OK, so I didn't exactly rhyme with the beginning of that nursery rhyme, and I have no idea why it came to me in the first place (maybe because I put the tiny pyramid on my head to cleanse myself just now???).
I made my training plan for the buildup to IMLP in maybe January? I don't really remember when. I'm pretty sure I was just trying to get by without too much structure until then. And then I sort of put something together based on my previous year of training, since I also did Triple T and IMLP in 2007. But starting around mid-January, I wasn't really looking at my big picture too much, and even then, it was more or less one week at a time. I've sort of known when certain rides and events were coming up, but for the most part, I haven't looked much at the training plan except for what I need to do on a particular day and what the weekend looks like.
So this past Thursday I'm looking, because now I'm getting close to IMLP and I really need to hit the big workouts, and I realize I'm riding Friday through Monday. Yesterday I took the day off from work, swam 4500 meters (and sucked at the 3800 meter TT I was so fucking tired), and then felt like complete and total crap. So what did I do? First, I went and pulled a bunch of weeds out of my back flower beds. 3 yard waste bags full! Now how can there be so many weeds back there? Well, one plant, I wasn't sure whether it was a weed or not, but the verdict was reached yesterday and I declared it a weed. That was 1.5 bags full. Then, there's another plant that got into my back yard when the sidewalk was put in 2 years ago, and a piece of it moved to the back, and it decided it really likes it back there, so it spread all over the hell place, including into the lawn. Well, when a plant behaves like that, there's only one thing to do which is remove it completely. It's actually a nice ground cover thing that gets about 15" tall, but it became invasive, so it's now gone. I'm pretty happy I thinned things out--it will be much better for the remaining plants, and believe me, I have no shortage of them! I still have to go through one more flower bed and pull up weeds. We've received so much rain this year that weeds have proliferated, and it's just dried out enough to be able to go into the beds and pull stuff out, although it did rain hard yesterday and may rain today and tomorrow (FUCK).
After weeding, I looked at my training plan to see how much of a slacker I was going to be. I was supposed to ride 1:30 yesterday, and in looking forward, I realized I am supposed to ride FIVE DAYS STRAIGHT! Holy crap, did I do this last year? I don't remember, and I don't have time to look it up. Just seeing that made me realize that I really needed a nap, since I woke up early (3AM) Thursday and Friday. There were all these other things on a list I had made of stuff to do on my day off, but right at that moment, the most important thing was to try and take a nap. So I popped one Advil PM (I love them), drank a beer for good measure (it was noon, shut the fuck up), and got in bed and read a little bit, got drowsy, and passed out for a good hour.
When I woke up, I was a bit woozy from the Advil, as I expected, but I figured nothing that a little Coke wouldn't fix. Now I was deciding whether or not I should go for that ride. I didn't really need to, but this would be a helluva cycling block to get in if I do all 12.5 hours of it, right? Besides, I only needed to ride easy. Now, you've heard me say that I'm not into the whole recovery workout thing, and normally that's true, but I figured my legs could use a little spinout. So I suited up and got on CF (which guarantees I don't ride too hard, sort of--now that I have clipless pedals I can actually ride pretty well) and tooled around. It had rained (again), but there was little humidity and it was absolutely gorgeous out! I found some new interval road for Bitchie and saw so many people out enjoying a beautiful day! My legs were sort of trashed, but I was careful to keep my effort down.
After I finished, I had a small snack, and then I was motivated to do a mini-Odyssey. I went to the Italian deli, Amici's, to get more of my new addiction--balsamic glaze (concentrated balsamic vinegar with a bit of sugar added--it's heavenly--thanks, Matt, for getting me addicted to it), and some Romano cheese, next to Radio Shack to fulfill my camera warranty and get a new battery (I had tried this 3x before in person, on the Interwebs and by phone without success), next to Walgreen's to see if I could find some nail polish in Bitchie colors for scratch touchups (they didn't have the yellow but I scored the blue and look at the pink sparkles!), fill up my car with gas (even though I'm not driving anywhere for the rest of the weekend!), and finally to my grocery store for weekly supplies. After I got out of Walgreen's, I saw the sky was turning ominous to the west, and I turned on WBBM News Radio (traffic and weather on the 8's), and they didn't say we were getting anything bad, but on my way to the grocery store, it began raining AGAIN, and when I finished shopping, it was pouring rather hard. Spending a lot of time exercising outdoors gives you a different perspective about rain, especially witnessing what Cindy and I did last weekend, and I wasn't bothered by running to my car in the rain but I didn't want the groceries soaked, so I drove my car up to the loading area to put them in.
When I got home, it was still pouring, and a friend, Peter, called me. It was raining too hard to unload my car, so I just left it there in the driveway and talked to him. He got married back in March, and I had sent him a gift card for Smith & Wollensky's, but right after I ordered it online, I realized I left out his apartment number on the order, so I emailed to correct it but never heard back. Well, I figured someone else had nabbed it, but Peter told me it was being held with miscellaneous lost mail in his building and they just got it and were going out to use it! That made me happy--Peter is all apologizing (it wasn't his fault) and then I told him the story and we had a good laugh, I waited for the rain to die down and I unloaded the groceries.
Even though I took a nap, I was still plenty tired, and so I put a pot of water on the stove to boil for spaghetti and did some standing stretches, put the meatballs and sauce in the microwave when the spaghetti was about done, and then when I took the sauce out of the microwave, my grip spazzed out and I dropped it all over a chair, the table, the floor, pretty much all over. But I was able to salvage all the meatballs and over half the sauce, so after cleanup duty, I sat down to a good dinner with some salad and a glass of wine.
By this time, it's maybe 7:15 and I know I'm not going to last very long, and TV is fucking boring, so at 7:40 I head upstairs to read a bit and then get to sleep. I fell asleep around 8:30 and woke up just before 5 this morning, so I'm good to go!
Day 2 of 5 days of riding...and I am doing brick runs today and tomorrow. Today I'm going to try and knock out 5 hours, since there is a 50% chance of rain today and tomorrow, so I'll do the bigger ride today, and then if it gets crappy tomorrow, I can do 3 hours on the trainer (I hope I don't need to). I lost my rain jacket last Sunday, so I'll be taking my chances, and I fully expect to get rained on at least a little, but hey that's part of the game, right?
I'm excited to get on Bitchie again, as even though it may rain, the temps are going to be perfectamundo for riding (and tanning, I must say).
Here comes Day 2! Time for my insulin coma!
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