March 1st.  The start of a new month.  The weather is warming up and we spring forward an hour in just a few weeks, which means that Spring should be right around the corner.  The 5 day forecast here actually looks fairly pleasant with temperatures in the upper 30’s and low 40’s.  Fingers crossed that this weather keeps up for the long term.

Time to look back before we can look forward though.

Last Week

I have thoroughly enjoyed this past week.  It was a light week and I got to rest my legs a bit.  I spent some extra time on the bike and doing core workouts.  I did my first “21” workout yesterday.  I found this work on Steve In a Speedo’s blog and it starts with 20 pushups and 1 crunch, followed by 19 pushups and 2 crunches, etc until you hit 1 pushup and 20 crunches.  In the end, it is 210 pushups and 210 crunches.  I took it nice and easy my first time through because I wasn’t sure if I would make it through.  Nevertheless, my arms were a bit rubbery today during my swim.  Next time, I will try and speed it up by taking shorter breaks between sets.

Last Month

Overall, I had a good month numbers wise despite it being a short month.  At the end of January, my goal was to spend more time biking this month and I met that goal.  Last month, I did 7 rides for 8 hours, 20 minutes.  This month, I knocked out 10 rides for 13 hours 23 minutes.  Not only that, but I was able to do my first outdoor ride to Grand Haven.  My running and swimming were a bit off from last month, but that is mainly because of two scheduled light weeks.  I also did about 10 strength workouts throughout the month.  I say “about 10” because I still haven’t found a great way of keeping track of these workouts – Sporttracks just isn’t doing it for me.

As for this month, more of the same.  I have one more long run this week – 22-23 miles.  After that, the taper begins for my marathon.  I took the final step yesterday and actually registered for the race.  Yeah, I know, I like to procrastinate.  I had until the 9th before the price went up so I figured I would wait until the bitter end to make sure my training was going as planned.

One last note.  I emailed the Honolulu Marathon race director to find out when the 2010 date was going to be (the website still has 2009 info).  December 12th is the date.  It looks like we have some planning to do now! YAY!

I have been remiss in keeping up to date on my posts.  I have actually been doing a better job posting mini updates on Twitter @kevinneumann (yes, I know it is a shameless plug, but follow me! ).  No excuse though. I need to do a better job at posting more frequently rather than putting it off and ending up with posts that rival college term papers in length (sorry!).

Thursday

My workout on Thursday consisted of 90 minutes on the trainer.  Nothing exciting, but I am sort of getting used to riding on the trainer.  Obviously not the most exciting thing in the world, but as long as I have a fan on and something on the DVR, I can get through it.

On Thursday night, I was informed by my lovely wife that I, “Smell like a pool.”  The funny thing is that I didn’t even go to the pool on Thursday and had taken at least 2 showers since my last pool visit. I guess I have just developed a constant pool smell.  I suppose it could be worse.  At least it isn’t a permanent swass smell.  I realized that I have grown completely immune to the smell.  I don’t even notice the smell when I am at the pool.

Friday

I had a remarkable day at the pool today.  I did a mile time trial to start and finished with my best time ever.  30:48 for 1800 yards.  The first time I have gone under 31 minutes.  After the mile, I continued to do 700 more yards to round out the workout at 2500 yards.

After my swim, I did a short 4.5 mile run.  I was running out of time, so I had to keep the run short.  The setting sun caused me to pick up the pace and I finished with a 7:35 pace.  I felt like I was running on air.  My foot falls felt fast and soft.

Friday evening, I began planning my 2010 race schedule.  I really haven’t finalized anything.  I more or less just made a list of all my possibilities.  My overall goal is to do 2 or 3 half IM’s along with 2 marathons.  I am sure that I will scatter some sprint and Olympic tri’s in there along with some shorter races, but the half IM’s will be my focus.  My secondary goal is to keep travel to a minimum, so I am focusing on races either in or near Michigan.

All of my work planning races for 2010 caused me to have my first Ironman-related nightmare Friday night.  I dreamt that I was at the start of an Ironman.  We were all lined up on dock for the swim start.  I was the only one wearing a wetsuit, and everyone was looking at me funny.  I was nervous as it was and didn’t need all the critical looks.  To make matters worse, as I stood in line, I realized that I never packed my special needs bags.  I hurried back to my car and Jennie and I tried finding anything we could from the car that would help.  We were able to find a few half full Gatorade’s, granola bars, and other random things.

Ok.  Finally ready to get started.  Or so I thought.  As we were leaving the car, it dawned on us that we had driven my car (a manual transmission).  Jennie thoroughly dislikes driving it and has never taken it beyond the parking lot.  And she was supposed to drive the course as my support crew.  She decided that she would do her best to get around on the course as best she could.

By the time I got back to the swim start, the waves had seriously picked up.  They were so big that people were body surfing.  No one seemed concerned about the waves except me.  At that point, I woke up with a start, glad to have escaped from it.

So, lesson learned.  No race planning before bed.

Saturday

I went to bed on Friday thinking that Saturday would be a great day for a long run.  When I woke up, I wasn’t feeling it.  Nevertheless, I forced myself out the door.  After my fast pace on Friday, I felt like I was crawling.  I was 5.5 miles into the run, and I wanted to end it.  Instead, I kept going and finished with a 10.36 mile run in 1:23:49; just over an 8 minute pace.  I was very happy and surprised by the time.  I felt like I was moving much slower than that.

Saturday afternoon and evening, I did my best to completely undo the health benefits of my long run.  It started with a trip to Holland for their Holiday Open House.  We first went to the Curragh where we feasted on fish and chips along with an abundance of Guinness.  I needed something to drown my sorrows after yet another ND failure.  That was followed up by a stop at the Peanut Store candy shop where we ended up buying no less than 3 pounds of assorted candy.  If that wasn’t enough, we went to the movies after shopping and snacked on popcorn and frozen drinks. By the time we got home, we were both in a junk food induced stupor and fell asleep nearly instantaneously.

Sunday

And that brings me to today.  It warmed up again today with temperatures in the 50’s and the sun out.  So, yet again, I dragged my bike back off the trainer and back outside.  I did an easy 27 miles in just under an hour and a half.  It really should not be possible to ride for 90 minutes outside in November.  In shorts.  In Michigan.  I am absolutely loving this weather.  I just hope that it doesn’t mean that we are going to get an extra cold winter once the snow does start though.

Overall Numbers

Overall, it was a great week full of great workouts.

We had a bit of a warm weather streak this past week.  So, I pulled my bike back off the trainer and out of the basement.  This ended up being one of my highest mileage weeks to date; mainly because I was able to get a couple of long bike rides in.

Running

I covered about 23 miles on foot this week.  Not as much running mileage as I would like, but I am trying to give my hamstring a bit of a rest.  It has flared up on me during a couple of runs, but nothing major.  I have tried to remember to ice it at night, but I usually forget because it only bothers me when I run and I forget about it afterwards.  As wanted, I got in one speed workout on Friday.  I did a 2 mile warm up, then 1/4 mile intervals on the track up the high school and then a cool down back home.

Swimming

Nothing too eventful on the water front.  I have pretty much settled into a 2500 yard workout routine each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  I actually ended up going a little long this week with 7750 yards total.  There is a great group of regulars up at the pool which makes it a fun time (not that we can really talk while we swim).  At least we are all suffering (in a fun way of course) together.  I have been trying to mix up my workouts so that it doesn’t get too repetitive with some focused on endurance (longer intervals) and others focused on speed (shorter intervals).

Biking

Biking was by far my focus of the week.  With the warmer weather, I took as much advantage of it as I could.  I did a quick 20 mile ride on Tuesday.  It was still bit cool that day and I didn’t have a lot of time to devote to a ride.  Thursday was my miserable, yet wonderful, muddy ride to Grand Haven.  I clocked 40 that day even though it felt like much more. 

Then, on Sunday, with temperatures in the mid 60’s I headed out again.  I didn’t have a route in mind, but eventually found myself drawn to the White Pine Trail and 20 miles later I was in Rockford.  The trail was very crowded, especially as I got close to Rockford.  It was amazing how many grown men felt the need to weave side to side on the trail for no apparent reason whatsoever.  Also, I managed to (unintentionally) spook a number of people by saying “on the left” as I approached.  I didn’t know what else I go do, but people were jumping out of their skin when I tried to give fair warning.

Anyways, the ride was very enjoyable.  It ended up being just about 40 miles.  Compared to my ride to Grand Haven, this ride was nearly 18 minutes faster and a lot more enjoyable.

In the end, I managed 101 miles for the week with 3 rides and nearly 6 hours spent in the saddle.

All in all, it was another great week.  As for this week, I’ll probably try and do a bit more running this week as long as my hamstring cooperates.  We’ll see if the nice weather keeps up of if it is back to the trainer.  Stay tuned!

Another month in books.  The two highlights from October are the two running races I had.  The first was the Brooksie Way Half Marathon were I PR-ed with a 1:37:33.  The second was the Grand Rapids Marathon which was also a PR of 3:47:02.  And with that, my 2009 racing season has come to a close.  I’m still working on game plan for next year, but have been so busy with work that I haven’t been able to sit down and schedule everything yet.  Hopefully I can put together a rough draft in the next week or so.

The Numbers

It’s Sunday, and I don’t have anything scheduled for training.  But I still want to run.  I know.  It is a sickness.  Part of it is that I feel lazy if I don’t at least do some sort of exercise.  The other part of it is I am on a streak for July with 25 days straight of exercise.  I really don’t need to run.  I should be tapering for Steelhead.  My training this week nearly exceeded last weeks and I even missed a swim workout this week.  All these reasons of why I don’t need to run and I still want to do it.

Well, here is my weekly totals as of 2:29 PM on Sunday.  It may change if I end up going for a run – which I probably will.  At least 3 or 4 miles.

Weekly Totals [7/20/2009 – 7/26/2009]