Oh May, why you gotta be like April?

I had good intentions this weekend to get some good biking and running in. Alas.

I intended to run 6 miles on Sunday. I'm a little bored on the path so I was going to run 1.5 miles up and back in one direction, and then run 1.5 miles up and back in the other direction. I was 2 miles into the run when the heavens opened up and dumped on me. Now I'm not a shrinking violet, but I was running through the woods and was a little concerned about potential lightning with all those trees. Since I also was having a really hard time with my pacing I decided just to give up and go home after 3 miles. Monday morning when I woke up I was very sore in my quads. I don't know if it was a nutrition thing, an hydration thing, or what, but I was not happy. Still hurts a little bit today even.

I think we are getting far more rain in May than we did in April, weather adages or no. Today I figured I was going to be wet anyway so might as well go to the pool. I started in the deep end to work on sculling and open water "techniques". Then I went over to a lane for laps. I am still far from where I would like my stamina to be. It's very hard work! I'll be able to get another pool session in Thursday and Friday. If the rain cooperates I will bike outside tomorrow. If it doesn't, and my lazy tendencies don't interfere, I'll do a spin session at the gym.

Two Months To Tri

I'm a little less than 2 months away from my first triathlon. Meep!

I have continued to do more swim workouts than biking or running for fear of injury. On May 8 I visited my friend Andrew so he could use myofascial release to release the pressure in my calves. The words "why are you being so mean to me?" may have come out of my mouth, for it was a painful process. Necessary, but painful. Since then my calves have felt so much better! I need to follow up with him for more work, but just one session helped enormously.

On Mother's Day I went for a 20-mile bike ride. I didn't have food in the house so I didn't really eat beforehand, which was a dumb thing to do. I did have a vanilla flavored gel with protein at the 10 mile mark. It tasted like warm super sweet frosting. Yummy? I was very cognizant of my heel position, as I am not interested in screwing up my legs again. For the first 10 miles I was riding against the wind, so that was not quite so much fun. The return trip was much easier with the wind helping me along. Still, that last 1/2 mile was excruciatingly difficult to do! I completed these 20 miles under two hours, which is pretty good for me. I'm going to attempt to get all the way to Manayunk next time.

I started at Betzwood (number 3 on the map below) and biked a little bit past the Spring Mill train station (number 8 on the map) before turning back.

Yesterday (May 14) I did a little running on the treadmill. Earlier this week I bought some new shoes, to have backups when my Saucony's get too worn out (which I don't think they actually are yet). I got another pair of Saucony ProGrid shoes like my current shoes, and I opted to get a pair of Nike Structure Triax 11 shoes instead of the Mizuno Wave Rider(?) shoes. They both felt comfortable in the store, but the Nike's felt a little more comfortable I thought. Skip back to yesterday's run, and boy are those Nike's not comfortable! I don't know what the problem was, but my feet got very hot and uncomfortable. I stopped at one point to loosen the laces, then I stopped again to pull out the insole. Even that didn't really help. I ran about 3 miles all said, but they were the most uncomfortable miles for my feet. I'm going to see if I can take them back to the running store and exchange them for the Mizunos.

I bought some flippers, a nose plug, and some ear plugs last Saturday, which really helped my last swim session! I can even breathe while swimming, some times! I will keep plugging away at the swim; in fact I'll be swimming again today, and hopefully tomorrow. After that the summertime hours kick in, unfortunately.

Mostly Swimming

After my last brick workout on April 19th, my shins have been really hurting. I think I have a little exercise-induced Compartment Syndrome. When I first started running in October 2007 I could feel a lot of pain in my soleus muscles. After a while there wasn't nearly as much discomfort, although it is a consistently weaker area for me. I think the combination of new pedals (and possibly the wrong orientation of clips on my shoes) and running created too much injury. Consequently, I refrained from any biking or running last week and instead went to the pool 3 times. I also worked on stripping the muscles (firm pressure along the muscle fibers), had one of the chiropractors I work with do some ultrasound and muscle stripping, and also did some fascial work to break up the adhered layers. I need a lot more of that kind of work, especially because when I touch the skin on my calves it puckers which means everything is stuck together. You'd think as a massage therapist I would take better care of my muscles, but alas. Happily I am getting some bodywork next week. Woohoo!

If I make it to the pool tomorrow morning I will have swum 3 times. On Monday I didn't get to the gym on time because I was spacey, so instead I did some lat pull downs. I did the pool and lat pull downs and 1.5 mile very very slow paced jog on the treadmill on Tuesday, to see if my legs would cooperate. It was sore, but I made it through. On Wednesday I did the pool and lat pull downs and 30 minutes on the bike. I didn't make it through the entire 45 minute spin because I wasn't feeling great. I still have some paresthesia, and I'll feel the muscle cramp, but overall it's been tolerable. I hope to do maybe some running or biking outdoors on Saturday. Not both, it's too soon for that.

Group Brick

Today I drove into the city for a group brick. Fortunately I knew mostly where to go because of sherpa-ing last year, because the directions from the race website are truly awful. I was still unclear about parking, but I ended up parking in the Red Cross Walk area because they waved me in and didn't care that I wasn't supposed to be there.

We in the moderately slow group biked one 8.5 mile or so lap. Happily we got to see what the route is like; unhappily we got to see how insanely crowded the route was and might be on race day. There was an Alzheimer's walk going on, some other 5k running race, and all the other people who were out and about because the weather is so fabulous. The Alzheimer's walkers were in my opinion kind of rude because they took up the whole walkway. We ended up getting off our bikes to walk through them, and they were still giving us dirty looks! I did not appreciate that. Anyway, I think all the delays is why the fast group didn't do 2 full laps either. Those who wanted to run followed the bike with a 3 mile run.

I met some nice people today, and hopefully I'll even be able to train with them at some point. It was nice to be in a group effort at least once before race day though. I wasn't working on my transition time or even my running time so I have no idea how fast I did anything today. I did set my dual-timer for the return leg of the run. I can't imagine running the whole way without stopping. My training buddy today usually gets in a jog and just keeps that up, but that doesn't so much work for me. I probably slowed her down. Oops!

It was a good experience and probably in late June I will try to do the land part of the course again on my own. Now, however, I'm going to go outside and enjoy this gorgeous weather!

Scratching My Head

I had a very "what happened" moment yesterday. I went for a 3 mile run. I like to run with music to keep me motivated, so for the last couple of times I've kept the interval timer display on my watch because I don't hear the beeps. So I haven't been paying much attention to the minute/mile figures. Imagine my surprise yesterday to fine I shaved about 1min/mile off my usual time! Instead of 12.5 minute miles I was doing 11.5 for all three, not just the first one (like usual)!

Today I went back to the bike store to have them swap out my pedals. I also bought my own pedal wrench and a couple more pairs of bike shorts. Then I went to the park on this glorious day and rode for an hour. I pushed for the first mile and was about a minute faster than I was before clipping in. Then I just sort of relaxed and didn't watch the clock. I also wasn't watching the mileage so I don't know how many miles I got in.

Tomorrow will be another swim day. Unlike Tuesday though I'm going to attempt to actually swim and not just try to get comfortable with my face in the water. (Which didn't actually work. Breathing and water are unmixy things for me.) Then on Saturday is a group bike/run brick workout. On Sunday I am resting!

Whew!

I think I took Thursday off. Is it bad that I can't remember?

Friday I took my clipless shoes (now with cleats!) and did the 45 min spin session with them. It was really interesting to see which parts were easier and which were still hard. I liked it. I still haven't gotten the pedals on my bike, but that isn't the end of the world.

Saturday was the swim clinic. Really interesting and I learned a whole lot. Got some spiffy new tools too. I still had feelings of inadequacy in the pool for lo the water still freaks me right out when trying to breathe. I didn't get into the lane where they were taping, but at some point the camera did pan over to me a little. Good news is I had pretty good form when I was swimming. I just have to work on the breathing thing. Everyone assures me it will get better and I will manage it. I hope so! It was a gorgeous day. When I got home after swimming I looked at putting my new pedals on, but I didn't have the right tools. I did clean my chain though with some new lube. Last time I rode my bike on Easter I was squeaking so I wanted to fix that.

Today I ran 6 miles in 76 minutes. I'm about where I was for the 10k run. Unfortunately I have positive splits, if I understand that correctly. My first mile was 11.5 min, but the time per mile steadily increased until the end. About the only good thing from my perspective was trying out my Tropical Fruit flavored Cytomax. Which is pretty tasty!


My goals for this coming week are to get in the pool as many times as possible, even if I'm not working on any drills or techniques. I will be doing the dry land drills, and possibly that's all I will focus on this week for actual swimming. I think I'll aim to run 3 miles again. If the weather's nice I might skip the spin dvd and just go for a bike ride for the short one. This Saturday has a Rookie Tri Group brick, I think. I like to have my long workouts on Sunday, but I'll just have to get over it for this week.

The week so far.

Yesterday I did 20 laps in the pool (1000 meters). They weren't pretty, but I did them. How I'm going to do 30 laps and bike 25 miles and then run 6 I am not sure. Wait and see! I am still muchly looking forward to the swim clinic. Please help, swim coaches!

Today I ran 3 miles. I was going to aim for 5 or so but didn't leave the house in time. I'm still running at 12.5 minutes per mile. In this case I'm pretty sure the tortoise (me) will not beat all the other hares.

Tonight I'm going to buy pedals and cleats. Woo!