New gear always keeps me excited to workout…

One thing I never think much about is fashion in the pool (who cares, right?) with good swimming suits costing more than my wallet wants to part with, I am usually one to wait until the one I’m wearing falls apart before I buy a new one. I usually run to City Sports at lunch and buy whatever one they have in my size and I wear that until it falls apart (repeat cycle!) Well, when I received an email for 30% speedo and saw that my favorite fabric (chlorine proof endurance by speedo) suit was already 50% off ($39 down from $78) and an additional 30% off on top of that I had to splurge ;) I bought both of these and two new pair of goggles all for (drumroll please….) $85. Well my suits arrived yesterday and I almost didn’t get out of bed for swimming this morning, but when Greg hit the snooze and I didn’t go right back to sleep, it was the excitement of wearing a new suit that ultimately got me up and to the pool. Sometimes, it’s the change for the norm that motivates us.

Watts (or whats) a watt?

A watt is defined as the measurement of power. Power is an expression of work rate. These two terms have become everyday words in our house, along with “work”. Work is defined as Physical or mental effort or activity directed toward the production or accomplishment of something. Sounds like fun, lets do some hard work (expressed as power) to improve how many watts I can produce at a given time. In the “power world” this is usually measured as a functional threshold power (aka FTP) usually as a one hour all out effort. There are a bunch of ways to test for your FTP, but I’ve always done the 2x20min all out with a 2min easy effort in between. You take the NP (normalized Power) of that entire 42min effort and that is your FTP #. A month ago, mine was 207w (after having taken off almost two months after IM Wisconsin) I dedicated 4months of hard work to raise my FTP (with a goal of >10%, or 230w or more) this is week #4 of 16 weeks. I retested last night and I’m already at 217w, pretty much 5%. It’s amazing what you can do when you set your mind to it. I earned every one of those watts gained and frankly, I worked for them, too. I was reviewing my charts in WKO+ (the software used to analyze my power) and my power distribution chart (for the past month) shows that 30% of all my time of my bike this month has been at my FTP range…in other words. I’ve gone hard/all out for 1/3 of my time on my bike this month (including warmups and cool downs.) I was astonished to see that percentage that high, but I guess that’s how you get better. When “hard” isn’t “hard” anymore, you’re improved. I’m proud of those 10watts, and know that next motnh it will likely be less of a jump but am hopeful that come week #16 I will be at or above 230w. If I could set a longer range goal, I’d like to be at or around 245-250w by May. Let’s shoot for the stars!

My harder work is on the run. Biking is far more natural to me than running. But don’t worry…I’m working on that too. And if I remember correctly, last winter improving my FTP actually helped my running, too. It’s a long road but I have lofty goals for next year and want to see myself achieve.

I am SO thankful for my health, Happy Thanksgiving.

Broke out the tights and mittens and hat...BRRRRR...

With temps not leaving the 20s and wind gusts in the 20s it was quite cold this weekend so I decided it was time to break out the tights and mittens and hat and I still froze!! wow, it was cold out there. I forgot how hard running in the cold and wind is, but I'll take it over the heat and humidity anyday! So I bundled up, and set out to do some Z3 intervals, and nailed them all. So I really can't complain. I'm trying to get my running mojo back. This time last year I was running easily 20secs faster in each zone than I am currently, and I was loving it. Ever since I hurt the ol' calf in May my running just hasn't been the same. So cross your fingers for me that my run mojo will come back. I miss it dearly.

Here we go again....

Today is Nov. 7, 2008….any idea what you will be doing Nov. 7, 2009/ 365days from today? I hope to be traveling 140.6miles, again…this time in Panama City Beach, Florida. With Greg and his cousin Dave…should be lots of fun. Granted, lots of work leading up to it….lots of pain, heartache, eating, sleeping, riding, sleeping, running, eating, swimming, and did I mention sleeping :) 2009 is sure to have lots of roads that lead to success and we can only get there when we challenge ourselves! My goals shall be to stay healthy and lets see if I can break 12 hours this time around :)
IM Florida, here we come!