Running season!

Now that triathlon season is over for me, I have ramped up my running mileage to prepare for the 5-6 road races that I plan on doing over the winter. It is tough because I am training for the Ironman and the weekly hours are getting steadily longer and longer. But in order to do the races that I have planned, the miles in the IM schedule are not quite enough. So, the trick will be adding the miles while not getting injured or over trained. It has felt great to start getting back to, what is for me a normal weekly mileage. 33 miles this week.

The Long Beach Marathon is two weeks away, where Brittany and I will be doing the half marathon. My PR for the half is 1:56:05 which I did last year in Phoenix. It was very cold that morning. 28 degrees which I think was a record for that date or something. In any event, it proved to be great for my finishing time. We will see how Long Beach goes. I hope the weather is cool and I hope to finish in under 1:50:00.

I have decided to do the full marathon at the Surf City Marathon in February. I had planned to do the half, while Brittany was doing the full. After thinking about it I decided to pace Brit and use it as a great warm up for the marathon I will be doing after the 2.4 mile swim and 112 mile bike at IMAZ. It is going to mean more running miles in my training, but, I love running so.....

I took it easy today with a :30 swim and a :40 min bike. I needed a little rest and clear out some lactic acid from my legs and get refreshed for tomorrow. 1:00 swim, 1:50 bike, 10 mile run.

Paul

Long Beach Triathlon race report

Well, yesterday was the last triathlon of the season. It went really well. I was very happy with my times. But, I was a little disappointed with my placing. Triathlon is a tough sport and the field is usually stacked with some heavy competition.

The swim is my weak point. I did the 1/2 mile in 17:49 which was 4 minutes faster than LA Tri and that was 250 meters shorter. So, I am happy about that. The bike went well. I averaged 18.8 mph. The run was great although I felt I could have shaved a little time off of my 8:20 min/mile pace had I not been so tired from the swim. I have to hit the pool and open water HARD over the winter. If I could have sped up the swim I am sure that I could have placed much higher as my bike and run were all in the top 25-35% of my age group. Train train train.....

Paul Both
race # 1021

overall place 428/921
age group place 54/74
gender place 347/528
overall time 1:25:24
swim distance 800 m
swim time 17:49
T1 time 4:32
bike distance 11 miles
bike time 36:29
T2 time 1:16
run distance 3 miles
run time 25:16

It was an absolutely awesome day. Brittany came out and took a ton of pictures. She had a 12 mile run the day before and this was supposed to be a rest day with just a 2 mile run. Well she did almost that running around snapping shots on the course. Man it was a great day!


Paul

Long training day

I usually do my long training days on the weekend. But, since I am racing in the Long Beach Triathlon on Sunday, I switched my long day to today. I “slept in” till 6:00 am, got up, had a couple bowls of Trail Mix Crunch and headed to the gym. I started with a 1:45 minute ride on the bike. My legs were feeling a little tired so I stayed in the lower part of my “easy zone”. My heart rate was fine and I was feeling pretty good. It’s just that my legs were just kinda sore and felt like I could get to my LT pretty easily. So I just took it slow and steady. I was on the bike 1:45 for a total of 26 miles.

On to the run. I love running after cycling. I guess I am blessed that I don’t really get dead legs. They just get a little numb, which makes it even nicer to run. I ran for 1:10 at a pretty slow pace. I felt pretty amazing the whole time. 1:10 for 6.5 miles. I did a little stretching, calves and hamstrings, and a set of back extensions and some crunches. Next up, :45 swim. I am starting to enjoy swimming more and more. I just started swimming about 4 months ago. I bought the DVD “Freestyle Made Easy” from the company Total Immersion, per the advice from several Triathletes. I have no idea how I would have ever learned to swim as fast as I did had I not watched this video. I have become fairly efficient in a relatively short amount of time. Still, swimming is still my weakest discipline. I’ve gotta work on that. :45 swim for a little under 1500 meters.

I feel really good. Tomorrow I’m going to do an open water swim in Belmont Shores and rest for the rest of the day in preparation for Sunday’s race.

I am shooting for at least top 35% in my age group. It is the last triathlon race of the season and I will be happy with if I achieve that goal.

I will post a race report after the race.

Paul

Long Beach Tri on Sunday Sep. 23rd

I am getting ready for my 3rd triathlon this Sunday. It is a 1/2 mile swim, 11 mile bike and 3 mile run. Pretty short race actually. I am attempting to place in the top 30% in my age group which should put me in the top 20-25% overall. We’ll see how it goes.

I have been training 7 days a week for the last 8 weeks. I am in the 9th week of my 36 weeks of Ironman training for Ironman Arizona on April 13th 2008. It is a huge commitment but I have never felt better physically.

Tomorrow I have a 1:05 bike session and a :35 run. I’ll train at the gym since it is logistically easier than training outside. I wish I had more time to train outdoors. I moved to Long Beach about a month ago and it is a great place to train because I am so close to the beach. There seems to be a lot of triathletes that live and train around here. The race starts and finishes about 3 blocks from my house. It will be nice to not have to drive to the race. How often does that happen:)

Tomorrow is another typical day. Get up around 5, out the door by 5:30, train for 2-3 hours then off to work at Post Modern Edit. Then when I am done I will come home and try and work on some music. My song “Red Bloody Sun” was just used in the NBC show “Friday Night Lights” episode #105 “Git’er Done”. Pretty cool and unexpected. I need to keep writing.

Paul