W-w-w-workout with a c-c-c-clock

And that's what happens when you try and type with frozen fingers. Which is how my Saturday started. I got up early and bundled up for a short ride over to the site of this year's Tri-Fusion Workout with a Clock. I never knew just how cold your hands can get in only 4 miles of riding, but by the time I arrived, they were just about frozen. Even though it was clear and sunny, I don't think it was above 30 degrees. Yikes. But, I'm pretty proud of myself for getting out there and doing this "race", because anyone that knows me knows how much I dislike being cold.

Anyway, after waiting for it to warm up and to see how many people would be man enough to show up, it turned out that there were only 7 of us crazy enough to do it.

The start.....from L: Steve, me, Jessi, Tracie, Jim, Eric, Roger

I actually got fairly warmed up on the first run, which was good because after my bike over to the start, I was worried about being cold on the bike. But the bike turned out to be an awesome ride. After a fairly successful T1 (no falling, and I tried out my shoes on bike trick for the first time...good, but still needs work), I was quickly caught by Steve and Jessi. I got on their wheels and we had a good little pace line going, because, hey, the race director didn't say anything about drafting! :) I did a little of the pulling, but not as much as I should have.... Then we caught Eric, so we ended up having a nice, quick bike. I think we averaged about 20mph, which I'm pretty happy with at this point in the year. My T2 was decent, considering I had gloves and many many layers on. The second run felt surprisingly OK, except for the fact that I still haven't figured out how to run downhill. I put some time into Steve on the uphill out to the turnaround, then watched him pull away and smoke me on the downhill....nice work, dude!!!

Even so, I was still smiling at the finish, and had managed to even lose one of my 18 layers!

It was a great day, and I also have to give out some big-time thanks to Matt who volunteered to hold my bike in T1 and catch it in T2...thanks buddy!!! And also to Mark and the wonderful volunteers who froze their butts off so that we could get a workout in. You guys are awesome!!!

Later in the afternoon, I was supposed to meet up with Jen and Zach to do a brick out in CDA, but that plan fell apart, which in the grand scheme of things probably wasn't a bad thing. One hard effort per day is probably sufficient at this point.......And then I looked at the Scates' pictures of their ride out there, and they looked cold while they were trying to navigate the snow on the roads! :) Oh well, I guess my first ride on the IM course will have to wait.......

Thursday workouts

Today was the first time in awhile that I did 2 workouts, and it felt great. Since I'm getting ready for Ironman #3, I know that doing one workout per day just won't cut it, so lately I've been feeling like a slacker. But I also realize that I'm still in recovery mode from last week, so I just have to trust that my training will come around eventually, and that I need to be healthy for that to happen.

At lunch, I made it down to the pool and got a 45 min swim workout in, which is significant only because I did it all by myself...no one else to get me to the workout, no one to motivate me to do it. However, it turned out to be a tough swim. I knew I'd only have time to get in about 2000m, and the last 1000 felt like I was swimming in molasses! Oh well, the important thing was to get that second mid-week swim in, and I did it!

After work, I went up to the Gallagher's for the non-headlamp headlamp run. Thank goodness for daylight savings time!

Here's the crew sans lights.....

I was super happy that Andy decided to come along and run with the group, knowing that she was probably nervous about running with the triathletes and being too slow to run with us. But she did it, found some great company to run with, and had an awesome time. See, she's smiling!!

I am very proud of Andy for taking a leap and getting out there!

My run was darn tough, but a good one to kind of shock my system back into running. I ran with Jessi, Steve Rupe and Jeff Blackwell. When we started, Jessi said she was going to do a 45 min steady run, which, eventually resembled our Sunday swims....I was hanging on for dear life. Meanwhile, Jeff, Jessi and Steve were chatting as if they were hanging out at Starbucks. But, really, I'm so glad I decided to hang with them, because I absolutely love running with faster people and putting in some solid miles. It was also a good barometer of my running fitness, which, duh, sucks right now. So, now I know what I need to work on!

Even after the gut-buster, I did manage a smile or two.... :)

The best workout partner in the world.....thanks AP for coming!!!

Back to the pool!

I just finished up a pool workout with the EWU Tri kids, and it turned out to be a really good swim. After Sunday, I was worried that I had maybe lost some of that precious "swim fitness" that I have worked so hard to gain, but for now, it appears that I am bouncing back pretty well. I did 400m/100m repeats, and I was totally psyched that the 400s seemed to just fly by. Now I can't wait to get to Sunday and see how I'm doing in relation to the Mornings with Martin crew. Today's workout was also significant because this week is the first I've had since January without my scheduled swim class. So I am now totally on my own to get my butt to the pool mid-week, which in the past has been a major hurdle. OK, so its only one swim, but I'm really hoping that I can keep my momentum going by getting in 2 swims during the week.

For the rest of the week, I'm still going to take it easy and get back into it full steam slowly. Check out Roger's blog for more on this subject...he summed it up way better than I can, but I am totally relating to his struggles lately. I am really looking forward to reconnecting with the group tomorrow night at the club meeting, and then on Thursday for the "Headlamp" run.

In other exciting news, I'm happy to report that we are getting close to restarting the club's weekly "BLT" (bike loop Tuesday) rides, possibly as early as April. And, Kirk, Dave and I are working hard on putting together a long, mid-May "Workout with a Clock"....stay tuned for more on this one!!

Oh yeah, and for those keeping track, today's NY Times crossword time was 10:45. A bit slower, but hey, its Tuesday, so, its a bit tougher. Nice.

Weekend un-training

Well, another Monday, and another new NY Times crossword record! 7:55, which is now solidly faster than most of my IM transition times :) I'm going to keep that in mind this year when I'm slacking off in the transition tent!

This weekend was, as predicted, tough on my mind. To (hopefully) rid my body of any remaining nasty bugs from the previous week, I purposely did not do my planned workouts, except for an abbreviated swim Sunday morning with the club. In essence, my weekend was: LAZY. Which on the surface sounds nice, but in practice was very tough for me. Laziness begets laziness, and even though there were plenty of non-athletic things to do, once I got started down the path, I found it very hard to pull myself up out of it. As a result, it wasn't really the greatest of weekends. And as much as I love all of my training partners and hearing/reading about all their great adventures in HR elevation (races, group rides, bricks), I gotta tell you, it was kind of tough to know that I was forcing myself out of the game.

So now, I enter another tough stretch. That of being super-revved up to make up for lost time balanced with a smart, gradual return to life as an Ironman preparer. Physically, I'm feeling fine, but maybe a little tired overall, but now its the kind of tired you get when you aren't doing workouts, rather than the kind you get when you have done too many hard workouts. In hindsight, the shorter swim I did on Sunday may have worked to my advantage. I hung on in the fast lane again, and it was hard, hard, hard! Like, harder than I think it should have been. Analyzing it later, I attributed the difficulty to the fact that I'd taken a whole week off + the fact that I'd been sicker than I had been in a long time + lingering effects of said sickness + no fueling/hydrating/sleeping preparation. So, on the positive side, I think it may have killed any thoughts of jumping back into it full force. Which means that this week will be a slow progression back to it, with the hopes of having a solid, semi-intense weekend.

Tonight, I may allow myself a Guinness or two, cause, sheesh, St Paddy's Day only comes around once a year! So, here's to a happy Guinness day to all!!