All week I have been struggling on the run.  Actually, more accurately, I have been struggling on the last mile of my runs. I did three runs earlier this week.  8 miles, 6 miles and 5 miles.  The runs have all started out great, but after 7, 5, and 4 miles respectively, I fell apart.  The last mile of each run was over a minute slower than the rest of my miles.  While my average pace on each run was above average for me (7:45, 7:58, and 7:57), I finished each run mentally defeated because the last mile was so much slower than the rest of the run.

Today, however, was different.  I embarked on my weekly long run.  I set out with Jennie on the bike for 12 miles; my longest run since Steelhead.  It was only 80*F, but the humidity was 82% which meant I was dripping with sweat after the first mile.  I started out nice and easy.  The first 8 miles were between 8:30-8:40 min/mile.   After that, I picked it up a bit and finished the last 4 miles between 8:00-8:15.  So, not only did I get in my long run for the week, but I also was able to pick up the pace at the end without falling apart.  Redemption!

I think the biggest difference was having Jennie on the bike carrying water.  I went through about 32oz of water on the run stopping at every 1 or 2 mile mark along the way.  Even so, I was down a couple pounds when I got home so I chugged some more water and chocolate milk to refuel.

But that isn’t even the biggest news of the day.  The biggest news of the day is that Jennie did her first brick workout! After biking along with me for 12 miles, we went on a 1.5 mile run immediately afterwards.  So, now Jennie has felt the feeling in her legs that is a brick workout.  And not only that, but she is looking at getting her own RoadID.  She has a birthday coming up, so well have to see what happens.

In my opinion, she looks too good for having just done a brick workout.  At least I’ve never looked this good after a brick workout.  Come to think of it, I don’t look this good on a normal basis.

I generally look like a sweaty mess after my workouts.  In this case, I left a nice swass mark on the deck after I got up.  Yep, these clothes aren’t allowed inside until they have air dried.

Now, we are spending the day vegging out on couch and watching TV.  Jennie is currently engrossed in some Gilmore Girls reruns during which she has seen ice cream sundaes, fresh strawberries, hamburgers/fries, donuts, and baskets of fresh bread; all of which are leaving her with insane cravings.  It is only a matter of time before she starts baking…

Friday

Friday’s game plan consisted of a long run, long swim, and some wood work.  I ended up doing 10.5 miles in 1:32 (8:44 pace).  It was hot and humid which really slowed me down.  I am still adjusting to the warmer weather and learning what my hydration needs are, so I weighed myself before and after the run.  Despite drinking 2 full water bottles on the run, I was still 3 pounds lighter when I got home.  Yikes!  I spent the rest of the day with a water bottle at my side to rehydrate.

After the run, I did a 2500 yard swim at the pool.  It was a single set of 2500 yards so no resting.  I did give my legs a break by doing 10 lengths on/off with a pull buoy.  Still, my legs were very tired and started to cramp up around 2000 yards.  I think I am going to try and tweak my schedule so that my long swim and long run aren’t on the same day.  The pool is open every day at lunch for the summer rather than just M, W, F, so I might move my Friday swim to Thursdays instead.

After the swim, it was back to the project from two weeks ago.  I built the second cabinet for our bar area as well as built face frames for both the wine rack and cabinet.  I even got to use my new-ish pocket hole jig for the first time.  It was a huge help and really made the face frames come together nicely.  All that is left now is building the door, drawer, countertop, shelves, painting… Ok, so there is still a lot to go, but it is progressing nicely.

Bike Ride

This morning, I embarked on a long bike ride.  My destination was the Johan Trifest in Hopkins, MI to cheer on a co-worker.  Armed with Google Maps Biking Directions, I headed out shortly after 7:00.  A good portion of the ride was on the Kent Trails.  It was nice to avoid the traffic, but the path was littered with leaves and twigs as a result of a rain storm last night.  There wasn’t too much traffic on the trail – unless you count the wildlife.  In fact, there was one stretch that had so many squirrels and rabbits crossing the road, I thought I was stuck in a game of Oregon Trail*.  The Google Biking Directions were very helpful, although one portion would have had me taking a dirt road.  Instead, I jumped over a half mile and took a paved road instead.

I thought that this was going to be a nice and flat ride.  I was wrong.  Not only did a I have a strong wind to deal with, but I also had a few good climbs.

Finally a downhill.  Unfortunately, there were two downsides to this downhill.  First, there was a stop sign at the bottom which really killed my momentum.  And second, I was going to have to climb back up it on the way home.

I got to the triathlon as the last swimmers were getting out of the water.  The last female out of the water really struggled to finish, but managed to make it back to shore on her own.  As she ran up to the transition area, she proclaimed, “I’m alive! I’m alive!”  She sure received a lot of cheering.

I biked out on part of the bike course and saw David at about the 23 mile mark.  I followed him back to the transition area and watched him head out on the run.

He ended up with a great finish for his first Olympic tri.  It looked like a great race and I’m going to add it to my “future” list.  The swim was calm and clean.  The bike was challenging with rolling hills and even more challenging today with a headwind for half of the course.  And the run was flat with lots of spectators out.

The ride back home was much more pleasant because I now had the wind at my back.  Despite bringing 3 full water bottles, I was running really low at the end.  Had the ride been any further, I would have had to find a place for a refill.  As it was, I cruised in on empty and proceeded to pass out in the driveway.

Relaxing

After the bike ride and lunch, we headed up to the Reeds Lake Art Festival.  Lots of cool photographs, paintings, and sculptures.  My favorites were paintings of the original Tigers Stadium and Wrigley field.  Fun to look at, but all very expensive.

After the art festival, it was finally time to relax.  Jennie and I spent the next few hours laying in the hammock, reading, and napping.  With a bright blue sky above us and a nice breeze blowing, it was the perfect day for lounging.

I even prepared drinks and snacks for the occasion.  A bottle of the finest bubbly (Coke) and a sampling of aged cheeses, both the puffed and cracker varieties (Cheese Puffs and Cheez-Its).

In no time, we were both deeply engrossed in our books.

I seem to have a shocked look on my face.  Perhaps this was during the chase and murder scene.

CSA Update

Why am I holding a fresh turnip over my head?  Two reason.  #1 We got a bunch of fresh turnips in this week’s CSA basket.  #2 There were errant Shyguys and Ninji roaming in our kitchen (ala Super Mario Brothers 2) and as any NES geek knows, the only way to dispatch them is a well placed turnip to the face.  We actually cooked up the turnips for dinner tonight and they were very good.  We grilled a veggie packet with chopped potatoes, turnips, onions and carrots along with a grilled chicken breast for chicken sandwiches – delicious.

On a semi-related note, this is the first picture of my Racing for Recovery T-shirt.  I realized I didn’t mention it in my race report despite it being one of my favorite race shirts ever.  It has a classic rock album** cover-esq design on a “broken in” red shirt; reminds me of the Aerosmith Greatest Hits album.  I’m usually not big on red shirts, but the faded look of this one works.

Bird Watching

While relaxing in the hammock, a baby robin wandered right up to us.  It was fluffy with a spotted red breast and still hadn’t learned to fly so it resorted to hopping around.

We spent the better part of an hour watching it hop around the yard under the watchful eye of Mama (or Papa) from a nearby roof. 

For the most part, the adult robin kept its distance letting the fledging fend for himself only occasionally hopping down to feed him fresh berries.

I even got a chance to use the telephoto lens for our camera to snap a few good pictures from long range.  The little guy managed to hop up a log, but never did figure out the whole flapping its wings to fly.

Overall, it has been a great start to the weekend.  Tomorrow looks to be just as nice.  Hopefully we can get some exercise in and possibly even take the kayaks up to the lake.

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend as well!

*I found an awesome Apple IIe emulator along with a copy of Oregon Trail.  I wasted far too much time playing it.  Unfortunately, I tried to ford the second river and lost 4 oxen and Brad (sorry Brad!)

** An album is like an old school CD***

*** A CD is like an old school MP3

Flashback to last week and you may remember that I ordered some replacement parts for my bike.  Well, they arrived and I thought I would take time last night to get them installed.  The installation went fairly well at first.  However, after I got the bike back together things didn’t seem quite right.  The bike wasn’t shifting very well – skipping gears and autoshifting.  After looking into it further, I realized that I ordered the wrong parts.  The parts I ordered weren’t compatible with my shifters.  So, my options were to order replacement parts again (about $50) or upgrade my shifters (about $300).  I decided to go with the $50 option and ordered the correct parts from Tree Fort Bikes.  So far, I have been very impressed with Tree Fort Bikes.  After I get the parts, I will hopefully do my first Vendor Review outlining my experience with them.

I went to bed last night semi very frustrated that my bike was going to be out of commission until the new parts arrive.  I couldn’t even put back on the old parts because I didn’t have the correct pin for the original chain.  This morning was supposed to be a 1:15/20 minute brick workout too.  Being dedicated stubborn, I decided that I was going to try and ride my bike any ways.  It is technically rideable and shouldn’t do any damage to the bike to ride it as is.  However, I found that it was nearly impossible to ride comfortably.  Every time I would get into a groove, the bike would auto shift up or down a gear.  The auto shifting made it nearly impossible to climb because the harder I pushed, the more it wanted to slip gears.  So, after a single lap (6 miles) around the lake, I head back home frustrated and disappointed.  I could have still gone out for the run portion of the workout, but I was too pissed to even think about at the time.

Flash forward to the afternoon.  I just finished up a day long work meeting and needed to get out.  I was really itching to run.  So, I headed out in hopes of doing a long-ish run.  I ended up with a great 10 mile run at an 8:00 min/mile pace.  I felt great the entire way and didn’t feel like I was pushing hard at all.  In hindsight, this long of a run probably wasn’t a great idea with a the River Bank Run 25k looming on Saturday, but mentally, I needed to get a solid workout in.  Besides the River Bank Run is a C race at best for me this year.  I’m treating like a long training run rather than a race and am not looking to set any land speed records or anything.

So, what started off as a day with a failed workout, turned into a mental victory with a long run.  All in all, a great day in the end.  Tomorrow is an easy day with just a swim followed by race day on Saturday.  Time to rest.

Today was my last really long run until the Martian Marathon!!! YAY!!!! I did 21 today.  Over the next few weeks, I only have to do long runs of 12, 14, 10, and 12.  I am so happy that the 20 milers are over and done with.  When I started this morning, my legs were sluggish.  I just kept telling them to hold on for one last long run and then I would give them a break.  Thankfully, they held out and I finished in 3:00:28.

I changed things up a bit for my run today and did one big loop rather than lots of smaller loops.  I generally do smaller loops without going too far from home.  It gets boring seeing the same things over and over again, so I decided to do a route I have never done.  It ended up being a great run.  Nearly half of it was on a paved trail or on country roads with little to no traffic.  Very peaceful.  I ran for as long as I could without looking at my watch because I didn’t want to know how far I had gone.  I had a general idea of my distance though because the main roads are all a mile apart and I could count them off in my head as I passed them (44th street, 52nd street, 60th, street… 84th street).

I didn’t look at my watch until well after the turn around point.  I was running low on Gatorade so I stopped at the grocery store to fill up at the drinking fountain using a single serving Gatorade powder package. As I left the store, I broke down and looked at my watch.  17 miles.  YAY!!!! I thought I was only going to be at 15 or so.  17 was a blessing.  I picked up the pace a bit for the next mile.  And then I hit a hill which kicked me in the face a bit and slowed me right back down.

As I hit the driveway, my watched beeped over for 21 miles.  I was very happy to be done.  The run turned out to be hillier than I expected, but I felt strong throughout.

After the run, I took a snow bath and downed a box of Mac and Cheese to refuel before starting my work day at noon.  I made sure to get up and walk around the house every half hour or so to make sure my legs didn’t tighten up too much.

After dinner, I headed up to the pool for open swim.  I figured that the swim would be good recovery for my legs as long as I didn’t push it too hard.  When I got to the pool, it was a ghost town.  I thought that I had the time wrong or something.  Turns out, I was the only person who showed up.  I had the pool to myself for almost a half hour before two other guys showed up.

For my workout, I did:

1 x 500
1 x 400 Pull
1 x 300
1 x 200 Pull
2 x 100 Kick w/ fins
1 x 200
1 x 300 Pull
1 x 400
(1 x 500 Pull Skipped)
2500 yards total

I really wanted to do the last 500 yards to get to a full 3000 yards, but my calves were starting to cramp up and I didn’t want to push it.  It was a very casual swim and I didn’t even time myself.  I just wanted to get the distance in and stay comfortable, so no sense cramping up.

Not sure what the rest of the weekend will bring, but I’m hoping to get in at least one outdoor bike ride if the weather cooperates and another run.

Now, it is time to relax and enjoy a beer (or two).

This week was a rest week as part of my two on, one off training schedule.  So, my long for the week was only 8 miles.  I decided that because it was a shorter distance than I am used to for my long run, I would use it as a tempo run.    After starting off with a 4 mile warm up, I hit the halfway point and kicked it into gear. I dug deep and was able to knock out 3 miles at 7:29, 7:34, 7:32.  While not my greatest 1 mile splits, I am happy with them because the snow/slush made it harder than normal to keep a steady pace without losing my footing. 

The fast 3 miles allowed me to negative split the run with a 31:45 (7:54 pace) on the out and a 30:35 (7:37 pace) on the back.

On top of my great run, I took a step this week to keep myself safe on my long runs and bike rides – I bought a RoadID.  Steve in a Speedo recently posted a 20% coupon code (good until March 15th).  Head on over there if you are interested and give him some love.  The code saved me $6 off the final price.

I ended up going with the WristID Sport model in black.  The website was very easy to use and had a nice customization area to see exactly how your choices would print.  It should arrive on Monday or Tuesday.  I am excited to get it, but I am hoping that I never actually have to use it!