Brick: House

Cold + Wet + Rush Hour = Trainer

Unfortunately, today's morning brick* had to begin in the living room due to the above conditions. The Today show took me through a fairly easy spin on the trainer for an hour, and then it was out the door for a 30 minute run. During the first brick a couple weeks ago, I had a tough time getting my pace below 10 minute miles. This time, however, I was moving much more easily. I wish I had splits for the miles, because the first one felt slow, but I ended up finishing 3 miles in 26 minutes and change, and my effort wasn't even very high! It was really nice to have an easy workout with some encouraging results. Am I actually getting faster?

Fencing this weekend was a success as well. I placed third in the foil tournament, tempered only by a bad semifinal loss. I don't get frustrated purely from losing (much), but I do get frustrated when I don't do my best. That match was one of those times - my electric cords kept failing, so when I attacked, the machine kept stopping the match. I don't blame the loss on it by any means, but it was mentally tough to keep focused.

The good side of the tournament was that I beat a "D" ranked lefty in my preliminary pool bouts. This same fencer had knocked me out of my last tournament with a 15-3 thrashing, and it felt great to come back and get a little revenge. I went undefeated in my pools (defeating 2 D's), and earned the 2 seed for the eliminations. Again, a good sign, because I traditionally don't do so well in the pools when I match up against ranked opponents. I beat a fellow E 15-4 in my quarterfinal before bowing out.

I also entered the epee tournament, which, due to time constraints, will be completed at tonight's practice. It was pretty funny seeing all our foilists (myself included) trying to hit arms and legs and missing horribly. Epee touches feel cheap to me, though...clipping someone on the wrist just doesn't feel like a real score. That said, it's kind of fun to have a change of pace!

* For my non-triathlete readers, a brick is a back-to-back workout combining two or more of the sports.