A Perfect Day (Today's Workout+)

I woke up at 6AM, after a nice 9-hour sleep. I’d had some weird dreams—one of them included the words “KE PODU,” which I Googled and could only find what looked like some Slavic-porn site. The REAL turkey day porn, I guess. But when I clicked on the URL, I got “404 Nicht Gefunden.” My first German “Not Found.” So I’ll have to hold onto finding out what “ke podu” means until another day.

I had 3 small mugs of coffee and the usual PowerBar Triple Threat for breakfast, finishing it by about 6:45. I was hedging on whether or not to run a local 5K today. The race start is only a little over 1 mile from my house. I needed to run 1 hour today, and it would have to be outside, as my gym is closed for the Thanksgiving holiday. The temperature when I woke up was all of 12, and the winds were running 20-30MPH, with gusts to 40. Oh joy! I hadn’t run outdoors in weather like this in at least 3 years that I can remember.

I rationalized that if I was going to run outside in this crap that I might as well spend some of it with a bunch of other crazies, and the race fee goes to a good cause, so OK, I’ll pony up $25. I decided I’d run 10-15 minutes before the race (warmup, ha ha) and after it, and that would be enough. My workout main set was supposed to be 15’ steady, 20’ Mod-Hard, 10’ steady. Well the mod-hard is taken up by the 5K, so I’ll just run easy to steady on the front and back ends.

Next order of business—what to wear? I have a lot of cold weather technical running gear, so it was just a question of trying to choose the best for what I was going to do. I went with a lightweight Polartec turtleneck, sock liners under my usual Ironman running socks, Coolmax undies, fleece-lined biking tights, and my brand spanking new *pink* Nike run top thingie, which I hoped would keep me warm enough. I topped off my head with a fleece hat and wore fleece gloves. I brought my glove liners with me in case I thought I needed them, but as it turned out, I didn’t. I would run away from the start initially and go back past my house (about .5 mile) and check whether I thought I was dressed appropriately. I took a 12-oz. bottle (I save those baby Gatorade bottles just for this purpose) and filled it with Ultra Violence, to have some when I arrived at the race start, since I’d have at least 20 minutes to wait before the start.

I went outside and began to run, and whoa, it was fucking cold! My nose immediately started running, but I felt like I got the gear selection just right. Ran up the hill away from home, turned around, saw one of my triathlete neighbors outside, told him I was running the 5K, and he said, “Warming up, huh?” Al thinks I’m a little nuts, but in a good way, you know? So with gear check just fine, I kept going past home and ran towards the race registration area. Only 9’, so I just kept going around the area, circled back and went to registration. I had forgotten to bring my race belt, so I was forced to pin my number to my brand new jacket! Oh well, now I also had this T-shirt that I didn’t know what to do with. I figured I’d tie it around my waist. I drank ½ the bottle of Ultra Violence (everyone else seemed to be drinking coffee), made one potty stop, and was ready to go.

I asked someone where the race start was and was directed, so off I went for another couple minutes of easy jogging. I found 2 of my masseuses with tables at the ready (one of them was racing), and was able to leave my T-shirt there to pick up afterwards. I had told one of them, Cindy, that I “might” do the race, and she was happy to see me. I told her how I had rationalized that as long as I had to run outdoors, and there would be plenty of other crazies, I might as well show up. AND then I could get a short massage afterwards!

The other masseuse, Mike, who owns the massage school where Cindy was trained (and also my friend Harlan, who can’t yet work on me until his doctor gives him the all clear after his September triple bypass surgery), is doing his first Ironman next fall (Wisconsin). Mike and I ambled to the actual race start, where they had pace cards for people to line up. I thought, my, this must be a competitive race! Mike advised to stay close to the front (something I didn’t want to do—I’m not very fast) because of all the walkers/wrongly seeded people, but I opted to move back to the “8 mpm and under” group. I ran into someone I know and she asked why I was there. I said because I’ll run about 8 mpm, and she said, no this is everyone over that, and she was running maybe 10mpm, so I moved up after all.

Soon enough there was some sort of signal to start running—I really don’t remember what it was, but people started moving. And there were lots of people improperly seeded anyway, so I ended up going up on the sidewalk to try and get clear of the pack.

The course was nice—through my town—and within about .5 miles, I thought my nose was going to fall off, it was so cold from running into the fierce headwind. But then as my body warmed up, things were just fine. I wasn’t counting on a PR today with the cold and all, but figured oh well, just run hard as best you can.

I bumped elbows a few times in the first mile or so, and then things started to spread out a bit. I really felt the lactic acid in my legs about 2 miles in. That was when I remembered that I had done my killer bike workout yesterday starting at 3:30PM—where I hit a new FT wattage value of 158—5 over my past test! I was pretty pumped about that, and here I was running at a good clip in Arctic temperatures, not bad for a Crackhead.

I seemed to think we kept running downhill a little bit, but I must have been delusional from the cold—eventually we got to turn onto Summit Street, and I hoped like hell they weren’t going to make us run all the way up! In August, they host a USCF Grand Prix here, and they go up the Summit hill each lap of the 100K race. Luckily, we turned back north just before the big climb by the firehouse.

My lungs felt like they were on fire the last mile, and I am just not a 5K runner, and as much as I wanted to slow down I just kept going. As soon as I stopped, I began coughing and dry heaving, which, of course, meant that I had run sufficiently hard. I was just glad it was over, as I was pretty warm. I ended up with a 5K PR for me by a little, but I don’t train for this short stuff, so no worries.

I went back by the massage tables and got my legs worked over nicely. Boy could I tell I had biked hard yesterday when she hit my quads! I think her name was Kyra, and she knew I knew Cindy, and she told me I should come to the massage school class and be a “body” for them. I told her that I’d already been invited and would see her in 2 weeks. THAT will be another great day—I’ll get an outstanding 1.5 hour massage followed by more work by the students.

I picked up my T-shirt, said my goodbyes, grabbed a butterscotch lollipop, and headed for home. After that brief cool-down, the cold and wind really hit me hard again, but my legs didn’t really feel bad at all, and I added a little extra distance and some hills on the way back home to almost get in a full hour of running.

When I got home, I had to put a ham in the oven to bake to take over to the feast I was attending, and I changed from my run clothes to other workout clothes, knocked out a 30-minute abs/core workout, still feeling pretty peppy, then I finally showered and dressed and got ready to leave again, only this time by car.

I just felt so good, and the running felt good today (except for the wind and cold), and my legs felt really strong, especially after having done a ½ Ironman last Saturday and some pretty good workouts before today. And my FT watts are up! And I’ve almost convinced myself that I need that carbon FSA compact crank/SRM combo. And I got to sit around and get fed a bounteous meal with family today. And I got leftovers!

I’m looking forward to my 3-hour brick workout tomorrow, and then I’ve got some big running for Saturday and Sunday (for the next 5 weeks, actually).

I really couldn’t ask for anything more right now. It’s been a perfect day. I’m very thankful.