Ultraman 2009 Training Part 2 – October 10-11, 2009

Well I took a “recovery” week after the South Carolina Half last weekend; therefore, I was heading into 2 weeks of hard training, with 2 long runs on the weekends. This is a synopsis of the first of those weekends.

Saturday – Like 2 weeks ago I planned on riding about 120 miles with some sustained intervals. This weekend I was lucky that the weather was actually playing nice. The weather report was temperatures in the mid 60's to low 70's with some rain, but fortunately the rain never materialized. So under humid conditions I headed out for my long ride w/6 hill repeats in the hardest gear as I could push up the climbs. By the time I was done with last one – the legs were fried!!! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. The feeling in my legs brought back memories..it was similar feeling to the second day of the Ultraman in 2008 – while climbing the last 6 mile mountain – about 1 mile from the top I almost felt over from my bike.

I jumped off the bike and went on a moderate brick run. My reason for this is just to keep the ironman muscles/mentality together in case I decide to race Beach 2 Battle Ship – an Iron distance race in November.

Sunday – Ahhhh…another week another long run. Like in weeks past, my long run this week was not overly structured. I just wanted to run a slightly faster pace and hopefully a couple of miles farther. Before I started my run I drank one Red Bull – just to mentally wake up. As in prior weeks the purpose of the first 5 miles were just to warm up the muscles and mind, I did not worry about the pace – I was not sure how yesterday's hill repeats would feel on my legs and wanted to really open up the blood flow before I started pushing the effort. After the first 5 miles I was trying to pick up the pace to my “comfortable fast” pace, keeping the distance of the run in mind. The plan was to check my Lactic Acid levels around half way through and at the end of the run. Also this week my nutrition plan was to take in more First Endurance EFS drinks, as well as their Liquid Shots. I had stops set up about every 5 miles to take in my nutrition. At mile 18 I stopped by my house and took a Lactic Acid reading and my LA ended up being 2.9. I was surprised it was this low since I had been pushing a 6:50 pace for the last 12 miles. During this stop I had the “Kotland Cocktail” of ½ grapefruit juice/½ water, and about 100 calories from Liquid Shot. I will probably start adding Vodka to it and sell it to college kids. The next 3-4 miles were still easy and comfortable, but after about 24 miles of running it was simply turning into a LOOOONG run! At the next stop at mile 25 the pace was still in the low 6:50’s so I was still in good spirits. However, the weekend of training was starting to play its toll, but mentally you never want to slow down too much. That’s where I have to start playing the mental games and win them. Earlier I decided that I will make the run 32 miles, with one extra stop for hydration than the week previous. So I convinced myself that I needed to speed up a little bit each mile for the last seven or until I had given everything I had. I managed to average only 6:50 but I was getting sore. After the run my second Lactic Acid reading came to 3.9. Looking back the run was a little bit better than expected, since the overall back came out to be in the mid 6:50’s.

Nutrition for this run – 1 Red Bull; 1 liter or EFS – grape flavor; 28oz of the grapefruit mixture; 200 calories of Liquid Shots

I followed the run with probably the slowest 20 miles ride in my life.

Ultraman 2009 Training Part 1 – September 26-27, 2009

This, and the following reports will be only the interesting parts of my training towards the Ultraman Worlds 2009 in Hawaii.

For Ironman training I ride a lot of miles on my bike each summer, this year it was about 4,500 miles from the beginning of June to the end of August. So with that base my main focus is to now prepare for the running portion of Ultraman.

To prepare for the run I consistently complete several key workouts. On weekly basis I complete 2 track workouts a week – one of them is usually contains shorter, fast intervals (time doesn't matter as much, but I rather focus on the leg turn-over), and second workout involves longer intervals ranging from 1,000 meters up to 1 mile intervals (time is more of a factor and I recover with shorter jog between efforts).

This past weekend was the first big step toward the Ultraman with this run focus. My weekend looked something like this:

Saturday – I rode 120 miles with some longer uphill intervals followed by a longer (than normal ironman training) recovery. It was really nasty weather, the first cold day since April. The temperature was in the low 60's with some drizzle for the first 6 hours of the ride, and really heavy rain (it probably could have fallen under the MONSOON category) for the last hour. Needless to say I froze on my bike and the temperature reflected my nutrition plan too. I started out with 2 bottles of EFS mixed with ½ a scoop of Pre-race in each, and some liquid shots. That was all the fuel I took in, so by the end of my ride I had only consumed about 500 calories from the drinks and 400 calories from the liquid shots. After I toweled off I went for a short 5 mile brick run, I think it took about 3 miles before I was able to feel my feet.

Sunday – The training plan was to go for a long run. Over the summer I've been running a long run between 20-24 miles every week, so this weekend the plan was to go at least 24 miles to get the Ultraman miles in. I didn't know what to expect after Saturday and how my body would respond to the run after the calorie depletion during the previous days ride so I just tried to relax, and did not set a maximum mileage goal for the workout. As usual the start was pretty slow, and I didn’t even look at my watch for the first 5 miles. I started feeling pretty good, and not as sore I had expected, so I tried to pick the pace up after realizing that the first 5 miles were REALLY slow. Then somewhere about ½ way through the run, the mileage decision was made… “I'll try to run 30 miles this weekend, without slowing down too much.” On all of my long runs the nutrition plan is about the same I try to drink every 5 miles, stay away from too many carbs. Since this was the longest run so far this year, I wanted to include some energy source, and prevent bonking. For the first 15 miles I only drank water. At mile 20 I had 1 bottle of Fruit Punch EFS – it tasted REALLY good, and then the final nutrition stop included a mixture of 1/3 grapefruit juice, and 2/3 of water. There was something about the bitterness of the juice – it was good, and my stomach was OK with that too. So the first long run towards Ultraman successfully accomplished. I took splits every 5 miles (this offsets the mile to mile variation due to the rolling hills, but makes the 5 mile sections should be very similar and valid comparisons) and the recap yielded that my pace was good, it got progressively faster, and I managed to run harder on the last mile. ALWAYS FINISH STRONG.

The 5 mile sections splits: 39'23; 36'22; 36'11; 35'50; 35'59; 35'01 with the last mile 6'34.

I followed this workout with a short recovery spin on my bike.