Coldest run day(outdoor) of the year

Went for a run at lunch.  I couldn't do the tready thing today as I wanted to get a head start on the training(friday is usually date night, or some form of it) so I def. had to run outside.  It was ok and sometimes it's nice to simply HTFU and run outside no matter what Mother Nature throws at you, eh friends?  There's something satisfying about heading out and running wind chill be damned!  So I went anyways, but it did have it's consequences.  I froze my fingers while running into the wind, also froze my nosey, as well as my *cough *cough male parts.  Wowzers I forgot how much that hurts to thaw out in the shower.  That brings back cold Manitoba winter running memories.  Anyways I got the run done, outside!!  In only minus 20, but with the windchill it was -30.  Lots colder than my coldest one this year.  Did a bike spin when I got home too(inside for that).  I'm so far so good with your challenge Cam, although I one upped you, sorry but I've got a hour minimum every day this month.  My legs are feeling it a bit today, fatigue is creeping up on me.  Good thing tomorrow is just a long spin, maybe a short run.  k, back to our movie, have a great weekend all,

DP

I survived...

More than once today.  Once at work when the announcement came through that 30 people would be layed off as our company was merging with the owning company.  We waited at our desks for 2-3 hours while we waited for that dreaded tap on the shoulder.  It didn't come for me so I survived.  We were all sent home early today.

I decided to do another ftp test today as my legs were feeling pretty spry after 2 days away from the bike.  This time I did a 20min test with a 5min blowout int. before.  It's been 12 days since my last test, I didn't really expect much of a change, but I wanted to confirm the numbers.  Plus it's a hard/beneficial ride in itself!!  So I warmed up with 30 minutes spinning, then did the 5min at my prescribed goal wattage.  I didn't care too much about those numbers as it's more of a hard "warmup".  Then 5 minutes easy and into the 20 minutes all out.  This time I had a fan to help up and I discarded the shirt.  Lately I've read about how much heat indoors on the trainer can skewer results even though you don't necessarily "feel" hot.  Some people use big industrial sized fans to cool themselves.  All I got is a small one that I can't turn the auto swivel off so I don't even get it directly all the time.  Oh well I do what I can, had my ipod hanging from the joists and I rode it all out.  Man I wanted to quit shortly after 10minutes, it got so hard to concentrate.  But I made it and when I looked at the results on the comp, I was 3 watts over last times 2x8min test.  See it was accurate!! 

Went to the gym with Lisa later for a run on the tready.  Brrrrr still sooooo cold in calgary.  Ran easy for 35 minutes, then cranked it up and ran hard for another 10min.  So happy with today's workouts...just another day at the office.  I remember what Chuckie would tell me, somthing like, "Don't let any ONE workout's results affect you GOOD or BAD".  In other words, don't get depressed about a single workout and on the flip side don't let a really good workout excite you too much.  Out,

DP

Almost done the Christmas celebrations

I had two this weekend and although I didn't over eat at either of them.  It sure did havoc on my stomach.  Friday's workout was good, did 5x5min on the bike @ 115% of ftp.  The ride was really tough, this is obvious as it's impossible to get the right wattage without a "warmup" interval.  So my first was a bit low, but after that I was able to nail them all with 5 minutes rest between.  Then saturday I did a longer spin and a short run.  I was going to run harder but my stomach was beginning to give me problems.  Then sunday was going to turn part of my long run into a tempo, but again stomach.  grrrrrr, oh well I got the time in.  This week will be better, colder too eh?  Guess that means more treadmill running.  Today I'm gonna try a swim group for somthing different.  I find I have trouble pushing myself with out others in my lane.  So even though I hear this grp does other strokes, I will give it a go.  From the looks of things(from me watching them before my solo swims) it looks like they do lots of free too, and I am able to do all the strokes cept fly so I should get by.  I can do one armed fly, I'm ok with that.  Keep warm blogger buddies,

DP

PS:  About almost being done the celebrations, this next weekend is the last one, but it's at a really fancy tasty Italian restaurant so I'm sooooo looking forward to it.  Especially when someone else picks up the cheque eh?  lol

Good weekend of training

Not huge hours or anything, but definately quality workouts saturday and sunday.  I did intervals on the tready saturday night, 6x1km with 90 secs rest.  They felt really good and I upped the last one by .1 mph and felt I could have really done all of them at that pace.  Oh well I really payed the price sunday from the late night run.  A couple buddies and I managed to get outside for a 2.5 hour ride.  It was around 10 degrees and by the time we went 1pm the wind had died down enough.  I didn't feel I had the power on the bike, however with the first ride outdoors in awhile it's tough to know exactly how I should feel.  No matter what you do inside, it's really tough to simulate being outside in the great outdoors.

Winter challenges

Hey,

I picked up two new challenges for this January/Winter.  The one that Cam served up is a 30min per day challenge for January(at least I think it's just for one month).  At first it sounded like the boys would be doing another running challenge, but I'm glad Cam changed it.  This suits me better.

I also joined one with a couple buddies from work.  We all have power meters on our bikes so we figured a winter FTP bet/challenge would be good.  The challenge is on who improves the most over the course of the winter.  So we decided to do the initial test together at someone's house.  There's a few different tests you can do to measure one's FTP and we decided on a shorter 2x8min test.  One of the guys couldn't make it so it ended up only being Reinier and myself.  It was a short test, but let me tell you it HURT a lot.  It may have even been tougher in a way because the two intervals were short.  Anyways it went really well, I think I did ok.  From the test you take your best 8min and take the average Watts, multiply that by 90% and you got the FTP.  FTP is the average wattage you can hold for an hour, or 40km itt.  You might think from this short test that it might not be accurate, after all why wouldn't we just do the full hour tt.  Well the full hour is hard to do inside as concentration is hard to keep, therefore it might not be as accurate if that makes any sense.  It's important to get your BEST effort no matter which test you do.

So the test was done, it was great to have Reinier there too as it really helped with the motivation.  My numbers were good, about what I expected and we are super close, within 2 watts actually.  I'm not sure if we're actually taking our FTP number or adding weight and using the Watts/kg ratio which adds weight loss over the winter.  I'll be at a huge disadvantage if we do as I'm at my lightest I've ever been outside of highschool, I'm not sure how much more weight I can loose.  I might even gain some.  Anyways good jog Reinier, we have our benchmarks, I'm sure you will do further testing this winter and we will do some trash talking, all in good fun which will keep the motivation and keep us training hard.  Let the cycling (and running and swimming) begin!!

DP