8 miles Today After Being a Bum

I missed Thursday's workout as I took the USAEUR drivers test and picked up the car, so now we finally have wheels and can get out and about. Friday was an off day and since we could get out and explore a little bit I did that instead of making up Thursdays workout.

I was talking to a friend of mine last night and he thought I had laid out a pretty aggressive race schedule. He's right I have but I'm unsure as to what triathlons I want to do. I know I'm running the Half Marathon and the Marathon, but if I can't find a pool close by then I'm going to have issues with a 1.2 mile swim. I'll leave everything on the schedule and then pare it down after I get more familiar with everything.

Despite all that today was an 8 mile run and I did get back on track with that this afternoon, here's the data, I only hope the calories burned cover the wurst, kraut and weissen I had for lunch, more on that later:

Distance : 8:02mi
Total Time: 1:27:53
AVG Pace: 10:53
Total Calories: 1257
AVG HR: 160 bpm
Max HR: 171 bpm
Pace:
Mile 1: 10:44
Mile 2: 10:26
Mile 3: 10:46
Mile 4: 10:47
Mile 5: 10:48
Mile 6: 10:50
Mile 7: 10:51
Mile 8: 10:49
Mile .2: 10:49
Zone 1 Time: 0:06 Distance: 0ft
Zone 2 Time: 0:41 Distance: 223ft
Zone 3 Time: 26:06 Distance: 2.4 mi
Zone 4 Time: 1:02:05 Distance: 5.8 mi
Zone 5 Time: :07 Distnace: 58ft

Today's Workout

Today was supposed to be a 20 mile bike day with a 3 mi run/4 100 m sprints.

Without my bike and my cadence counter I can't tell how far I go with my garmin and the gym here only has recumbent computerized bikes. The spin bikes don't have a computer so thinking that I used to average between 19-21 mph I did a 60 minute ride on the spin bike. I haven't been on a bike since September, so this was a little more difficult than I thought especially at the 45 minute mark. I probably didn't do 20 miles, but 60 minutes isn't bad for the first ride in several months. Here is my HR data trying to stay in Zone 3

Zone 1: 2:57 (Probably the first 2:57)
Zone 2: 6:00 (A mix of a little at the beginning and a little at the end)
Zone 3: 25:16
Zone 4: 25:38

I had no idea I spent that much in Zone 4 and looking at my graph in Garmin Training Center it shows that the time in Zone 4 was at the low end of the Zone, which isn't as bad as I thought at first glance.

Now for the second part of the workout. I just didn't do it. I had to go to pick up all of my issue gear today and it was about a mile walk over there and a mile walk back with a 50lb+ rucksack on my back and a 50lb+ duffle bag sometimes laid on top of the rucksack or carried in my hand. Pretty exhausting and I think it should count for some sort of work out.

I'm still having trouble getting my butt out of the bed in the morning to do the workouts. It's only a 5 minute walk to the gym but I just don't have the motivation at 5:15am to do it in the cold to get on the spin bike. I can't wait to get my bike here so I can set it up on the trainer and do the workout without going out into the cold.

Look for some posts this weekend about beer. I intend to get some good German beers to watch the American football playoffs with and I'll share my thoughts about them with everyone.

Speed Workout

It has finally stopped snowing in Bavaria but I went inside to hit the treadmill for today's workout.

2mi Goal Pace/2mi Tempo/2mi Goal Pace

The Goal Pace is a 9:13 good enough for a 4 hour Marathon.

Tempo Pace is 8:30.

One of these days I'll figure out where the pool is. Until then it's all about the cardio.

It's A Snow Day

That's what it was when I got up this morning to go to the gym to hit the spinning bikes. Post was on a 2 hour delay so the gym didn't open at 0530 like I needed it to, so I could get a workout in before starting inprocessing. Then I tried to ride the bus with Shantel and Macen to the big PX at Grafenwoefr so we could see it and get some things we needed. Needless to say the snow made the roads bad so the bus wasn't even running. Overall a very productive day. Sarcasm definitely intended.

I still haven't found a pool yet so no swim workouts either. I'll just have to pick up the workouts tomorrow.

Training Plan Week 1

Ignore the date at the top of the weekly workout I mislabeled it when I saved it as a JPEG. But that is the overview of my weekly workout. I'll post results daily. As I mentioned in the previous post I'm going to have to do some of it on a stationary bike and I need to find an indoor pool since there isn't one on my post. I've been told there are some in the local area.

If by chance anyone is looking for just a marathon training plan, you can drop the bike and swim workouts and just do the run workout in order to be ready for a marathon.

In order to give credit where credit is due I took the half ironman training plan from trinewbies.com and then cut the run portion and added a marathon plan from Runners World. A friend used the half ironman plan with great success last year and I used the marathon plan for the Omaha Marathon and a 4:20 PR. So I know the plans work.

Week 1 swim workouts explained

Time To Get Busy

It is only 118 days until the Prague Marathon and 140 days until Ironman 70.3 Austria. So it's time to start the workout program. This year's goals are for a 4:00 - 4:30 Marathon and a 5:45-6:30 70.3. I also need to drop my weight back down to about 190. I don't need to get down to the 180 I was last summer, I just want to stay between 190-200.

There are several obstacles, I mean opportunities to overcome, in order to accomplish these goals. The family and I have just moved from Kansas to Germany and we are currently living in temp lodging until a house opens up on our Army Post. We also don't have any of our stuff yet, which means none of my bikes are here. I'm going to have to use the stationary bikes in the gym until we get our stuff. I'm also starting a new job as a Squadron Executive Officer for a unit that is getting ready to deploy sometime sometime this summer, after the races. Before we can deploy though we have to go through a 3 week Mission Readiness Exercise, during which I won't be able to workout like I want to. Finally we have moved to Germany, the home of good beer and if you've noticed the title of the blog I LIKE beer, so I'm going to have to watch my consumption. All this means I need to make sure my goals are realistic. If I reach the upper end of my goals I will set personal records for both the marathon and the 70.3 and if I only make the bare minimum I will be just slightly slower than my current personal records of 4:20 and 6:08. The bottom line here is I just want to race and see some of Europe.

I've Been Horrible

And I haven't run since my last post. Oh well we are in the midst of a complicated move from Kansas to Germany. Check out the story here. Plus the temps in KS/MO are hovering around 0. Way too cold to be out running. I amost can't wait to get to Germany where it is about 30, yeah a heat wave.

Only two more weeks until my Half Ironman workout program is supposed to start. I'll actually start the diet when I get to Germany.