Weekly Workout Totals 05/11/2009-05/17/2009

But first, a few words that capture how I feel right now as I am well into my detailed TO DO list for Triple T:

OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK

What happened since Wednesday? On Thursday, my schedule said run for 2 hours, but instead I just ran 16 miles (In 2:26 for a pace of 9:08, not bad for me)!!! I was pretty toasted from that on Friday, but still got in my 3800 yard swim in the wetsuit (which proves how fucking lean I am because I am SO much faster in it even though my form is the same, plus I suck), and I managed to finally do my strength work, too.

On Saturday, I was supposed to bike 3 hours (since I planned on riding about 4 on Sunday), so what did I do? I pounded out 51 miles on my MTB which was 26 miles at pretty good intensity on roads and then the remaining on trail (not difficult trail, but still), so not exactly pussy riding. It took about 3:30, since it's hard to go fast on the heavy bike. Then I ran off the bike and it sucked but it sucked oh so well! I started late because it was pretty cool out, and when I finished all that, I just had time to eat something and then go get Brazilian-ized (which doesn't hurt at all in comparison to what I do to myself), and then I had to mow the lawn (it's been raining here so much I need to do it every 4 days), and then I was too tired to do much more than fix bottles for Sunday's ride.

Yesterday I rode the Arlington 500 ride, which was billed as 68 miles, but at the single rest station (you rode from Barrington High School there and then the remaining miles were loops from it), they said it would come out to 69, but I ended up at 71. I rode with 2 other peeps, one of whom I know from Facebook (Ali), and his friend, Kathleen. Below are pics of us after we're done riding. It was funny when we started out that Ali said he was tired, Kathleen said she was slow, and I figured I should have a sandbagging excuse so I just said I am old! But as it turns out, we rode together for much of the time, and we did take turns pulling (well Kathleen and I did), and we even had some stray guys drafting off of us. It was a really cool day, and I actually wore a light jacket over what you see me wearing for the entire ride, and I wasn't really overly warm until maybe the last 5 miles. Still, it was a nice ride that included about 2700 ft. of climbing in the 71 miles! Most of the time was in Lake County, which is pretty and we got to ogle at all the homes of the wealthy!

This is Ali, who said at beginning of the ride, "I'm tired."

This is Kathleen, who said at the beginning of the ride, "I'm slow." She is a liar! She's doing her first Ironman this fall at IMWI.

Well, you know who this is--ME. I think I look small.

I was supposed to run :40 off the bike, but since I was already exceeding parameters all over the place for the week, I quit running after about 1.25 miles on the track. The track was really nice, but I was just so fucking tired and wanted to get home since I had shit to do.

So I get home, order a pizza (BBQ chicken, middleweight crust from Connie's--FUCKING YUM!), start stretching and contemplate all the shit I have to do before Triple T. Once again, my sentiment was:

OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK
OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK

I managed to bake the Triple Chocolate Fudge brownies last night. They (at least from the crumbs I sampled) taste like candy!

I had trouble sleeping last night from all the caffeine I'd had while riding (in my Infinit Money Shot), so I deep-sixed my swim this morning but may still get it done--or not--in a bit. If I don't do it, I am 100% convinced that this will totally fuck up my races ;) I am getting a massage today, and then I need to change the tubes and tires on LGL and give her a good, full lube job (one of my favorite things to do!). This morning I also made the individual Margarita Pies and licked the saucepan clean, which gave me a tiny buzz (from the tequila and Grand Marnier), and I will just keep trying to tick things off my list today in between working stints.

Here's what I did this week, and then it's followed by my training stats since I started on the indoor triathlons earlier this year. A lot of stuff!

Weekly Workout Totals	05/11/2009-05/17/2009 This week's totals are sponsored by swimming
Swim:	15100 yards (8.57 miles) in 5.18 hours; 26% of weekly workout time; approx. 1814 calories burned Canadian: 13807.44 meters
Bike:	Approx. 157.33 miles in 9.12 hours; 45% of weekly workout time; approx. 4782 calories burned; Total TSS=614 Canadian: 253.2 kilometers
Run:	Approx. 32.93 miles in 4.97 hours; 25% of weekly workout time; approx. 2244 calories burned Canadian: 53 kilometers
Strength:	0.97 hours; 5% of weekly workout time; approx. 243 calories burned
All Sports:	Approx. 198.83 miles in 20.24 hours; approx. 9083 calories burned Canadian: 319.99 kilometers
Sleep:	8.14 hours avg./night
Stretching:	2.95 hours. Massage: 1 hours

OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD

Not that I'm religious--that's just an expression I use when I feel like my life is spinning out of control, or at least that I'm trying to control it.

I will hit 15,000 yards of swimming this week. In thinking about running, I looked at the total time and thought how the hell will I hit that??? But then I looked at the workouts (prescribed my evil fucking bitch of a coach), and I am supposed to run off the bike both Saturday and Sunday (4 and 3-hour bike rides, respectively). Oh, OK. Fuck me in the ass, I'll do it. This is how Triple T is going to be anyway.

So I'm swimming this morning and I swam a bit more than I needed to (which was NOT AT ALL!) and I'm thinking I should run more than 2 hours today--2:15 would be better. Hell, 2:30 would be even better, but I don't think I have time for that, so I'll go for 2:15. I'm heading to Waterfall Glen in the middle of the day, and it is awesome running weather so that will be all good.

We had some thunderstorms last night, and I was awoken at 10PM (I was asleep I think by 8:30?), but the strong stuff passed through pretty quickly, but still the broken sleep got to me a little.

Today sort of begins the countdown to Triple T in terms of all the shit I have to get done before leaving...organize my race nutrition, final grocery shopping for the cabin, baking, cleaning (I'm a girl, eh?), etc. And then assembling my pile of crap for racing. Remember, the rule for Triple T, just like for an Ironman is find all your triathlon crap--ALL OF IT--and put it into your car. You are going to maybe need pretty much anything, especially clothes. I have heard the water temperature is in the upper 50's again, and I am happy about that, but I learned from last year that I should start off the bike ride with more clothes. I am so fucking vain about tanning, though, that I'd rather shiver my ass off while biking.

And then there is this slight inconvenience called work. You know the drill, if you are in the business world--you need to work extra hard before you go away so that all hell isn't going to break loose when you get back or else it's useless to take a vacation in the first place!

Still, as hectic as things are getting for me right now, I am enjoying it because, well, this is one of the reasons that I train, right? But I will have a spot of sadness in attending the funeral of a close friend's Mom tomorrow. I am sure that will put a lot of things in perspective. I am a little frightened that I won't be able to hold my own emotions back for my friend, because this will bring up the past 3 years of my life which have consisted of death and its aftermath, and it's still not finished. But I will try and be strong for my friend, because he's got a long road ahead of him and I only hope that I can give him some comfort.

Tomorrow morning I am going to throw on my wetsuit for a nice, long swim in the fucking hot pool. Oh well! It will be good to see how that works. I am sure it won't be tight on me, but it may still feel that way putting it on before it's been properly soaked and absorbed some water.

Bear with me as my madness continues, but I know that this is the part where those 5 people who actually read my blog start to really enjoy things. Watch her go nuts! Maybe even the Tiki Hut will make an appearance in the next few days...you never know!

Namaste!

In Other News

If you're on Facebook, you can find me by name (Google me!). Sometimes I post shit there that I don't put on the blog and vice versa. I would LOVE to have all my blog readers linked on Facebook!

I signed up for a 50-mile trail race yesterday. What the fuck was I thinking??? Oh yeah--I am trying to gear up for Ultraman. The link has been added to my races/events sidebar for 10/24/2009. FUCKING YIKES!!! I guess I will need to lean on my ultra friends to tell me what more I need to do to be ready. I would appreciate having a few friends there with me, seeing as how I will be a bit trashola afterwards. Let me know if you are interested!

I seem to have recovered well from last week, since I did no running or biking on Monday (just a 3100 yard swim), although I was pretty much shelled all day/night Monday.

Yesterday, I did an impromptu triathlon, which I have dubbed "WTFMan." It consisted of a 3600 yard swim, 24 mile bike and 4.5 mile run. I swam really easy because I was still tired from last week, but I biked like a mofo at 88% of FTP on an absolutely gorgeous day, and then the run, well, it fucking hurt, which told me that OMG I must have run a bunch of fucking miles last week!

Are you noticing I am laying on the expletives now? This is what happens right about now when I'm in my last build week before Ironman, or in this case, Triple T. My house is a fucking mess, the amount of workout clothes I'm going through is amazing, I always seem to be fixing bottles of something or other, and I have so many things I need to schedule and my training volume isn't decreasing anytime soon! And then the madness begins, first with Triple T, and well, just look on my sidebar it's jam packed with all sorts of fun!

I've been receiving packages of stuff I ordered online, and the boxes just lay around open and stuff is not put away, I have to actually try and get enough calories to keep me going because with all the training and work being very busy, my appetite gets messed up and so I find I need to start stuffing myself at dinner, which isn't optimal (I should just eat more earlier in the day), but tough shit, it's not like I'm going to gain any weight here.

I feel like I'm absolutely the right weight/body comp for racing--although I am very lean and it does impact my swimming, slap a wetsuit on me and that gets corrected...I will be sporting my neoprene on Friday's 3800 yard swim.

I am being "cabin Mama" for Triple T, and I've graciously volunteered to buy groceries for and do some cooking ahead of time and onsite for the 2 dinners for everyone in the cabin and also my bitch, Shelley and her BF. I already have the non-perishables, but Friday night I buy all the other stuff, do the baking of Triple Fudge Brownies and individual Margarita Pies this weekend, and then early next week I'll make the spaghetti sauce and spaghetti salad topping. I just hope I calculated the amount of food we will all need pretty well! I know since I've done this race twice before how much *I* need to eat, and I figure guys will eat more (although they are usually amazed at how much I can stuff into my skinny little body), and then figure some extra. I am also bringing snacks, defizzed Coke and Ultra Violence and coffee. I think my cabin mates will appreciate my effort, and I have requested they each bring an "offering" to the Pirate Zebra Queen!

Normally I say that training isn't hard, and the training itself isn't so much, but at the volume I'm at now, it makes it very difficult to fit in the rest of my life! But I'm trying, and it will be interesting to see how I fare at Triple T, since I want to do more than just survive it. I'm really looking forward to it, though, because it will be bracketed by 2 "just vacation" days in the woods there, and it's so peaceful and beautiful, and I'm looking forward to the time to just sit quietly, which will give me time to ponder the depths of my mind and life and how good it really is and how fortunate I am to have the health and means to do this stuff!

Falling in Love Sucks

I am hurting. I am grateful for the joy I got to experience in the last few months, but it won't erase the pain I am feeling right now.

Love stinks. But it is a wonderful thing, too. I just need to find some.

I will train today.

Weekly Workout Totals 05/04/2009-05/10/2009

I had a good, if depressing, weekend of training. The sun never did come out too much while I was out there, and I had a pile of emotions that wanted to be dealt with, I guess brought on by it being Mother's Day weekend. I thought I could train them away, but it's not working out that way. Maybe I train better when I'm miserable now. Who knows?

Anyway, yesterday I rode 4 hours in Fermilab in the crazy winds between 9AM and 1PM, and here is the wind profile
I had thought about doing 5 hours, but the wind, clouds and cool temperatures conspired to make me stop after 4. Although I was allowed to ride on the big Ring 3 times, so that was cool. When I started, I felt pretty trashed from all the running I'd done Monday-Friday, and so I rode pretty much easy. I was playing mind games about whether I'd try and run off the bike. I just didn't think I had it in me. But I made a deal with myself that I'd just do a couple of miles, and it was still cool when I finished riding, so I only took off the wind jacket and headed out. I was totally surprised I could run at all, albeit pretty slowly. I managed about 3 miles and considered it good enough. I was so tired that I didn't even want to stop at McDonald's, instead drinking my bottle of Endurox R4 on the drive home. Here I am at the end of the festival:


I had taken in so much caffeine while riding that sleeping (after copious amounts of painkiller) was fitful, but 3 Advil PM finally did the trick and I went down for 8.5 hours. When I awoke, I felt drugged still, and it sucked, and I started playing mental games about whether I would do any training (doing nothing would have been OK), a little bit, or what I was supposed to do. What I was supposed to do was get in 7 hours of biking for the week, meaning I should ride 3 hours. It was cool and cloudy again, and my emotional state was crap, but I suited up and decided to get on Clipless Fuck and just tool around the neighborhoods. Well while doing reconnaissance in an area where I used to do intervals but that has been under construction for over a year, I discovered the roads were almost fixed and actually pretty good (one more layer of blacktop is all that's needed). So I decided to circle around my 3-mile loop I think 5 times, and when I got home from that I had about 1:30 done, and knew I had to stop drinking the caffeine-laden Infinit if I wanted any semblance of sleep.

So I loaded another bottle with Gatorade, after swigging about 8 oz., and headed back out. A neighbor stopped by to chat, which was nice, and he asked where I was going to go, and I guess I decided I'd head east and see how I felt. Well, about 10 minutes into leg 2, I finally felt like I wasn't drugged anymore and in fact, felt like pushing it a bit, so I did. And then I decided I wanted to get in 50 miles on the MTB, you know, because I was going to hit 50 miles of running for the week. That was my logic at the time.

So I did, got to see a lot of nice spring bulb displays here and there, the air smelled nice from all the flowering trees and shrubs, and I even enjoyed a hill or three. On the way home, I got a crazy idea that I should drive to Greene Valley and run up and then down the huge hill (1 mile straight up basically) to finish out my 50 miles for the week. But once I stopped riding, I decided I could do that next week and I'd rather just run from home, so I got rid of the biking tights and put on shorts and decided I'd run 2 miles. I was really surprised that it didn't feel at all bad to run! This is what happens when you run 7 days in a row, I guess. I ran out east with the slight tailwind, and on the way back I picked it up just a little bit and negative split the hell out of the second mile. I was like where the fuck did that come from? All good, though, and here I am all finished:

Below are the numbers. I actually ended up running about :45 more for the week than planned. That is not something I typically do, but I turned into a mileage junkie this week and Monday-Thursday it just seemed like a good idea to run about 8 miles each day. I biked a teeny bit more than planned, too, but that's pretty normal, and I swam a little more than planned. Well all good, I guess, right? This coming week should end up about the same volume, only less running and more swimming and biking, and a lot of getting stuff ready for Triple T.

Weekly Workout Totals	05/04/2009-05/10/2009 This week's totals are sponsored by running
Swim:	11500 yards (6.53 miles) in 4.08 hours; 20% of weekly workout time; approx. 1429 calories burned Canadian: 10515.6 meters
Bike:	Approx. 127.75 miles in 7.3 hours; 36% of weekly workout time; approx. 3645 calories burned; Total TSS=432 Canadian: 205.59 kilometers
Run:	Approx. 50.68 miles in 7.5 hours; 37% of weekly workout time; approx. 3397 calories burned Canadian: 81.56 kilometers
Strength:	1.13 hours; 6% of weekly workout time; approx. 283 calories burned
All Sports:	Approx. 184.96 miles in 20.01 hours; approx. 8754 calories burned Canadian: 297.66 kilometers
Sleep:	8.39 hours avg./night
Stretching:	3.17 hours. Massage: 1 hours

My Addiction

As I sit here in my insulin coma preparing to ride, I let my mind spin and spin it does. Why? Why do I do this? All the things running through my mind...2 weeks ago was the 3rd anniversary of my Mom's death...Sunday is Mother's Day and I neither have a Mom nor am one...I feel stressed out but at my own doing...I want to analyze the fuck out of my relationships...I want to just flow through every moment...I long to feel appreciated, loved and valued...I want to be strong, so strong that nothing affects me...but it all affects me deeply--so deeply that I can only think of one way to get away from it all--all the thoughts spinning in my head--everything is the analysis I try to impose on it but everything is nothing it is just the thought that I have about it that causes me distress.

It is my self that I need to obliterate over and over again to the point where maybe, some day, it will no longer exist and I won't need to get away from it. Sometimes I intentionally torment myself by indulging in bizarre, irrational thoughts just to know that I can and that at times I do have control over my thoughts, but then I feel trapped in my own mind and all I can think of is that I have to get away from it--have to make it stop--so that I know that there is something besides going through the motions of my existence--serving, consuming, creating, destroying, loving, hating, enjoying, despising, connecting, breaking apart--that I can access.

So again today I will go to that place in (or is it outside of?) my own head where it is just my body doing its thing with my mind on autopilot just being. The only thing I will think of is to keep moving, keep feeding the machine, and while I may appear to be an unthinking, unfeeling machine, I will become my spirit moving through space and time, and maybe I can capture it and hold onto it a little longer.

Recovering, Running, Tapering and Tanning

I knew it would be difficult to recover from Sunday's ride and execute this week's planned training. Monday was pretty rough, so I only swam 1800 yards, but I had a pretty good 7.5 mile run, choosing a course straight uphill into the wind on the way out. It's rollers all the way, and I ran on sidewalk most of the time. I was pretty trashed after that, and slept really well Monday night.

Tuesday morning I still felt trashed, knowing in my head that a normal person would have taken Monday as a rest day, or run maybe on a soft surface, but I'm not normal, so I didn't, and yet I headed to the pool and knocked out 3000 yards, albeit slowly, and decided I'd better run on trail if I wanted to have any legs left at the end of the day. So I headed to Waterfall Glen and decided I'd just do 8 miles out and back. It was yet another gorgeous day to run. Two in a row! I was stoked, and fucking tired.

It was Tuesday that I decided I would begin my taper for Triple T by cutting out all the extra pushups, chinups, crunches and jump rope. I just couldn't see doing all that in addition to a goal of 45 miles of running as part of a 19-20 hour training week. Plus my little stick arms were a bit sore from all the climbing on Sunday. It was hard for me to JUST SAY NO to the extra stuff, and this may be the end of it for the season since I'll start riding my bike to the outdoor pool right after Triple T, and I just don't have the time for 18+ hours of training, :30 of stretching daily, a massage once a week and biking to/from the pool 3 times a week. Oh and manage to feed myself, wash dishes, bottles and laundry, get my yard in shape and keep it maintained, keep up friendships and throw in a few races!

I slept really well again Tuesday night (are we seeing a pattern here?), but still felt like I wasn't fully recovered from Sunday. Ya fucking think??? I was intentionally shelling myself knowing that hey, I've felt way worse in an Ironman or during Triple T's Sunday race or well, just in general--I mean nothing feels as bad as grief or being treated poorly by someone who is or who you thought was close to you.

Wednesday morning I knocked out 3300 yards in the pool, and I was actually swimming at a decent pace, so I could tell I was starting to be recovered (in the bizarre way that I define recovery) from Sunday. But I still needed a can of Ultra Violence to perk me up a bit for my run, and I decided I needed to run flat-ish, so I just headed west from home and ran along a route that I sometimes bike on, so the run served dual duty as reconnaissance. Still, it wasn't completely flat, as that just doesn't exist where I live, and I actually felt hot. I also fucked up a split on my watch (because I had stopped to piss or something), and tried to remember how long ago I had started up again but couldn't figure it out, so I just decided to keep going to some "logical" turn point which happened to be 4.3 miles out, and I turned around and made it back home feeling ultra fucking tired, but I had time to get into the bath tub (for the first time ever in the new bathroom!) and soak my legs in some cold water. I showered, dried off, put on my compression tights and actually thought I might feel ok the next day. I did stretch more in the evening (I've been stretching a little in the sauna after each swim), and thought I was starting to feel human again.

Today I woke up, again after sleeping really deeply and well, and did a short swim of 1900 yards just so I'd hit 10,000 for the week (I may still swim Sat. or Sun. not sure yet). I felt hungry while I was swimming, so I know my metabolism is all jacked up. Running a lot will do that to me. Luckily, my buddy the lifeguard, Vladko (who is the Masters coach), offered me half of a Clif Bar Nectar in a new flavor I hadn't tried--Cherry Pomegranate. It was tasty (I'm going to order a couple of boxes for snacks), and I washed it down with the rest of the coffee I had brought to the pool with me (you know I'm training hard when I forego Gatorade and just go with coffee or Ultra Violence while I swim), headed to the showers where I shaved down and then got in the sauna and stretched a little bit.

I hadn't planned on tapering down my strength training until next week, but since I'm not really tapering swim/bike/run until the week of Triple T, I figured what the hell let's start a strength taper this week. And I felt good enough after swimming this morning (since it was short) that I could knock out some of my weekly strength workout before heading out to run again.

I could tell while lifting that I am really pushing my own envelope. My muscles are pretty gnarly right now, but hey, I'm getting a great tan with all the sunshine while I'm running, so who the fuck cares??? I knocked out :41 of non-stop strength training, and now I'm getting ready to head to Waterfall Glen to knock out another 8 miles of running. As of this minute, I feel pretty good, but I'm trying to decide whether a Coke will do the trick or I need the Ultra Violence again. I'm thinking Ultra Violence since it feels like my tapeworm has taken up residence again and I could use the extra 30 calories and caffeine over Coke. I feel like I'm eating non-stop pretty much from when I wake up until I fall asleep, and yet waking up hungry and feeling hungry even while I'm eating!

I FUCKING LOVE THIS STUFF!!!!

Weekly Workout Totals 04/27/2009-05/02/2009 and Big Bike Week Report

So I took a rest day last Monday. And then in the next 3 days I racked up about 3 hours of training per day. On Friday morning, I swam and did some core stuff and jump rope, and I was thinking about running for an hour, but I felt, well, exhausted. So I didn't do any more training that day, and instead, began watching the weekend weather forecast to see whether I'd drive to Galena on Saturday to ride like 65 miles or go up to Dodgeville, WI on Saturday night to ride 100 on Sunday.

Since both Saturday and Sunday looked good, I decided on Dodgeville, although the prospect of 9,000 feet of climbing in 100 miles this early in the year was a little unnerving. But I figured it would take me about 7 hours and so I wouldn't need to ride on Saturday at all. And a friend of mine said he was going, too, so now I was on the hook for it, but looking forward to it, too.

Saturday morning I woke after a long sleep and thought at first that I felt pretty good, and I was thinking about swimming maybe :45, biking (easy) 1:15 and running (easy) 1:00. That wouldn't kill me the day before a hard 100-mile ride. But as I began moving around, a few things began happening. My nose was running like a faucet and I felt exhausted. I thought, whoops, maybe I am finally cracking! I took some allergy meds, aspirin (I had a pretty good broadband headache, but not sinus), and began drinking a lot of things--soup, Endurox, Gatorade, water, and got back in bed for a few hours. I didn't fall asleep, but I clearly needed some more rest, and after a few hours, I got back up, drank a Coke and headed out into my yard.

It was a beautiful, sunny day, and it hadn't rained in 2 days (we broke the record for rainfall in April), so it was nice to get dirty in the yard. I got my front pretty much cleaned up and even made a dent in the back. And I started feeling human again! I think I needed rest, fresh air, and stimulus other than boatloads of training for once.

Got on the road for Dodgeville a little before 6PM and I was finally feeling like I wasn't truly sick and was going to be just fine for the ride. I had made one of my (to me, anyway) famous Italian focaccia sandwiches and we had part of it right after crossing the border into Wisconsin, and then more on the road and also some Perugina chocolate. Since my appetite had returned, I knew I was in good shape.

To the hotel in Dodgeville where I'd stayed once before for Dairyland Dare (a beast of a ride), check in, unload, settle in, get some sleep and wake up and try and decide what to wear to ride. It was only in the low 40's to start, but the ride email said they would collect clothes you wanted to shed at the first rest station and take them back to the start! How nice! We started out conservatively, I guess, although when I am doing all that climbing, I don't even bother looking at the power meter because it is what it is. I just try and remain seated so I don't spike the power too much.

The first loop didn't seem too bad, but there were some tough climbs right away. But it was a bright, sunshiny day, and we were happy to be riding even though we knew it would hurt at some point.

At the second aid station, they also took clothes, which was a pleasant surprise, so off came the tights, under top layer, helmet beanie and arm warmers.

And then the wind picked up. I like hills, I like wind, but I don't really care for them together! Oh well, I felt like I was riding OK, and would finish in a decent amount of time. When we got to the place where you can decide whether to do 85 or 100 miles, a second guy who had joined us for awhile looked like he was flagging, and he said he was bailing on the 100. I had one of those split-second evil brain thoughts of just doing 85 myself, but then my bike magically turned onto the extra loop for the 100-mile, which had black markers, much like a tough ski hill usually is "black diamond."

The black loop started out innocently enough with some almost flat areas, but then (and I don't remember which road it was on), there was a climb that seemed to last for 2 miles or so. It was either Cty Y, YZ or Z. Anyway, when I finished it, I said to my friend, "That was SICK." We got to enjoy headwind AND climbing.

At the next aid station, which I thought was the last one, I let my friend go on and hammer home (that's what friends do), although truth be told, I think the reason he was able to do that was because I had been riding a good pace to set him up for it ;) Whatever, I took my time and enjoyed some alone time. I'm not really much of a talker on rides--but if I'm with someone, I let them jabber at me as much as they want--just don't expect me to say much, except for when I get some silly thought in my mind, then I get asked what is so funny, and it's probably only funny to me. It was interesting that I wasn't cursing aloud so much on this ride, but in my head I sure was. I remember being on a ridge, climbing, and saw a sign for a tree farm, and in my head I was thinking, "Big fucking deal. Stupid fucking tree farm." Exactly that! I guess I wasn't so amused anymore.

It turned out there was one more aid station, and it was well placed. I was playing a mental game with myself to not check mileage until I was at 6:15 of ride time. Had to find something to keep me motivated! There were about 10 riders hanging out there, and I peed (huge congratulations to me for peeing in actual porta-potties or restrooms throughout the ride! I think that was a first!), grabbed a little more water and got on my way.

I sort of was riding near a group of 2 girls and one guy, and they were all way younger than me, and looked to be good riders, but I was going to ride my own pace now. On some of the climbs, I would get ahead of them and then I would rest a bit and they'd catch up (or should I say, the girls would catch up because clearly the guy was much stronger). The girls chatted me up a bit, which I wasn't really into, which is why I would rather ride alone or with a guy who isn't going to get all girly on me. Anyway, they were nice people and one of the girls commented to me towards the end that I am a strong rider. I was like WHAT? I wasn't feeling that strong towards the end, but hey, I HAD caught them and they were only riding 85 miles, so good on me for that.

I have no idea how many women even completed all 100 miles. It ended up being only 7,800 feet of climbing (yes, I got gypped out of 1200 feet!), and again this ride came through because they had showers for us to clean up which is especially nice if you are driving 3 hours home! They also had good food out.

My total ride time was 6:55, only because I decided I had to walk up one really short hill on Otter Road--but it turned out to be a good move because my legs were totally good after that, even though I did stop halfway through a 2-step climb where it flattened out, and the girls went by me like "why did you stop?" But I got right back on after about 10 seconds and climbed right past them!

The drive back was relaxing in a traffic-y sort of way, I got dropped off and sort of put a few things away, cracked a beer, fixed myself a sandwich, downloaded the power data and then got in bed and read a little before passing out.

I actually set my alarm for 6:30 but woke at 5:10 feeling pretty good, so I did get in a swim this morning. Only 1800 yards, but the cool water felt good, even though I was swimming really, really slow. This week is big running week, so I need to kick that off with a 1-hour run here soon, and then repeat swim and run for the next 4 days--no biking until Saturday--although I am already stalking the weather forecast for the weekend since I want to get in some good riding.

That ride yesterday was fucking awesome. Beautiful countryside, great company, I survived 2 stings already, I felt pretty strong riding, and it was awesome preparation for Triple T, which is now just 3 weeks away!!!! Oh yeah--we saw a bald eagle, too!

I didn't do as much swim or run training as planned last week, but I did accomplish the week's goal, which was a lot of riding, so I will consider it a success! And I guess it counts as a "rest week" since this week I should hit 19-20 hours. So all good, and even as tired as I am, I'm looking forward to running, as long as it's warm and sunny, so I can get rid of the stripes on my arms and legs from yesterday! And I'll be fine with putting LGL away for the week, but hope the weekend brings good weather for riding. There are no organized rides locally this weekend, so maybe I'll haul myself back up to Wisconsin for some more hill fun.

Here's what I did last week:

Weekly Workout Totals	04/27/2009-05/03/2009 This week's totals are sponsored by HILLS!
Swim:	8100 yards (4.6 miles) in 2.93 hours; 17% of weekly workout time; approx. 1027 calories burned Canadian: 7406.64 meters
Bike:	Approx. 162.8 miles in 10.42 hours; 61% of weekly workout time; approx. 5840 calories burned; Total TSS=755 Canadian: 262 kilometers
Run:	Approx. 17.74 miles in 2.63 hours; 15% of weekly workout time; approx. 1183 calories burned Canadian: 28.55 kilometers
Strength:	1.13 hours; 7% of weekly workout time; approx. 283 calories burned
All Sports:	Approx. 185.14 miles in 17.11 hours; approx. 8333 calories burned Canadian: 297.95 kilometers
Sleep:	7.82 hours avg./night
Stretching:	2 hours. Massage: 1 hours

Wheels Haven't Come Off Yet!

Wednesday's workouts went well. Like this:

• 5:45AM 15 chinups, 60 pushups, 135 crunches and 6' of jump rope
• 6:20AM Swim 3100 yards
• 8:12 AM Run .6 miles (to/from neighbor's for compression stocking duty)
• 12:15PM Run 1:10 including strides, about 8 miles
• 5:30PM Lift for :20
• 6:45PM Run .6 miles to/from neighbor's again

Needless to say, I hadn't originally planned on getting in 9+ miles of running, or doing all the other things all in one day, but it had to be done, and so I did it. Was I tired after it was all done? Hell fucking yeah. The running wasn't particularly fast, but it was fun running up the hill from my house 3 times in one day (it's .3 miles up), wearing 3 different outfits!

While I slept deeply Wednesday night, when I awoke yesterday I felt, well, fucking tired. I'd had an inkling to do a 1500 yard swim in the morning, but opted to sleep in since I'd gone to sleep late. The combination of a big day at work, all the training and being on a pretty tight schedule meant I still needed my "me" time when it was all over, which is usually reading a book in bed. And I also needed more food!

I didn't swim yesterday morning, but I did get lucky in that I had a 9:30AM meeting during which I was able to finish up my lifting for the week! See now that is one of the advantages of working at home in the same room with your weights! I had to finish up legs and a few upper body things and abs, and it felt good to do it.

In retrospect, I should have probably had a protein shake after that short little workout since there's no way I'd restocked my glycogen stores over the 2 prior days. I got on the trainer (it's been raining for days now) at 12:15PM for a 1:30 ride, and since I was a little tired, I decided to drink a can of Coke while riding. Usually that would be more than enough calories for a standalone ride like that, and I didn't even think about it. The ride went well, despite my legs feeling like I'd done a ton of squats (funny, I had), and I kicked out good power.

It only took me maybe 3 minutes to throw on a singlet, hat and running shoes and head out the door. It had stopped raining, and I didn't have time to drive to the Y to run anyway, and it was fairly warm. I felt the humidity in my house while on the trainer, and as soon as I got outside, it was like I was in a sauna! The wind had picked up, but not so bad that it would impact my run speed much at all.

As I ran up the hill (I hadn't run up it earlier in the day since it was raining really hard so I walked to my neighbor's in the morning), I noted that my legs didn't feel all that bad, but what do I know maybe I am just used to sucking? I made it out one mile just under 9 minutes, and that told me that I was pretty tired, but that's OK, I've been putting the hurt to myself.

When I got out 20 minutes to turn around, guess what? It started raining. Not hard, but just misting enough to make me a little chilled, but too bad. I saw another person running in it, and we just smiled at one another. I only had about 2.5 miles to go.

I kept about a 9mpm pace, got home, tore off my disgusting clothes and started sucking down Endurox R4. As it turns out, I think I was bonking pretty much the entire time I was running. My legs didn't feel that bad--they just didn't have much oomph, and while 140 calories in 1.5 hours on the bike would be fine if that was all I did, running afterwards not so much! Still, the caffeine prevented me from totally bonking and besides, I'm pretty familiar with running while bonking, so I can push through it even it it means slowly. Not like I needed to run a marathon!

After I finished working, I made the .6 mile run one more time for the day, and that was after stretching and having a beer, and I was laughing the entire time because I'm wearing an outfit that is pretty stylish and "jogging!" I know everyone up and down the street knows who I am from seeing me running all the time, but usually it's not with "regular" clothes on.

I slept really well and long last night, and today is just a swim and a short (that I really don't need to do) run. So of course, I'll kick it off with some jump rope and other stuff.

The weekend looks like no rain, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to just swim, bike and run a little on Saturday, fix myself an awesome focaccia sandwich, and drive to Dodgeville, WI so I can start riding by 7:30AM on Sunday for 100 hilly miles. That will cap off my big week of biking with a bang! I am sure I will be well shelled by the time I am back home Sunday night, but I hope to sleep like a baby because next week is my big running week! Not like I haven't been doing a great deal of running anyway, but next week's goal is about 45 miles!

There is nothing else I'd rather be doing, and I'm enjoying the challenges I've been giving myself.

Life is FUCKING GOOD!

Into a Big Week

Monday was a much needed rest day. All I did was get a massage, and then it was early to bed.

Yesterday I awoke feeling still tired although I'd slept well. That is to be expected. Although I was going to technically just skip Monday's workouts, the little voice in my head said I could make it up throughout the week, so I thought I'd start the day with a short swim. The water was too warm for me, and I swam pretty damn slowly, but it still felt good, especially since I hadn't done any pushups or chinups right before!

The plan called for a 2-hour ride and :20 run, but I figured I'd run for :30 just to put a dent into the missed running from Monday. It wasn't even 60 when I started riding, so I used the helmet beanie, booties and wind gloves. I was a little chilled at first, but warmed up quickly. I rode straight into the east wind, and just kept going east in the big ring, standing on any hills. Somehow I managed to ride exactly 2 hours, and when I downloaded the data this morning, the entire ride was at 82.5% of FTP, which isn't bad considering I had a bit of a tailwind on the way back in and there was a lot of stop and go, as I was basically riding through residential neighborhoods. All good, though!

I made a quick change into running tights and headed back out into the wind. At first, I felt too warm and thought I should have left the long sleeved shirt at home, but once I went directly into the wind, I knew I was dressed just right. My hands never were warm. The run didn't suck too badly as I'd had caffeine on the bike, but I still felt it. I didn't run particularly fast, but my usual steady, and I was just glad to get it done.

Since I did such a long workout in the middle of the day, even though I had begun work pretty early, I still kept going until about 6:15, and I really wanted to make a dent in my strength training for the week, so I motivated and got about 1/2 hour of that done, then quickly walked to a friend's house down the street for my physical therapist duty.

This friend just had a hip replacement, and her husband is out of town, so she needs help putting on and taking off compression stockings on the affected leg, and I am happy to help out. Evening all I have to do is strip it off, and starting today in the morning, I will stop by and put it on for her. Her house is at the top of the hill from my house, and it's 1/4 mile there, so I figure I can get in a little extra running there and back, too!

After that, I came back home and stretched and finally ate dinner around 8PM, and I think I should have eaten more (but I did have my first Twinkie of the year!), but I was too tired to keep eating and wanted to read a little before going to sleep.

I woke up a little early today because I was hungry, but I should be able to do better on the whole scheduling thing as I should be done swimming by 7:30 and can start work then, and I only need to run for 1:15 in the middle of the day, so I can be finished working by 5:00, get my stretching done, go see my neighbor, eat at 7:15 or so, have time to read and get to sleep early. I may try and get some more strength training done today. Or not!

I am watching the weather (it continues to rain a lot here), and don't yet have firm weekend riding plans. I may drive to Galena to do a very hilly ride on Saturday, or if Sunday has better weather, then I'll head up to Dodgeville, WI and knock out maybe 100 miles which will be totally hilly. Funny thing is I'm not even sure I'm ready to ride 100 miles let alone 100 miles with 9,000 feet of climbing! But if I end up doing that, I will not do much on Saturday.

This is a hard week of training. I've done this before, but each time I do it, there is something different about it. I always wonder how I got it done before but then once I'm into it, I stop thinking. So all of this planning and scheduling and orchestrating and controlling is all designed to put me into a position where I can train and not think, and that is a most beautiful thing.

Weekly Workout Totals 04/20/2009-04/26/2009 and Finally Shelled!

I am, unless something changes significantly, taking an unscheduled rest day today. Who is the fucking bitch that wrote on my training plan today that I was supposed to do a 3500 yard swim and a :50 run? I swear I am going to fire my coach today!

Yesterday was another day that was supposed to be warm with a "chance" of rain. When you wake up and it's already raining, how does that translate to a chance? I was going to go do an organized ride that begins northwest of me, and I've done the ride many times before, but the radar didn't look to be improving, so I began thinking about Plan B.

I had wanted to ride for 4 hours, since Saturday was the shorter ride of only 3 (although originally my training plan had called for a 4-hour and 2-hour ride--see how I ignore my coach?). It looked like the rain should clear out by maybe 11AM, so I got to doing other things around the house, and kept checking on the radar. I was going to drive to Fermilab, and did not want to be on the trainer!

Well, it was drawing near to 11AM and still raining...what to do? I ended up putting LGL on the trainer and started into a warmup as if I were doing my shorter, harder Tuesday ride. I wanted to see what I had left in my legs after Saturday's rather hard riding. Apparently quite a bit! I checked the weather after 1/2 hour, and decided to keep going for another 1/2 hour, which turned into 1:15, at which point I loaded up the car and headed to Fermilab.

The roads were wet, but with the sun coming out and the temperature rising rapidly (I think it did make it to near 80), things would dry up in a hurry, but I still got some nice spray up my ass. The wind was out of the east when I started, and since I was heading generally west, it was great! But a little over halfway around my 16-mile loop, the wind switched to south, and it picked up in a big way. No worries, wind makes me work!

I approached my entrance to the Big Ring but was being stalked by security, so I rode past it, doubled back and got on, and was quickly spotted by 2 security cars, and I got booted off. Damn! I had really wanted to do 2 laps around it.

No worries, with the wind picking up I was getting plenty of high powered action riding right into it and figured I'd just need one more full loop to get to about 3.5 hours total (including the trainer time), which would be enough on the day. But I did struggle with my inner voice which kept saying, "Listen fuckhead you said you were going to do 4 hours and it's not like you don't have the time so why don't you keep riding?" Still, I rationalized that I was going to end up riding more than was on the training schedule, so it was all good.

When I finished, I wiped down LGL to get rid of worms, sand and road spray as best I could, wiped off my own face, and drove home. I unloaded the car, and now it was really nice out, so I decided to plant a few things that have been waiting to get into the ground for a few weeks--6 lilies (Casa Blanca--pure white orientals that are gorgeous assuming they still grow since I should have planted them weeks ago), 3 heliotropes and an Angel's Trumpet that I had forgotten I had ordered.

While I was at it and dirty and smelly, I figured I should start raking the back lawn again, which was necessary since my neighbors never raked their leaves last fall so I got the pleasure of their leaves blowing onto my lawn during the winter which was not really good for the grass, all the while they are out there grilling and listening to tunes and most likely boozing it up.

I raked for maybe 1/2 hour, and was feeling famished and needing a shower, so I finally went inside to clean up and grabbed a beer. I was just beginning to stretch when a friend dropped by and we had some eats and then went back outside to enjoy the weather and my neighbor's girlfriend came over to have a conversation with us. She was pretty well blitzed, and she began asking me to go work out with her. I'm like OK whatever just get up at 5AM and we'll get to it. Not likely...she needs to quit smoking, but says she used to run cross country. She asked us how to get her butt in shape to wear a bikini on an impending vacation and we are like DO HUNDREDS OF SQUATS! That was an entertaining conversation.

This morning I am tired, sore and needing some major rest, so after waking up late and skipping the swimming, I think I will follow suit and skip the run and just get a massage this afternoon. Four straight weeks of 18+ hours and I am pretty worked. This is my big biking week, so I'll kick it off tomorrow with a 2-hour ride and short brick run.

Here's what I got done last week:

Weekly Workout Totals	04/20/2009-04/26/2009 This week's totals are sponsored by WIND!
Swim:	9700 yards (5.51 miles) in 3.5 hours; 19% of weekly workout time; approx. 1226 calories burned Canadian: 8869.68 meters
Bike:	Approx. 145.81 miles in 8.17 hours; 45% of weekly workout time; approx. 4778 calories burned; Total TSS=567 Canadian: 234.66 kilometers
Run:	Approx. 36.27 miles in 5.39 hours; 29% of weekly workout time; approx. 2434 calories burned Canadian: 58.37 kilometers
Strength:	1.22 hours; 7% of weekly workout time; approx. 305 calories burned
All Sports:	Approx. 187.59 miles in 18.28 hours; approx. 8743 calories burned Canadian: 301.9 kilometers
Sleep:	7.93 hours avg./night
Stretching:	2.7 hours. Massage: 1 hours

Great Saturday

Start of yesterday's ride in Fermilab

It's 45 degrees here at 5:20AM as I write this, and the heat is on in my house, which means I am not going to be driving north to ride today. I will eat the breakfast I was thinking about at 3AM of scrambled eggs and toast around 8, read the Sunday paper, and then motivate back to Fermilab for 4 hours in warmer temperatures.

Yesterday's forecast originally called for 80's, but upon waking, even though it was already near 70, there was a much higher chance of rain than originally predicted, too. Since I was up early, and since my access roads are under heavy construction now, I loaded LGL into my car plus running gear and headed to Fermilab with the goal of riding 3 hours or 60 miles, whichever came first.

It was plenty humid but not actually raining when I started at 7:15AM. At least I didn't need arm warmers! But it was quite windy, and so I knew my speed would be depressed, but wind usually makes me work hard, so I'd be riding by time today. Below you can see the wind data for yesterday:

I think I got about halfway around one loop when it began raining. Since there are plenty of buildings in Fermilab, it's usually easy to duck in somewhere and wait out rain, which I did way

too many times last year. The way it's been raining so regularly this year, it may be a repeat of last spring! This time I was a ways from a building on my way to the West Gate, but there is a shortcut bike path to the Ledermann Science Center, so I hightailed it there and made it up the ramp after a near soaking. I think I waited less than 10 minutes for that shower to blow over. I know, I know--I am a wimp, but if I don't have to be soaked, why would I?

Back on and around to the Big Ring, and I just got on there and the sky opened up again. I ducked behind some building that had some sort of generator thing next to it and waited for the short downpour to stop. I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the lap, pushing hard, and even saw a group of 3 deer in there. I was also enjoying some tunes. Now that I finally have an MP3 player, I've taken to riding with it, but only when I'm in Fermilab. On residential streets it would just be too dangerous. So even though I'm just circling around, it's a little more enjoyable than it used to be.

I made it back to my car to grab another bottle of Infinit (my first bottle was leftover from a few weeks ago and was pure Money Shot, aka loaded with caffeine, but my other 2 bottles weren't as potent) and decided to strip off the bike jersey and go with a singlet--gotta work on the tan! Even as breezy as it was, I was quite comfortable, but now I began watching the gathering clouds, as the sun didn't want to come out.

I got sprinkled on some more but didn't need to stop for it and headed back to the Big Ring for another round. Once I got in there, and about halfway around, the sky started to look pretty ominous, so I began thinking whether I should go back out to the South Gate or not before heading back to my car. I decided against it, and of course, as soon as I got off the ring, it began raining again. At least this time, I thought "GOOD DECISION," but it wasn't stopping anytime soon, so I just pedaled really hard to get back to my car and load up.

I got in almost 2:30 of riding in Fermilab, and not very fast at all with the winds the way they were. But it was all good, and I figured I had time to drive home, ride another half hour (outside, weather permitting), get in my planned :40 run and then a short swim (on Saturdays the only lap swim is 12-1PM so it limits when I can sneak in after a long ride). I made it home pretty quickly, took LGL out of the car, put some stuff in the house, and headed back out. I decided I'd just big ring it hard for the remaining time.

I was pleasantly surprised at how the winds had either died down (it was about 10:30 now) or else just because I was no longer in the wide open spaces of Fermilab it wasn't as bad. At any rate, I enjoyed standing up as much as possible since I was just riding for 1/2 hour. When I got back home, I stripped off my disgusting cycling clothes and changed to go run.

As I headed up the 1/4 mile gentle hill right from my house, I thought, hmmm...I must have ridden fairly hard based on how my legs felt. But I was able to run OK, taking tiny steps as is mandated when beginning a brick run. I needed to decide which direction I would run, and being the masochist that I am, I decided to head south on Main Street to McCollum Park, which is basically 1.5 miles uphill, and with the south wind blowing, even better! Kind of like how the Triple T run takes you 2 miles straight up!

I was hot, disgusting, but I was running and went by a man who had been running, but as he turned to begin up the hill was walking. As I went by him, I told him to keep running! As I kept climbing, I thought to myself what the fuck am I doing, but of course I was doing exactly what I wanted to do and was even enjoying it.

When I got to the park, I ran a lap around it, which is about 1.25 miles, mostly flat, so that was a nice break from the hill climbing and the wind. When I finished the lap, I just stopped and thought now what? If I just turned around and went home, I wouldn't make :40, and that would be OK, but I'm a masochist, so I turned to head further south on Main Street which entailed climbing uphill some more, and I just set my sights on a particular street at which to finally turn around and head home.

Since the way back was mostly downhill and slightly wind assisted, it felt pretty good, and I do enjoy going down much more than I ever used to and do it confidently, so I was having a great time. When I got home, I was so disgusting that I couldn't sit down on any furniture, so I just stripped off my running clothes (throwing them downstairs onto the floor!) and put my swimsuit on and a pair of shorts over it and a dirty t-shirt. While this swim wouldn't be training per se but rather just cooling down, I didn't need to do it, but knew it would feel good at some level, so off to the Y I went.

I never know what I'm going to end up doing when I swim after a solid bike and run, but I knew I did not want to kick at all. So I just started in with the pull buoy, and ended up just swimming 1,000 yards straight. The water wasn't as cold as I would have liked--either that or I was just too heated up. I showered and wanted to stretch a little in the sauna, but when I went in there it was just too hot for me, which meant my core temperature had to be up, so I skipped it.

I got home and ate some lunch and crawled into bed for a little lay down and heard my phone chirp and figured it was my niece, so I got up and it was and shit, figured I should just get up and get going on to her place. She had organized a clothing swap with some of her girlfriends, and honestly I get a kick hanging out with her (she's 25). I was pretty tired when I got there, but had fun trying on all sorts of things. I ended up with some really neat stuff, some of which I am calling "skankwear," but hey, can't have too much of that, can you? At one point, I asked Michelle if she had anything made of sugar, as I could tell my blood sugar was crashing and I needed some calories. She gave me some Ho Ho's which was perfect considering the skankwear I was wearing. That fixed me right up!

When I got home, I fixed this really great salad of shrimp, grapes, pineapple, almonds, litchees, celery and water chestnuts, then got down and stretched, then ate, read a bit, and fell asleep early.

I had intended to drive somewhere to ride, but I'm not too keen about riding in the 40's, so another breakfast and reading the Sunday paper seems in order before I head back to Fermilab.

Oh yeah, when I downloaded the Ergomo data, turns out I did ride hard, at 85% of FTP! So no wonder my legs felt a little toasted while I was running, but since I got a good 8 hours of sleep last night, I don't feel too bad, plus I don't have to run today!

Happy Sunday!

Another Breakthrough Run Yesterday!

I was still feeling fatigued yesterday morning, so extra caffeine was in order. After I finished my usual 3 mugs, I made some more and had another 2. And still I wanted that oomph before my first 2-hour run of the year, so right before I left for Waterfall Glen, I drank some Ultra Violence.

It was a gorgeous day, but a little on the cool side. So cool, in fact, that I was wearing long pants, a long sleeved shirt and a light jacket on my way there. My metabolism is a little screwball right now, and in between meals and workouts I seem to be cold. Once I eat, though, the engine fires right up and of course when I begin working out.

When I arrived, I stripped off the pants, shirt and jacket and still had a singlet on. I stood outside my car and declared it warm enough to go without the singlet. It was almost 12:30 and bright sunshine for the most part.

I chugged about 10 oz. of Gatorade so that I could run for 1/2 hour before needing to drink more, which meant I could carry one 12 oz. bottle to get me through another hour of running. The plan was to do a full loop (9.65 miles), grab more Gatorade, and do another out and back to make my 2 hours.

When I started running (counterclockwise--there is a debate as to which way this trail is harder--next time I'll run it clockwise and get back on that), my legs felt like they were a little worked, especially since I'd done some strength training early in the day, and well, I've just been piling it on and I had run hills the day before at a pretty good clip, so I expected it.

First mile in 8:54. Which included walking 2 hills. Not bad, in fact, I usually don't go under 9 minutes for this first mile. Next mile 8:46, then 8:45, 8:44 and the big downhill into "the hole" in 8:28. OK, I'm seeing a pattern here. Fairly even pacing, no matter the hill content. Hmmm.... this is a new thing for me. Climb out of the hole in 9:01, and then the next mile in 7:50? WTF??? But it must be marked wrong because the next one was 9:40, so that averages out to...8:45, then a 9:05 (I started to feel tired), and the last .65 in 4:58. So the full loop in 1:24.16 for a pace of 8:44. Huh! That's a PR for me, for sure, now let's see if I can keep it up.

I continued back counterclockwise to get to 1:35 time before going back to the car for more Gatorade, and then I went clockwise, out for 12:40 and then back, and I know what the distances are and my pace was even faster than when I ran the main loop.

When I added up all the alleged extra mileage, I either ran 14 or 14.5 miles in 2 hours. Never did that before! I wasn't shelled afterwards and didn't feel like I had just raced--I just felt like it was a good effort in hills, and I swear I have never felt so good running in there! I also noticed that I run downhill better than ever, which must explain some of the sub-8 miles. Again, I think that the jump rope has just toughened up my legs and they are stronger in the hills now.

Now I'm excited about my next 2-hour run which won't be for 2 weeks, since next week is BIG HUGE FUCKING BIKING WEEK and I won't be doing a long run at all. I wanted to do an ice bath right after the run, but couldn't because I needed to get back to work and a few things heated up, but I did manage to stretch really well, went for a routine medical test, came home and ate some lasagna and a big salad and a couple of beers, passed out blissfully despite all the caffeine I'd had, and I woke up this morning HUNGRY!!!

I feel pretty good this morning, and will be doing some "crap," some swimming, my last little bit of strength training and then a nice, easy (yeah right) run in the sun, maybe an hour since I cheesed out on my Monday run.

This weekend's plans include 60 miles on the bike Saturday with a brick run and then maybe 80 miles on Sunday. If I do all that, I'll get in 170 miles on the bike this week and I'm shooting for 200+ next week. Yee-haw!

I am truly flabbergasted by how well I'm tolerating all this training and getting faster at running to boot! As I usually say several times a year, I absolutely LOVE the training because you never know whether the stars will align for you on a given race day, and I've already had some good races this year, so all is good!

Happy Friday!

Piling it On

I felt a bit shelled on Monday morning after last week's foray into 19-hour territory. As I've said in the past, my body "notices" when I make volume jumps to around 15 hours, and then every hour on top of that is almost an exponential leap. Although I am absorbing the volume better than ever, I think. Of course, I wouldn't know how much I could take if I didn't keep pushing it, right?

So Monday I had to get in a swim and a run before starting work so I could make an early-ish massage appointment. As tired as I was, I figured I may as well do some other stuff before swimming, so I knocked out 120 crunches and 5' jump rope, knowing it might make me even tired before swimming and running!

When I got into the pool, it was nice and cold, and initially I thought I'd cut my planned 2900-yard workout in half. After all, I deserved an easy day or even a full rest day. But the water felt so good, and even though I couldn't swim very fast at all, I was enjoying myself (isn't that perverted?) and ended up doing the entire workout! But then I thought I really should cut the run short.

Again, I thought about cutting a 50' run down to 25-30', but actually my run legs didn't feel that bad once I got going on the treadmill, so I ran 25' there, then ran 5' on the track at about 10K pace and finished up with 10' of strides. So I only ended up cutting out 10' of running.

Ideally, I would have started in on my strength training later on, but I was just too fatigued from the previous week, but I did manage to stretch during some conference calls, got the massage which was very much needed, and then did some cooking which should have been done Sunday except for the impromptu trip to Wisconsin which was way more fun anyway. I finished up a Chinese dish and got the green chile finished except for buying, roasting, peeling and slicing poblano peppers which get added last.

Tuesday morning I awoke after a good night's sleep still feeling pretty shelled. Maybe I should have taken Monday off? Fuck no...I've done this before and I know what to expect. At this volume level, it takes me until Wednesday to feel "normal." "Normal" being normal for a Crackhead.

I didn't get on the bike (trainer--shitty and rainy again) until almost 2PM, and truthfully wasn't expecting much at all from my legs. But 1:35 later, I had managed to rack up TSS of 113, running at 85% of FTP for the workout! How I did that in the condition I was in, I can't tell you, but I must have developed this HTFU reserve that I am now able to draw on.

Again, I should have started in on my strength training on Tuesday, but I needed to finish up my green chile and was so fucking tired, so I shopped, roasted, peeled, chopped and cooked, stretched out really well and was in bed early.

Yesterday morning I felt pretty good although not 100% recovered still. But I was up early so I figured I had time to get in some crap before swimming, and I did 75 pushups, 120 crunches, 15 chinups and 10' of jump rope. I know, I know--there was no real need to do this stuff, but it has just become part of my pre-swim routine, so I do it.

I only had to swim 2800 yards, and the water was warm, which sucked, and I was still tired and a bit slow, but I need the swimming to recover from the biking and running. Once I got home, I realized that I was, in fact, pretty fucking tired, and would need some caffeine to get through my mid-day run.

I went with Ultra Violence at the suggestion of Shelley, and that turned out to be a great decision. But I wasn't sure of how little I could wear running, and my core temperature was still depressed from the morning swim, so I went out for a short out and back with shorts and a long sleeved t-shirt AND sweatshirt on to warm up. I thought I wanted to try and run flatness, but there really isn't any right from my house so what did I do? I ran to the street with one of the steeper uphills and just chugged my way up, turned around and back home, stripped off the sweatshirt and t-shirt and headed back out to finish up.

Of course, I chose the route into the wind and uphill, and it was amazing because since I had warmed up at tempo pace (hills will do that to me), I felt really solid heading into more hills and the temperature was just perfect where my arms were a bit chilled, but it was nice and sunny so it didn't matter. All I had to do at the turnaround was not slow down, and I ended up even splitting the second leg of the run, which was awesome considering I didn't think I had any legs in me. Ah...the power of the jump rope!

Now since it was Wednesday, I really needed to put a dent into my strength training, and I found time to get in 44' worth while wearing compression tights. I motivated to wash a pile of dishes and bottles from all the cooking and training, stretched out really well last night, did some reading and blissfully passed out early since I knew Ms. Robin (nesting just outside my bedroom window) would be waking me at 4:30AM.

Today I feel pretty well, still a bit fatigued, but that is normal for an Ironman build. I will do about 30' of strength (maybe even finish up for the week!), and then I'll head to Waterfall Glen for a 2-hour run, which I am really looking forward to. It is going to be an absolutely gorgeous day, and I'm lucky that I can get away in the middle of the day for this instead of starting at OH DARK THIRTY running on a treadmill. I plan on running a full counter-clockwise loop today plus whatever else I need to get up to 2 hours. I am sure it will hurt at some point, but the pleasure of being outside in the sun on a beautiful spring day in a beautiful setting will more than compensate for any pain in my legs!

And maybe I won't be too shelled after work to get out into my gardens and do some cleanup.

Life is good!

Weekly Workout Totals 04/13/2009-04/19/2009 and Weekend Report

Thankfully, Saturday was a day of flatness. With another warm day scheduled, but needing to sleep in in the morning, I drove LGL to Fermilab to ride and then run. The plan was to go for 70 miles or 4 hours, something like that, and then a :40-:45 brick run. The weather was gorgeous, and my legs were sore from all the running I'd already done. But nothing too bad.

I made it onto the bike a little before 10:00AM and got started wearing a bike jersey and arm warmers. I was quite comfortable, but figured I'd remove at least the arm warmers. I was about 13 miles into the first loop (out of 16), when I saw the sign for where the ring road entrance is off of Eola Road. You can see this on the map here, and the road I turned on is labeled Site 55. I looked behind me before I turned in for security guards and saw none, and thought what the hell, I'll get onto the ring road, which curiously enough, is called Ring Road.

I headed around counter-clockwise, and since I might get kicked off, I figured I should ride hard here. There is hardly any traffic in Fermilab to begin with, but on the Ring Road, zero. The road isn't totally smooth, but it's pretty nice. I actually thought I was on the smaller ring, but a friend had told me that ring is only 2 miles around, so when I got 2 miles in, I knew I must be on the big ring. I laughed to myself that I am in the big ring on the Big Ring! I did see a security guard driving around, but she just drove right past me.

I finished my first loop and it warmed up nicely, so I ditched the arm warmers, gloves (I don't want a glove line) and swapped the jersey for a singlet. It wasn't very windy, but the wind that was there was from the normal direction, WSW. On loop 2, I also ducked onto Ring Road, again using it as a high intensity interval, and it was great, same deal on loop 3, so I was at 60 miles. I decided to finish out by just riding down the central road (Batavia Road) out to the west gate (I parked at east gate) and back. I've never gone through the middle, but many cyclists just pass through Fermilab on this road.

Since I'd done some dinking around on side roads, I got my 70 miles in and then suited up to run. Of course, now the sun decides to come out, but I changed into running shorts and ditched the singlet. My legs felt much like they do at the start of an Ironman run, with all the running I'd already done for the week. My stomach felt like total shit, but too bad, that's normal, too. I ended up running the same amount as I had here a week before in the same amount of time. Hah! So more bike miles and same running, I couldn't complain!

Once I finished, I exited the lab and hit the McDonald's for a cheeseburger and small fries to get me home, and I managed to stretch out really well and wondered what Sunday would bring.

I slept really deeply Saturday night and Sunday morning dawned rainy as predicted. I was thinking I'd just ride 2 hours easy on the trainer, and was just about ready to head to the grocery store when a friend txted me did I want to go to "mt h?" I thought he meant Mt. Horeb in Wisconsin, but then I thought it's rainy and shitty, really? So I confirmed and yeah, Mt. Horeb. Of course I checked the weather forecast for up there and it looked marginally better than home. Still, I was feeling nearly shelled and had to think fast whether I wanted to go ride some serious hills. The route selection was about a 32-mile loop, and I've been in that area enough times to know how challenging it can be. I figured, what the heck, what's the worst thing that can happen? So I got my stuff together and we left around 9AM, driving in the rain much of the way until we were in Wisconsin and then it cleared up somewhat.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that although I didn't ride very fast, I was able to make it up the hills just fine without standing. I left the Ergomo display on mileage and didn't watch my power because I really didn't want to know! I knew that I'd be kicking out plenty! When all was said and done, I did 34 miles that had 2700 feet of climbing in it! Holy fucking shit! Nice for a "short" ride, huh? It took 2:22, but that was to be expected. My friend wanted to do the Blue Mounds Park climb (2.5 miles up), and I was happy to wait at the base while it rained. He was taking a little longer than I had predicted, so I began driving up the hill about 20 minutes in, but he was on his way down, and thanked me for my concern.

The next thing was my favorite part of the day, which was eating and drinking at the Grumpy Troll. We had the beer sampler that had like 16 different beers on it. All were good except for a few weird ones. Good food, great beer, awesome company and a hilly bike ride--that's a tough combination to beat! Driving back we got predictably silly, and when I got back in the house, I threw all the dirty clothes downstairs, showered, had a bite of steak and got to sleep.

This morning when I downloaded the Ergomo data I was pleased to see that I rode at 85% of FT yesterday. Fucking A! That is good stuff! Especially after what I'd already done for the week. Now all I have to do is see if I can swim and run this morning and then I get a massage this afternoon.

I did about an hour of extra crap that is not included below. So another solid week of training (check out that TSS!), and here comes another one!

Weekly Workout Totals	04/13/2009-04/19/2009 This week's totals are sponsored by HILLS!
Swim:	9250 yards (5.25 miles) in 3.28 hours; 18% of weekly workout time; approx. 1149 calories burned Canadian: 8458.2 meters
Bike:	Approx. 142.12 miles in 7.95 hours; 44% of weekly workout time; approx. 4555 calories burned; Total TSS=540 Canadian: 228.72 kilometers
Run:	Approx. 37.36 miles in 5.56 hours; 31% of weekly workout time; approx. 2524 calories burned Canadian: 60.13 kilometers
Strength:	1.23 hours; 7% of weekly workout time; approx. 308 calories burned
All Sports:	Approx. 184.73 miles in 18.02 hours; approx. 8536 calories burned Canadian: 297.29 kilometers
Sleep:	7.79 hours avg./night
Stretching:	2.53 hours. Massage: 1 hours

Hanging in There

Yesterday went quite well. I called the Y, and the pool was back online, towels back online, so no extra driving. I got there a little late for me, though, because I started doing things around the house right away and got caught up in little chores. No worries, though!

I did my core stuff first--21 chinups on the assisted station (with very little weight offloaded and all were from a dead henag) with many people watching me--I guess I'm pretty cut (yeah I occasionally look in the mirror or glass while doing this), then headed downstairs and did 60 pushups and 120 crunches, including dead bugs and hanging leg raises. While I was down on the mat, a spin class finished up, and a guy I know, AJ, stopped by to chat. We talked about the weekend weather (isn't that all triathletes talk about on a Friday?), how things were going, and then he left and I finished up and grabbed my jump rope and did 7 minutes worth of that. I'm starting to actually like jumping rope--I guess it reminds me of being a kid, plus you can just see (in a fully-mirrored room) how it affects your core and even arms. Also I can see what's going on in my left leg (which is lacking the ACL in the knee) to see if I am able to really pick my foot up off the floor.

I was surprised that my quads didn't feel too bad, although I was glad that the swim workout was mostly pulling. The pool temp wasn't ideal, but it wasn't bad, either, and I just went back and forth, back and forth, and while my arms protested a bit, it forced me to really focus on my hand entry. 3300 yards later, I had a few minutes to spend in the sauna to stretch before heading home to work.

I got pretty lucky in that the world wasn't blowing up at work, and it was such an increbibly lovely day that I was even able to sneak outside and do a little bit of yard cleanup. Sometimes I limit myself by time, because left to my own devices, I'd be in my flower beds for hours at a time, just gazing at things and smiling. But yesterday I held myself to filling up one of the yard bags, which had about 18" of head room. Of course I kept compacting things to make more room, and I got a lot done in maybe 15 minutes. That short break made me really look forward to running.

Since the world wasn't going to come to an end at work, I decided I would drive to Waterfall Glen. My legs were telling me I had better run on a softer surface than asphalt and concrete. When I got there, there were many cars, and no doubt many people playing hookey to take advantage of the nice weather. I am always amazed that even though I think I train at odd times of the day that I always see a lot of other people doing the same thing!

The plan was to run 1:20, but then I changed it to 9 miles, to see if I could get in 9 in that amount of time. As soon as I started running, my quads let me know I had been beating them into submission, but at least I was on soft surface. Oh my, all the water in there! We had a lot of snow this winter, and we've had a lot of rain this year already, and the ground is so saturated that water is pooled everywhere. Even though I was listening to music, I could hear frogs at every turn of the trail in whatever little pothole they had found! I saw one white-tailed deer, who had its flag down trying to be camo, a hawk's nest, many ducks and tons of birds. It was perfect temps (near 70) to run in there, and I even felt almost hot! I saw many naked runners (guys running without shirts), lots of mountain bikers, many walkers, and everyone had smiles on their faces! This is one of the reasons I like running there so much. It is one of the happiest places I know! Nobody goes there to be in a fowl mood, even though as my run pressed on, I was really feeling it.

My pace seemed good enough to make 9 miles in the 1:20, even though I walked a few hills. I know that if I hadn't run so much the day before or so hard that I could have run faster. Even though I was tired, though, I felt strong. And depleted! I slammed a Coke right before I ran and some Gatorade so I could carry hardly any liquid, but my body was telling me I am going to need to do better on pre-run calories.

I finished 9 in 1:21 for a pace of 9:02, so that was fine for an easy run. That made 27.5 miles in 3 days! When I got back home, I thought I was going to crash, and I did lay down for a few minutes (wearing compression tights), but around 4:30 I motivated and finished up my strength training of mostly legs, which was interesting. OK so it was only 15 minutes, but I really wondered if I should have skipped it.

I ate a huge pile of sushi for dinner, and slept the whole night through, even waking up not really hungry!

My legs are sore, but I really don't feel bad at all--more like I'm just training a lot! I am going to wait for it to warm up so I can ride wearing very little, and drive LGL out to Fermilab and go 4 hours or so, whatever I feel like. There is not supposed to be much wind (forecast calls for "light and variable"), so it will just be me, the bike and the sun. I'm going to try and run :45 off the bike, but we'll see how the legs feel at that point. I have a feeling there's a stop at McDonald's in my future after this, and if I have any energy at all left, I'll noodle around in my yard while it's still nice out.

Happy Saturday!

Breakthrough Run Yesterday!

I don't often write about my running because, well, I think I'm a crappy runner. At least I don't think I'll ever be called fast, but still, I work on my running because it is part of a triathlon. If I only ran, I might be faster, but my ortho says I shouldn't even be running (even though he's a marathoner) let alone doing Ironman, so I'll take what I can get running-wise. Besides, I'm all about the bike!

BUT...this training season is shaping up to be something different. After a lackluster 2007-2008 season and no winter marathon, I had no expectations for my running (or biking or swimming, for that matter), except that I was hoping a little bit of self-imposed (or should I say idiot-imposed) rest (from the back injury) might do me some good.

And I started feeling OK about my running in January since I was able to perform pretty well in the indoor tri series. But then I remembered how good it felt to run really light, and the removal of a few pounds of fat was in order, and at the same time I was starting to jump rope again. And well, all those things seem to be coming together, based on this week's running.

Wednesday's run was good--not really fast, but since I just started running outside regularly recently, and there's hills whichever way I go from home (except north, which is into downtown and I have no desire to ever go that way), so acclimating to hills and pavement all at once can be stressful. But still, I've been noticing that I can run those hills easier and easier, even considering we've had some decent wind lately (pretty normal for April).

I did yesterday's run as a double out-and-back. First I did 7 miles running faster than I had on Wednesday, which normally would make me think I was going to blow up big time for the remainder, but it didn't. I did slow down a little for the last 4.5, but still a respectable pace, and my overall pace for the 11.5 was faster than I've ever run that distance, which should translate into a serious 1/2 marathon PR at some point, even in a 1/2 Ironman (but not Triple T's 1/2 which is stupid hilly and comes on the last day so no PR's then).

The run was made sweeter by the air temp being just over 60. I started out wearing a singlet over my bra top, but warmed up after just 1 mile and took it off and carried. The sunshine was glorious! My legs felt great, and while I wasn't exactly charging the hills, I wasn't slowing down too much on any of them, and I did negative split each of the two out-and-backs.

The run was made even sweeter by the fact that I did effectively 4 workouts on Wednesday (core, swim, lift, run) and I lifted early yesterday morning for about 1/2 hour, too, which included some leg work!

The run was made even sweeter by getting the beginning of a tan!

After I showered yesterday, I put on my compression tights and refueled well, got in almost 1/2 hour of stretching, ate a good dinner of about 4 oz. Porterhouse steak and 4 oz. spaghetti with pesto, a couple of beers, and a small slice of cake. That should get me through the night, right?

FUCK NO!!!

I woke up this morning at 2:30 (at least it's getting later and later, which means I'm getting close to eating enough) and had a half sandwich and a couple pieces of herring, got back in bed and had more weird dreams, but I still got a good night's sleep overall.

Today is going to be another gorgeous day, and my plan is to do some jump rope and core, swim, about 10 more minutes of lifting (legs and back) and then run for 1:20. I was going to drive to Waterfall Glen, but I probably won't have time because I have a bunch of other things to get done today, including just sitting or laying outside in the sun just to soak it in!

And bonus, the weather forecast for tomorrow no longer calls for rain, and it will hit 70 again, so I am going to take advantage by riding for 4 hours! I am sure I will be humbled since this will be my first 4-hour ride this year, but being in the sun will be awesome! And the plan is to run :45 off the bike. Sunday will then be an easy 2-hour spin on the bike and maybe a 1/2 hour recovery swim.

I'll check back in on Monday, and see if I survived all of this! Hope everyone has a great weekend!

FOOD CHANNEL!!!

So let's see if I can detail exactly what I ate and drank yesterday:

• Breakfast: hardboiled egg, English muffin with jam, coffee with sweetened creamer
• 20 oz. Gatorade during swim
• Banana and piece of string cheese after swim
• Really thin slice of lamb cake around 10AM and a few jelly beans
• 12 oz. Gatorade during run
• 1 serving Endurox R4 right after run
• Lean Cuisine something or other with some Sylvia's sauce on top for lunch (and of course I licked the plate clean because I love the sauce!)
• 2 Beck's
• Dinner of basically 1.5 servings (I think) of meatloaf and large salad with tomatoes and mushrooms, and 2 servings of the lamb cake

Exercise I did:

• 10 minutes of jump rope
• 9 minutes of chinups, crunches and pushups
• 1 hour of swimming
• 26 minutes of lifting
• 1 hour of running

So I woke up at 2AM this morning and thought I must not have eaten enough. So I had a few pieces of herring in wine sauce and a package (200 calories) of cheese-filled crackers, and then I fell back asleep and had a whole raft of interesting dreams, which I won't go into detail about here.

I definitely need to do a few things nutritionally:

• Take in more calories during the first half of the day, although I prefer working out with little in my stomach, especially running. This just means I have to watch the clock and eat at like 5, 9, 1, 3 and then dinner.
• Finish the damn cake! It's great, but not ideal nutrition. I can switch over to Twinkies, though.
• Maybe take in a little more fat. Left to my own devices, my basic diet is maybe 10% fat. I think that has something to do with waking up in the middle of the night. I've been putting olive oil on the salads, though.
• Time to buy Cheetos! I tend to not eat a lot at any single sitting
• As much as I've come to like salads (and they are good for maintaining or losing weight), I need to get back on the rice for dinner during the week, and pasta 3 times a week to be prepped for long run and long ride days.

I used to have the nutrition epiphany closer to mid-May or June, but I guess I revved up the system a bit earlier this year, and my body is now telling me to catch up on the calories. I know, I know--big problem to have, right?

I'm thinking tonight is going to be a steak and pasta w/pesto. Yum!