According to AAA, the average American drives 15000 miles annually at a cost per mile, with a new car, of $0.522 per mile (That's for 2006, 2007's numbers aren't out yet but I can't see that number going down). That's $7830 per year.
I don't drive. I haven't owned a car since I was 19 (almost 20) and I don't expect that to change once school is over and I move to Boulder. Since I will be walking, busing and, most importantly, biking everywhere I go, does that mean I can reasonably budget that $7830/year ($650/month) towards a bike and bike maintenance?
Showing posts with label Bike. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bike. Show all posts
Monday, April 14, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Catching up
I've been away from here for entirely too long.
My training has been going so-so. I've had some really, really good days and some less than good days.
Last Sunday through Tuesday (3/30-4/1) were some GREAT training days. Sunday I started ignoring my watch when out on my run. Well, not entirely, basically I just set it so that I couldn't see what my pace was, instead just watching the total time and trying to monitor my current effort. I ended up doing 10.2 miles in 90 minutes, an 8:48 pace! And I felt really good.
Monday was more of the same, this time on the bike. My 90 minute bike ride resulted in an average 138 watts. When i did my swim, the pool was set to 50m instead of 25 yards... what a difference THAT makes! I think i mentioned this once before, but holy cow...
Then Tuesday I rocked the bike AND the run on my interval sets.
On the not so great side, I missed my speed workouts the last two weeks... I just got so caught up in my work that I completely missed them. My swim on Sunday was short too because, again, I got caught up working and forgot how late it was so I was only able to get in part of the workout.
On the plus side, these are time management problems, not problems due to injury, over-training or anything like that so I should be (and I am!) thankful for that. Eventually I'm going to get my internal clock straight and get my sorry butt out of bed early enough to work out BEFORE I go to studio, that way I can't get caught up in work and lose track of time.
My training has been going so-so. I've had some really, really good days and some less than good days.
Last Sunday through Tuesday (3/30-4/1) were some GREAT training days. Sunday I started ignoring my watch when out on my run. Well, not entirely, basically I just set it so that I couldn't see what my pace was, instead just watching the total time and trying to monitor my current effort. I ended up doing 10.2 miles in 90 minutes, an 8:48 pace! And I felt really good.
Monday was more of the same, this time on the bike. My 90 minute bike ride resulted in an average 138 watts. When i did my swim, the pool was set to 50m instead of 25 yards... what a difference THAT makes! I think i mentioned this once before, but holy cow...
Then Tuesday I rocked the bike AND the run on my interval sets.
On the not so great side, I missed my speed workouts the last two weeks... I just got so caught up in my work that I completely missed them. My swim on Sunday was short too because, again, I got caught up working and forgot how late it was so I was only able to get in part of the workout.
On the plus side, these are time management problems, not problems due to injury, over-training or anything like that so I should be (and I am!) thankful for that. Eventually I'm going to get my internal clock straight and get my sorry butt out of bed early enough to work out BEFORE I go to studio, that way I can't get caught up in work and lose track of time.
Monday, March 24, 2008
The Post of Shame...
I hate missing workouts. If I miss one, I get grumpy, a couple and I'm miserable... miss a whole week and all I've got is shame.
Ok, so maybe I shouldn't feel that bad about it. my thesis was due on Friday and I literally didn't leave the school except to go home and sleep (one night not even that happened). I'm sure Matt over at Athletic Wannabee knows what that's like. Surviving off of homemade trail mix and whatever food I could get delivered and spending a ridiculous number of hours writing. I missed the whole week. As excited as I was to get going on training with the new benchmarks, the time just wasn't there.
however, i'm back in the saddle now. I got a decent ride in Saturday while watching the Original version of Empire Strikes Back, then got ina nice long run outdoors on Sunday. I'd have gone for a swim too but the rec was closed for Easter. I had forgotten it was Easter... this time last year I was in Boulder.
Oh, and I turned 29 on Friday.
Today i had a great swim. Well, not great, but certainly quite enjoyable. The pool was set to the 50m orientation for a change so i got to do my workout in a 50m pool for the first time. it was also a 3400m swim, my longest single workout yet, just over 2 miles. I thought about shooting for 2.4 miles... but decided against it, I'll get there soon enough.
Ok, so maybe I shouldn't feel that bad about it. my thesis was due on Friday and I literally didn't leave the school except to go home and sleep (one night not even that happened). I'm sure Matt over at Athletic Wannabee knows what that's like. Surviving off of homemade trail mix and whatever food I could get delivered and spending a ridiculous number of hours writing. I missed the whole week. As excited as I was to get going on training with the new benchmarks, the time just wasn't there.
however, i'm back in the saddle now. I got a decent ride in Saturday while watching the Original version of Empire Strikes Back, then got ina nice long run outdoors on Sunday. I'd have gone for a swim too but the rec was closed for Easter. I had forgotten it was Easter... this time last year I was in Boulder.
Oh, and I turned 29 on Friday.
Today i had a great swim. Well, not great, but certainly quite enjoyable. The pool was set to the 50m orientation for a change so i got to do my workout in a 50m pool for the first time. it was also a 3400m swim, my longest single workout yet, just over 2 miles. I thought about shooting for 2.4 miles... but decided against it, I'll get there soon enough.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
iRock...
Heard back from MarkyV on the testing and based on the information I provided he puts my LT on the bike at around 195-200 Watts. That's up from 175 Watts in August.He seemed a little shocked by the 219 I put up over the last 10 minutes of the ride and I was concerned about how I had started out too easy and maybe a retest was necessary...
His response:
I don't think we'll need a retest. Taking the last 30 minutes of the test gives me ~193. Given that you CRUSHED the last 10 minute segment I'd venture that we could start using 195-200 as our new number. If there are indications in the training of that being too high then we can back it down but I think we should be all right.
See underlined below… you nailed the workout! Awesome job! That's the way a TT is meant to be ridden… like you are going to die when it is done.
I don't think I could have even unclipped properly when I first finished, I was wiped.
From 175 to 195-200, that's an 11-14% increase. Nice progress...
Testing time.... Day One
I spoke to mark a few days ago about the tests. The Swim and Run benchmark tests seem pretty straightforward but I had some questions about what he wanted as far as information on the bike
Here's the workout: in the morning… on trainer… 40 minute all out TT grab avg wattage at 10 15 20 30 and 40 minute marks… WU and CD properly
Because the power meter for my bike trainer is somewhat simplistic, I had to reset the timer for each period and I wasn't sure if Mark wanted the Power Averages from 0-10, 10-15, 15-20 etc. or just total averages at 10, 15, 20, etc. He decided on the first method, with sections from 0-10, 10-20, 20-30 and 30-40. That data leaves the ability to figure out overall averages anyway. he also gave me some advice on how to approach the test...
"start out at your perceived current threshold wattage and after awhile gradually step it up from there; let the fatigue and pain come to you... let it build slowly... don't go looking for it; still feeling good with 10 minutes to go.... start churning"
Well, now the test is done and the results are in:
0-10'00": 167 Watts
10'00" - 20'00": 177 Watts (172 overall average)
20'00" - 30'00": 182 Watts (175.3 overall average)
30'00" - 40'00": 219 Watts (184.75 total average)
I have to say, i'm pretty disappointed with how the test started out. I feel like I should have been at 177 for the first 10'00" and stepping up from there. I had some trouble warming up, I think partly because I'm not used to riding in the morning, I usually ride in the evening. I did some laundry and other chores to try to wake up and loosen up a bit before hopping on the bike to warm up. I thought I was warm and loose enough when i started but when it was over, I didn't feel that way. I think I should have tossed a quick 10 second interval into the middle of the warmup to really loosen up.
The last 10 really was fun and hard and I feel like I gave it everything I had left at that point, which was quite a lot more than I expected to have at that point.
Lesson learned I suppose.
But, now it's done and I get to sit and wait to see what Mark says (hint, hint... I know you read these!) I'm not even sure what to compare the result to. I had my LT test in August and my LT at the time was 175.
Anyhow, swim test tomorrow!
Here's the workout: in the morning… on trainer… 40 minute all out TT grab avg wattage at 10 15 20 30 and 40 minute marks… WU and CD properly
Because the power meter for my bike trainer is somewhat simplistic, I had to reset the timer for each period and I wasn't sure if Mark wanted the Power Averages from 0-10, 10-15, 15-20 etc. or just total averages at 10, 15, 20, etc. He decided on the first method, with sections from 0-10, 10-20, 20-30 and 30-40. That data leaves the ability to figure out overall averages anyway. he also gave me some advice on how to approach the test...
"start out at your perceived current threshold wattage and after awhile gradually step it up from there; let the fatigue and pain come to you... let it build slowly... don't go looking for it; still feeling good with 10 minutes to go.... start churning"
Well, now the test is done and the results are in:
0-10'00": 167 Watts
10'00" - 20'00": 177 Watts (172 overall average)
20'00" - 30'00": 182 Watts (175.3 overall average)
30'00" - 40'00": 219 Watts (184.75 total average)
I have to say, i'm pretty disappointed with how the test started out. I feel like I should have been at 177 for the first 10'00" and stepping up from there. I had some trouble warming up, I think partly because I'm not used to riding in the morning, I usually ride in the evening. I did some laundry and other chores to try to wake up and loosen up a bit before hopping on the bike to warm up. I thought I was warm and loose enough when i started but when it was over, I didn't feel that way. I think I should have tossed a quick 10 second interval into the middle of the warmup to really loosen up.
The last 10 really was fun and hard and I feel like I gave it everything I had left at that point, which was quite a lot more than I expected to have at that point.
Lesson learned I suppose.
But, now it's done and I get to sit and wait to see what Mark says (hint, hint... I know you read these!) I'm not even sure what to compare the result to. I had my LT test in August and my LT at the time was 175.
Anyhow, swim test tomorrow!
Monday, March 03, 2008
Week in Review
Well, last week was a pretty good week all around. I got my 2500yd swim under 50' 00" which was a goal from the prior week.
My long ride on Saturday was agonizing... not from a physical standpoint, far from it. Mentally, however, it's not easy to maintain focus, or even interest, when riding indoors for three hours. The last half hour was a conscious battle, tracking every step of the workout set, telling myself over and over again that it was almost done. That aspect, more than anything else, is where the most training is coming in on those days. I watched the end of Transformers, all of the first X-Men movie and about half of X-Men 2 over the course of the ride.
Sunday my long run started off slow and a little tough. The battery died in my footpod so I was out of luck with that and had to resort to other means to track my pace. It didn't help that the hardest part of my Sunday long runs is always the first 10-20 minutes (again, a mental thing) and I had trouble finding my groove but about halfway through my second mile I found it and felt great for the rest of the run.
My long ride on Saturday was agonizing... not from a physical standpoint, far from it. Mentally, however, it's not easy to maintain focus, or even interest, when riding indoors for three hours. The last half hour was a conscious battle, tracking every step of the workout set, telling myself over and over again that it was almost done. That aspect, more than anything else, is where the most training is coming in on those days. I watched the end of Transformers, all of the first X-Men movie and about half of X-Men 2 over the course of the ride.
Sunday my long run started off slow and a little tough. The battery died in my footpod so I was out of luck with that and had to resort to other means to track my pace. It didn't help that the hardest part of my Sunday long runs is always the first 10-20 minutes (again, a mental thing) and I had trouble finding my groove but about halfway through my second mile I found it and felt great for the rest of the run.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Workouts and Race Schedule
Tuesday's workouts were great. Once again, I made a conscious effort to pay attention to how I felt during each workout.
During the run I had no recurrence of the side stitch that popped up during the same run last week. I spent some time talking to myself during the run in a way of trying to gauge my effort level, but since this isn't something I do frequently I don't have anything to judge it against. I can only say I wouldn't have had much trouble keeping up a conversation. I tried singing to myself (very quietly since I was in the gym) as well but that wasn't too successful. Then again, I don't think I've ever had an instance where I tried singing that could be called successful.
I lost track of time during the fourth repeat and went two minutes over the 5 minute set without blinking an eye. I felt pretty good when it was over and I think I probably would have been able to repeat the workout right away.
According to my HR monitor (which I finally found in the very bottom of my gym bag, underneath the board that keeps the bag stiff) I was peaking at about 162 during the intervals and bottoming out at 146 during the recovery periods but mostly holding at around 155bpm. I was again holding a solid 8'10" pace so I'm pretty pleased.
I did some light upper body weight work after the run since I had the day off from swimming. Enough to feel the difference in the strengths of my right and left shoulders but not labour my left too much.
The bike ride was 80 minutes with 10 sets of 3'00" @ 130w and 3'00" @ 185+w and was also pretty good. I did the bike ride in the early evening and went out with friends almost immediately afterwards, spending a pretty fair amount of time on my feet without giving it any thought.
No noticeable aches or pains the next day and I got Wednesday's workouts done without giving Tuesday a second thought.
I feel like the Oliver Twist of triathlon... Please sir, can I have some more?
I've finally, officially, registered for my races. I'm signed up for...
8/10/08 - 5430 Long Course Triathlon in Boulder - I did this race last year in 7:21:50 and I'm looking forward to taking a BIG chunk of time off that precedent, at least getting below 7 hours and shooting for closer to 6:30. I know this is possible because last time I raced foolishly. This time I will race smart, I will train smart and I will kick butt.
8/30/08 - The Mayflower Triathlon in my hometown (and "America's Hometown" as it's sometimes known) of Plymouth, MA - This is only 3 weeks after the long course, but I'm doing it as a much more casual event. It's an international distance race and I chose this race largely so that my family could see me do a race.
July/August - 6 pack of Stroke and Strides at the Boulder Reservoir - I love these events, they're a lot of fun.
During the run I had no recurrence of the side stitch that popped up during the same run last week. I spent some time talking to myself during the run in a way of trying to gauge my effort level, but since this isn't something I do frequently I don't have anything to judge it against. I can only say I wouldn't have had much trouble keeping up a conversation. I tried singing to myself (very quietly since I was in the gym) as well but that wasn't too successful. Then again, I don't think I've ever had an instance where I tried singing that could be called successful.
I lost track of time during the fourth repeat and went two minutes over the 5 minute set without blinking an eye. I felt pretty good when it was over and I think I probably would have been able to repeat the workout right away.
According to my HR monitor (which I finally found in the very bottom of my gym bag, underneath the board that keeps the bag stiff) I was peaking at about 162 during the intervals and bottoming out at 146 during the recovery periods but mostly holding at around 155bpm. I was again holding a solid 8'10" pace so I'm pretty pleased.
I did some light upper body weight work after the run since I had the day off from swimming. Enough to feel the difference in the strengths of my right and left shoulders but not labour my left too much.
The bike ride was 80 minutes with 10 sets of 3'00" @ 130w and 3'00" @ 185+w and was also pretty good. I did the bike ride in the early evening and went out with friends almost immediately afterwards, spending a pretty fair amount of time on my feet without giving it any thought.
No noticeable aches or pains the next day and I got Wednesday's workouts done without giving Tuesday a second thought.
I feel like the Oliver Twist of triathlon... Please sir, can I have some more?
I've finally, officially, registered for my races. I'm signed up for...
8/10/08 - 5430 Long Course Triathlon in Boulder - I did this race last year in 7:21:50 and I'm looking forward to taking a BIG chunk of time off that precedent, at least getting below 7 hours and shooting for closer to 6:30. I know this is possible because last time I raced foolishly. This time I will race smart, I will train smart and I will kick butt.
8/30/08 - The Mayflower Triathlon in my hometown (and "America's Hometown" as it's sometimes known) of Plymouth, MA - This is only 3 weeks after the long course, but I'm doing it as a much more casual event. It's an international distance race and I chose this race largely so that my family could see me do a race.
July/August - 6 pack of Stroke and Strides at the Boulder Reservoir - I love these events, they're a lot of fun.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Tuesday Intervals and a Long Swim
I've been meaning to get this down... Mark has wanted to know how the Tuesday workouts feel and I said I'd write something up that's a little more detailed on them. I jotted down some notes so here they are.
The Run - I did this workout first. The switch to 5:00 on and 1:00 off was kind of a big one. I had a little bit of a stitch in my side toward the end of the second repetition but it faded during the recovery minute and didn't return. I nailed the paces pretty good for each interval though, .61 miles for every 5 minutes which breaks down to an 8:11 interval. My goal pace was 8:10. I felt like I had a couple more repetitions in me but I was stopped by 1. The Schedule and 2. The bike ride I had later.
The Bike - This was fun. Sort of. Actually it really was. The bulk of the workout was 10x 3'00" at 130 followed by 3'00" at 185. No trouble really during the workout but I was certainly glad it was over! This was a bump up from the 10x 3'00 at 160 followed by 3'00" at 185 Mark had me doing before. That said though, the switch from the god-awful stationary bikes to my bike on a trainer with a power meter with an actual fan in front of me instead of a tiny little vent on the top of the stationary bike felt like a much better workout. I was finishing those workouts on the stationary bike dripping an unhealthy amount of sweat. I'm pretty sure their power readings were off as well.
The next day - I was definitely glad I didn't have to do either of those workouts again the next day, I had a little bit of heaviness in the legs, more of a tiredness than a soreness but I was looking forward to the run and didn't have any trouble with it.
Friday...
I got to the Rec for my swim, checked my workout and realized.. Whoa! 1500Yard steady swim? Really? 2500? I've never done a straight swim that long before, freestyle OR breast stroke. That's 1.4 miles... straight. Well, knowing me, I was up for the challenge! I got the first 2000 yards in feeling pretty solid in 40 minutes flat but I really felt my form slip in the last 500 yards and slowed down a lot (or at least it felt like a lot) finishing in 50:15. Still, I'm pretty pleased with that result and I look forward to pushing my time under 50 even.
The Run - I did this workout first. The switch to 5:00 on and 1:00 off was kind of a big one. I had a little bit of a stitch in my side toward the end of the second repetition but it faded during the recovery minute and didn't return. I nailed the paces pretty good for each interval though, .61 miles for every 5 minutes which breaks down to an 8:11 interval. My goal pace was 8:10. I felt like I had a couple more repetitions in me but I was stopped by 1. The Schedule and 2. The bike ride I had later.
The Bike - This was fun. Sort of. Actually it really was. The bulk of the workout was 10x 3'00" at 130 followed by 3'00" at 185. No trouble really during the workout but I was certainly glad it was over! This was a bump up from the 10x 3'00 at 160 followed by 3'00" at 185 Mark had me doing before. That said though, the switch from the god-awful stationary bikes to my bike on a trainer with a power meter with an actual fan in front of me instead of a tiny little vent on the top of the stationary bike felt like a much better workout. I was finishing those workouts on the stationary bike dripping an unhealthy amount of sweat. I'm pretty sure their power readings were off as well.
The next day - I was definitely glad I didn't have to do either of those workouts again the next day, I had a little bit of heaviness in the legs, more of a tiredness than a soreness but I was looking forward to the run and didn't have any trouble with it.
Friday...
I got to the Rec for my swim, checked my workout and realized.. Whoa! 1500Yard steady swim? Really? 2500? I've never done a straight swim that long before, freestyle OR breast stroke. That's 1.4 miles... straight. Well, knowing me, I was up for the challenge! I got the first 2000 yards in feeling pretty solid in 40 minutes flat but I really felt my form slip in the last 500 yards and slowed down a lot (or at least it felt like a lot) finishing in 50:15. Still, I'm pretty pleased with that result and I look forward to pushing my time under 50 even.
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