Bubble of Pain

I had another great session with triathlon coach, Stacey Richardson.      Stacey has an incredible knack for zoning into exactly what I need.  Exactly where I am making mistakes. And it’s wonderful to learn my mistakes, so I can continue to improve.

I was showing her my treadmill workout from this morning, which was an interval session: 4x3min Zone 5 with 3 minute recoveries.  I designed the workout to include some practice the pace segments before and after the intervals.  Here’s what it looked like:

Stacey looked at this workout and asked to see what my heart rate got to during the intervals.  I then opened up my Garmin Connect dashboard to show her the heart rate graph.

The first question she asked was why did my heart rate dip so low during the recoveries (note the green circles).  I explained that I was tweeting.   OMG, I wish I would have had a camera ready to take a picture of the incredulous expression on her face.    She shook her head in disbelief and asked me if I really stopped in the middle of my workout to tweet.     I said that I do, and that it’s alot of fun.     She said that No, I need to jog in Zone 1 during my recoveries, and stay within that “Bubble of Pain” throughout the entire session.   And learning how to stay within that bubble will pay big dividends on race day.

So, no more tweeting on the tweadmill for me 🙁

Other thoughts…

• Stacey had alot of great stuff to say about Duke 1/2 strategy and training for the flat bike course at B2B. Particularly, she said that a constant effort on the bike (power output, but I dont’ have a power meter) is ALWAYS better than alternating hard/easy. It will set up better for a good solid run.
• She said I should try to borrow a front aero wheel for B2B.  Anyone got one I can borrow?
• When I told her about my headache issues on the bike during longer races, she had two key things to say about that. One, is I should absolutely not take any sinus medication because it will mess with my heart rate. She also said I should get a professional bike fit, because maybe there’s something about my bike position that is straining my neck. She said the only guy in the area that does a proper bike fit is Matt Loder at the Cycle Surgeon in Cary.
• Last time I saw her, she told me that it’s critical to get proper heart rate testing. Self testing is just no good. She said to go to the Human Performance lab at Meredith college. She reiterated that point this time, too.   I need to save up for that, as it costs $175.
• And again she made a strong point that my stock training plan is not the best for ME. I know she’s right, but I still think it’s a GOOD plan, and it’s all I have for now, so I have to stick with it.

Here are my tweets from today, by the way (reverse chronological order):

http://twitpic.com/gfk1t – bobblehead dwight is my friend

160 bpm’s is the heart rate at which my body recognizes the urgent need to pee. yes, i made it this time. hehe. one more rep 2 go!

did i really say ‘it’s all good’. no, it’s all bad!!! made it thru #2. fast fast fast fast pain pain pain fast fast fast fast pain pain

hard intervals should be done so hard that you hate them and can’t wait to get it done. yup. it’s all good at 8.9mph.

doing some drills on treadmill at 2.4mph. high knees feels right. skipping on the treadmill is just plain weird. lol

starting my treadmill speedwork. going to try to do all 4x3min repeats at 8.9mph. ACK!