Yesterday's Workouts

OK, kids, I was too tired to post this yesterday.

You should be laughing about how I always title these postings as if they have just to do with workouts, when in reality, they don't. You should have figured out by now (if I haven't already said it) that my training and racing is a vehicle for my self-awareness journey, and besides the workouts take a lot of time, and I tend to structure my day around them, so I guess workouts are the *STAR*!

I started the day by waking up later than I normally would, because the night before I had trouble falling asleep, I think because I drank too much Code Red the day before so that I could get through THAT day's workouts because I was mentally and physically tired.

Anyway, I didn't make it to the pool to start my workout until 7:52AM!!! What the fuck? Oh well, life goes on. Thankfully, the day before I had almost scheduled a conference call for 8AM, but serendipitously, the conferee pushed it back to 9AM, so I knew I would have plenty of time to get my swim in.

7:52AM Swim 2800 56'. When I got in the water and looked at my workout sheet (I put all my swim workouts into a Word document and then the printed paper gets folded and put into a Ziploc so it stays dry on the pool deck), there was NOTHING for that day, and I was temporarily confused. I figured I was supposed to do the workout that has 10x100 then 4x200, since I've been doing that for a few weeks on Wednesdays and Fridays, but then I remembered that coach only scheduled one actual swim this week. So I was free to do whatever I wanted. I figured, well, let's just do the standard warmup (200s, 200k, 200p, 200d) and then figure it out before I was done with that. I decided I would swim 1500p straight. I started out, it felt good, but after 300 yards I needed to adjust my swim cap because my right ear was full of water and it was getting uncomfortable. So I did that quickly, and started back. As I was nearing 1500 total yards of pulling, I thought, what the hell, this feels good let's do 2000 straight, especially since next week I will be doing 2200 straight in my 1/2 Ironman. I got 1300 yards more completed, and then Crabby Old Guy started moving the lane ropes to close my lane for the Aquacise class. I moved into the next lane quickly, got another 200 yards completed, and then a third person entered the lane and demanded we circle swim. OK, I was already in a lane with the slowest person known to mankind, and this guy didn't look fast, and I only had 200 yards to go, so no problem. Of course, I swam around them all, and that was my fastest 200 of the session. I felt like I could have kept going another 1500 yards, which is good since it means my swim endurance hasn't suffered much.

I had a little bit of strength training to finish up, but for some reason I didn't get to it until:
10:40 AM Lift 1x12, 8'

It was only 8', but I had to finish the workout, you know! And then I received an email stating that there was going to be this customer call at NOON. My plan was to run at noon, and then my brother, Tom, would be arriving to work on putting gutter guards on my house, and I figured I would clean up leaves while he was doing that.

But the conference call put a damper on that, so I hurried up and got ready to run.

10:57AM Run 57:44
I went west on 59th street up to Dunham, but this time I just kept going straight south on Dunham until it dead ends at 71st street. But I wasn't quite 30' out, so I ran on the sidewalk north on Main Street until I hit 30', and then I turned around. This route is nice--there is basically 2 miles of rolling, mostly uphill on the way out, and you would think it's downhill on the way back, but not quite. At any rate, it's not totally flat, so it's a good strength-building run. In my usual fashion, I had absolutely no issue with the hills or the wind--the winds were pretty good WSW, so I ran into them on the way out. I negative splitted the run by about 2:30, which was pretty good. I was supposed to run for an hour, but oh well, close enough!

When I got home, I didn't even have time to shower before jumping on the conference call, and yawn, BORING! I stayed on it maybe 40', and then just dropped off. It was all technical, and there was no real reason for me to be there. Finally I showered, and then my brother arrived.

I should have continued working, and I did jump on ANOTHER call (listen mode only) at 2PM, but as he was throwing crap out of the gutters, I figured I should clean it up. I cleaned out the gutters on my garage and also cut down the white lace clematis vine (NEVER plant one of these--they are almost like kudzu!). Then while I was at it, I swept and bagged up the leaves from my driveway. I spent about 3 hours total on yard work, and can you say I was tired and sore?

Tom worked one more hour, in twilight/darkness, and then we shut it down and I went to get a massage. Boy did I need that massage!

This morning I am still yard work sore, and I need to stretch before I get on my bike today.

Ironman Hawaii is on this afternoon, so by 3PM I will be happily loafing on the couch!

Oh yeah--I met the "kid" who has moved into white trash's house next door--he and his father, Gary, are going to fix up the place (yeah!). His name is Matt, and he's pretty young--my guess is mid-20's--and sort of a hottie. Let the fantasies begin!