Today's Workouts (I am Psycho)

6:30AM Swim 3000 yards. WU: 200 swim, 200 pull, 200 kick, 4 x 50 (10") Swim Golf MS: 12 x 100 (20"), Descend 1-3, 4-6, 6-9, 10-12 100 easy swim. 4 x 200 (20"), Neg split. CD: 100 easy swim. The pool was unusually warm for a Monday morning. Usually Monday is the coolest water. I guess I was a little sluggish from yesterday's long run, and I didn't sleep enough last night (only 7 hours--couldn't fall asleep, I was just hot and my metabolism was racing--sometimes that happens after really long rides, and sometimes runs, too). At any rate, it's hard for me to get going in warm water (anything over 83 degrees--it felt like 85 today), so as always, I concentrated on my form. When I got to the 200's, I finally felt warmed up and limber and produced some decent times. Oh well, I'm slow in the pool from all the strength work, too, and I'm STILL not worried about it! 6 months until my first 2006 Ironman, no worries!

I had to go into downtown Chicago into the actual office today, which is in Sears Tower. I call it the Tower of Power. I like making mundane things festive. There's an exit off one of the interstates about 15 miles from my house that's called Army Trail Road, but I call it the Ho Chi Minh Trail. When I combine a bunch of errands to save time (and gasoline), I call it an odyssey. Years ago I even made up a little song about going on an odyssey. It's to the tune of some show tune, but for the life of me I don't know the name of it!

Anyway, on those days when I go to the Tower of Power, I have to drive to a parking garage, and then walk to the train station (about 1.5 blocks) from there. And I pack my gym stuff for my second workout. I would join the club in the TOP, but it's way too expensive to justify for me using it maybe twice a month. And then I would have to drag my workout stuff PLUS my laptop bag and other crap onto the train. So I do my second workout after work on those days.

It only got up to about 10 degrees here in Chicago today, so when I opened my gym back for my post-work run, everything in it was cold. I was happy the Gatorade was cold, but my HRM not so much. I was emitting screams every time I put something cold to my body!

5:46PM Run about 50'. My second workout was supposed to be an easy 50' run, including 10' of strides. Strides are where you practice good running form, but more importantly, good CADENCE, which is about 85-95 foot strikes per minute. If I'm counting, I just count my right foot strikes for 30" and double it. Funny how 85-95 is the same as good cadence on the bike. If your run cadence is about the same as your bike cadence, it makes running off the bike easier, DUH. At any rate, I've been doing stride work once a week for 2 years, so I no longer count my foot strikes regularly, I just always run at about 95-98 per minute. I usually do strides on Monday, to give me an "easy" day, regardless of what kind of swim workout I have.

When I got to the row of about 20 treadmills, they were all occupied. Too many of them with walkers, if you ask me. Reading their books. BARELY sweating. I wanted to just scream, "GET OFF I NEED TO DO AN ACTUAL WORKOUT" but that wouldn't have made me look too good. I only needed to run 25-30' on the treadmill and then I would finish up on the indoor track.

But nobody was getting off. So I thought, OK, I'll do the entire workout on the track. The thing is, no matter how tired I am, put me on a track and I will naturally want to run fast. I held myself back for the first mile, but I was still way ahead of the speed I should have been running at. And then I picked it up for the next mile, and even faster for the third mile. Oh well, we've degenerated this into a track workout. After 3 miles, I did 15' of stride work, and then ran another 1.5 miles (at the fastest pace yet) and called it a workout. I couldn't believe I had that in me after yesterday's long run and swim, a decent workout this morning, full day of work and all.

It just goes to show you, you never know what you have in you until you give it a whirl. Will I pay for what I did today tomorrow? Maybe. If so, I'll just dial down my bike workout. But something tells me I won't need to. I feel strangely really great right now. Legs feel fine, I'm not overly tired. And this was 4 straight days of quality running! What is wrong with me? Guess I'm getting a little excited about the Goofy madness in 4 weeks.

I better go stretch now just to make sure my legs stay supple.