Claire is 25 weeks old and hates being on her stomach........wait a minute.......here she is sleeping on her stomach in the mountains?? She must have been super tired from the ride up there. The only reason they let her sleep on her stomach was because she was supervised. Otherwise, it is suggested that babies sleep on their back.
I didn't take any photos this week. Here's a shot from Beth's camera in the mountains. I missed all the action because things have really picked up at work and I'm slammed.
What a nice view from their cabin. Jen and I will be going back here later in the month for our anniversary.
More mountains. I wasn't there. Bummer.
Ernie hooked us up with VIP treatment at "The Madhouse". Ernie's brother-in-law runs the show at Bowman Gray stadium so we had the best seats in the house right by the press box. Here's a shot from the roof.
I wanted to fit in as much as possible so I went with the Science Diet (cat food) mesh trucker hat and an Iron Maiden t-shirt. When you're going to watch some short track car racing you better play the part. I would have grown out a mullet or rat tail but Jen wouldn't approve. Speaking of mullets........can you pick out the mullet in this photo?
RECAP:
Jen, Beth, and Claire went up to the mountains from Monday through Wednesday while I stayed home. Work has been very busy lately so it was actually good timing that they were gone because I ended up working late from home both nights. That didn't stop me from grilling a steak and taking down a couple of glasses of wine in the process though. On Saturday Jen and I went to Winston Salem to watch some short track car racing and we left Claire with Julianna. We want Claire to get used to hanging out with other people so we're trying to find things to do each Saturday. Julianna is from Columbia (the country...not SC) so we asked that she speak to Claire in spanish so it might be easier for her to pick up on later down the road. On Sunday I ran with Jordan as usual and then helped Watty with his deck for the remainder of the afternoon. I think we will only have one more weekend before his deck is complete. After that, Sundays will go back to being "family day" for the Frank household.
TRAINING:
Running: 42 miles @ 6:19 pace average :: 4 hrs 00 mins
Cycling: 99 miles :: 4 hrs 47 mins
Total: 8 hrs 47 mins
Training was business as usual this week. I'm trying to hover around somewhere in the 40s for weekly run mileage and I added in another bike ride on Tuesday night to increase overall aerobic hours. I haven't found any studies on the subject but I'm a believer that cycling hours do benefit running in some fashion or another. Since I wouldn't be able to increase my run volume any quicker than I am without getting injured there really is no downside. Plus, I've been enjoying the bike lately and it's nice to see the guys again. I really needed that 4-5 month break from endurance training to realize that I actually do enjoy it. That being said, I don't foresee myself doing any triathlons in the near future. I don't miss the pool one bit and don't have the necessary time to designate to the bike in order to get into triathlon racing shape. For now, my competitions are The Saturday Morning Shootout and any running road races that I decide to jump into over the next few months.
This week's training was nothing special. Basically just trying to keep 5 of my runs at around 145 bpm and my Tuesday and Sunday runs closer to 160 bpm. I'm just slowly building my base and the 160 bpm runs are meant to get my legs moving at a faster pace without major risk for injuries. Along with that, even though it's well below lactate threshold they will still help to push the LT upwards. Here's what the notable sessions looked like this week:
Tuesday: 8 miles @ 157 bpm ave :: 6:15 pace ave
Thursday: 4 miles @ 5:49 pace on treadmill
Saturday: Shootout Ride :: 3T beat NTT Nation by 35 points
Sunday: 12 miles @ 153 bpm ave :: 6:20 pace ave
Claire is 23 weeks old and is quite the joy. She's starting to hold onto things and likes being rolled around and really enjoys pullups and bicycles. She is smiling non-stop.
Claire decided to invest in her education and bought some books this week. Her favorite by far is Skippyjon Jones. Actually, that's my favorite one to read so it's now her favorite too. My neice, Savannah, was repeating the words to this book while we were in Clearwater and now I actually know what she was talking about.
New training partner :: I ran with Jordan Kinley on Sunday for the first time and the pace was perfect along with some great conversation. Time flew by on the run and I hope we'll be able to push each other in the upcoming months. I won't be much help to him in workouts right now but can fill in the gaps on some medium to long runs where the pace isn't too hot. He's a rep for a vast product line including Karhu shoes, Craft apparel, NUUN, Fuel Belt, etc. On top of that.......he wins every race on the local circuit. I always think it's best to surround yourself with top performers in any field whether it be sports, work, etc.
Steve did a lot of work this week so all we had to do when I got there on Sunday was to hang all of the joists. This took from about 10am until 5pm and I was a bit dehydrated from the run so I was on the edge of cracking at any moment. We got it knocked out though and hope to be completely done by the end of next weekend.
Above is Jen's 10 year anniversary gift. Jen has had her eye on the Volvo SUV for quite some time and we have our 10 year anniversary coming up at the tail end of the month so I put my viewpoints aside and took one for the team with this purchase. I'm not all that big into materialistic things and for the most part neither is Jen so this went against the grain for us. It was quite a challenge for me to buy something that is expensive, heavily depreciates and just gets you from point A to point B. Since it will be a company vehicle the tax savings made it more appealing. On top of that, a wise woman (Jen) once told me that a happy wife is a happy life.
RUNNING RECAP:
* 31 mi running (6:37 pace ave) :: 3 hrs 23 mins
* 60 mi cycling :: 3 hrs 9 mins
* Total Aerobic: 6 hrs 33 mins
This week was a scheduled down week to ensure that my legs recover before the next increase. I'm continuing my climb to 60 miles/week with 3 hrs of cycling and am keeping everything pretty easy. I did an aerobic assessment on Thursday where I run 3 miles @ 160 bpm and take the average of my last two miles to guage my aerobic development. It's a short and easy method to guage development any day of the week. I was 15 seconds faster per mile during this assessment (6:01 pace) than the last assessment (6:16 pace) on June 30th. I'm still looking for this assessment to drop down between 5:40-5:45 pace before I get started with any kind of real workouts. Once I can hold that pace without an increase in HR for 10 miles I will bump my efforts up to 170 bpm and add in some neuromuscular workouts to work the turnover.
My notable sessions from this week were the aerobic assessment on Thursday, the Saturday Morning Shootout and my Sunday run with Jordan.
Claire is now 23 weeks old. Her neck is getting stronger and she loves to color coordinate her dresses with her blankets.
It's only fitting for the "Claire Bear" to have a bear's head on her butt. She's starting to tolerate tummy time but still doesn't like it much.
We broke ground on Steve's deck on Sunday and were able to get the framing completed for the "upper deck". His deck is going to have two levels. The first level is ~8ft X 8ft and the second level will be two steps down and will fill out the complete 24ft X 24ft deck. We got a lot accomplished on day 1.
RUNNING RECAP:
* 40 mi running (6:23 pace ave) :: 4 hrs 15 mins
* 68 mi cycling :: 3 hrs 11 mins
* Total Aerobic: 7 hrs 26 mins
My main focus is to build my base miles slowly until I reach 60 miles per week. To kickstart the aerobic system I've added in a 60 mile bike ride as well. Most of my runs are done between 145-160 bpm which correlates to around 6:40 down to 6:00 pace.
Claire is now 18 weeks old and is 12lbs 4oz. She's a very talkative and happy baby. She smiles all the time and is an overall great little baby. She brings us much joy!
Here's Jen with Claire rocking her Claire Bear 10 jersey that Kate made for her. She later went on to stain it after William Shatner gave her diaper a visit.
Claire prefers eating her hands over her bottle of milk. They do look tasty!
We replaced the window with a sliding door this week. It's so much more convenient to walk out the door versus climbing out the window.
All that's left is to prime, paint, install trim, and stain the deck. I'm hoping to get that all done next week.
We had the Houser's over for dinner and drinks on Saturday night. They live two doors down and I run with Curtis. It just so happens that their baby Rosalie Marie was born two weeks after Claire.
Their dog Lucy was send home for breaking deck rule #23: Barking too much. Luckily she only had to travel about 75 feet to get back home.
This Sunday was my first Father's Day. I can't speak for Claire but I was a little tired from having a few margaritas the previous night. We'll make naptime a Father's Day tradition.