Butt-Kicking Duathlon Workout

We had a long winter. I got out on my bike 3 times over the course of 8 days when we had some "decent" weather a few weeks ago. But that's been it. And with a duathlon coming up in FIVE DAYS, I knew I needed to kick myself in the ass a little this past weekend. So Friday (before all the Easter goodies), I did Kevin O'Connor's duathlon workout.

Note: I've mentioned this workout before. I heard about it at the Gear West Duathlon Clinic last spring, and I did it 3 times last summer. Here are links to those workouts:

- First, I did it at the track with Marie on April 1st.

- Then, I did a shorter version with Matt a few weeks later.

- And finally, I did it NEAR the track while running on the sidewalk in mid-July.

So, when I wanted to do this workout on Friday, it was 41 degrees, breezy, and raining:

I didn't really want to sit out on the track in that weather and be miserable, so I decided to be "THAT GUY" and work out in my garage. It was just lightly misting as I was hauling my bike, trainer, etc to the garage:

Everything's a little damp

Here's what my set-up looked like in the garage before I started the workout:

Ladder as an extra bottle holder, cardboard to transition on, ....


... and my old darkroom timer propped in front of the bike to keep time.

I didn't have any music ready, and I thought I MIGHT just go crazy because all I had to look at was the shadow of the ladder on the garage door:

I had mapped out a 1 mile run from the door of my garage. I just had to go down the ally for a bit, and then down the street to a light pole that I found in the satellite view of MapMyRun:

I started warming up on the bike. I used the self-timer to grab one last photo before I really got into the workout:

WORKOUT DETAILS:

WU on trainer (mostly easy with few pick-ups): 10:00
Transition: 0:17
1 mile run (85% effort): 3:06 / 3:11 = 6:17

I took it easy on that first run because I'm still coming back from that heel injury. And (as you could tell from of the photo of me on my bike above), I wore my calf-sleeves to help keep my calves / heels warm and loose. They always help.

Transition: 0:18
Spin (30 hard, 30 easy): 9:30
Transition: 0:16
1 mile run: 3:05 / 3:00 = 6:05

That mile felt better. I was still trying to keep my running cadence high, but that was HARDER being I was just trying to go fast (I wanted to "stride" a little bit). But one thing I was enjoying was doing the running on the sidewalk. It was nice to have more of a "real" run, and not the perfectly flat and smooth surface of the track. It felt more like a race. I liked it. I decided then and there that I'd be doing this workout more often out of my garage instead of at the track.

Transition: 0:22
Spin (30 hard, 30 easy): 9:45 (longer to make the intervals land on 30/60)
Transition: 0:15
1 mile run: 3:03 / 2:56 = 5:59

Sure, that run was sub-6, but I got stopped by a neighbor for almost exactly 2 minutes near the start of that run, so I had an unfair little break. We chatted for a moment before I took off again.

Transition: 0:15
Spin (30 hard, 30 easy): 9:28
Transition: 0:16
1 mile run: 2:58 / 2:50 = 5:48

That last run felt very "out of control," and I felt like my form was crap. But my cadence was still good! That final mile time of 5:48 was good and bad. I thought it was GREAT that I could bust one out that fast after so many weeks of NO intensity (due to injury), but I was also disappointed that I "saved" so much for the final interval - I should have gone harder in the middle of the workout and not kept so much for the end. That was a little worrisome.

1:05:00 total workout time (not including the 2 minutes of talking to Susan).

I snapped a HORRIBLE photo of myself literally 10-15 seconds after finishing the workout:

Nice hair and glasses. Dweeb.

That brings me to a couple of points:

- I needed to wear contacts! That cool, damp weather mixed with my hot body led to a lot of fogging up. I should have known better!

- I didn't go crazy! There's really no time to "get bored" doing this workout, so I didn't go crazy staring at the garage wall. While repeating "0:30 hard, 0:30 easy," I found myself always thinking about what was JUST about to be happening, so I was never bored.

- My heel felt good! It didn't feel like it was 100%, but it didn't hurt during the workout, and it was fine all weekend!

- I've been doing a lot of core work, but there's nothing like running HARD to get your core to really go nuts! I felt it "nicely" in the 3rd and 4th intervals.

- My running cadence is getting better. I've been working on that on the treadmill. It used to be too low, which leads to my heel-striking issue. I'm trying to get it higher so I don't over-stride and heel-strike so much. During my last interval, I counted after the turn-around, and I had 179 foot-strikes in a minute. I started around 160 a few weeks ago, and I've been working my way to 180, so that's good!

I loaded all my bike gear back into the house, and then Ella helped me stretch:

That was a GREAT workout to lead into the weekend. I'll be doing that again throughout the spring and summer, and I'll make sure to ask if any locals want to try it with me sometime! It's a GREAT kick-in-the-pants!

Oh, and 1 last reminder: the Hydrapak giveaway is open through TODAY (Monday). If you haven't entered, scroll down to last Tuesday's post (or click here) and leave a comment on THAT post to be entered. And then check back in a day or 2 to see if you've won!