3 Months to go...

As I sit here on the third anniversary of my knee cap breaking, I've been reflecting on how far I've come since the injury.

April was a very productive month for me. My goal was to continue to build my bases and since the weather has started to clear up and get warmer, I wanted to start getting some work outdoors in, especially on my bike. I signed up for three events over the month that provided a lot of hill work on my legs in a half-marathon race and bike ride. Lastly, I joined the Philadelphia Triathlon club's weekend trip to Jim Thorpe, PA to preview the Black Bear Triathlon course.

Bucks County Half-Marathon
The Bucks County half-marathon was held on Sunday, April 13th in Tyler State Park. The course consisted of a figure 8 pattern for the first eight miles and then there was a second loop on the bottom loop of the figure 8. The first five miles were pretty much downhill and fast (good Broad St prep) and I know I was doing a sub 7:00 minute pace. Then the hills started, they seemed long with a few plateaus but I got through them fairly well between miles 6 - 8. There was a nice downhill towards the Finish line which also was the start of the second loop so the downhill started again from miles 8 through 10. Then it was back up the hills again. The hills definitely slowed me up the second time around and I walked through two of the aid stations on the plateaus. Since I know what they looked like, they seemed shorter the second time around even though I ran them much slower. I cruised the final downhill to Finish and completed the half-marathon in 1:36:34 which was about a minute under my goal. The bigger surprise hit me later when I checked my result and found that I was 21st Overall and 2nd in my Age Group. I got to stick around for the awards ceremony to get a small plaque.

Fleche Buffoon Bike Ride
The Fleche Buffoon was another ride that I had targeted because of the elevation climbs during the ride. It had like 14 steep climbs in the 73+ mile route. Here's the course elevation profile:

Luckily the weather was great and I met a couple of guys that I rode with from the Philadelphia Triathlon Club. I think my first hill workout went really well as I tackled most of them fairly well on my tri-bike and there were two climbs (Miles 30 & 42) that I felt were much steeper than the rest, but I was able to make it up both of them on my bike. The second steep hill, I couldn't figure out which way to go at a small plateau and I ended up tipping over on my bike and spraining my wrist. That was the only downside to the ride so I had it iced and wrapped for a few days. We completed the 75 mile route in just over 5 hours and then headed over to the Triumph Brewery in New Hope for some good food, conversation and beers.

Jim Thorpe Weekend
Lastly, I signed up for the Philadelphia Triathlon Club's Jim Thorpe weekend to get a preview of the Black Bear triathlon course for the Half-Ironman that I am doing on June 1st. We camped out in cabins in a state park along a lake. They scheduled two rides for us while we were there. The first ride started on Saturday morning and was a 28 mile out and back near the park and people could do as many laps as they felt like. The course included a large hill which was fun going down but brutal going back up. I rode the first 28 mile lap with Chris and Michelle. It took us about 1:44 to complete the lap. Chris and Michelle weren't doing a second lap so I went back out on my own. I got a little lost at one point but ended up doing the second lap in 1:50 so I was happy with the ride. Upon getting back to the campground, I laced up and went for a six mile run on a trail in the park that ran along a stream. It was a nice gradual downhill on the way out which helped get my legs underneath and the uphill return wasn't too bad either. I felt like I got my first solid brick workout in.

Sunday morning we headed over to Beltzville State Park to ride the Black Bear course. I have to admit that I really didn't have my legs under me on Sunday after the brick workout on Saturday. Since Black Bear is also a two-loop course, I planned to do a single loop and try to do a longer run. The bike course is much hillier than I expected and the 28 mile route took us 1:55 that morning. It was much cooler and windier than the previous day and I think that contributed to our slower pace. I dropped my stuff off at my car and suited up to go for a run. I was hoping for an eight mile run but ended up only doing 4.5 miles. My legs were drained and part of the run course was closed so I packed it in. Two brick workout in one weekend was certainly a lot. My understanding from both bike routes that weekend was the total elevation gain is about what I should expect when I get to Lake Placid, just over a longer distance.

Here's a summary of my training mileage to this point:

	January	February	March	April
Running (Miles)
2013	115.25	103.89	100.01	99.41
2014	112.52	117.22	138.07	102.58
Biking (Miles)
2013	201.4	190.26	104.19	217.89
2014	309.8	281.37	355.29	410.49
Swimming (Km)
2013	13.2	14.2	10.0	14.9
2014	22.2	19.7	25.3	27.0

May Training Goals
Now that the weather is warming up, my goals for this month are to ramp up my training volume, mostly on the bike and some running. I plan to be doing one solid brick workout per week that includes my long ride followed by a 6-10 mile run. In addition, I plan to start open water swimming at Camp Ockanickon again which is timed nicely with the Penn pool closed for a few weeks. Lastly, I'm also starting to practice my nutrition plan while on long rides. I'm told that I should be taking in 300-400 calories and hour during the Ironman so that's going to take some practice to see what I like and how easy things are to carry while I'm riding.

Upcoming race schedule

Phillies 5K - 3/22 Finished 24^th place out of over 4,700 runners. Time 19:32, Pace 6:18 min/mile
Bucks County Half-Marathon - 4/12 Finished 21st Overall, 2nd Age Group, Time: 1:36:34, Pace 7:24
The Fleche Buffoon 75 Miles Bike Ride - 4/19 Completed in 5:10:37
Million Dollar 73 Miles Bike Ride - 5/3
Broad Street Run - 5/4
WPR 26x1 Relay - 5/17
Black Bear Half-Ironman - 6/1
ODDyssey Half-Marathon - 6/8
Lake Placid Training Camp - 6/19 - 6/22
Lake Placid Ironman - 7/27

That's all for this month. Next monthly update in early June after the Black Bear. Happy training!

Four Months until the Lake Placid Ironman and two months until the Black Bear Half-Ironman! Holy crap it’s coming up quickly.

I know that I had started this blog to give monthly updates on my training and experiences but I had forgotten that work is usually pretty busy in the fall and winter months with teaching and writing grants.  If all of the grants come through, my employment will continue for at least two more years at the university. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to write updates as much as I would have liked. 

To start, I just finished the eighth week of a 24 week training program from a book that I purchased on Amazon.com:

Start to Finish: 24 Weeks to an Endurance Triathlon Paperback
by Paul Huddle, Roch Fey, T.J. Murphy

http://www.amazon.com/Start-Finish-Weeks-Endurance-Triathlon/dp/1782550232/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1395616937&sr=8-4&keywords=ironman+training

The program is divided into four phases that each takes six week: Adaptation phase, Aerobic Base, Ironman-Specific Base, and Race Phase. The first two phases are about building the endurance necessary to start handling the larger training volume later in the program.  I felt like I already had good endurance bases when I started so the first two phases have been pretty easy for me. I’ve worked my swimming up to easily swimming two miles in one hour’s time. I use an indoor trainer to work on cycling at home until the weather warms up and I can start riding outside. I generally do long rides of 2-3 hours on the trainer and some shorter tempo rides following a video that came with the trainer. I’ve been trying to get about a one-hour run outdoors after my long training rides. My weekly long runs are generally from 10-15 miles. I include speedwork and six mile tempo runs weekly as well. The main other thing that I’ve gotten consistent with is doing strength training twice a week using exercises in the book.

I've compared my training mileage at this point in time last year and I'm currently way ahead of where I was at this time last year which gives me confidence that my training bases are developing nicely. 

	January	February	March
Running (Miles)
2013	115.25	103.89	100.01
2014	112.52	117.22	138.07
Biking (Miles)
2013	201.40	190.26	104.19
2014	309.80	281.37	355.29
Swimming (Km)
2013	13.20	14.20	10.00
2014	22.20	19.70	25.30

New Tri Bike - http://www.quintanarootri.com/_bike.asp?content=CD0.1-i2-2013

I knew that I would need to upgrade my road bike to a true tri bike to help with the bike portion of the Ironman. After a lot of research, I concluded that I should purchase a Quintana Roo CD0.1 tri bike because I felt it gave the best value for the money and has a lot of features that will help with the Ironman. I found a bike shop in Bryn Mawr, Cycles ByKyle, which sells Quintana Roos and has a good reputation for working with cyclists and triathletes. I made an appointment in November and was measured to get the bike fit to my body specifications and discussed what I was looking to do with Kyle. We both agreed that the QR model that I wanted should work and the bike was adjusted to my body measurements and off I went with my new tri bike.I’ve only been able to ride it a few times so far and it seems like each time I ride it has either rained, very wet paths, or cool and windy. I had to get some mileage on the bike and then brought it back to the bike shop to tweak it based on my riding tendencies I’m still waiting for that perfect ride and will hold off riding it again until the warmer weather sets in and the trails dry out from all of the snow that we received. 

Lake Placid Training Camp - http://www.etacoach.com/lakeplacidcamp.php
Another thing that I had heard about was an Ironman Lake Placid training camp that the ETA Coach, Jason Kilderry, organizes in June. I signed up for the camp which takes me to Lake Placid for four days in June to check out the lake, bike and run courses. The cost of the camps was $550 which includes all lodging and meals, along with instruction from Jason and his staff on the courses at Lake Placid. I’m excited to get up there and preview everything and see what I got myself into. ETA Coach also rents a lake at a YMCA camp in Medford Lakes, NJ where triathletes can practice their open-water swimming prior to their events and I’m looking forward to getting back out the lake this spring. 

Philadelphia Triathlon Club - https://www.facebook.com/groups/PhillyTriClub/
Another group that I signed up for is the Philadelphia Triathlon Club. The club organizes social and educational sessions for triathletes. They have a tent (with their own porta potties) for their club members at most of the major races and triathlons in the Philly area. I’m going to join the club for a course preview of the Black Bear triathlon at the end of April since I will be doing the Half-Ironman distance at that triathlon. The club has a house for Lake Placid, which I could have joined in on and saved a lot on lodging fees, but I’ve already got a hotel room. They also have their own Lake Placid training weekend which is not as informative as the ETA and more of a do-it-yourself training weekend. I recently attended a club social at the Bryn Mawr running club and the speaker was from Mid-Atlantic sports. I got a lot of good tips, especially about a nutrition plan, to help with my training preparation and strategy for the Ironman.

Fall Race Recap
My Fall races went really well, although I was mostly focused on running and did very limited swimming and biking. I was trying to run a Boston marathon qualifying time which I did at the Steamtown Marathon in October. I ran the Steamtown marathon in 3:23:49 so I just got under the 3:25 that I needed and was a marathon PR. I was cruising along and on pace for 3:15 until I started experiencing hamstring and calf cramps that forced me to stop. I ran two half-marathon in Philly, the Philly Rock 'n Roll and the Philly Half Marathon. I crushed the Rock 'n Roll to a new PR of 1:33:05 for new half-marathon PR. The Philly half-marathon went well too and I finished in 1:35:37 which was my third fastest half-marathon. I did a couple of 5K on back to back days an placed 3rd overall in the Chicken Run 5K with a time of 20:03 (very hilly) and then ran the next day and completed the Parkway 5K in 19:34. Lastly, I was talked into running the Rocky Run 50K and ran the entire route (and a little extra when we missed a turn) in under 5 hours.

Upcoming race schedule

Phillies5K - 3/22 Finished 24^th place out of over 4,700 runners. Time 19:32, Pace 6:18 min/mile
Bucks County Half-Marathon - 4/13
The Fleche Buffoon 75 Miles Bike Ride - 4/19
Million Dollar 73 Miles Bike Ride - 5/3
Broad Street Run - 5/4
WPR 26x1 Relay - 5/17
Black Bear Half-Ironman - 6/1
ODDyssey Half-Marathon - 6/8
Lake Placid Training Camp - 6/19 - 6/22
Lake Placid Ironman - 7/27

Inspiration Triathlon story of the month:
Near-blind triathlete's new outlook.

That's all for this month. Hopefully I can get back to monthly updates  at the end of April. Happy training!

11 Months to go!

It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged (http://paulamosracing.blogspot.com) about my training. It got a little hectic last Fall when I ran three half marathons, a full marathon, the 206 mile Ragnar Relay race and the Pocono Half-Ironman -- all within a two-month period. I set distance PR’s in the Philadelphia Marathon and the Myrtle Beach Mini-Marathon. As the winter months began, I focused my efforts again on preparing for the Tri-Rock Philadelphia Olympic Distance Triathlon in June, 2013. I had recorded all of my swim, bike and runs in 2012 which gave me a good idea on the mileage that I would need to be doing in order to prepare for the Tri. As the winter months dragged on, I was in the gym mostly using the exercise bike, treadmill and swimming in the pool. I did start a Monday night speedwork program which has helped tremendously. 

As the Spring months began, I ran a 5K PR but just missed running a sub-20 in the Phillies 5K in March (20:01) and followed that up a week later with a 20:35 in the Wharton 5K on a hillier course. I ran the April Fools Half-Marathon in Atlantic City a day after the Wharton 5K and finished in a faster than expected time of 1:36:11, probably because the course was flat and there wasn’t any wind off the ocean that morning. I followed that up with another PR in the Broad Street Run distance at 1:10:18, another solid Half Marathon time of 1:38:30 at the ODDyssey half-marathon (it was Hot that day!), and then blew away my 5K PR at the Esri 5K in San Diego with a time of 19:03.
 

The Tri-Rock Philadelphia Olympic Distance Triathlon went as I expected and I posted a 10 minute improvement over my previous years’ time coming in at 2:36:17. I made the most improvement in the swim portion while my bike, run and transition times improved slightly as well. I did cramp up a little in my hamstrings on the run which caused me to walk a little and lose some precious time. All in all, I was very pleased with my time and effort in the Tri.
 
I never really thought much about trying to do a full Ironman, even after completing the Pocono Ironman 70.3 last Fall. The defining moment came for me when I started my open water swim training at the lake in late April. I went out to the lake, which was in the high 60’s, and proceeded to swim a mile in 25 minutes with my wetsuit on. Since that went so quickly and I had paid to swim that morning, I figured I would do a few more laps for some extra practice. Four laps and another mile later, I still felt great. As I ran the calculation in my head, I would only need to swim another .4 miles to be at the full Ironman open-water swim distance, which seemed very doable at that moment. I called it a day at that point because I wanted to do some biking, but the seed had been planted. 

I began researching what I would need to do to sign up for an Ironman. My mind kept going towards the Lake Placid Ironman since it’s relatively close and is scheduled in late-July in the Adirondacks. The Lake Placid Ironman is the longest-running American event aside from the Ironman World Championship Hawaii. It’s also considered one of the top venues for a full Ironman, similar to the Boston Marathon is for running.  The registration opens up the day after each Lake Placid Ironman takes place. The registration is like a rock concert and sells out pretty quickly after it opens. I planned to register when it opened at noon on July 27^th. I wasn’t sure if I would get in so I wouldn’t have been disappointed if it sold out before I tried to register, but I wanted to make a serious attempt at it. As luck would have it, I registered without any problems, paid the $700 fee and am now an official entrant into the 2014 Lake Placid Ironman. The registration sold out within three hours and there are only charity spots available now.

Now the process of developing a training plan has started for me. I’m still focusing on my fall race schedule which includes three half-marathons and a full marathon in Scranton, where I am trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon.  I’m also doing a century bike ride in October to get myself familiar with the Ironman biking distance. I’ve been bumping up my running and bike mileage which should help me gain confidence with the distances that I’ll need to complete in the Ironman. My goals are to have a solid Fall season before I am forced into indoor training at the gym during the dark winter months. I’m also researching Tri bikes as I will need to get a better bike to tackle the elevation on the bike course in Lake Placid. Some other things that I plan to do with my training are to sign up for the Black Bear Half-Ironman on June 1, 2014 and a Lake Placid four day training camp sponsored by ETA Coach a few weeks before the full Ironman takes place.

I plan to update my blog once a month regarding my training progress. Currently, I have been doing two long runs per week to prepare for the Steamtown Marathon, a 13-14 miler during the week and 16-20 miles on weekends. These runs are in addition to my Monday night speed workout (5 X 1000’s) and my Wednesday night WPR 6 mile runs. I’m swimming just once a week, added a Plyometrics workout, and doing a long bike ride once a week. I recently rode 75 miles on the Schuylkill River trail and Valley Forge Park and plan to continue to increase the mileage in preparation for a century ride in the Camp Hill Challenge  in October.

In the meantime, here is a link to a YouTube video of the 2013 Lake Placid Ironman which has really inspired and motivated me for this event.