Run Workout to Try // New Bike // Birthday Weekend

Raw vegan chococalte avocado cheesecake.

Monday morning training hangover. Got to love it. I asked for it. I told Lucho I was feeling ready and motivated to work my ass off over the weekend. And that happened. Each afternoon I'd come home and basically just lay on the floor not even bothering to shower right away, but instead drinking kombucha, eating, Compexing and messing around on the computer. Actually Saturday I was more trashed from a ocean swim/run combo, and Sunday even after a long ass day I had enough brain cell power to make client calls and do real work. It's that Saturday run I want to share for you to try.

Before I blabber about the run, just fyi this blog will be more than just that (lots to catch up on!) -- also new on my new bike and the story behind that, and my birthday weekend recap in pics. Teaser: Ya see that sweet looking piece of amazingness to your left? I had the family go to 118 Degrees (raw vegan restaurant) for my birthday dinner this year... don't worry I ate grassfed beef the night before for dinner ;)

So the run. I normally don't bother posting workout details, but this one is one worth sharing. It was a blast. It felt like four run sessions in one (MAF, hills, tempo/threshold, more hills) and I loved it; went by super fast too. Add this to your workout library when the appropriate fitness is there. I think it's a great example of workout that will test if you are capable of being in control of your body/HR and not let your HR controlling you. In other words -- stick to MAF when MAF is the goal, then go hard as shit when that's the goal, and have the ability to bring it back to MAF and so on...

Long run with a mix of intensity

10-12 miles

Warmup: 2-3 miles building to MAF as you loosen. Get loose. (I did 3 miles, needed it)

Hill repeats: 5-6 X ~1:00 hard hill intervals pushing to near max efforts. Jog easy and light back to the start ~1:00-1:30. (I ran a ~0.15-mile hill 6x and got my HR up to the 180s on these!)

MAF: Then cruise for ~2 miles relaxed at MAF.

Intensity: Then 3 miles starting at 7:20 pace and building towards 7:00 by the end. Float around in this range. Translation: hard tempo/sub-threshold effort (my threshold is ~175-177ish bpm and I did this effort at 168-174HR).

Easy: Jog 1 mile.

More hills: Then 5 X 30" max effort HILL sprints. Go hard on these. Recovery is 2:00 easy walk/jog. Ouch.

Cooldown: ~1 mile easy.

.... Yup. I ended up with close to 12 miles, feeling awesomely tired after. We did an ocean swim prior, and it was abnormally freezing in the water (50s), and I think the coldness from that left its mark too. I came home from that run hanrgy and made a HUGE bowl of sweet potato mash with avocado, chia, cacao nibs (yes, chocolate for lunch), melted grassfed butter, almond milk, cinnamon, sea salt and stevia. Topped that with two sunny-side-up pasture-raised eggs cooked in more butter. That combo (and variations of it) is my go-to meal again these days now that I'm training regularly and with volume/ intensity again. Normally I have it for breakfast after an AM workout, but it sounded good for lunch today instead ;) I'm going to post recipe/pics soon. That particular sweet potato was freshly bought from farmer's market and had deep purple flesh, like I get in Kona. Mmmm.

In other news...

I got a new bike.

Headed to pick up the new ride. Selfie-worthy moment, right?!

I'll preface by saying I've been friends with Jim Felt for a long time, and in fact we even have family who worked together years ago, so it goes way back with us. When I got my first Felt B2R in '09 there was a problem with how it was built, and Jim was there to help me get it fixed the right way. We've been buds since. But things happen, and I left the B2R on the back burner for a while when I rode the Shiv last year; however, that deal with Specialized didn't extend past 2013 (which is completely fine -- no hard feelings there, just wasn't meant to be). I got back on my old B2R upon resuming training this year, while brainstorming my next move for a new ride. I was open to explore anything, but partial to Felt. Really, since I've been in triathlon I've had the desire to get more serious with Felt, and it's something Jim and I have discussed. It was time to be more aggressive with that. I started eying the Felt DA and IA, thinking "why not just go for it: IA." It was a long shot to think I'd score an IA in 51cm -- that bike is not easy to get, and I know I'm no Rinny or professional sponsored athlete. But again, my relationship with Jim and Felt goes way back, and I'm also a mere 15 minutes from Felt's HQ here in Orange County, so somehow the stars aligned and I had the opportunity to get that IA, in my size -- an important detail ;). When I got the news -- right before my birthday --  I was, at that point, about ready to give up and move on from the IA dream, so it was a total shocker to have that all change in a matter of an hour. Happy birthday to me, right?! To save some money, I only got the frame and then built it out with my parts. This past week we got it all dialed in and I rode it daily, accumulating 10+ hours in the saddle, and as a result feeling extremely satisfied with the ride, the feel, and so on. It's so great to be building a solid relationship with the whole Felt team, and I couldn't be more thrilled with the direction things are heading in that regard.

Hot new addition to the family. It has yet to sleep in the garage, and is instead living in our living room/dining room area. Dinner time is more enjoyable with this view. I'll also be getting new wheels soon, more details on that to come.

So how is the IA?!?! It's an amazing bike to say the least. It rides like a dream and the fit is incredibly comfortable for me. I'll have to share the evolution of my bike fit soon, my fitter (Dave Jordaan at cybercyclecoach.com) sent me some rad pics from a year ago when we first started working together some tweaks between, and now.

However, I won't lie, the IA is an extremely high-maintenance bike due to how integrated everything is. Seriously. But I'm not complaining. I'm honored to be on such a high-tech bitchin ride, and equally honored that despite it's complicated nature, I got an education on the bike and how to handle it by the design engineer himself, Anton, over at Felt HQ. I learned a lot and there's no way I plan on being helpless with this bike nor will I leave it to "the boys" to work on it.

In addition to many rides this week, I did a T-runs off the bike Thursday and Sunday, after 1hr40min  and 4hr rides, respectively, and man I felt springy and fresh on both runs. HR was at MAF but I was ~30-60 seconds faster than my usual MAF pace, Sunday especially. Gonna be interesting to get into some racing... I am so antsy lol. But enough workout nitty gritty talk.


I'll leave you with some photos from a couple weekends ago. It was my birthday March 29 (last year in 25-29!!!)... it was Oceanside 70.3...there were celebrations Saturday and Sunday nights... and it was a ton of fun on so many levels.

Spent most of Friday working the Bonk Breaker booth at the expo, alongside my athelte Amy

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Friday was nonstop once I got to Oceanside. Chatted with tons of friends and podcast fans at the expo while hanging with my Bonk Breaker family.

This is why I love triathlon, right here. Pictured is the Further Faster Forever team, aka #F3, and they're just a bunch of awesome folks from all over who share a common passion for endurance sports and started a group/club as a result. Bill in the blue F3 shirt and red sunnies is the founder. This was at their pre-race dinner, which John and I hung out at for a while! And yes, those dogs are large, but so sweet and like teddy bears.

Birthday morning - up at 4:45 ish in the morning to partake in race day and try to be everywhere for everyone. That is tough at a "short" race like a half-Ironman. If you follow me on Twitter, you did see that I did a pretty decent job on timely updates on the pro race.

Calm before the storm on race day. Next year I will likely be in another spot on the course at this time ;)

Tracking a 70.3 pro race on foot with iPhone is tough work, but worth it when you see amazing feats of endurance fitness. Here is male winner Jan Frodeno, in the lead, looking smooth.

I had a handful of athletes racing, and I know you've seen this guy before... Ray! He PR'd his half-Ironman, and had his strongest run ever at 70.3, which was our main focus/goal starting back in December, so I'm glad it showed. Ray is a great example of having passion for the sport and being patient -- not expecting overnight gains. When you're busy and have a demanding life outside of triathlon, it can take years to figure it all out. But if you're having fun in the process, living your life and not obsessing over results you'll be golden.

It was the battle of the Heathers for that win, and this Heather (Wuertele) had the edge of the other (Jackson); although, in my eyes they were equally as strong and both put a pretty big gap on the rest of the women's field by the end. I posted more pictures from the race/finish line on my Twitter; so no need to repeat here.

What a feeling that must be. #winning

Remeber this name: JAN FRODENO. He already won gold at Beijing, and now he's stepping it up to long-course with his eye on Kona. Super chill dude and has what it takes. It's not a fluke to beat a 5x Oceanside champ like Andy Potts, ya know what I'm sayin?

Ok, I LOVE triathlon, but I had my fill for a while and needed to escape, so we hit up Mother Earth Brewing in San Diego for some tasters.... then I went home and fell asleep lol (especially knowing that we'd be hitting up the Wattie after-party Saturday night and I needed my energy for that -- it was great night and like a mini Kona reunion; no pictures are taken at such events ;)). And for the record, I lived in those 110% Play Harder Compression all Fri/Sat while on my feet. Necessary. Use code 110CoachTawnee for 10% and free shipping on any Play Harder Compression purchase!

 I (happily) made my own birthday dinner: Organic grass-fed beef and broccoli with onion, garlic and ginger. Picked up the supplies from Jimbo's, which I wish we had in OC.

 

Sunday we hit up the new Carlsbad pool for a little swimmy swim. I don't know if it was the pool or what, but I felt freaking great in the water cruising some long sets. T-Ran it back to my parent's condo (where we were staying), and that was hot and hilly. Got lost cuz my phone died and I don't know the area, it was awesome.

More b-day fun with my amazing family Sunday night! That includes 2 athletes I'm coaching (mom & sis) so #CoachTawnee gets special treats too ;)

I wanted to go somewhere unique for all of us, so we hit up the raw/vegan restaurant 118 Degrees in Costa Mesa, and ordered a bunch of fun dishes to try and share. I can't even begin to list all the goodness you see here, but it's all raw and vegan (now you know why I had the grass-fed beef the night prior lol -- balance!)

This was my main entree at 118 Degrees -- Raw enchiladas with macadamia filling. It looks "light" and I thought I'd still be hungry but that hearty mac nut filling and everything else was extremely sustaining (plus I tried everyone else's entrees lol).

And that chessecake with avocado and lovely garnish, as well as a banana dulce de leche to the left... Yes, it was very picture worthy not just for me. Sister getting her food porn photo up to the IG!

A'ight... peace!