The Plan

This year, I've come up with a training plan that will hopefully address some of my weaknesses during the past two years, but still keep things on the fun side. I have a 4-week cycle where the first three weeks is building on each week by 20-25% in terms of hours. The 4th week is a rest week. Each week has a different emphasis and breaks down like so:

Week 1: Less miles more speed (get after those Strava KOMs and CRs!)and equal time paid to swim, bike and run.

Week 2: More miles less speed (Strava of the mind is still okay!) and more time paid to running.

Week 3: Lots of miles, no speed (no Strava!) and more time paid to biking.

Week 4: Rest week, build weight back up and more time paid to swimming and weight room sessions. I find that as I increase the miles, my weight drops. I'll start the cycle weighing 130 pounds during week 1, and by the end of week 3, I weigh in at about 126 pounds. Thus, this week is about fattening myself, and reversing the trend to get back up to 130 pounds by the start of the next cycle. Unlike the past three seasons, I'm determined not to be 121 pounds again!

I just finished week 3 of my cycle, and I did a little over 19 hours of training, and I'm putting a cap on training at 20 hours. If it's over 20 hours, it has to be fun like doing the Coast Ride. It's gotta be fun, this is after all, a hobby.

What's My Motivation?

Remember when I told you to get on Strava? You might want to reconsider after reading this post. I signed up to do the Strava 100 Running Challenge, which involves running 100 miles in 28 days. I signed up for the challenge on October 17 and two days later, I got sick, and I have yet to fully get back to my 100% self. The delay in my recovery might be due in part to me trying to sneak in runs before I am completely healthy, all for the sake of this damn challenge. My original intent was to run massive miles and make it to the top of the leader board for miles run. But once I got sick, I saw guys and gals pass me by and leave me in their dust. As I browsed through the list of runners and their mileage, I realized that it took at minimum, 9 runs to reach 100 miles. I decided that if I couldn't be #1 for miles run, I could be the leader for most miles in the fewest runs.

On Monday, the plan was to run a 20-miler to make it 76 miles in five runs. I was pumped to do this run, putting me in better position to hit 100 miles in six or seven runs, the fewest of any runner. However, my Garmin was not cooperating, and it would not turn on. And I found myself asking, "Do I still run?" This shift in motivation caused me to ask myself even deeper questions. Am I running for myself or am I running for Strava data? Am I only running to protect my reputation on Strava? Had I become a Strava junkie? I sought advice and many of you said to just run free of data, to run for myself. Well, I set out to run for myself and I guess I'm only worth 7 miles, albeit it was 7 miles at a pretty fast clip. The next day, I got my Garmin to work again, and having it strapped to my wrist, I ran 18.6 miles. So you tell me, am I a Strava junkie?

Strava Bringing Back the Love

If you are not on Strava.com yet, giddy up! As the post title eludes, this little gem of a site makes running (and cycling) very very fun. I only recently started using Strava when they launched their run site, but I will definitely be using it for cycling when I start back up again. After a run, I download the data from my watch onto the site and voila, I get some awesome analysis including mile splits, zone levels, elevation, heart rate (if I wore a heart rate monitor), and PR's for different segments (400, half mile, mile, 5K, 10K, etc...). But the reason why I keep coming back to Strava is the KOM or King of the Mountain feature. Strava tracks times from different users who run the same routes and ranks the runners. The runner with the fastest time for a section, say a particular hill climb, is declared the KOM of that section. My OCD/type A self hearts the KOM challenges.

On Monday, I knew I had a good run in me because I was feeling tapered from my rest post 50-miler. I was a man on a mission, I wanted to win the title of KOM for the Strawberry Canyon Connector, a title that has eluded me in the last five or so attempts. I definitely was feeling good, and if you look at my data, you'll see that I hit PR's for every segment of the run except one. The instant I walked through the door, as with every run since joining Strava, I downloaded the data from my watch onto Strava. I was in shock when I saw that I had failed to take the KOM title, finishing second. What!?!?!?!? I felt awesome and killed myself to get up this 200m or so 15% grade section. I was devastated but upon further investigation of the section, I realized the KOM was for running DOWN this section, not up. WTF? How can you have a KOM for running down a hill? Thus, on every run, I had been killing myself running up this thing when I should have been killing myself running down it. Looks like I'm going to have to create a segment for a KOM running up the connector. Bring the love back to your running and riding, and get yo butt on Strava. If you do, hit me up so I can follow you.