catching up on Florida

I wrote this on the plane flying home last Friday.



I didn't put in the workouts I normally would have - but I maintained some cardiovascular activity. I ran twice, totaling 7 miles. I had a good swim in a short course meters pool - it took forever to get to the other side. The pool was very shallow at one end and was poured out of some fairly rough aggregate - it hurt to hit a flip turn at full speed, sharp little rocks. The pool was not designed by a swimmer.



What to say about Florida? It's nice. I ran in clear blue skies under palm trees, with the sound of an occasional bird and at other times classic Disney musicals piped into the surroundings by some hidden speaker. I felt some guilt being away from my family, running in shorts and a t-shirt, rather than suffering though the winter back home.



It's Friday now, I'm writing this on the plane at 31,000 feet in the air. I don't get home until 10pm tonight. The group I ride with is spinning tomorrow at 7am. I think I'm going to skip it. Some weeks of training go this way - where you can just barely maintain. January is nearly complete. I worry at times that I only have 8 months left of training before my event. I need to get my bike dialed in - the aero bars are still not right. I need to run more. Ironman training is a constant struggle thinking that you need to be doing more. I think it's due to the three events. If I haven't ridden my bike in three days it feels like a month, if I don't swim three times a week I feel like I'm slacking, even though I may have been running compulsively. Which is a joke - I never run compulsively.

Sorry to hear that J.D. Salinger passed away...he was one of my favorite authors. I've read everything he published. Maybe his unpublished work will now be discovered? He was a little mysterious huh? What a life - he realized that the world was full of phonies, wrote the Catcher, then gave up on it all. Somewhat admirable, somewhat sad. He could have been more to the world I guess. I was always freaked out by a short story I read of his from his book Nine Stories it's called Teddy. Oh, the ending.

Orlando day 1

I'm on a business trip, in Florida. It's beautiful. I just called home and talked with my kids - they have a two hour delay due to snow.

I got a wake up call at 6 and planned to run...it was in the 40's, and I forgot socks, so I went to the fitness center to lift weights. I'm staying on Disney property - everything is very well maintained. Nice fitness center.

I browsed around the Disney shops and found a pair of socks to run in - they have a little cute Mickey embroidered on side. I'll be running in the spirit of Walt this afternoon I guess. It's supposed to be in the 70's. And...they have two outdoor lap pools that are the real deal, kind of, they look to be 25 meters, rather than yards, which is a little different for me, there are no flags to site backstroke turns, and I don't think I saw any big black + indicators tiled into the wall. But the pool is the right distance. I didn't bring goggles - but I plan to find some nice Mickey goggles and get in that water if I can find the time.

SWIM

I had a busy day ahead of me today - so I got up a 4:30am. I wanted to get a good swim in before work. I was in the water at 5:00am, had the pool to myself for a while.

The workout:

Warm-up: 200 free, 200 kick, 200 IM, 200 kick
4 x 100 IM
100 easy kick
4 x 100 Fly/Back/Breast/ Free (each 100 broken into 50 single arm drill, 25 hard swim, 25 kick)
100 easy kick
400 Back
100 easy kick
4x25 (100) each of Fly/Back/Breast/Free
100 easy kick
4 x 100 Alternate Free/IM

Total yardage: 3,200. Almost 2 miles. I had what I call 'noodle arm' after that one. I actually had to sit down in the lobby at the Y to gather myself for a minute - I was rushing too fast to get home and help get the boys ready for school. Love workouts like that one.

Bought some new goggles last night - they're black mirrored - and make me look mean in the water. Too bad they don't quite fit the orbit of my eye and leaked most of the time. I'll have to go back to the big blue silly ones.

Yesterday I lifted weights early AM. I need to run in the AM - but the cold and snow is back once again. I'm heading to Florida Wed-Friday for work and look forward to some training time down there if I can fit it in.

10.5 Sunday Run

Gray skies and warm weather for my 10.55 mile run today.

I felt pretty good most of the way. I ran it in 1:30 minutes - averaging 8:30's maybe? It was kind of a mindless hour and a half. I listened to NPR the whole time. NPR's Sunday programming is perfect for long runs - it's mostly apolitical which is nice for a change. Listening to Clik & Clak banter about cars for an hour keeps my mind off the pain of running.

Fort Wayne has a pretty nice trail system - the RiverGreenway, which follows most of our brown rivers. As I crossed a bridge I did catch sight of a noteworthy image - large 'plates' of ice drifting quickly down the river. I guess I caught it at the right time, the ice sheet had very recently split into a mosaic of hundreds of huge rotating, floating, chaotic objects. I thought of running back for my camera it was so impressive.

I ran a little more than 25 miles for the week. Didn't ride as much as I should have - but swam probably 5 times what my plan recommended.

Friday Run

So I did it- got up and ran. I went to the Y and did 6 miles on a treadmill. To me, 6 miles on a treadmill feels like 18 miles on the road. Each mile takes so long. I think it's because the machine reports the numbers the whole time: I watched each hundredth of a mile tick past, occasionally glancing at a wall of silent television sets.

Tonight: SWIM. I'm going to try to hit the pool on my trip home from work.

Morning run with the aliens

Yesterday I ran 6 miles in the morning with a friend of mine. He is a runner - which is all fine and good for him, as he enjoys the sport of running. But when he asks if I'm running in the morning, and states optimistically "I'll swing by your house at 5:30am - we'll do an easy six" I almost always feel sick. There are no outs when you commit to another person....you have to get up and run.

On top of it we ran a terrifying route - dark winding wooded trails leading beside one of the three rivers that intertwine this town. In day light it's a great route, kind of, but in the dark? None the less we proceeded fearlessly. I've done a few solo runs like this - in pitch black, far from home. I find myself breathing silently, completely tuned-in to every sound, ready to spring into flight when the attackers leap from behind the bushes or the alien ship lands before my very eyes.

Tonight I road my trainer in the basement. Forty-five minutes in the aero position. Followed up with weights (my usual lackluster upper body workout) and then sit-ups.

I'm dreading the thought of tomorrow. I might actually get up and face the aliens again.

Jan 19th Swim - Run- Weights

I got to bed early, thus able to rise quickly after only one snooze. I was out of the house at 5:20am. I swim in one of the smallest and hottest pools that I've ever seen - and I have been in many pools. I do enjoy the balmy entry into bath temp water. It's horrible to train in, but I've always hated getting into a cold pool.

All the usuals were there. The guy that looks to be training for a Triathlon (can't do flip turns), the women that stand at one end and bounce up and down, the man named George (in his 80's) that likes to watch me do butterfly - and even tries it himself now and then. Missing was an older women, tiny, with skin that looks like it spent years in Florida. She always swims consistantly the whole time I'm there. Like a metronome back and forth.

I swam 2,000 yards. 800 SKPS, 200 easy Free, then 10 x 100 IM on a 1:45 and held 1:15's. (1 length each of Fly/Back/Breast/Free). That's 80 lenghts of the pool total. Then I still had time to run - so I went upstairs and ran two miles on the treadmill, easy miles, then did my lower body weight routine. Not a bad Tuesday morning.

Rewarded myself with an oatmeal from Starbucks with all the toppings, and a Grande Pike.

The Hurt Locker - 1st Time Trial

Today was my first Time Trial on the bike.

11.27 miles all out.

I much prefer to be On the Road, as I read long ago from Kerouac, but a trainer and a computer wasn't so bad. I was anxious - I road this thing with another cyclist that competes with a local cycling team. We got all set-up, each of us had large screen monitors tethered to our bikes that output all the vital stats: MPH, heart rate, cadence, watts, etc. It was a true test of ones cardiovascular system.

Of the group of guys that did this before me the best time was 29:05. I've never done anything like it. I started out a little slower than the guy next to me, but at mile 3 I closed my eyes, stopped watching the monitor, and put myself out of the situation, focusing on nothing. My Zen approach was lost when sweat covered my glasses and I had to take them off. My blindness is always a minor hindrance.

I re-entered the world at mile 9. Sustained 24 MPH for most of the duration. Finished at 28:39. The last few miles hurt - my heart rate was 180bpm for more than 20 minutes. I finished at 27 mph with a heart rate of 185bpm.

Then I packed up, threw my bike in the car, drove home, showered, hugged my kids and told them all about it, then went to while away my hours as an accountant. Not the normal start to my day.

Cycling like that is a pain threshold test. Simply human performance. No poetry to it.

Tomorrow morning: swim.

A January Sunday

Yesterday I road in the morning with the Men of Steel group again, one solid hour of spinning. Then went to the Y for weights, later I took my boys to another Y and we swam together. I probably got a good 1,000 yards in.

I'm supposed to run today. It's Sunday, gray outside, slightly cold. I have no motivation. It's so easy not to exercise - I could just start another load of laundry and then sit on the couch- that's somewhat productive right?

Last week I was fitted to my Felt B12. There's a highly qualified bike fitter in town that measured every angle of me, my degrees of flexibility, and then accurately position my seat, pedals, aero bars and stem so that I'm getting the right mix of power and comfort on my bike. It's an interesting study. People take cycling very seriously.

Bike talk: unfortunately the crank arms on my new bike are 170mm. He thinks I am losing a few percent in power. I should have 172.5mm crank arms allowing the delivery of more power when pedaling. This is what Ironman does to you...it totally geeks you out. I'm searching out a SRAM Red 172.5 crank set for 2.5 more millimeters. Justification for stuff like this is strangely easy. My first Ironman was a learning experience, I put clip-on aero bars on a fairly nice road bike. This time I'm trying to dial-in the perfect time trial bike to see if I can improve.

So, anyway, I'm supposed to run today, yes, run today.

UPDATE: I ran. Put in 5 1/2 miles. Maybe it's seasonal affective disorder or something - I'm not motivated.

Day 10 - SWIM

I did a nice ladder set today - 100-200-300-400-500-400-300-200-100. Freestyle. That workout is intense. I walked out of the Y dazed, mentally blank from a little over-exertion, remembering how I used to swim 6,000 to 8,000 even 10,000 yard workouts in high school and college. How was that possible? Now, 3,000 - 4,000 yards is fine. A 100 = 4 lengths of the pool.

Did my normal Ball State 800 SKPS warm-up prior to starting the main set. 200 Swim/200 Kick/200 Pull/200 Swim.

Yesterday I met up with the Men of Steel cycling club. We met at a local bike shop and road our trainers together watching a video of other people on their trainers cycling and sweating like mad. It was really pretty 'fun' - about 20 people spinning away feverishly. Training like that in a group setting is motivating. I pushed it fairly hard. In the afternoon I went to Y and ran 5 miles and then did a lower body weight training routine. Actually did squats in the weight room! Squats are horrible, horrible, things. My shoulders, back, and legs are still sore.

I had a pretty good first week. I didn't document every workout - but I got them in. I need to buy a training log and start tracking mileage better to see volume increases. Tomorrow is supposed to be a rest day, but I'm thinking of a light ride in the basement. Monday mornings in particular are key to starting out a good week. If I skip Monday I always feel like I've ruined the whole week.

Always wear socks

I got up at 5:15am and went to the Y to run. I couldn't face the cold this morning. I've found that with early morning workouts anything that can possibly be used as an excuse not to workout is quickly justified in my mind, so I laid out my clothes the night before.

Not having any clothes ready is the best excuse to go back to bed.

I was prepared - had it all together - scrapped the windows and drove off to meet up with a treadmill. I got there, found my normal locker, got all dressed, and then realized I forgot running socks. I'm too vain to run with 'dress' socks on with running shoes - that's not really vanity, just good fashion sense. So, I ran without socks in my newer running shoes - 5 miles. Did one mile at a 7 minute pace, really felt pretty good. Then I did my lower body weight routine.

Result: two blisters, one on each foot.

Day 3: Brick

It wasn't in the plan, but I rode my trainer for 1.5 hours (close to 30 miles)...put in some good work, and then ran 2.5 miles immediately following. Sunny cold skies make for pretty good running if your in the mood.

Later in the day yesterday I decided to get out my mountain bike (1992 Bridgestone MB-2) and ride outside. Bridgestones are highly valued...not necessarily monetarily. They are not made anymore, so the existing bikes are rare, and the lucky owners are like a cult. They were very well built bikes. All steel, pre-hydraulic/suspension crazyness that I see on mountain bikes today. I rode with ease over bumpy frozen ice paths, up and down snow pack, and enjoyed my brief ride. The cold generated from the wind-chill of a moving bike was almost unbearable.

Those tire tracks at Foster park are mine!

Day 2: Weight lifting, upper body

I don't really have an upper body, but I printed out the last few pages of my training plan that depict images of weight-lifting positions and headed to the Y. I went to the downtown branch. It's not pretty, or clean. Their equipment is eclectic to put things in a nice way. I went to the free-weight area, which is in the basement. Down where those with an upper body workout.

It wasn't so bad - there were the typical grunting types, bench pressing with several 45lb plates on each side of the bar. Talking loudly. I generally steer clear of that masculine proving ground.

I did the incline press, decline press, standard bench press, lat pull downs, seated rows, tricep extension, and some crazy move where I had to lay on a bench, eyes to the ceiling, and reach over my head, down toward the floor and then raise a bar from floor to ceiling. Geez! I think it was supposed to isolate the triceps and shoulders maybe....but I could feel pain all the way to my hip flexors. Some girl was sitting next to me, and I said "Don't watch me, this is going to be embarrassing". I used the smallest bar I could find with a tiny little plate.

Finished up with some sit-ups.

My arms feel like noodles....I can barely type.

Day 1 -2010

I ran 6 miles in slush yesterday...and 6 miles in total freezing cold today.

Yesterdays run was challenging. I overdressed, had to stop on the Greenway and shed some layers (hid my clothes along the trail under a pile of snow), got thirsty and ate snow that tasted like dirt, and was called to by a homeless guy still sleeping under the bridge. Even in the winter they sleep under the bridges? Might one want to travel south? Poor fella.

Today, New Year's day, was my first training program run. Run for time - 9 minutes, with 1 minute walk after the run, repeat five times. So, 45 minutes of running, with some walking. I followed the instructions. I usually don't stop and walk, so it was a little different, but nice. I could feel my heart rate come down, and then I'd hit it again. Similar to swimming interval sets.

It was so cold that tiny little ice balls formed on the ends of my eye lashes. No joke. Not too many people out at the park today!