Happy. Healthy. Heathen.

What a beautiful day.  What a glorious change from all the cold and wind and rain!

This was one of those days when you don’t want to stop riding.  The sun was so warm and bright, the sky was blue, and it just felt so good to be outside.  Had I planned the morning a little better, I would have continued riding for much longer than my prescribed 25 miles.  I chose to head into town and then hit the Greenway for a few miles.  I rather meandered, taking whatever direction appealed to me at the moment.  The Greenway was in use, but not too crowded.  I did two laps around the loop at the battlefield, then headed back off, back through town and toward home.

It was as pleasant a way to spend an hour and a half as I’ve ever had on a bike.  It didn’t remotely feel like training, and the pressure of the race was miles and months away.  I guess I have to admit that today would not have been quite so sweet had we not had all of this hideous cold and wind…there’s the lesson learned yet again.

Favorite random song:  No Woman No Cry, Bob Marley

Thanks for reading.

If you live in Murfreesboro, you know what was going on with the weather between 11 and 1 today…huge, high winds,  massive thunderstorm, heavy rains.  I missed all of it.  When I ducked into SportsCom at 10 minutes til 11, the winds were gusty, trash was blowing all about; I knew the system was coming, but I wasn’t sure of when.  I was in the pool by 11, shooting for a 3/4 mile swim, which I did in about 32 minutes.  It was a great workout, I felt strong the entire time, and it was as fast as I’ve ever done that distance.  Afterward I got out, went straight to the shower and was headed out the door by about 12:30.  The storm had obviously come and gone:  there was debris everywhere, big puddles of water, but the sun was actually trying to peek out. 

One of the girls who works for me called to say the weather was a big concern for her to drive from Manchester to Murfreesboro for our bimonthly staff meeting, so it must have been hitting that city right at that time.  We decided to change the meeting til tomorrow, I called the rest of the staff to let them know, then with that change in plans, I headed back to the house to regroup.

Now you remember from yesterday the adventure I had with Miss Uga and her vanishing act.  Today I get home, Uga is there waiting for me…we’ve had sheetrock work done recently in the garage and it was left open about 2 feet to keep air circulating so the mud could dry, and that’s where she came waddling out from when I drove up.  However…no Boo.  Now you need to know that as great as Boo is, she is a big, fat chicken when it comes to thunderstorms.  Last year on a bike ride in Iowa she slipped her collar during a fireworks display and had to be sprung from the pokey the following day.  When we’re all home we just let her in the house and she cowers under the table until it’s passed, but when we’re gone she manages to hide in the shed or garage.  Not today.  No Boo.  I call and whistle, I call the neighbors, I drive up and down the road.  No Boo.

I call Jesse in Detroit – like he’s going to be able to do anything from there; he thinks she’ll turn up soon.  I wait a bit, go to work, come back home near dark…still no Boo.  I drive the road again, calling and whistling, no Boo.  I call the pound (by now it’s “after hours” and the recording tells me that they do not handle lost pet calls over the phone; I’ll have to go there tomorrow morning and look for her).  I’m not panicked, but I don’t like the idea of her not sleeping in her spot on my bed tonight.

Around 9:00, Fez (my college student/renter/neighbor/third son) calls…what a surprise…she’s at his house.  He owns her daughter Nala, and the two of them hang together (Boo and Nala) all the time.  I drive the car across the cow pasture, bring her home, she runs into my room, onto my bed, which is where she is right now.

So today’s entry is another lost dog story…haven’t lost a dog in years, then we have three “misadventure” in one week.  Not directly related to triathlon training, but infinitely more interesting than:  “…and then I swam down the length of the pool, then turned around and swam back, then I swam down the length of the pool, then turned around and swam back…”

Favorite random song today:  Paradise by the Dashboard Lights, Meatloaf

Thanks for reading.

I’m gonna tie that dog to me next time I run.

If you are keeping up, you know that yesterday’s bike/run was kinda crappy…headwinds, bad mood, all that.  Today, in a effort to change things up a bit, I decided to run on the property.  It’s a trail run, but it’s truly my favorite place of all time to run, it always puts me in a good mood, and it was only 6 miles, so I laced up my trail shoes and headed out.

You also know that my golden retriever Boo, and my bulldog Uga usually run the distance with me.  Just to refresh, Boo is perfect, wonderful, brilliant – absolutely everything a dog should be.  If I could clone her, I would make my first million…everyone loves this dog.  Uga is…entertaining.  She’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, but she is covered over with personality, and lives life with abandon…always happy, always curious, and has no idea that her short, squatty, bulldoggy stature is comical no matter what she does.

Anyway, we headed out – Boo runs ahead, smells all the delicious farm smells, runs back to check on me, then runs ahead again.  Uga is along for the ride.  Sometimes she follows Boo, sometimes she runs right along with me, sometimes she chases a rabbit, quite literally.  I call her name when I can’t see her, and she always trots back from wherever it is she’s adventured. 

Today, I’d run for 20 minutes or so, around the open part of the farm…the ponds, the pasture, around the house.  Then we headed into the woods and as we approached the area of the back 40 we call the campsite, Boo ran up three deer out of a thicket – beautiful whitetail, 2 does and a buck.  When Uga saw those white flags running, she took off at a dead sprint.  The deer gracefully cleared the fence at the edge of the property, and Uga wriggled her bulldog booty under the fence and never slowed down.  All the while I was yelling her name and whistling – to no avail.  Boo, of course, stayed right with me, in a move I swear was designed to remind me how a good dog behaves. 

In an effort to salvage the workout AND retrieve Uga, I climbed the fence after her, and if you can call crashing through the overgrowth a jog, I kept running, whistling, calling her name.  I was on someone else’s land, moving in a zig-zag pattern, thinking of all the ways I was going to NOT let her run with me again.  This might be a good time to tell you that we lost her 2 days ago when Jesse and I were walking the property, and found her hours later hanging out at the rock quarry that borders our land.  This time I had no such luck.  I did the entire remaining 40 minutes or so – an unending barrier of briars/twigs/branches/leaves, trying to yell, whistle, breathe, and trying to sustain some semblance of an elevated heart rate.  I gave up when my session time ended, and walked back to the house with Boo, replanning my entire day in my head to include a car search/phone calls to find her. 

As I got back to the house, and was grumbling about how high-maintenance she is, there she was, wagging her little bulldog booty, her face in its bulldog smile, wet and filthy.  I have absolutely no idea what her adventure was, and she wasn’t telling.  I was so glad to see her, and because I know the Cocoa-Puff-sized nodule of nerve tissue that serves as her brain wouldn’t understand it all, I didn’t even fuss at her.

All’s well that ends well?  Okay, we can go with that.  And I actually even got the workout in…

Before we started that adventure and I turned my iPod off to listen for her, I did have a great random song turn up:  you don’t know motivation until you’ve had Sheryl Crow singing in your ear:  “Run, baby, run, baby, run, baby, run” (Baby loves to run).  I know it’s not about literal running, but it sure pushed me along for 3 minutes or so.

Thanks for reading.

It was bound to happen.  It has taken until week 6, but it always happens.  Sometime during the training, against all reason, you just stumble upon a day that totally eats your lunch.  Today was just such a day.

I know that I just did a swim/ride brick on Saturday, and now here I am doing another one just two days later.  This is almost entirely weather-related; but schedules factor in as well.  So today was a simple 20 mile ride/4 mile run.  They both sucked.

There was an 18 mph headwind, but that wasn’t it.  I didn’t sleep well last night, but that wasn’t it.  My nutrition for the preceding day was adequate, so that wasn’t it.  I struggled with every mile on the bike and every step on the run.  I wear a heart-rate monitor, and it was slightly more elevated than usual, but I knew that.  I was crabby about the whole headwind thing, and worried about loved ones, but I try not to make excuses; to just accept that there are bad days during training, and today was one of them.

I got it all put down, but it was ugly.  The ride was weak but I finished it in about an hour 20, but the run was were it got really bad – I got to the halfway point…22 minutes to the turnaround (from my house down DeJarnette just past the light at the new elementary school), and then it was walk/run to get back home.  The trip back took over 30 minutes.

Oh well, it happens.  Tomorrow is a 6 mile run and it will be better.  Or it won’t.  That’s the way it sometimes is.

Random iPod song:  Masters of War, Bob Dylan…good for my angry mood.

Thanks for reading…

Brick day:  swim/bike.

Another triathlon training week comes to an end with the completion of the weekly brick…for those of you trying to keep up, that’s the dual-event training day.  Each week includes a swimming day, a running day, a cycling day, and a dual event day (always either swim/bike or bike/run, since that’s how the races go).  Today was swim/bike. 

I really like the swimming workouts; the only inconvenience is scheduling around the community pool lap lane availability.  I’m pleased that our community has water aerobics for seniors, but would it kill them to reserve ONE lane for lap swimmers??  Lanes are open 6-8am, 11am-1pm, then 3-6pm.  Not bad, but not great either.  Factor in as well that on swim/bike bricks we’re looking at the weather as well, and there you have it:  an entire life scheduled around lap lane availability.  When I win the lottery I’m buying one of those $20,000 endless pools – a giant deep bathtub with some kind of motor that puts a current in the water you swim against…go online, I’m not making this up.  (Plus, I guess you have to play the lottery in order to win it…bummer.)

So I hustled to get to the pool for Saturday lap times of 8am-noon (my grandson did a sleepover, so I’m working around fixing him waffles…).  The workout itself was strong…love my goggles, love my suit, love my ironman watch, love my lap counter, love my iPod, even love my very attractive swim cap.  I love how strong I feel when I swim, I love the feeling of the bubbles when I blow out, I love gliding through the water.  I’m still incredibly intimidated by the idea of an ocean swim, but IT IS WHAT IT IS, so I’ll just get over that. 

Then out of the water, into the car, back home, change into the bike stuff and am pedaling within 30 minutes of leaving the pool…not quite the 2minutes 30 seconds I shoot for in a race, but considering the circumstances, not as bad as it could be.  My extra boys (Fez and Danny) joined us (me, Jesse, and Aden in the burley) for the 25 miler.

Mother of a headwind, so we start out right into it so we can have it at our backs when we’re fatigued on the way home.  Jesse fell of the back of the G-train because of dragging the cart, but we just put our heads down and got through it til we got to the Greenway.  My bad.  My poor judgement.  This is the first pretty day we’ve had in weeks of hideously cold weather, AND it was a Saturday; the Greenway was packed.  We were dodging dogs, kids, strollers, other bikes, rollerbladers…bad bad choice.  So we bailed on that at Gen Bragg trailhead (got on at Cannonsburgh), leaving Jesse and Aden to play on the playground while we took off for the battlefield.

Our Stones River Battlefield has a 2 mile, one-way loop that goes past significant sights from that battle in 1863/64 (over New Year’s Day).  It makes a great criterium style circle…you know you won’t be facing any cars coming at you, the speed limit for cars is 25 (which we broke!), and it doesn’t have the same set of walkers/strollers, and very few bikes.  We did that loop 3 or 4 times to get in the miles before heading back to get Jesse and head home.  By then it was well past lunchtime and the fajitas and margaritas at La Siesta were calling…okay, I indulged in the fajitas, but stuck with beer…all those carbs in a margarita – I’m training you know.

All in all a great brick…too much lag time in between, but that’s just how it went down this time.  The end of week 5 is one-third of the way to the taper (the three week, low-mileage prep time leading to the race).  Feeling good.

Thanks for reading.

Today was the run day; 4 easy miles.  I’ve done all my running training either down the street leaving from the house or on the Greenway.  I have a little 5k loop on our farm, but I don’t usually use that when I’m preparing for a race because it’s a trail run, which is a lot different that a street run.  I use different shoes, the terrain is completely different, I have no gauge of the distance other than timing, and I do some calisthenics leaping over branches and avoiding cowpies.  But today was clear and cold and pretty and not too muddy, so off I went with iPod and dogs in tow. 

For those of you who know my dogs, you know Boo the golden retriever runs each and every mile with me, and then some.  She runs up and back and up and back again.  Uga, however, my magnificent English bulldog, has absolutely stepped up and gotten into the fitness groove.  I know, I know, I have to watch her breathing and the heat and all that, but in spite of their genetic issues with that, she has really taken to the jogging.  She stays in sight of me, and doesn’t do all the extra jogging that Boo does, but she seems to just love it…she wants to come every time.  Now she most certainly naps a lot of the day after that, but I think it’s good for her.

It was good for me too…don’t know the distance, but since I usually run about an 11 minute mile, I ran for 46 minutes and then headed back into the house.  It was so cold my iPod quit working until I put it under my shirt and warmed it back up, but it wasn’t breezy, so it was just about perfect.  It’s harder to run the trail, what with the extra balance and obstacle course, but it was a nice change of pace from the usual out and back.

Favorite shuffle tune:  Parliament – P Funk

Thanks for reading.

I’m behind a bit on the blog, but instead of trying to catch up, I’ll just describe today.

I had a half-mile swim, along with a standard strength training workout.  The swim was great.  I felt strong, I love my toys, the iPod really helps pass the laps.  I still struggle with increasing my pace because it alters my breathing pattern.  My coach tells me, instead of trying to swim faster, to add more laps of sprints to my sessions.  That seems to be working; it increases the number of what I call recovery laps, but overall it allows me to complete the laps in a shorter time.

This is the 5th of the 18 weeks to the race…I feel good, nothing seems to hurt (too badly), the distances are increasing.  My biggest fear is still the ocean swim.  I still plan to do a trip to PCB before the race at least once to swim the actual course. 

Everyone who knows I’m doing this has been so supportive and encouraging.  I am so grateful for those words..they echo around in my head when I’m running, riding, and swimming.  I draw on them when I’m puny or stuggling, and they give me a little blast. 

Thanks for reading…

Brick, week 4. 

You know, it’s not the effort. 

It’s not the hassle.

It’s not the cost, equipment, or logistics.

It’s the time.

Anyone can do the training…it’s just swimming, biking, and running.  Some sessions are harder than others, there are some investments in equipment, and you do have to accomodate pool schedules, bad weather, and work.  But honestly, the bigger issue is the time involved in all that training. 

Today I planned to do my swim/bike brick (.5 in the pool, and 25 on the bike).  The first obstacle was the packing.  One bag for the pool (at SportCom), one bag for the bike (MAC), one bag for the shower, then the bag for water stuff (flipflops, towel, ipod water case, lap counter, goggles, swim cap), and my computer bag for work.  Then there is the workouts themselves.  50 minutes in the pool, then a quick shower-off, change into bike stuff, drive over to MAC, bike 25 on the stationary, then a shower.  So I’m make-upped, hair-dried, dressed and ready for the day…at 4:00pm.

The swim was great, and I can’t say enough what a difference it makes to be able to groove my tunes while I swim…it really helps pass the time.  I like mixing up my pace, and I can do it to the random shuffle – the nature of it lends itself to fast/slow pacing.

The bike ride, ehhhhhh.  Not so great.  I said I wouldn’t whine so much in this blog, so I’ll try to be brief:  Stationary bike.  25 miles.  Inside.  Daytime TV shows.  Brief enough?  I just plugged into my ipod again and settled in.  My pace was slower than when I’m outside – I may have had the tension set a little high on the bike.  Anyhow, the weather was below my 40-45 degree borderline, so I opted out.

The brick is down, and it’s only Monday! 

Thanks for reading.

Great day of training today.

Today was the end of the third week of training.  It was the swim day, and the schedule was for 1/2 mile.  I worked in a strength training workout just before the swim, so I had a little fatigue going before I started, but I felt strong in spite of it.  I had all my toys in place…my ironman watch, my waterproof  iPod case, my high-tech, underwater, touch-pad lap counter.  It allowed me to completely focus on my stroke, my breathing pattern, my body mechanics – it was great.  I had a sensational swim, and I was able to put in a few sprint laps. 

I’m refining my breathing pattern – I want to stay with an odd-stroke pattern (every 3rd stroke), but I have to work that into my cardio-vascular fitness so I can sustain that at the speed I want.   I’ve also got to incorporate looking ahead occasionally cuz there is no black stripe on the bottom of the ocean.  There’s so much to think about, it really is helpful to have the lap counter for keeping track and the iPod for entertainment.

Song of the Day:  Officer Krupke from West Side Story.