A Little Bit of Nothing, or Sprint NothingMan

Pics are here.

I had a blast! OK, not as much fun as an actual race outdoors in the summer, but still, it was fun. And while in my training plan I had written to do this "easy," well, that did not happen. I mean, how are you supposed to go easy for a sprint, no matter what you did the day before or you need to do the day after?

I did not get enough sleep yesterday. Not sure why, but I was wide awake at 2:30AM and couldn't get back to sleep. In retrospect, that was good, because instead of shelling myself on the bike yesterday, all I did was ride for :50 easy, which was probably the right thing to do anyway. So I guess I did have a taper after all!

I slept well last night, but again I woke up what I assumed was early. I told myself not to go "clock surfing," (meaning walking around in the dark until my eyes acclimated and I could see a clock but not really looking for one). But I guess I was a little excited, so in a grand reversal, I turned on the lights in the bathroom to see it was 4:00AM, which was close enough to time to wake up. Besides, it's a race day, right?

I got the coffee going, changed my mind and decided I'd wear a one-piece swimsuit instead of two-piece, organized some bike ride information, ate my usual Power Bar Triple Threat (I know they are like candy bars, but oh well), fucked around, listened to some White Zombie and Green Day, and got my shit together.

I had wanted to be swimming at 6:30AM, but I guess I fucked around a little longer than I should have. When I arrived at the Y, the front desk person, Mary, asked me if I had any races coming up. I said, "Yes." She asked when. I said today. She asked where. I said HERE. She asked when. I said NOW. And she graciously took a picture of me.

I headed to the locker room and put my crap out as if I had an actual transition area. I didn't, because I had to put everything in a locker, because I don't trust anyone. I've had stuff stolen from an unlocked locker before, so I take no chances.

I asked a woman I regularly see in the morning to snap pics of me in my swimsuit. She was cool about it. She was done working out already.

Start Time: 6:42AM
Swim: 500 yards in 9:15

My swim was piss-poor, but not as bad as I thought it would be. The swim was not wetsuit legal. I did not warm up. I jumped in, hit my watch and took off. At least now I know I can swim harder, and I could have gone faster, which is good. Since I'm bumping up against 10,000 yards+ per week now, things can only get better. But I did feel like I was racing. The water was a bit warm, too.

T1: 10:33

I took a good shower and washed my hair to get the chlorine out of it, dryed off well, and put on my biking clothes. The same woman who took my picture before I swam took the pic of me before I began biking. So I guess she takes a good long time getting all ready for work!

Bike: 12 miles in 44:34

OK, I know that seems slow, but this is a Precor bike and they fucking suck! When I've done "actual" indoor sprint races on these things where the bike leg is 20 minutes (however far you go in that time), I've typically covered 5.7-6 miles in the 20 minutes, and with that I've won my AG and several younger and older than me. I haven't been on one of these fuckers since a year ago when I did a few of those races, so I was pretty indifferent to how long the 12 miles took me. I did try and keep up decent watts on the thing, and I knew I was going hard, and besides, I had to run a 5K afterwards, not just 15 minutes like in those actual races.

T2: 4:19

I took my sweet time, but what was funny was that I had forgot to move my running orthotics from another pair of shoes into the new, blue ones, so I couldn't run in those. So I'm going to run in these trail shoes that I have never run in before! It didn't really phase me, though, I figured, what the hell, do I really care how fast I run?

Run: 5K on indoor track (12 laps to the mile) in 25:16--splits 8:12, 8:09, 8:11, :44.

Hah! That's close to my 5K PR. I guess I should run in those trail shoes more often! Thing is, I can run faster. I didn't ever feel like I was going to puke, and I suppose if there were other people around me I would have run faster, but what the hell, I'll take it. I'm actually really pleased with this considering my run training was for shit until about 4 weeks ago.

Afterwards, I was going downstairs to hang on the chin thing and do a few hanging situps, and I saw a friend on a treadmill. So I'm talking to him, and this woman on a treadmill next to him with headphones on and WALKING, gives me a SHUSH sign. I'm thinking WTF we are talking about athletics here lady. Anyway, Larry rolls his eyes, and I continued on my way. I ran into one of the trainers I know and told him about this and we came up with better comebacks for me. Like, "Oh, I'm sorry. I see you are working really hard and I must be disrupting your workout." Or, "Oh, it must be really tough for you to hear over all the noise you are making going so FAST (NOT)."

I definitely raced this, and turns out I guess I'm fairly fit for March. I still have another workout to do today, but it's just a :30 abs/core routine. I need to figure out logistically how to finesse tomorrow's double Olympic. I've already defizzed Coke, but I need to mix up some Infinit and get all my costume changes ready. It's supposed to be a nice enough day for outdoor running, but it will still be a shock to my system to go from indoor trainer riding to outdoor 40's running.

Then again, this is not supposed to be easy, and I'm actually looking forward to tomorrow! If this little set of 3 races doesn't make me HTFU, I don't know what will!