard) for the 1st 20mins, averaged 217watts, for the recovery I was at 136watts and then for the 2nd 20min interval I held a whopping 228watts!! So (drumroll please….) my FTP is now 220watts!! A 10% improvement over two shorts months with only riding 2x/week!! So I am very happy with my test and I KNOW I am riding harder this winter than I ever have before. One other important statistic is my watts/weight ratio. With my latest ftp test I’m currently riding 3.28w/kg. Which is pretty average for a female rider. My goal is to get to 3.6w/kg…which would raise my ftp up to 240watts…I have a lot of work to do!!

So, test #2 this week was last night…a 1000yd swim time trial. We went over to the new BSC in Medford (nice facility!) with a brand new pool. We were TOLD it’s a “junior Olympic” pool, which puts it at 25m long (not 25yds) this will come into play later. So we warmed up some (not very much!) and started the TT, the goal was to swim at race effort (read: not a sprint!) you don’t sprint the swim in triathlon…it’s supposed to be a fairly relaxed pace. So the test went quickly (I’m used to swimming ~60mins or so at Masters) so this test flew by! I did the 1000m in 16:34. To convert it to 1000yds, the math is 1000yds in 15:05. WOW…I have seen some improvement since last season!! According to swim pace charts this puts my mile at approx. 26-27mins and an IM distance swim at 1:06-1:10 pace. I would be VERY pleased if that were the outcome in Sept!!

All roads lead to Madison!

Ever have a day where everything just clicks?

I went out to do this week’s long run (14miles) with the TNT team on the Boston course in Wellesley…we ran 7mi towards Hopkinton and then 7mi back. I have been doing the 10min run/1min walk method to prepare for Boston. I have seen some VERY nice results from this method and will continue to use it leading up to April 21, 2008. So most of my long runs have yielded a gross per mile pace of 8:39/mile (including the walks) which puts my actual running times at 8:15/mile pace. Not too shabby, but can I hold this pace for longer than a couple miles?? That is the question! So I decided to challenge myself a little this particular week and see what I’m made of! I wanted to do 8:00/mile pace for the run, with 1min walks in between. I started out a little fast (which I knew) but wanted to see if I could hold it. Here were my results:

1: 7:52 pace (AVG HR-174)
2: 7:45 pace (AVG HR-163)
3: 7:44 pace (AVG HR-171)
4: 7:44 pace (AVG HR-167)
5: 7:47 pace (AVG HR-169)
6: 7:44 pace (AVG HR-165)
7: 8:04 pace (AVG HR-167)
8: 7:52 pace (AVG HR-168)
9: 7:58 pace (AVG HR-166)
10: 7:57 pace (AVG HR-169)
11: 8:06 pace (AVG HR-170)

So these were 10min intervals with 1min walk in between to add up to 14 total miles. Today was a great day…I never *really* thought that I could hold the 8min/mile pace for that long, but sometimes when you challenge yourself you achieve remarkable things. I was on cloud nine after this particular run! I was in a zone. Everything just seemed to click.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Mother Nature is Evil



Well, well, well…I guess this is what winter in New England is all about. See my previous posts about running in the snow, I guess the training runs in the snow are worthwhile when it snows on race day. The 2008 Derry Boston Prep 16 miler was held on Jan. 27, and guess what? It snowed!! Nothing like an inch or so of freshly fallen snow to make a challenging course more challenging!

I battled through and still managed to beat last year’s time by 4mins or so, despite the weather conditions. It was a tough race and definitely one that took a lot out of me. I woke up the Monday after feeling like I’d run a marathon. My legs were sore, my back was sore, I took a couple days off until my muscles recovered.

Next up: Martha’s Vineyard 20 Miler, next Saturday Feb. 16, that is one of my favorite races!