Snowy Run Week

This week of training was cold and ended with a rather big snow. According to my IM plan, this was a “rest” week in the four week rotations that I’m doing. Anyway, I ended up lifting weights 3 times at 1.5 hours each, ran 3 times (only 5-6 miles each, though, with some speedwork), road the bike (trainer) two times, and swam three times. So, 11 workouts but only about 11.5 hours of training. A good active rest week actually. I am finding that the weight training, I believe, is causing me to gain a little weight. I’ve put on about 3 pounds over the past 8 weeks of lifting. Hopefully as the cardio workouts pickup and weight training dies off in late March/early April, the few extra pounds will fall off.

The best workout this week has to be the run I did just a few hours ago. Friday, and into Friday night, we got a rather big snow (and some ice). Due to the weather, I had to take Saturday off as I could not get out of the house. Kiki and I spent Satuday getting dad to the airport and then we watched 4 movies. That’s right, we sat on the couch and watched 4 movies. Awesome rest day with my Kiki! So today, Sunday, I went to the park and ran the 5.8 mile loop. As you can see from the photo, the roads were completely covered with ice and snow. This actually made it a lot of fun and somewhat technical. The 5.8 loop has a couple big climbs and several other rollers. I passed one other runner and several walkers but other than that, I was alone in the woods running through the snow. It was a lot of fun and running through the deap snow at times made it a great workout.

A couple other cool things happened this weekend. I participated in a study at Vanderbilt where they are doing research on glycogen in leg muscles. The study involved getting an MRI in a very strong MRI machine (7 Tesla – not even sure what that means). Anyway, something didn’t go right with the images, so they’re gonna call me back in later sometime.

The other cool thing was that Scott (Trace Bikes) refitted me on my road bike. He has been trained by the guys who fit Lance and the Radio Shack team so hopefully this new fit will get a little more power out of my legs. Who knows, feels a little weird right now and will take some getting used to, but it makes good sense.

As of right now, next week isn’t looking so good for a long bike, so it might be the week after before we can get another 4+ hour ride in.

75 miles in Jan?

This past week was the longest week of training I’ve had so far. I guess it was only the third week of this year, but I ended up with 11 workouts and a total of 14.5 hours of training. I swam about 1200 meters on Wed, Thurs, and Friday while focusing strictly on form and breathing. I lifted weights with my trainer on Mon, wed, and Friday. I did speed work (running) on Tuesday and a tempo run on Thursday. I also road the trainer on Tuesday and Thursday nights and did a long bike ride outside on Saturday.

The best workout to speak of was the long ride. I don’t think many of us had been on the bike outside for more than 40ish miles since October’s Jack/Back. Somehow, we ended up with a nice day in the low 50s on Saturday in January. Jeff and I decided to do a 75 mile ride (recognizing it was very early in the season… if it even is the season yet). Several people joined up but broke off for various reasons as the ride continued. We kept the tempo down and treated it as a base building ride. Little did we know, it was going to be a windy day. Somewhere around mile 60, we turned right onto a very rough road that would lead us about 4 miles, directly into the wind, to the start of the last 3 climbs (leave it to Jeff to place the last three biggest climbs in the last 10 miles of the ride, he likes a challenge); I don’t think with all our effort that we pushed our bikes much faster than 13mph into this headwind either. Anyway, it turned out being a fantastic workout this early in the year (especially after 10 other moderate to hard effort workouts during the week). We averaged 16.2mph (very slow for our group actually, but the wind killed us and this was base building) and climbed nearly 4,900 feet. I didn’t hurt as bad as expected after the ride; however, I still took all of Sunday off for a full recovery and woke up Monday to start it all over again.

Bye 2009, Hello 2010, and Hogpen

Well, last year proved to be a good year and I'm very thankful for being able to do and train for everything. Fantastic 5k, CMM Half Marathon, 3 States 3 Mountains, Tour de Caves, Monster Tri (won age group again), Old Hickory Tri, Clarksville Century (first bike crash), Age Group National Championships, Augusta Half Ironman (5:11), Bourbon Chase, Jack and Back, and the Clarksville Half Marathon. In addition, I logged just over 5,700 miles of training (total of swim, bike, and run) during 2009, got over my fear of open water, got a new road bike, a new tri bike, race wheels, and really increased my overall fitness to prepare myself for 2010. A LOT of good luck and very HARD work went into 2009. Soooo......

It’s finally here… well, the training that is. Two weeks into my 34 week Ironman training plan. This week is actually the beginning of the third week. The focus this first 12 weeks is to continue spending a lot of time in the gym working out with Jasper (my athletic trainer) to build a very strong strength base. In addition, I’m doing about 3 workouts a week in each activity (swim, bike, and run) to maintain last year’s end-of-season base/fitness level. I’m really focusing every ounce of swim effort into perfecting, to the degree possible, my stroke. This currently yields about 12 workouts per week for a total of about 15 hours. Not too bad so far.

I’ve joined a race team at my local bike shop (Trace Bikes) and have also been meeting with a dietitian to nail my nutritional needs. Hopefully the race team will keep me quick on the bike and hold me accountable for hard workouts.

First Race of 2010: A few of us went down to Helen, GA this past weekend for what has been called one of the toughest road races in America (running). The race was a 10.5 mile run the side of a mountain to Hog Pen Gap. It included over 2,500 of climbing with about 1,500 of that in the last 5k. I used this as a mental race for Ironman to NOT stop running. My buddy Jeff used it to kick everyone’s ass that showed up that day. I finished around 1:45: Jeff finished right at 1:26, 11th overall, and 1st in his age group. Another guy with us, Ben, finished just over the 2 hour mark. This was an incredible accomplishment for all of us.

I intend to keep this updated weekly this year. Hopefully it’ll be another source to keep me motivated in the long workouts that are not that far off.

A Womack Perspective, by Mark

The year 2009 was a great year for Mark and Amy...a year of PR's and firsts. The first race of the year was a bit of a disappointment. We both went into the Nashville Predators Fangtastic 5k looking for a solid start to the year. However, Mark missed his goal time by almost a minute while Amy narrowly missed hers. The wind and underestimated hills seemed to be the culprits.
With the hills of downtown Nashville behind us, we set our sights on the Purity Moosic City 5k at Metrocenter. The flat course and frigid temperatures set the path for a post-high school PR for Mark and an improvement of over two minutes for Amy over her Fangtastic 5k time. After the race, it was time to treat ourselves to some of the sponsor's frozen delights, which sent us further into hypothermia.

During the winter months, Mark (along with Jonathan) discovered the 11.2 mile route at Percy Warner Park. Wow. You've got to run this one. We ended up running it three times together during the year and Mark ran it once with another runner (I would have run it more, but it is a pretty decent drive from the southeast suburbs). A sunrise atop three mile hill is well worth the early start and arduous climb.
With the first two 5k's of the year under our belts, it was time for Mark to take on the Country Music Half Marathon. Training for the race went well and I set my sights on a finish somewhere in the 1:40 - 1:45 range. It would not be so. During the second half of the race I faded to a 1:52 finish. Though disappointed, I did not linger on this result.
On a side note, we took a trip in May to Oregon to attend the wedding of Amy's brother. Oregon is a beautiful state (I got to go back in August...more on that below). After the wedding, we went to Hawaii for a week and had a great time snorkeling, biking down a volcano, relaxing, and enjoying all other sorts of Hawaiian activities.
At the urging of Jonathan, Mark attempted his second sprint triathlon during June. This experience was much better than the first, as there were no equipment malfunctions. I finished about a decade behind Jonathan, but still managed to finish in the middle of my age group. During the run, I uttered the words, "I hate your sport," to Jonathan, who had finished the race, eaten a couple of bananas, downed a recovery shake, completed a 60 mile cooldown ride, showered, and doubled back to cheer me on. Oh, and I'm pretty sure that was Rooks that passed me like I was riding a tricycle at about mile five of the bike.
The Firecracker 5k awaited Mark in July and memories of blazing hot temperatures in 2007 haunted me leading up to the race. This was the second race I ran as part of the Corporate Challenge series with my company (the first being the Purity 5k) and I finished just above 22:00, which was perfectly fine with me given the temperature and slightly challenging course.
In July, Amy began her training for her first half marathon to be run in October. She kicked it off in August with a stellar effort at the Smyrna Parks 5k. Mark again ran right at 22:00, so consistency seemed to be the theme of the summer. The highlight of the race was our debut on local Smyrna television during a post race interview. After viewing the footage, we are both considering a career move to TV broadcasting. Ok, not really, but it was fun.
In late August, Mark got to participate in the "Mother of All Relays," Hood to Coast. It was an amazing experience shared with great people. The 36 members of Team Livestrong raised over $40,000 for cancer research. For those of you who have never seen a sunset over the ocean on the west coast put it on your "bucket list". Amazing.
September was an especially busy month. Amy's half marathon training continued to build and we both ran the Chik-Fil-A 10k on the Murfreesboro greenway. This was the first year for this race and the course was great. Amy set a 10k PR and Mark set a post-high school 10k PR. Oh, and that same weekend we moved. It was a bit busy, but all well worth it.
October rolled around and the big day was here...Amy's first half marathon. Near perfect temperatures, low wind, and a flat course provided for a great run. Amy destroyed her goal time and ran a 2:14. If you can only run one half marathon a year in middle Tennessee, this is the one. Great course support, a mostly flat course, and plenty of onlookers make for a great experience. You double back at one point and Amy and I were able to see each other. I ran probably one of my top three races ever and finished in 1:38:55. I secretly wanted to finish in the top 100 and when I entered the stadium and the PA announcer said that 100 runners had crossed the finish line, I was a bit disheartened. When all was said and done, though, I had finished 99th out of 1,564 total finishers and 10th out of 100 in my age group. Soon after, Amy decided that this would not be her only half marathon.
The next weekend was the final race in the Corporate Challenge series for the year, the Germantown 5k. With not expectations of a good run at all due to the half marathon the previous weekend, Mark set a post-high school PR of 21:08, which was a 46 second improvement over his previous season best.
For the fourth year in a row, we ran the Boulevard Bolt on Thanksgiving morning, both setting PRs in the process. This continues to be our favorite race and we hope to keep this tradition alive for many years to come.
This year was great for us as a family and individually. We are blessed to have stable jobs, good health to enjoy these activities, great friends, and to be part of a great church family. Amy is looking to complete another half marathon in 2010 and Mark is hoping to complete his first (and potentially only) marathon. We are looking forward to a snowmobiling trip in Wyoming in February with Amy's parents. Happy New Year!