A 4 hour ride doesn't lead to a 2 hour run very well

I tried to run today. It hurt. A lot. It was hot, humid, and my legs were friend from yesterday's workout. That's pretty much the only thing that I can say. I ran 9 miles in 1:33 which is around 10 minute miles if that puts it into perspective. I was suppose to do 2 hours but there was no way that I could do it today. Ok, I could but I didn't want to. I went to swim and my feet kept cramping. It hurt, too. My toes were pointing in directions that they've never pointed before. I only got 600yds in and then I was done. I'm not going to complain more about my workouts this weekend because I know why they were bad workouts. However, they give me more motivation for the future. Now, I'm home and I'm recovering.

New Balance mileage: 89.5 miles
Nike mileage: 91.5 miles
Weekly run mileage: 24.5 miles

3 Hours

That's about the amount of time that I can ride my bike now before my legs get really tired. I'll get to that in a minute though. Thursday's time trial was canceled due to the rainy weather. It sucks but it happens. Friday morning was a swim and I made a conclusion. I'm just not enjoying swimming lately. I almost despise it, actually. I just get in the water and put one arm in the water. I don't have the passion for it that I used to. I just can't wait to get done. I don't feel like pushing myself as much as I used to. It's just annoying at this point. I'm not getting any faster. Maybe part of it is that I have to get up at 4:30 in the morning to swim and I'm doing good to get to bed by 10:00 the night before. Lately, I've been loving my sleep so when I'm not well rested, I'm grumpy. When I get up to swim at 4:30, I'm not well rested and I'm grumpy and I don't like being grumpy. What am I going to do about this? Hell if I know.

Saturday was actually on OK day. I rode 3:40 and the weather was pretty good. Started off somewhat cool and cloudy. Later on, the sun came out and of course, it rained a bit. Luckily, it just sprinkled about 5 minutes from the end of the ride. Like I said, it wasn't until about 3 hours into the ride where my legs starting hurting and I was getting a bit slower. This was my longest ride in a very long time. I was suppose to do some 45 minute intervals at race pace, but I just needed to see if I could do this long. From today's somewhat painful ride, I need to make sure I do the rest of the long rides until my HIM in October. I also did a 42 minute brick run after the bike ride. It was better than my usual horrible brick runs, but it still hurt. I would be going really slow trying to keep my heart rate down and my heart rate would stay 160+ and sometimes I would hit around 170 when I didn't feel like it should be that high. Also, I was completely burning up during the run. I had 4 bottles of fluid during the bike which is a lot lower than it should've been. I felt like I had enough calories in my though. I don't know what to do to get over this besides just keep training for it.

New Balance mileage: 80.5 miles
Nike mileage: 91.5 miles

Another 3800yds but I was tired

I swam 3800 yards this morning. I was tired though. Very tired. Not physically exhausted, but just sleepy tired. I have been ramping up my training lately and I think my body is requiring more sleep because of it. Then, when I don't get 7-8 hours, I feel it a lot more. It makes sense though. Other than that, not much else is going on right now. I'm resting the rest of today and then I have a South Mopac time trial tomorrow night with Texas Iron. I love those! However, I don't think I'll be able to improve on my time from last time. I feel like my biking has been suffering lately since I've been putting focus on running and then swimming which is to be expected. We'll see how I do. I have been slacking off on my long rides on Saturdays due to the weather. I need to get my ass in gear because I have a half Ironman in just over 2 months and my longest ride so far this year has been about 35 miles.

Oh, I guess I can talk about my medical terminology class. I'm learning about the different systems of the body. It's not quite an anatomy class, but it is close. I have gone through most of the chapters so far and most of the time I'm fine. However, the urinary system, especially the kidneys, and the section about the skin completely gross me out. Most of the time, people freak out about the digestive system because they have an aversion to poo or something like that. For me, seeing a diagram of a cystic kidney just grosses me out. Also, seeing all different kinds of skin issues like lesions and different forms of advanced skin cancer just turns my stomach. I'll get over it by the time I'm done with anatomy in the spring or I'll end up throwing up on a cadaver. Right now, I'm studying the endocrine system. This shit is tough because I have to memorize a bunch of hormones, what their 3 different names are, what they control, and where they are produced. Also, I have to say that it's pretty amazing about how much of the body these very tiny glands control. The parathyroid glands are each the size of a grain of rice. The function of the pineal gland is poorly understood and the function of many other structures of the endocrine aren't that well known either. I also find it amazing that these tiny glands produce so many different hormones and I'm really curious about how they do it. How much of a hormone is needed in the blood stream to make a noticeable change in the body? Is just a single drop enough to use for an entire year? It's amazing stuff and I love learning about it.

Good run and good wine

My weigh in yesterday was 184.5. The yoyo is getting shallower but hopefully it'll start a downward trend soon. Part of that work for a downward trend is the run that I did tonight. It was very similar to my Tuesday run 2 weeks ago. After a 15 minute warmup, it was 8x1 mile repeats. Each odd one was on the track and the even ones were on the trail. The track mile repeats were coming in at about 7:20-7:35 or so with a heart rate of around 160-165bpm. Oh, these were suppose to be at half mary pace and I think that was about right, maybe just a little too fast. The trail repeats were fine. It's tough to judge since I go by time instead of distance. After a 10 minute cooldown, I did about 11 miles. Once again, I feel absolutely fine. I'm really happy that my body is adjusting to running distance now. i skipped swimming this morning. Shit has been bothering me from work and I couldn't sleep last night and I just needed to sleep in this morning. I almost took a "sick day" today, but I had a glass of wine last night and I'm having a glass of red wine tonight as well. It's decent wine. Somewhat on the dry side with a bit of fruitiness as well. Also, I'm on track to run 31 miles this week if I get all my run workouts ins this week. I'm running with my orthodics and they are feeling fine.

New Balance mileage: 80.5 miles
Nike mileage: 87 miles

Yoga, Swim, Run, No Bike

I went to yoga on Friday night. I thought it was going to be bad, but it wasn't. I was a little tight at first, but I eased into it and was fine. I was a little bit tight and not as flexible, but it wasn't bad at all. My balance was a little off, though. I'm surprised that I didn't lose much flexibility because I almost never stretch these days. Afterwards, I went to the Central Market Cafe and ordered the thai yellow curry noodles. Now, I normally don't send food back because I'll eat almost anything, but I had to send this back. The texture was just disgusting to me because it was made up of mostly slimy, clear noodles that I've never seen before. I got the penne pasta instead and it wasn't much better.

Saturday was a skipped workout because I was working on the house. I did make some quinoa and salmon again though. It also rained about 4 times on Saturday.

Sunday was a 3200m swim. Nothing special. Then, I did a 75min run which was slow and was a distance of 8.2 miles. I feel great so far today. However, I think I got sunburned on my face, though. I'm usually pretty good about putting it on but I just forgot today. Part of it was that I was still wet from my swim and it wasn't going on very well.

Oh, something interesting. I get a lot of free gels from various things. I decided to take a HammerGel since I don't like them that much. I looked at the expiration date and guess what it was. 07/22/2007. just in time!

New Balance mileage: 80.5 miles
Nike mileage: 76 miles
Weekly run mileage: 14 miles

Pretty good run

I had a pretty good run last night. It was with Texas Iron. The run was a 45min fartlek run with intervals of 5,4,3,2,1min with 2min easy in between. I got in close to 5.5 miles in about 44:45 which is a pace of about 8:10/mile. My knees were really creaky at the beginning but they warmed up and then my IT band on my right was hurting a bit. Nothing cool to note besides I was running on the trail and a black lab was coming straight at me. I stopped and yelled at the dog and scared the crap out of it and the owners of the dog were laughing. It was just a good run. Oh, I ran in my orthodics and they were fine.

I weighed in at 183.5 this morning so I have this yoyo thing going on again. I'm going to go to yoga tonight because I haven't gone in awhile and I just need to try something different that I haven't done in awhile.

New Balance mileage: 72 miles
Nike mileage: 76 miles

3900yds

I swam 3900 yards this morning. It was a tough workout because I didn't swim but 1200 yards last week. It's weird that skipping a week of swimming because it feels almost the same as skipping swimming for 3 months. This was a tough workout as well. We usually do 3200-3400 yards but this morning we did 3900 yards. We were doing sprints and intervals all the way to the end, too. I know that is where you really get faster so I stuck it out even though I was stinking it up. I feel good that I finished it completely, though.

Eh, just a ride

After resting since around noon on Saturday until 6pm tonight, I did a workout on the spin bike at the gym at work. I could've rode outside, but I've found it to be tough to get good intervals in on the road. If I want to get a good workout in and follow what my coach tells me, then I do it on the spin bike. If I just need to get outside, I'll go outside. The workout was a 75min spin with 2x(4x4min fast, 2 min easy). Man, I'm feel like I'm getting out of shape a bit on the bike, but that is expected with me concentrating on running and then swimming more. I'll bounce back pretty quickly though.

Cool website

Not much to add besides the fact that I found this website which I think is pretty good for the amateur nutritionists out there:

http://www.nutritiondata.com/

Also, my weight this morning was 186.5. This was to be expected after I had a decent amount of beer this weekend and I also went on a calorie replenishing weekend as well.

Sunday run on Saturday

Yeah, I did my long run on Saturday today. For some odd reason that I have no clue why, I seemed to have a better run than when I do a long bike and a brick run the day before. I did 13.1 miles in about 2:03. It was humid again and my body felt fine. I felt my hip a bit, but just a little bit and it didn't really bother me. I then went and swam 1200yds in Deep Eddy. I would've swam more, but I was starting to cramp. Also, I did drink the pool water this time.

New Balance mileage: 72 miles
Nike mileage: 70.5 miles
Weekly run milage: 24.5 miles

Ouch

You know that "recovery" ride that I did on Wednesday? That ride completely toasted me. I did a brick workout on Thursday with Texas Iron. We were suppose to do 2-4 loops of a hilly 4 mile bike and then a 1 mile run. I did only 2 of them. Even on the warmup one, my legs were on fire and then on the one that I was suppose to go harder, I couldn't go. I called it quits and realized that I needed recovery. Because of that, I also skipped my swim workout this morning as well. I just needed sleep and rest because I haven't been doing much of either lately. Also, I weighed in at 185 this morning. What the hell? My plans this weekend are to do my long run tomorrow instead of Sunday. Sunday is the Couples Triathlon and I'm volunteering for it. I probably won't get a chance to work out that day because I have some people coming over to finish up my bathroom so I can finally get that done.

New Balance shoe mileage: 59 miles
Nike mileage: 70.5 miles

Hard ride with guys from work

Ok, they really aren't from work, but we used to be part of the same company. I rode during lunch today with some guys from AMD. They usually have group rides during lunch 3-4 days a week and today was the first time I rode with them. We left at 11:30. The pace at first was a little too slow for me. We also had a group of about 8 of us of differing abilities. Once we got out onto the open roads, it was 5 of us in the front group. Man, those guys made me work today. My problem is that I would get dropped on hills or right after I would pull. Not fun and my heart rate was nearly pegged. I had a total time of 1 hour 30 minutes on the road so I probably had about 1:20 of ride time.

I was going to point out about how rainy and cloudy it has been lately because I don't have the nice triathlete tan lines. You know what I'm talking about. The outline from the sleeveless jersey and the sharp lines from tri shorts on the legs. Well, I developed the sleeveless jersey tan lines today. I put sunscreen on my face and my tattoo but didn't put on the arms or legs. I usually get these tan lines in March or April if that's any indication of how it's been here lately.

21.5 miles in 60 hours

Well, I did somewhat of a track workout tonight. Did 15min for warmup and then 6x1 mile repeats. The odd ones were around a track and the even ones were around the trail. I did them in about 7:45 which is about half marathon pace for me which is what was on my workout. Then, did 10 minute cool down. This was about a total of 9 miles or so. I did 12.5 miles on Sunday so this was 21.5 miles in about 60 hours. How do I feel? I feel fantastic. Nothing hurts or aches really badly. Right now, I don't feel like I just ran 9 miles. My knees aren't aching at all. I think the strategy this year of ramping up very slowly is working great. My body is getting used to the increased load and I'm increasing it at a pace that my body can handle. It's working out for me and I'm happy about it.

New Balance mileage: 59 miles
Nike mileage: 68.5 miles

Wart Update

You remember the bane of my existence last year which caused me to have 4 injuries last year? If not, here is the before picture.



Well, I've been going to the doc for almost a year now, actually over a year, to get rid of this fucking thing. Well, I think it's dead now. My doc has been treating it with Bleomycin and it appears to be working. Here is a picture of this fucker from 2 days ago.



Ah, much better! I have hopefully the final checkup on this guy in 2 weeks and I'll be done with this damn thing.

I can't sleep but I have to be up at 5:30 to do a track workout. Blegh. I weighed in at 183.5 yesterday. The cycleof 183.5 on Friday/186.5 on Monday has been broken! Woohoo! We'll see how this week goes but I'm starting to feel thin again.

I was so thirsty that I drank the pool water and it was good!

Yes, I drank the pool water today. On purpose. And it was very, very refreshing. But let's back up a bit. This morning was my usual long run. I was suppose to 1:45 today and I did about that. It was closer to 1:50 or so. I stopped my watch at one point and forgot to start it again. Either way, it was my longest run since IMFL. I did a total of 12.3 miles as well. It was hot and I tried to stay on top of my hydration, but I only peed once during the run. On a good note, nothing really hurt during the run so my hip issues are going away. I felt them a bit, but not much. While I was running, I realized that I've done only 5 runs that have been a half marathon or more. I did two half marathons last year, a half Ironman, a 14.5 mile training run, and then Ironman Florida. Wow, that's really not that many long runs. I started thinking about this because I know that I have a 2 hour run next Sunday which will put me over 13.1 miles. Also, I run so much faster in a race than I do on my training runs because my heart rate was really high again today, but I was able to keep moving today. Also, I've been running relatively injury free for 6 months now. That is the longest injury free stretch that I've had in my entire life. I'm quite happy about that.

OK, that go way off track. I did a 12.3 mile run today and I was suppose to do a recovery swim of 60 minutes afterwards. I wasn't going to swim 60 minutes, but I'll still do a swim. I headed over to Deep Eddy, showered off the sweat and jumped in. Like I've said before, it's a spring fed pool that is about 68-70 degrees. I'm not used to cold water but this water felt so good after the heat of Austin. I just did 6x200yds and called it quits. On the first lap, I was dying of thirst from the run. I was completely tired and hot and dehydrated. The water was very cool and refreshing. So, I opened my mouth and swallowed a gulp. Oh, it tasted so good. It was as refreshing in my mouth as it was swimming. I just needed a drink of water pretty badly and the pool water was just wonderful. Yes, I know that it's disgusting and people pee in it and all that stuff, but I needed water at that point and I was surrounded by it. I probably wouldn't have done it in a chlorinated pool but this fresh water pool was just what I needed. I finished my very easy 1200 yards and now I'm home. I'm exhausted and I don't want to move for the rest of the day, but I know that I'll have to.

Ok, some random thoughts now. My injuries are clearing up it seems. I've been injury free for about 6+ months now. There were a ton of women not wearing bras at Town Lake today. Town Lake looked like a fast moving river with some rapids in a few parts because of the flooding. I have a blister on my big toe on my right foot that every pair of shoes gives me. I need to start putting Body Glide on my crotch when I do long runs. I think my form is getting better and it's getting more natural so that I maintain my form when I get tired.

New Balance mileage: 59 miles
Nike mileage: 59.5 miles
Weekly run mileage: 16.5 miles

Horrible brick workout

Man, I just had an absolutely horrible brick workout today. Let's begin with the beginning first, though. I got up early to ride and as soon as I walked outside, I say some dark gray clouds to the south of my house. Unfortunately, that was the direction that I was planning on riding today. I went back inside and got on the trainer. Man, that's boring. After about 35 minutes, I couldn't stand it anymore. I looked outside and it looked pretty decent. Then, I checked the weather and there wasn't any rain to the west. Screw the training, I'm going outside! I went outside and rode for another 2 hours and 25 minutes. I did 2x30min at race pace with 15min easy in between. Nothing special there but I'm glad I rode because the sun starting coming out after the clouds cleared up. That was the nice part of my workout.

Now, the hellish brick run. I don't whether I was dehydrated, bonking, not use to the heat, not well rested, or whatever, but that run completely sucked. I couldn't breathe very well. My heart rate was sky high as well. I felt like I was running really easily but I would look down and my heart rate would be at 170bpm. What the hell? I ended up getting just over 4 miles in about 42 minutes so I was S-L-O-W. Hopefully, my long run tomorrow will be a lot better. I just can't figure out what happened to me. It definitely wasn't mental alone because my heart rate was so high. It had to be dehydration. I usually drink a liter of water in the morning before I work out, especially when it's hot, but I didn't do that today. I also lost 4 pounds of weight while I drank 4 liters during all of my workouts. It had to be dehydration, possibly with a bit of bonking.

New Balance mileage: 46.5 miles
Nike mileage: 59.5 miles

Why do I do what I do?

This thread is just a brief reason why I do triathlons. Seeing that many people turn their lives around is just wonderful to see. It's just amazing some of the before and after pics. I'm sort of jealous because I can't ever say that I've lost 100 pounds. My the lowest I've ever been since I started college was 168 and the highest was about 202 so that's only a 34 pound range. Ok, enough of me. These people are truly inspiring.

Rain sucks

Man, if you pitiful non-Texans, ;-), haven't been reading the news lately, Texas has been getting dumped on with rain. Seriously, we have more rain so far this year than all of last year and all of the year before that. It's good because I haven't had to water my grass so far. The bad thing is that I've had 2 workouts canceled this week because of the rain. And it's a crap shoot whenever I try to go for a long ride on the weekends. I'm taking Fiona, the Fuji beater bike, out for a ride on Saturday and I don't care if I get wet.

This morning was a swim of about 3300 yards. Not bad. Yesterday was a missed brick workout because of the rain. That's my update since Wednesday. I do wish my swim workouts started a little later in the morning. Right now, they start at 5:30 on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and at 5:45 on Tuesday and Thursday. That's just really early to get up and if I want to get 8 hours of sleep the night before, I have to go to bed at around 8:30 which just seems lame. It's what I choose to do though.

I weighed in at 183.5 this morning. I seem to be in a pattern where I weigh 183.5 on Friday and then 186.5 on Monday for the last few weeks. I have to break that pattern. The good thing is that the bane of my existence is gone now. There was this lady at work who kept a candy jar full of chocolate, my weakness, about 9 feet from my cube. Now, she's left the company and her candy jar is gone, too. Woohoo! My goal is to be at 180 by the end of the month and I think I can do it.

Also, does anyone want to see anything else on my blog? Do you want to see more of a mental aspect of the struggles that I face sometimes? Do you want to see my thoughts on the triathlon community because I have a lot of thoughts about triathletes and the triathlon community that are positive and negative? I'm trying to see what people want to see because I don't mind sharing but I'm wondering how deep people want me to go.

July 4th Update

Well, it appears that my coach has a mini swim block for me. Today was my third swim in 4 days and I have a total of 5 swim workouts in 8 days. Sunday was about 3200 meters. Monday was a rest day. Tuesday was another 3300 meters with a track workout that didn't happen because of the rain. Wednesday was about 3000 yards with 75 minute easy spin later in the day. Oh, the weather was pretty damn nice today. About 80, mostly cloudy, and not that humid. Windy though since it is Texas. The swim this morning was a horrible swim. Not horrible but I was fatigued from yesterday's workout. It's amazing how having a rest day in between workouts will help you heal and how much you can noticed it when you do back to back days with the same discipline. Oh, on the Tuesday workout we did 6x100m sprint. I lead the first 4 and that was fucking tough. I was tired, but I kept pushing because I wanted to work. Another dude went on the 5th one and he was behind me on the previous 4. Afterwards, he said he burned himself out on that one that he lead. I told him it wasn't so easy in the front and he agreed. We then had Nellie go on the 6th one and once again, she said it was so much harder not drafting off anyone. And that's why I like to go first; it's harder in the front and it'll make me a faster swimmer. Oh, and Maurice is saying that my stroke rebuilding is coming along nicely. There are some things that are quite different than when I first learned how to swim so it's a little difficult to adjust. What else? Oh, I weighed in at 186 on Monday.