Wednesday, September 30, 2009

The Workout of the Week

I have another running workout to show you guys. This workout is performed by a HS team that I believe is in Illinios. They have several national championships in XC and numerous state titles in their recent history. The coach is a bit of a legend and he has his boys doing 5 x 1 mile today with 3 minutes recovery. It's always cool to see a HS team this large when compared to a team like I was on in HS that barely had a full team of 7 guys running XC. And this workout is a couple of years old. This video was recorded during the fall of 2007.

And I have reason to believe that is Al Pacino that is coaching or at least it is his voice twin. They sound identical.

Here's the link. Hope you enjoy.

http://www.flotrack.org/videos/speaker/475-joe-newton/5083-york-hs-workout

Tony

Monday, September 28, 2009

Augusta 70.3 Race Report

Well the season is done. I am sitting in Corbin right now and am headed back to Lexington today. Beth, Eric, Jeff, Neely, Casey Gilvin, Ben, Dave K, and myself all raced in Augusta, GA yesterday and we had a blast. Ben and I drove down Friday morning from Corbin and arrived just before 5 pm. We hung out at the hotel before going to get some steak with Jeff and Neely. Everyone else arrived a little bit later in the evening. Saturday we did our usual pre race activities. We ate a big breakfast, went for a short bike ride and a short run, got all of our racing gear ready, and went to the pre race meetings. Saturday evening we watched UK get destroyed by UF while we enjoyed our pizza from Mellow Mushroom.

My alarm went off at 4:30 am Sunday morning so I could eat my usual breakfast before the race. We were mostly packed and were headed towards the transition area by 5:30. My wave was the first wave to go off at 7:30. This was my first ever 70.3 race without swimming in a wetsuit, but I wasn't too worried about that. It was a point to point swim, with the current of the river, and with a strong wind at our back.

The gun went off at 7:30 and we dove right in. I had a different mind set about this race. I told myself I would race my own race, as opposed to focusing on what everyone else was doing like I had been doing for the past few races. The swim is where I have been getting a little nervous about and really trying to swim with the fast guys. Once we were in the water, I focused on a strong, efficient stroke, as opposed to worrying about swimming fast. Well, this worked out great. I was in the front of the lead pack for about 5 minutes until everyone picked up the pace a little. I ended up at the back of the 1st pack and I stayed there for the rest of the swim. I was very controlled and comfortable the whole swim and never felt overwhelmed like I did at Tuscaloosa or Steelhead. I came out of the water side-by-side with Victor Zyemtsev (who won Ironman Louisville) and we went ran into T1. I could see the leaders heading out of T1 as I was heading in so I knew there wasn't a big gap at all.

Once on the bike, I passed 2 guys early, then just put my head down and kept rolling. Chris Legh passed me about 5 miles into the bike and made me look like I was standing still. He is really strong. We had a tail wind for the first hour so it was fast. I covered almost 13.5 miles in the first 30 minutes and just under 26 miles for the first hour. Nick Waninger caught me around mile 12 - 14 and kind of gave me a little boost. We have raced many times this year and are very equal in ability. Once he caught me, I put my head down to stay close to him. We ended up riding the rest of the bike course together (not drafting, just using each other's energy to keep moving fast). We caught several guys over the next 20 - 30 miles. 2 - 3 guys actually rolled us up pretty good too. There were some strong guys there. This bike course was a lot tougher than I expected and the strong winds did not make it a fun day. I really suffered the last 10 - 15 miles because of the strong head winds that we were fighting to get back to transition. I really slowed down a lot over the last hour of the bike ride. I came into T2 behind Nick and 2 guys that had just passed us on the bike. We headed out on the run, and I knew it was going to be tough. I did not feel good at all, but I sure hoped it would get better.

Nick started to pull away, but I ran the other two guys down (they had about a 30 - 45 second lead off of the bike) within the first 3 miles. I was still chasing Nick, but he had a great run and he only distanced me even further throughout the run course. The rest of the run was a battle with myself. I never passed another guy and no one passed me. I managed to run 1:19 and change on a 13 mile course ( 1/10 of a mile short). I crossed the finish line in 11th place overall and just under 4 hours for my finishing time (3:59:35).

This was my worst result in a 70.3 race this year, but my best race. Those were the toughest conditions that I've had to race in this year, and the strongest field that I've raced against. They pushed me to my fastest 70.3 of the year and a good finishing note for the 2009 season. I've had a long season and am glad to be finished. But the thing about these races is they really motivate me for other races. A little fire inside of me wants to race at Clearwater. This will most likely not happen since I'm not qualified but ....

It would probably be the best decision to figure out my bike position (I could barely walk after the race because my knee hurt so bad from the bike ride), work on my swim stroke, and build up my running miles so that I'm able to run 5:40 pace for 13.1 miles after a hard swim/bike. Guys like Greg Bennett just make it look so easy.

And our Lexington crew really did well. Ben finished 5th in his AG and this was also his first ever attempt at this distance. Beth finished 3rd in her AG, Jeff finished 3rd in his AG, Eric finished 6th in his AG and got a spot for Clearwater. Neely finished her first ever 70.3 race.
Overall we had a great time and I would love to race there again next year.

Preliminary results can be found here:

http://ironman.com/events/ironman70.3/augusta70.3/?show=tracker&rid=260&year=2009

Until next time.

T-Bird

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

WOW

Today’s workout video is of an aquatics team (that I’ve never heard of) and they are working on pace. The coach talks about the emphasis of good stroke technique and keeping good form throughout the workout as opposed to cranking out a bunch of hard intervals where everyone is barely making the send offs.

The distance group is doing 36 x 100 which is broken up into 2 sets, and then into 3 parts within the set. The first four 100’s are performed at 200 race pace plus 6 seconds per hundred. So if your 200 race pace is 2:00, then you are to perform the first four 100’s on 1:06. The send off for the entire set is 1:35.

The next six 100’s are 200 race pace plus 5 seconds and the last eight 100’s are 200 race pace plus 4 seconds. Going back to the original example, the swimmer would perform four 100’s on 1:06, six on 1:05, and eight on 1:04; all with a send off of 1:35. So they are getting about 30 seconds of rest after every interval.

After the first set, they got a few minutes of recovery before starting the set all over again. I have swum a modified version of this set, but never the entire set. I feel like every time I want to attempt the whole set, I’m close to a race and I don’t want to mess up my taper by swimming 36 100’s at close to race pace.

Hope you enjoy the video.

http://www.floswimming.org/videos/speaker/522-sean-hutchison/182349-pace-work-with-king-aquatic-club


Tony

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Check up

I know I haven't blogged about anything lately, but there really isn't anything too exciting in my life right now. I have been putting in the work, while getting a lot of rest for the past week or so. I'll be racing in Augusta this Sunday which is most likely going to be my last race of the year. I had plans on going to Clearwater, but I feel like I would benefit more by focusing on next year instead of squeezing in another race this year. After Augusta, my plan is to take a couple of weeks off (not completely) and then start putting in a large aerobic base while working on some of my swimming mechanics so I'll be better prepared for the 2010 season. If I race at Clearwater, I would train hard for another month or so, and then taper for about 2 weeks, then take the 2 weeks of recovery, and not start my build up for next year until the first of December. But the only problem with that is I don't know if there is enough internal motivation left in my system to get me to train hard for another month or so. The bike rides are becoming more dreadful (for no particular reason), I delay workouts more and more with every passing day, and I am just ready for a break. Now don't get me wrong, I have still worked hard up to this point and am ready to roll this weekend in Augusta. I know this is something that a lot of people struggle with, but even professional athletes struggle to get out the door for every single workout.

I'm thinking that next year may have to be broken into 2 seasons. Maybe an early season where I race 4 - 5 times in April, May and June. Then I'll start all over and have another build up to a later season where I'll race maybe once in August, and then have a few big races in September and October. That way, I'll still get in about the same number of races within the year, but I'll be fresher and more prepared for the races as opposed to getting burnt out half way through the season, and having some rough races during that period to deal with.

Check back tomorrow for the workout of the week.

Tony

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Ryan Hall's WO

Today I'm posting another workout from before the Olympic Trials marathon which was in NYC in late 2007. Ryan is one of the greatest American distance runners of all time. He is running in Philly this weekend in the "Distance Classic" which I believe is a half marathon. And then he is running in the New York Marathon this fall which will be his "A" race of the fall.

In this workout, he's doing a marathon race paced run of 15 miles. He does it on a road that he does a lot of his training and he discusses during the video of how his faith in God affects him as a runner. It's a great video.

http://www.tangle.com/view_video?viewkey=5c60b9016f85cc43196f

Enjoy.

Tony

Monday, September 14, 2009

SBCTFS RR

Does the title make sense? It's short for "Susan Bradley-Cox Tri for Sight Race Report" and I guess I didn't really save much time now that I had to type what that acronym was short for, ha.

Anyways, yesterday was the annual Triathlon here in Lexington which is always a great race. Beth and Eric both spend a lot of time making sure that it is a great race. They receive numerous compliments every year about how well ran the event is and how safe everyone feels on the course. This year they even changed the bike course a little to make it safer.

I woke up yesterday morning and decided I would try something new for breakfast before a race. I had some oatmeal with a cup of coffee and my morning serving of FRS. I got the car packed up and I headed down to the transition area. It always nice to eat breakfast at home and sleep in your own bed the night before a race. After setting up my transition area and a little run warmup, I was ready to roll. I was fourth in the water since it was a swim seaded start in a pool swim. We had to snake our way down the pool to get in our 800 meters of swimming. I took off and just didn't feel like I was catching much water. I haven't felt good in the water for about a month now. I don't know what the problem is, but hopefully it will get better before Augusta here in 2 weeks. Anyways, I passed the guy who started immediately in front of me pretty fast, and then had the pool almost to myself for the rest of the swim. I was too far behind Dave K and Kevin R. to catch them and I had a big gap on the guys behind me. I came out of the water in third position and sprinted to the transition area. Kevin is injured right now so I knew he was only doing the swim, so I just needed to chase down Dave. Had a good transition and took off on my first race on my Mercury Trident bike. I got rolling early and was really making up some ground quick. I caught Dave about 5 - 6 miles into the race and then opened up a gap on my way back on the bike. I felt great and got some good encouragement around the 14 mile mark from some of my kids on the swim team, which was nice. And apparently they were making fun of Dave because he used to coach them. Dave told me they yelled, "Dave, Tony is killing you." to Dave when he went by on the bike, haha. Anyways, I went into T2 with a pretty big gap and took off on the run looking to run pretty fast. I kept a pretty good tempo the whole run and I came across the finish line in first place. I ended up running just under 22 minutes for the 4 mile course. Unfortunately, it was the slowest I've ever ran on that course (which I didn't realize until I checked old results last night). I did feel good on the run and I had the fastest bike split in the race so that is always great news. I'm hoping to keep this fitness going into Augusta 70.3 and that I can feel a little better on the swim.

Results can be found at:

http://www.besttimescct.com/results/Sight09.txt

Til next time.

Tony

Saturday, September 12, 2009

The Showdown

Round #13????

So, in 2006, Dave Kuendig and I were racing head-to-head for the first time since we were both considered "fast." at the Tri for Sight here in Lexington. We had raced before but it was my first Olympic distance race ever and it was at the beginning of 2005. Anyways, our friends really hyped up this head to head race and couldn't decide who would win. Dave was obviously the better swimmer (and still is) and everyone told me I was stronger on the bike and a better runner. I was convinced that I could run him down if I made up most of the deficit on the bike. Well, needless to say, he was a MUCH better swimmer than I on that day. I only made up about 30 seconds of that 1:40 that I lost on the swim. So he won our first "showdown" by about a minute.

Over the next couple of years, we have raced in many different races with both of us coming out on top on different occasions. But the only real "showdown" is always at Tri for Sight since it is a time trial start and we always start very close to the front. In 2007, neither of us raced and Eric Bell came up from Knoxville to take home the big W. Last year, was another head-to-head battle between the two of us. All of our friends made a big deal about it again, but not as big of a deal as they made it out to be in 2006. I had improved my swim a lot since 2006, and Dave only managed to put about 30 seconds on my last year in the water. I managed to catch him close to the half way point on the bike and then lead the way into the second transition. Unfortunately, he was cut off by a car about 200 yards from the transition area and he had a little spill. He was forced to run his bike into transition and he lost a significant amount of time due to the accident. Once he got onto the run, he felt that he did not have a chance of catching me, so he kind of ran at a tempo pace. So last year's race was a tainted victory for me. But I did manage to break Dave's course record by about 15 seconds.

Tomorrow, September 13th of 2009, is the SHOWDOWN at the Susan Bradley-Cox Tri for Sight. But nobody has really talked about it this year, so I just thought this would make a funny blog.

And Congrats to Susan Bradley-Cox who won her AG at the World Championships in Australia.

T-Bird

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Today's Workout

First off, training is going pretty good. I had a great weekend of training in Corbin while I also attended one of my best friends' wedding on Saturday. And I want to say Congrats to Daniel and Lindsay Lowe. It was a great wedding and I had a blast. That is why Casey and I were all dressed up for in that picture from the last post. We decided that we should take a picture since we really don't get dressed up all that often, ha. I have a race this weekend here in Lexington and I'm really looking forward to it.

Well, it is Wednesday so I have another workout. Since Dathan Ritzenhein broke the American Record in the 5k about a week ago, I'll post one of my favorite workouts of his. This was a workout he did leading into the Olympic Trials marathon in 2007. He did this "marathon paced run" about a month before the race. He practiced everything including nutrition and hydration just as if he were running the race itself. It's kind of a long video, but they explain everything that is included during the workout and the reason for doing those things. Here's the link:

http://www.flotrack.org/videos/speaker/85-dathan-ritzenhein/5468-part-4-the-workout

Hope you enjoy.

T-Bird

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Big Pimpin'


I may look good in spandex, but I think that I look even better in this picture. It's probably because of the good company.






Thursday, September 3, 2009

Workout Wed./Thurs.

Sorry for the lack of posting in the last week. But here is the workout of the week that I love. The video isn't the most exciting thing to watch ever, but I love this swim set. It is a very challenging set and really gets difficult if you went too hard in the beginning. The video explains the set, but basically, the first send off is at :20 seconds and you build up to 2:00 minutes, adding :5 seconds every interval. You swim as far as you can while still getting a little rest within the given time. So, when I do this set, I will do 25y on the :20, 25y on the :25, 50y on the :30, 50y on the :35 .............. 150y on 1:55, and the last one doing a 175y on 2:00. The person that is swimming decides when to jump up the distance on the next send off. You never go back down in distance. The first time I attempted this set, I tried to do a 150y on 1:40, which came back to haunt me. I ended up swimming the last 5 send off's (1:40, 1:45, 1:50, 1:55, & 2:00) with no rest. I swam 750y straight because I blew up and I couldn't recover, haha. My PR for the set is swimming a total of 1975 yards. I have yet to make the 2000y distance for the set. I hope this wasn't too confusing.


http://www.floswimming.org/videos/play/74330-the-nitro-whistle-set

And for reference, here are the intervals that I hit the last time I did this set.

25y on :20
25y on :25
50y on :30
50y on :35
50y on :40
50y on :45
75y on :50
75y on :55
75y on :60
75y on :65
100y on 1:10
100y on 1:15
100y on 1:20
125y on 1:25
125y on 1:30
125y on 1:35
125y on 1:40
150y on 1:45
150y on 1:50
150y on 1:55
175y on 2:00
Total distance: 1975y

Update

Everything is great here in Lexington. I have started my new coaching job which has been a blast so far. The pool is reopening today so it will be the kids first day in the water today. Ben Davis (the head coach) and I have just been making them run a little while giving them all kinds of core work and leg exercises.

Training has been really good the past few days or so. It may be the cooler temperatures or maybe, I have just been feeling better. I have had some really good run workouts. I had a good long run on Sunday and a nice, easy run on Monday. That run on Monday was one of those runs that is so relaxed and easy that I was just excited to be out running. There was almost no exertion and the weather was great. Tuesday was a hard run workout which went really well. I haven't ran that well in a workout since June. Yesterday I just had a normal bike ride and a swim. On the bike ride I decided I would ride to the hill where we do hill repeats and just do one repeat easy then head home. On the ride to the hill, I decided since it was an easier ride, I would throw in one hard effort on the hill and go after the hill record. The fastest I have ever climbed that hill in was 6:42 which I did at some point last season. I decided that I was in good enough shape to give it a run. Just a few weeks ago I climbed the hill in 6:50 with a few other guys so I knew I could climb fast. I got to the bottom of the hill and just decided to really attack it. I sprinted the bottom section and then settled into pace. I got to my checkpoint on the hill in under 5 minutes which I had never done before so I knew I was going hard. I just tried to keep my tempo all the way to the top and I ended up finishing the climb in 6:32, a new PR. I was really excited. Then I just rode easy back to the house. Then I swam with Casey in the afternoon, who was supposed to do a 1000y TT as her workout. I, for some reason, told her I would do it with her. I took it out really hard and then settled into pace. I almost even split this TT because I went through the 500 just over 5:30. I finished in 11:07 which is only 1.2 seconds off of my PR from a dive (recorded as a split during a 1650y race at the Wildcat Master's Swim Meet). So I was pretty happy with this. I know I need to be a lot faster but its a good step in the right direction. Today I have a long run which I'm about to take off on. And this weekend I'm headed home to Corbin to watch one of my best friends get married.

Tony