I was on sabbatical...

I apologize for the month long break between posts!  It seems that everything decided to happen in the past few weeks and I completely forgot about the blog.  So, here are a few updates on what has been going on:

USAT Collegiate Nationals - 2:07:35 (44th overall, 3rd on MSU Tri Team)

Swim felt good (21:30).  I was coming out of the water with people in waves 1 & 2 and I started in wave 3 (not sure if that says more about me or them)

Bike was strong (1:02:10).  It was quite the draft fest out there though.  Lots of penalties in the first few waves.

Run was a disaster (41:30).  Started out well...the first 2 miles I averaged 6:30/mi, but then I started getting a blister and it got hot and everything fell apart.  Walked 3 times through aid stations and almost puked with .5 mile left because of the record high temps that day in Alabama.

 Overall it was still a good result as the mens team was 5th and overall (men&women) the team was 4th.  We placed behind some stellar competition (Colorado University, West Point, and UC Berkeley).  Certainly not my best race ever as I should have run in the 38's and swam about 1' faster to put me around a 2:04.

Now that I have recovered from the heavy drinking and bus ride home after the race, I have started training for Triple T Ohio.  This will be my second year doing this race.  Last year I was 2nd in my Age Group and did the whole race solo.  This year, I will be on a team with a good buddy Matt Inch and we hope to place in the Team Category and win some $$.  We had a stellar run yesterday where we averaged 6:55/mi for 8mi and finished with a push for the last mile and held sub 6:00/mi.  Definitely a confidence builder.

Here is the general plan for Triple T:
Swim ~ 10,000 scy/week
Bike ~ 150 mi/week
Run ~ 35-40 mi/week

Lets hope I can hold to this when exams and school come into play in a few weeks!

SPEED!

This past week was unbelievable.  I have just under 3 weeks until Collegiate Nationals in Tuscaloosa, AL so last week I started doing speed work.

Monday: medium-long run with 30' tempo averaging 6:25/mi with a bit of fade and lots of struggling.
Tuesday: 6x6' at FTP.  Felt tough but not unreasonable
Wednesday: 4x1600m (5:50, 5:51, 5:53, 5:44).  A big thanks to Matt Inch for helping me get through #4.
Thursday: Great computrainer ride where I pushed some serious watts.
Friday: Swim MS: 12x100scy HARD!  I was under 1:15 for all 12 @ 30" rest
Saturday: Long Progression run (15' @ 7:20/mi, 15' @ 7:10/mi, 15' @ 6:50/mi, 15' @ 6:25/mi)
Sunday: off


That's pretty much what the next two weeks will look like as well.  I'll have a bit more volume this week, but then next there will be short, fast workouts, then taper/rest time until Nationals.


GAME ON!

Spring Break and Race Report

First and foremost, I'm in Naples, Florida! After a lllooonnnggg car ride (20 hours), my sister, Chad and I made finally made it to Chad's place around 4:00pm on Saturday.

I'm very excited to have a week without a schedule.  After this morning's race, there is nothing that I have to do until next Monday morning.

Race Report:
Hooters to Hooters Half Marathon in Ft. Myers, FL.

The race start was a bit early for my liking, 7am, but I understand why they have to start so early because it gets so damn hot down here that if you're outside after 10am you're sweating like that guy that's working out a bit too loudly in his cutoffs at the gym.  The 4:30am alarm came a bit too soon even after going to bed at 8:30pm, but I got up had some coffee and cereal.  After a few rolls on the foam roller, we hit the road by 5:15am and arrived at the start at 6am.  A couple laps around the mall, a few strides, and lots of body glide later, I was at the the start.

My plan was to negative split by running the race in four 3-mile chunks, and then hanging on for dear life for the last 1.1miles.  This is what it should have looked like:
Pre-Race Pace Plan
0-3: 7:00-7:05/mi
3-9: 6:45-6:50/mi
9-12: <6:45/mi
12-13.1: HTFU and finish


This is what actually happened:
0-3: 6:45/mi - I knew it was fast, but I felt good and wasn't too worried about it at this point.
3-6: 6:50/mi - Uh oh, things are starting to take a turn for the worse.
6-7: 7:01/mi - This is here because I clocked myself at 6.55mi to make sure I negative split
7-10: 6:57/mi - Ran out-and-back on the steepest causeway in the Ft. Myers area from miles 7-9 (OUCH!)
10-13.3: 6:57/mi - This is where it gets real interesting, so I'll break it up for you:
             10-10.5: Felt good, my quads were a bit tight from the causeway but I wasn't too worried.  I had a guy in my sights and I was focused on catching him by mile 11 and I did, I made up some good time, but then...
             10.5-11: Something shut down real hard! Cramping quads, a mean side stitch, and an unexpected shoulder pain forced a short walk/stumble.
             11-12: Picked it up and ran at 6:40/mi with a guy who had obviously paced himself better than I.
             12-13: Lost the guy, lost all hope, I was deep in the pain cave with no hope of getting out ever!  The quads screamed and my side stitch felt like something was trying to dig it's way out of my abdomen.
             13+: This young kid, 15 maybe, had caught me due to my frequent visits to hell and I was bent on not letting him beat me.  I saw the finish and I started picking up my pace, luckily the kid dropped and I think I finished right around 6:30/mi for the last quarter-mile.  But the race was long!  I was still in contention for a sub 1:30 until I looked at my watch and saw that I had already passed 13.1 mi and still had more to run.

My clock time was 1:31:24 for 13.3miles, which averages out to 6:52/mi!  Which I am absolutely stoked about!  That after a week of not sleeping, stressing about exams, eating nothing healthy, and then a 20hr car ride the day before the race, I was able to run for that long, experience that much pain, and still average <7/mi, blows my mind!

Here are some quick pictures that my sister snapped at the end of the race and awards:

It's 8:55am, time for a post race beer.

Brought home the hardware.

Finishing strong, quite the grimace though.

Hooters girls.  Look at my awkward hands...I was quite uncomfortable.

Slowly but surely...

Look up or calculate the following:

ultimate strength, yield strength, stress concentration factors, notch sensitivity, Neuber constant, modifying factors, maximum and minimum axial/bending/torsion stresses, Von Mises stress, safety factors, Goodman/Soderberg/ASME Ellipse Fatigue Failure Criteria, and force analysis on spur gears or helical gears.  

Then: 

Iterate your results until you get an appropriate safety factor and diameter.

All while making sure that it is all done in an organized fashion so you don't get penalized for an "indecent" solution.

Repeat

You have one hour...and if it's not done in an hour, you get a zero.

Good luck.

This is what I have to look forward to tomorrow afternoon.  Mechanical Design is going to be the death of me.  

Oh! The Midterms!

Let me lay this out for you real quick:

Monday - Tissue Mechanics quiz

Tuesday - Biomechanical Design Exam

Wednesday - Mechanical Design II Exam

Thursday - Vibrations Lab Report due

Friday - Tissue Mechanics Exam; Vibrations Homework due

Ouch...it hurts my brain just looking at the schedule!  Those are just the assignments/exams too!  There are project steps that need to be completed and classes/labs to attend as well.

I have no idea how I'm going to try to squeeze some running/biking/swimming into all of this.  I just can't convince myself that it is worth it to go for a quick run when I have so much studying to do.  When I take my breaks, I find myself pacing the kitchen and eating spoonfuls of peanut butter, nutella, ice-cream or any combination of the previous three.  This does make me feel a bit better though:

In a lighter note (read: sunnier), after my classes Friday I will be taking off to Ft. Myers, FL for Spring Break!   My older sister, her boyfriend, and I will be driving down there Friday and arriving Saturday evening.  Then, Sunday morning I will be running in the Hooters Half Marathon (race details/strategies to follow in another post).

For now, wish me luck as I try to cram all this knowledge into my brain only to make a feeble attempt at regurgitating it during an exam.

Over, out, and off to bed.

What a week!

Everything was insane last week!  Training, weather, school, my diet, etc.  I swear, everything happened just like a normal week, but it was all amplified by so much that the amount of insanity would need to be graphed on a double-log plot.  Absolutely insane!

Let's start with the weather as that dictated the training:

High's in the mid 40's and even creeping up to the low 50's

A bit windy, but sunny

All the snow melted!  All 20" that we got because of the huge storm a few weeks ago...ALL OF IT!

Training:

Run total: 5 runs, 39 miles (felt great all week, most distance I've done since I was marathon training in the fall of '09)

Bike total: 2 rides, 86 miles (not enough, especially since 62 was outdoors on Saturday afternoon)

Swim total: 3 swims, 12k scy (good workouts, felt great all three workouts)

School:

Small conflicts with professors turned into serious conflicts and concerns regarding my grade in the class.  It was a rough week full of talking to the dean and telling the same stories over and over again until I got sick of it and let it all go.  Nevertheless, I have never been involved in a conflict like that before and the amount of stress and strain it caused (clever joke because it's a Solid Mechanics class!) was ridonkulous

My diet:

I think this stems from not having a parking spot at my apartment and therefore not having a car at my apartment.  This means I have to bike/walk to the store to get groceries...I hate walking!  Therefore, I must bike to the store.  Which means I can't purchase a whole lot at one time because I have to bike it all back home!

So Saturday after my ride, I thought about biking to the store for the basics (milk, eggs, bread)  But, after 60 miles outside, my nether-region would not allow me to sit on a bike seat for longer than absolutely necessary. And the only thing that it seemed to tolerate was a ride to the Quality Dairy to get some ice-cream.  So, Saturday's dinner was a supreme pizza, ice cream, macaroni&cheese, and some cheese.  

Sunday wasn't much better as I ran 12 miles in the snowstorm and came home and ate left-over mac&cheese, peanut butter, and more ice-cream for dinner.

Overall, the week was insane...this week I hope to tone it all down a bit as I have 3 exams that I need to study hard for and a lab report due next week.  

Delicate Balancing Act, is it really?

I realize that I am in a very fortunate position in my life right now.  I am attending a great university, I'm working a great job where I get to work whenever and wherever I want, I'm in a relationship with a wonderful girl whose only downfall is that she lives 4 hours away, I have no family commitments, and I am financially stable with no student loans or debt, and I get to return to an amazing internship in the summer where I gain tons of experience and cash money.

I always have people to work out with; they're a very fast group of energetic and supportive friends/triathletes.  I'm no longer sick, my ankle is feeling much better (95%), I feel like I could work out all day every day.  Basically, the only thing preventing me from doing that is school, homework, and sleep.  Yet, seeing as how most people involved with this sport have addiction issues with the sport (aerodynamics, runner's high, sweating, lactic acid, etc.), this addictive personality carries over into other aspects of my life.

When I get focused on a topic (triathlon, cleaning, homework, studying, etc.)...I tend to stay very focused on that topic and everything else gets pushed aside.  This is something I can do at this stage in my life because I have no career or family that will suffer if I ignore them.  So, is my life really as cluttered as I make it out to be, or am I just awful at multi-tasking?  I believe the latter.  

Training Update:

Great run yesterday: 7miles at 7:20 pace (felt easy)

Hills today: 6.5 miles total with 8x30" hard & steep hills with 1' recovery

Tough swim today: MS - 30x50 (1-10 @ 50", 11-20 @ 40", 21-30 @ 45")

Two runs planned for tomorrow. 8ish in the morning, then a brick at night (75' bike, 30' run).