Upper Arlington 5-Miler + Weekend Recap

Saturday Swim-Bike-Run

Saturday was supposed to be a mock-triathlon triple workout. It started off well, as we got down to the pool and put in a 30 minute swim. Meredith was flying, completing 1600m in the 30 minutes. I was a little slower, coming in around 1400m, I think. At least she was going fast, and I wasn't as slow as I felt seeing her zoom by me.

We then drove out to her parents' house, where we were supposed to begin a 2 hour bike ride. The first street took us into a pretty nasty headwind, and Meredith got a little panicked about how tough it was, and decided to scrap the rest of the day's workouts. We were also going to watch her high school track team in the district meet, so we opted for that instead.

Caught Kremey-Handed!

On our way back from the swim, we stopped by Kroger to pick up some gels for our ride and run. As we left the store, we saw the Krispy Kreme truck parked outside, back door wide open, and full of pallets of sweet, sweet donuts. Sadly, as we sidled closer to get a better look (and sniff), the driver came out of the store with a "Don't think I can't see you guys..." and a smile. No free pallets of donuts for us.

Sunday Bike-Run

Take two.

Sunday began a bit on the chilly side, so we postponed our bike till late morning. Again, we started from Meredith's parents' place, and rode out from there to Croton along the same path I used for my 2:30 ride. When we told our 5-year-old nephew where we were riding, his response? "You should take a car, actually." It's a nice ride for two, since we were able to ride side-by-side for quite a few of the quiet roads. It was a beautiful day, and I'm sure Meredith will post some pictures from the ride.

Because we were running a race the next morning, we shortened the run from 30 minutes down to 1 mile, so we'd still get the brick experience without tiring the legs any more than necessary. Our nephew decided to tag along on his bike and entertain us with his comments.

"And you know what?" (Followed by story after story)
"Actually, Uncle Dave is running faster."
"Actually, Meredith is running faster."
"You guys should try to run a little faster."
"I'm faster than you guys are."

Upper Arlington 5-Miler

I mentioned before that I had a faster half-marathon PR pace than 5 mile pace. This race reminded me why that was. It's not a flat course, for what we're used to around here!

Mile 1 - Mostly flat, with a little bit of roll. Dodging around people, being passed by people you'll see again later...the usual small race things.

8:14

Mile 2 - This mile is almost exclusively downhill, and winds through wooded residential areas. There's a loop at the bottom, and I just got to the point where it splits in time to see the leader.

7:52

Mile 3 - "What goes down, must come back up." There's a bit of a false hope in this mile, too. After you climb for a while, it turns and flattens out, only to head back down again. I just tried to take little steps and not burn out too badly.

8:34

Mile 4 - More uphill, and a nice short stretch on a wooded trail. The runners were pretty sparse near me in this part, and the guy I had picked out to tail stopped to walk. :P

8:30

Mile 5 - Some slight uphill, but probably flat to anyone not from the midwest. I was a little disappointed I couldn't bring it in better than I did, as I felt like I ran faster than my split indicated.

8:24

Overall time: 41:34 (8:18/mile) PR by 1:04, or 19s/mile.

I was happy with the way I ran this race. I tried to adjust my strides to the slope, and I think it worked out pretty well. I didn't fall apart on any of the uphill stretches. There wasn't a whole lot in the tank to sprint in to the finish, but that's probably a sign that I ran well. Or at least that I had done a bunch of workouts this weekend. :)

More Hardware!

So, despite my complete lack of any epee experience, I managed to take home second place in that smaller tournament tonight. (Tempered by the fact that most of the field shared my lack of experience)

I swept my pool except for a loss to my "A" ranked assistant coach, earning myself the 2 seed again, and a first round bye straight to the semifinals. After a close win against the same fencer that knocked me out of the foil tournament semis, I got to face my coach again in the final, and lost 15-4 - better than I thought I'd do.

Lucky for me, the head coach decided on the spot that coaches couldn't get awards, so I ended up taking home the first place trophy, despite my second place finish. It doesn't quite feel justified, but who am I to turn down shiny new hardware? :)

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.

Swim Time Trial 2

Emphasis on trial - I actually managed to get slightly slower since my 1000m time trial a few weeks ago. :(

Honestly, it wasn't a big difference. I finished in 20:07, up from 19:55 last time. 12 seconds over 1000m seems like pretty much the same pace to me, right? It's just the mental side of:

a) Getting slower during training.
b) Going over a big round number.

That's what got to me. Now, for the positives. I choked three times during my swim (should have taken an allergy pill, and we'll just leave it at that). How is that a positive? Well, I had to flip over and kick my way through the rest of the length each time, which probably cost me at least 12 seconds. Take those out, and I might have edged my last time.

The training plan recently hasn't had much swimming, which probably didn't help me either. This month has had each week focusing on one of the events, and I was really sick during swim week, so it's been probably four weeks since I had a solid week of good swimming.

For the weekend, I have another fencing tourney on Sunday. We're also supposed to do a 10K race, but I'm not quite sure if/when I'll do that. I don't really want to do it pre-tournament...but I also know I won't feel like it afterwards. :)

A Boy And His Anomaly

First off, I have to share a quote from our nephew the other day.

Meredith's Dad: "The price of Pepsi is astronomical right now."
J: "You can say that again!"

Guess a 5-year-old's paycheck doesn't stretch as far as it used to!



And now my story. I was reading Andrea's blog today, and I noticed her fine idea of including paces in her PR list on the side of the page. Like any good blogger, I decided to steal the idea.

Little did I know that my half marathon pace is actually faster than my 5 and 10 mile pace! I think I might now have a date with the Upper Arlington Memorial Day 5 Miler. I haven't really been running a lot as part of my tri training, but I would hope I can at least beat an 8:37 pace if I ran a minute faster than that per mile at the end of the OSU triathlon...

A Poem

Dedicated to the guy swimming in the lane next to me who kept trying to race me this morning:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
It doesn't count
If you're wearing paddles.

What can I say, I was a science major. :)

I got to do my longest bike ride to date this Saturday: 2.5 hours out into the Ohio countryside. It was a pretty ride, with some dramatic clouds and springtime farm vistas. It was also the first time (okay, this might embarrass me...) that I put my front gear in the big ring for any extended period of time.

Wow, it really makes a difference.

Now, I know that in a tri, I usually should be in an easier gear so as to keep some legs for the run, right? But it was sure fun to see what I could do. I'm sure they're not great numbers for experienced bikers, but I was excited to hold stretches up in the low to mid 20's, with a max in the high 20s. (28ish? I can't remember now.) Getting out of the city, and even out of the suburbs, made riding a lot more fun. I'll have to get out that way more often on the long rides.

What else did I learn on the ride? I definitely need more calories, whether it's before the ride or during. I took one Hammer Gel with me to eat at the turnaround, along with two bottles of water, but sometime near the 2 hour mark, I really noticed my effort level going up to maintain the same speeds. Next time, I should at the very least have one more gel with me, and it might be good to have a gatorade and some pretzels, or something of that sort.

Race Report - Ohio State Triathlon 2008

Or: "You're a Good Bike, Charlie Brown"

Nervous didn't begin to describe me on Saturday night. I was obsessively staring at the checklist on the little USAT card, making sure I didn't forget anything for the race. How embarrassing would it be to show up to my first triathlon sans helmet, or shoes, or goggles? While Meredith was calmly watching TV, I spent the whole evening back and forth between the bedroom and my staging area behind the couch, carting things back and forth.

Surprisingly, I slept pretty well until the wake up call at 5:15. Our goal (which didn't happen) was to be down at the transition area by 6:30, which would give us plenty of time to set up. We racked our bikes, started getting out our gear, and then realized that we had an assigned rack. Oops. Take two. We went and got our chips, found out our assigned spot, and went to set up again. By coincidence, my dentist was set up two spots over, and we wished each other good luck.

I was a little self-conscious about wearing my bike shorts to the pool, but I certainly wasn't the only one. There was time for a quick bathroom break (Barefoot, ew. But thanks OSU for the most immaculate men's bathroom I've ever seen!), and then it was downstairs to the pool. The swim was a 400 meter serpentine swim, which entailed ducking the lane lines and alternating directions for each lane. They lined us up by estimated swim time, and off went the leaders.

It took about 30 minutes for us to get up to the start line. Just before we were to start, we noticed one guy going the wrong direction in one of the lanes. He had head-on collisions with three or four people, and we pointed him out to a race director, who rolled his eyes and made sure a volunteer stopped the swimmer at the end of the lane. :) Meredith started right before me - 5 seconds later and my first triathlon was underway!

My plan of jumping in next to the wall and beginning with a nice kick went awry, as I jumped too far out, and got a nice "dink" of my toes off the wall. Oh well. My stroke settled in fairly well, and I got a nice rhythm going. Unfortunately, I saw Meredith backstroking, and pulled up at the end of the lane to make sure she was okay. (Aw. And she was.) I passed her, and kicked off into lane 2. Over the rest of the swim, I think I was passed twice, and probably passed three or four swimmers. Mentally, I was trying to stay calm and not think about longer swims ahead, or the fact that the pool was waaaay deeper than the 4' I'm used to. I hit the ladder, and noticed Meredith right on my tail. She had a really strong swim after her initial troubles.

400m Swim (plus some running/stairs to transition): 9:19

We ran together up to transition, or so I thought. She says I was walking, which I very well might have been - it was kind of surreal finally being in the middle of the tri experience. I took some time to sit and dry off my feet before putting on my socks and bike shoes. (The words "You looked like you were getting a spa treatment" may have passed the lips of someone close to me afterwards. :P) By the time I left transition, Meredith was long gone.

T1: 2:35

The bike started out around Ohio Stadium, and then went west and north, before a jaunt down to the Schott and back, and then back across the river to the stadium. Two loops of that made up the course. I started off fairly quick (for me), and erred on the side of harder gears for most of the course. Just before the Schott turnaround on the first loop, I spotted Meredith. I passed her on the way back, and told her I'd see her on the run. Other than a few spare bike parts and potholes in the road, the bike was fairly uneventful. I stayed in aero position for probably 80% of the ride, which is pretty good for me.

20k Bike: 41:51 (17.8 mph)

Back up the ramp to transition we came, which this time I managed more quickly. It was just off with the bike shoes and helmet, on with running shoes and hat, and out the gate.

T2: 1:03

From the start of the run, funny enough, I could see my dentist maybe 25m ahead of me. For the first mile, I worked on narrowing that gap, and right around the first mile marker, I caught her. She tucked in behind me, and stayed there for the next two miles. Just after the halfway turnaround, I saw Meredith flying down the course. She said I had proved my superiority, but I truly still thought she'd catch me, as I wasn't that far ahead. Even though my mile splits were really quick for me, I managed to keep my pace steady, and before I knew it, we were winding around toward the finish. At the last turn, my dentist took off on a dead sprint. Even though I knew I had her on total time because of the staggered start, my competitive juices kicked in, and I did my best to win the race to the finish. Urged on by the announcer and the crowd, I managed to barely edge her by a step or two. I had barely gotten a drink and turned around before I was cheering Meredith in for her finish.

3 Mile(ish) Run: 22:47 (7:36 min/mile)

Total Time: 1:17:34 (4th in age group out of 8)

I really was happy and surprised by my time. The pre-race goals were:

1. Finish and have fun
2. 1:45
3. 1:30

Um...a 1:17 wasn't even on my radar. Although the course was short, my pace was somehow below my 5K PR pace, which was the biggest surprise. The swim was right about what I expected, and the bike was strong for me. Meredith finished around 1:19, also shattering her goal of 1:30. So, it was a successful day for the Gordons!

Next up is probably an international distance tri in a month. But for now, it's back to training!

Monthly Totals - April

Run: 33.3 miles
Bike: 7 hours, 45 minutes (no bike computer for most, so no distance)
Swim: 18050 m (about 11.2 miles)

It sure doesn't seem like much running! But I'm following the plan. The cold this past week didn't help my numbers either, but overall it was a good consistent month.

The swim distance certainly shatters anything I've done before. :)

Time Out

Well, a weekend of tough and fun workouts became a weekend of sitting on the couch blowing my nose. I think I'm on the mend now, but it hit me pretty hard.

Yesterday, I did manage to get back on the trainer, even though I skipped the pool workout. (I don't know how to swim if I can't breathe out my nose?) We did a 75 minute ride with 1 minute sprint intervals every 8 minutes. It felt awful and great to be working out again, all at once. Even though I had to stop occasionally for tissues and more often for coughing fits, I dragged myself through it, and managed an average pace of 13.1 mph. My top speed was about 31 mph, though I only held it for a moment.

Also, in a bit of a book review, I'm currently reading "The Making of the Atomic Bomb", by Richard Rhodes. It was a bit tough to get started, but it's absolutely fascinating, and a much better read than you'd expect for a book so heavy on physics. I'm only about halfway done, but based on what I've read so far, I highly recommend it.

Bleh.

I came down with a cold today. And then I got called back in to work. So now I'm here at 6:30, blowing my nose, and hoping I feel better before the reverse triathlon and epic swim in the works for the weekend.

Bleh.

19:55:56

Better swimmer than expected?
Worse estimator than expected?
Can't count to 40 correctly?

You make the call!

I think I got my count correct, but I lost my concentration on it somewhere around 30, so there's the possibility that I was 2 lengths short. Even so, that would add about a minute, and still put me well under my 25 minute estimate. It certainly wasn't comfortable by the end, but I think that's probably the way a time trial should feel.

Back to Basics

After this weekend's success and a 2-hour ride on the trainer Sunday, my legs have been pretty beat up. I showed up to the gym yesterday for a recovery swim, expecting a nice relaxing day, and instead getting an hour of flailing around feeling like I can't swim. It was the first swim workout in the schedule that didn't include a warmup, which is where I usually get in some drills.

Obviously, consistency is still an issue. While I know that there are good days and bad days, I don't want to risk a day that bad on race day.

So, for today's swim, 4x300 became 300 of drills, and then 3x300. I don't know if it was the drills, better concentration, or just an extra day of rest, but it was much better. I was even the fastest person in the pool for once, and I don't just mean the water aerobics crowd! (Other than one guy. But then I saw he had flippers, so he was immediately disqualified from our imaginary race in which he didn't know we were competing.)

This Saturday is supposed to be my first time trial in the pool - 1000m. However, I think we're going to be in Boston for some race, or something? So tomorrow looks like time trial day. The triathlon we're doing in early May makes you enter a time estimate for your 400m swim, and I put down 10 minutes as a rough guess. That would translate into a 25 minute time trial (would be 0:48ish half iron, 1:37ish iron), so let's mark that down as the goal for now.

E for Effort!

In college at OSU, I did some fencing. I took the classes, and fenced with the club occasionally, but I never tried out for the varsity team. I always sort of regretted that decision (back then, I might have had a shot...not with the current team!), and when I picked back up with my fencing a couple years ago, I decided that earning a fencing classification would go on my life list.

Now, the rules for earning rankings are a little complex (here, if you're interested), but to make it simple, more people + higher ranked people = more and higher classifications awarded. The classifications go from A (highest) to E (lowest), and then U (unrated) for everyone else. On Saturday, I fenced two tournaments: one for only unrated fencers, and one for D and under.

A little more background on fencing tournaments, as well. The first part of a tournament is broken down into smaller pools, generally 5-7 fencers in the tournaments I've done. In your pool, you fence each of the other entrants, first to 5 touches wins. The second part of the tournament is a single-elimination bracket, seeded from the pool results, and each bout is fenced to 15 touches.

The unrated tournament began first. To our surprise, enough fencers registered that the top four spots would be awarded a classification: D for the champion, E for the second place and both third place finishers. (There's usually no consolation bout, so third place is considered a tie between the losers of the semifinals.)

My club had three fencers entered, so our goal was to finish among the top four seeds. That way, we'd be guaranteed not to meet before the semifinals. I felt great in my pool, and it showed in the results. I won all four of my bouts, and only received four touches total against me. It wasn't quite good enough for the top seed - my teammate edged me out with only three touches against, so I took the 2 seed. We were happy to see after the pool rounds that we had indeed taken the top three seeds for the bracket.

Moving on to the elimination bouts, I was probably a little overconfident in my first match. My opponent did very well, even coming in as a low seed. She kept the bout close for the first few minutes before I pulled away. After the win, I realized I only needed to advance one more round to reach the semifinals and get my E ranking! Fortunately, I drew a fencer I had already faced, and had some strategies going in. She was much improved from the last time we matched up, but I managed to win this one as well, with a fair margin. I'd earned my E, but there was little time to celebrate, because the tougher matches were still coming.

Thanks to being edged out in the pools, I had to match up against one of my teammates in the semifinals. He is left-handed, which always gives me trouble, and despite being fairly new to fencing, he and I are fairly even. Fortunately, I jumped out to an early lead, and it was my day. On to the final! Or so I thought.

Remember how I was also fencing in the D & under tournament? At this point, I got called over to start my pool bouts for that one. Despite my best attempts, I couldn't convince them to let me fence my final first, because they were already changing their schedule for me. I decided I was going to be aggressive and end those matches quickly, for better or for worse. My first matchup, who I've faced before, made short work of me, 5-1. Due to the scheduling delays, I didn't get a break, and had to fence a second bout in a row, but I returned the favor, downing the next opponent 5-1.

My reward for those two bouts? Immediately jumping into my final bout for the first tournament, matched up against my teammate. He jumped out to an early lead, and I struggled to stay within range. Then, on what would have been a touch for him, my next challenge reared up.

In competitive foil fencing, fencers wear a mesh jersey that allows the electrical scoring system to register a touch. On one of my opponent's attacks, he hit me, but it didn't register a touch. He asked to test my equipment, and we found that it had a dead spot, which meant I had to change to new equipment. Sadly, I only own one.

I couldn't wear my teammate's that I had faced last, since he's a lefty. So my opponent in the final offered me one of his backups.

He's 13.

Now, I've never worn a corset, but I can now imagine what it would be like. I sucked in my stomach, got the zipper started, and then breathed out to get it zipped up. I couldn't take a deep breath, but somehow it held. We continued our bout, and I fought back. Down 14-13, I thought I blocked his attack and touched him, but I didn't get the call from the referee. So, I fell in the final, 15-13. However, if there's anyone I would have picked to lose to, it was the right person. He and his family showed a lot of sportsmanship by offering me equipment to be able to finish the match, and even brought me water during a break since I didn't have any time to get some before the bout.

The second tournament ended up going okay as well. I fenced fairly well, and finished somewhere in the middle of the pack, but I wasn't too concerned at that point. I got my ranking, and went home happy.

Tris and Quads

I told Meredith yesterday, "Either I'll have the strongest quads ever by race day, or my legs will fall off."

This Wednesday was the first "long" run of the training, a 90 minute run with Meredith and Andrea. For them, it's taper time for Boston, so I managed to hang with them for their 7 miles (for once :) ), and added on another bit on my own at the end. It was nice to get back out there, but I had a right quad that was on the verge of cramping during most of the run. I hydrated pretty well that day, so I'm not sure what was going on there. Afterward, we got our Wednesday night $4 burgers, and I realized I had all of 8 hours or so until a bike ride.

Thursday's ride was back in on the trainer, and honestly wasn't a great ride. After the fun of the outdoor ride, it was mentally tough to focus on pedaling in the living room again.

And after work, the fun really began with fencing practice.

But let's take a step back first. Meredith is quite the napper - she loves to grab an afternoon siesta after work, or exercise, or...well, pretty much anytime. :) I, on the other hand, usually just lay on the couch and watch TV or sit at the computer for my relaxing time. But yesterday, I don't know what happened. I set down my gym bag on the bed around 4:15...

And then I woke up at 4:55, sideways on the bed with my feet hanging over the edge. Tired much? I had to scramble to get my fencing gear together and zipped off to class. Thanks to my lateness, I got to run some extra laps before class started. We began with some shuttle runs and strength training, and here's the spot I thought my legs would fall off, or I'd just end up on the floor some other way.

For those of you who haven't fenced and want to try this exercise for yourselves:

• Place your feet a little more than shoulder width apart.
  
• Turn your back foot (left foot if you're right handed) 90°, so it's perpendicular to your other foot. Keep your weight slightly shifted to your back leg, so you feel it in your quad.
  
• Lower yourself so that your knees are bent. This is en garde position, which should look something like this:
  
  
• Take a small step forward, front foot first, then back foot.
  
• Keeping your back upright (don't lean over!), squat down so that you are sitting on your back heel, which will come off the ground.
  
• Using your quads, push yourself back up to en garde position. Don't straighten your legs!
  
• Take another small step, and repeat down the length of the gym.
  

Let's just say I was looking forward to a swim-only day today. :)

Oh, and a little math I learned today...

(Forgetting to wear bandaids on the first longish run of the season) + (Pool Swim) = Ouch x 2!

First outdoor ride!

It's about time! The weather finally cleared and warmed enough to take the bike out on the streets for the first time.

Speaking of the bike, I'm sort of tired of calling it "the bike". I think it needs a name. I'm leaning toward "Charlie Brown". He's a perpetual underdog, always gets beat by the same girl, but everyone roots for him in the end. Plus, this is an artist's rendition of my top tube as seen from the saddle:



So, Charlie and I took to the streets on Saturday for my two hour ride. First order of business? Those evil clip things that live on my pedals. I walked my bike down to the street where it's flat, and threw a leg over it. Right foot? Check. Push off. Left foot? Check. Hey, that was easy! I rode around our little loop, and came to the stop sign on the other side. Unclip right foot? Check. Stop bike? Check. Put foot on ground? Um...that ground is lower than I remember it...wobble...wobble...reach for curb and narrowly avoid the dreaded slow motion tip-over.

Assess situation...Oh yeah. Get off the saddle first before reaching for the ground. Details, details. :)

Next step - ride around the neighborhood. It amazed me how much smoother and easier this bike rides than my mountain bike. It's no wonder I couldn't keep up with Meredith and friends last time I attempted a long ride with them. I did about 4 miles around the neighborhood, and was feeling good and waving to all the cheering masses. (Pictured below, actual size)



It was time for the real roads.

Now, where we live isn't ideal for biking. On one side we have a very busy 2-lane road with constant lights and business entrances that's really not an option. The other side is a fairly lightly traveled road, with one caveat. It's barely narrow enough for two cars to pass at certain points. We don't especially even like running it, since you can get run off the road. I was nervous to ride it on my first time out, but it was pretty much the only option if I didn't want to drive somewhere. Thankfully, it was uneventful today, and I started up toward town, with one loop around a local golf course.

I started out east on one of the less-populated main roads, and headed for Abercrombie headquarters. On a Saturday, it's a nice flat deserted stretch out in the fields, other than all the half-naked models wandering around in their corrals. I used this part to test out my aero position. Not too bad...it felt comfortable. One problem:



I got to the end of that stretch of road, and paused for a moment to appreciate how quiet it was. The difference between running distance and cycling distance became apparent to me at that moment. From there, I rode another few miles before turning around, and got startled by one of these chasing me:



Fortunately, he stopped at the end of his property. I also saw some of these:



Despite their obvious viciousness, I managed to pedal past without incident, and made it home in 2:00:09. Total mileage (approximate, used MapMyRun.com): 28.55 miles. So, about 14.25 mph, and I wasn't stopping my watch for intersections or riding especially hard. Not too bad for a first try, I suppose.

Oh, if you want to see a video of my course, this pretty much sums it up (wrong state, but still...):

Exhausted

That was the slowest swim ever.

Last night's intervals were wet, but good. I decided to shoot for 600m in my 3 minutes of tempo, which is about an 8 minute pace. Not blazing fast, but...well, that's where I am in my running right now. After the first interval, which was right at 600m, I managed to get somewhere around 650 for the rest, which is about a 7:25 pace. For the last one, I tried to dig deep and get to 700 in the 3 minutes, but I missed it by about 8 seconds. Not sure if the chicken got me, or maybe I was just out of gas after the morning swim-tervals.

So, this morning was a 1500 continuous swim. I wasn't even...um...hausted...to begin with, so it was a fight to complete it. The first 30 lengths seemed like they'd never end (but they did), and by the finish I felt like I was purely kicking from my knees and splashing my arms down hard.

Props to the gym for the "Top Gun" soundtrack that was playing today. Other than "Take My Breath Away". That's not what you want to hear when you're struggling in the pool. :)

Dun dun dun!

Registered for the Muncie Endurathon today.

No turning back now!

My Parents Would Be So Proud

If they weren't halfway across the world right now! They're on a cruise down around the southern end of South America. Really sounds like a cool trip, but 50s and rain isn't so bad, right? Right?

This week, Meredith and I went to the grocery store. The grocery is not an every week occurrence for us, since we procrastinate on it all the time. But that leads to us eating out all the time, which makes for sad wallets, and sad waists. We loaded up on fresh things this trip (what?!), and things that are actually good fuel for our training. Apples, bananas, yogurt, grapes...things that haven't graced our fridge for quite some time. We really want to make a concerted effort this month to eat well, and save the restaurant cash for better things, like triathlon registration. :)

And yesterday, I changed the brake pads on Meredith's Element. If there's one thing I learned growing up, it was how to change brake pads on a Honda. Apparently, it's not quickly forgotten, because I knocked out the whole thing in an hour, even though my socket wrench decided to play hide and seek with me. (It won.)

So, Mom and Dad, this week, I ate healthy, and I changed my own brake pads. Thanks!

Today is interval day, both in the pool and on the track. Got the swim out of the way this morning. I'm pretty sure my 20x75 "sprints" in the pool, translated to land, would be indistinguishable from a normal walk...perhaps a light jog if I was lucky. This afternoon will be a 75 minute interval run, probably in the rain. Fun!

Not. A. Morning. Person.

Last night, Meredith and I got to attend the OSU-Dayton game and send off the Buckeyes to the semis of the NIT. It was the third game in a row we managed to sit in the first three rows, thanks to some timely ticket purchasing, and once again the team didn't disappoint. It was a 9:00 tip-off, though, and by the time traffic cleared out and we got home, it was a fairly late bedtime.

So, 6 AM came early today (or 6:15, in Meredith's case...). I got some granola, laid on the couch to watch the news, and generally was pokey in getting ready for my 60 minute run. When Meredith left, I got down to the treadmill to finish off The Empire Strikes Back and get my run on. It didn't feel great, which I attributed to the late night and long swim yesterday. So, I cut it down to a walk for a bit after each set of strides to let my feet and legs recover before kicking it into gear again. Not my best run, but I got it in, and I already know I can run the needed distance for these races.

I got upstairs to take a shower, and went to take my shoes off. Huh. Not my running shoes. Go figure, the brand-new-worn-three-times $30 knockaround shoes I just bought the other day didn't feel good during a run.

Yeah, not so much a morning person.

Just keep swimming...

Last night, Meredith and I headed down to the gym for a 30 minute recovery swim. After a little drilling, I started in on some light swimming, mixed in with a little bit of ill-advised racing when we happened to be next to each other. :) I could keep up with her for a bit, but I knew that wasn't the best way to do a recovery swim. Also, I knew I'd be doing plenty this morning.

Today's swim was the longest in the training plan to date: 200 warmup, 2000 main continuous, and 200 cooldown. I didn't count laps yesterday, and afterwards realized I had gone close to 800m without a major break. If that was possible, why not 1000? Why not 2000?

And I did it. Continuous. I just got in a rhythm today. Yes, I'm still over-rotating to breathe. Yes, my kick is ugly at times. But I finished 2000 meters without stopping. That's longer than the swim in Muncie. It took me 51 minutes, which some might call a bit slow. I call it under the cutoff pace for IM Austria, with 15 months still left to improve.

Oh, and I forgot to add this initially...I made it to the door of the gym today, looked down, and instead of my water bottle, I had grabbed my tupperware container of apple crisp. It might not be as refreshing, but it certainly would have entertained the other folks in the pool to see me stuffing handfuls of apple crisp in my mouth between laps. :)