Happy Earth Day

I just wanted to take a moment and recognize Earth Day. I'll admit that I really didn't do much to celebrate, which is unfortunate. But it just didn't fit in my schedule. I had the dogs with me today so I couldn't bike to work. I drove. By myself. Can't get much worse...

At least I did get outside to enjoy this beautiful weather and admire the greenery. I know it's not going to stay green for long, so I'll enjoy it while I can. I had a long run to do today and I had to split it up because I just didn't have a big enough time slice today to do it all at once. So, 8.5 miles this morning and another 8.5 after work. Surprisingly I did them both in about the same time. I was expecting the second one to be much worse. I always run better in the morning, even if it's all Z2. I think it's because I'm not fully awake and therefore don't recognize pain or discomfort. I also had some Z4 which I saved for the afternoon and I'm always dead after these sets. I have to slow down to an 11 min. pace to get my HR to come down. So it kind of kills any average.

But they were good runs. Not much to complain about other than the fact that I had to split them up. But I once read somewhere that the overall benefit is the same. I believe the example they gave was that if you did 6 miles in the AM, another 6 in the PM, and another 6 the next morning, it would yield very similar results as running 18 straight. But there is that whole mental aspect that this doesn't account for. And that's a very important aspect when it comes to Ironman. But, in this particular case, I think there is something to be said for doing long runs after work. I know for me that I start out being mentally drained from work and sometimes just physically tired and I think this is great preparation for Ironman. The run comes late in the day when you're mentally and physically exhausted. So I'm sort of simulating it. I think it's a good exercise to do every now and then.

Complete random comment...I learned today that the word "questionnaire" has two n's. I never would have guessed this and I consider myself to be a good speller. I haven't looked up the reasoning or if there's any rule, but it certainly doesn't apply to "millionaire" so I really don't know what the logic is. And this is probably why English is considered to be so hard to learn. We're so inconsistent...

Spring Once Again

27 mile ride (hills)

Hopefully this time it will stay. I'm so over winter. Now if I can only do something about the wind...

I was finally able to ride outdoors. Even better, I had to do hills. There's nothing like doing hills after being indoors for weeks to make me feel so out of shape and so unready for the CDA course. There's not really an opportunity for me to feel fast when doing hills, so it really is quite depressing. I'm not sure that I can really find much appreciate from this workout either. I did the back side of Old Stage twice as well as a small stint up Lefthand. Although they were in Z4, they were all really slow and I wouldn't say I felt great. All it really left me with was the feeling that I still have a long way to go before CDA which unfortunately is no longer a long ways away.

My HR seems to be relatively back to normal. It's a little hard to say with the bike since I recently adjusted my zones and brought everything down about 10bpm. My run on the treadmill was normal and the perceived effort was pretty much in line with the numbers, so I guess I'm back on track. Apparently my stress numbers have come back to a more reasonable number (from -40 something to -30 something to -9). I have been making a concerted effort to drink a lot of water. Even if it means getting up to pee 3 times a night. Most likely I'm already getting up to cover Mobi (yes, my very high maintenance dog requires being tucked in at night and several times during the night he'll get up to stretch and shake thereby losing his blanket. He then has to come stand beside me and whine so that I'll get up and cover him again. What better opportunity to take a pee break. Interestingly enough, he does not exhibit the same behavior if I let him sleep on the bed for the whole night. So when I know that I really need sleep, I'll let them up on the bed. Enough digression. Mobi gets enough attention as it is - he doesn't need blog postings in addition.).

So yeah, hydration. I'm trying to stay on top of it.

Time Warp?

So, supposedly it's mid-April. You'd never know it by the weather we've had the past few weeks. It seems like we're going backwards in time. Perhaps this is why my training seems to be losing ground.

It was a stabilizer week and I certainly took full advantage. I never really got my long run in for the week. I ended up back on the treadmill on Saturday and I always feel like I have to push a little bit harder on the treadmill since it's kind of cheating. Though it is much more mentally challenging. So maybe it evens out. I did a short swim after the run but I was pretty drained, so I cut it short. Very short.

I was hoping that today would be dry enough to ride outside. Perhaps it was and I was just too lazy or just not up for it. Driving around in the morning, some intersections were still pretty messy. I decided that I just really didn't have it in me to face the outdoors so I'll admit that while it was finally sunny and 60 degrees, I headed back downstairs to the trainer. But I did have Return of the King to get through. This might be my only chance. I will say that I was pretty surprised when I went to do my run off of the bike to discover how warm it really was. My excuse about the slushy roads seemed ridiculous. Oh well. Stablizer week. I promise I'll do all my rides outside this week.

Saturday: 8 mile run, 1500m swim
Sunday: 126 min. trainer, 2 mile run

Drowned Rat, but Hard Core

This picture really doesn't do it justice...I was a sopping mess.


I ended up taking another day off yesterday in the hopes it would cure my high HR woes. Besides, it was rainy and crappy yesterday and it's a little hard to motivate oneself to run. So I saved up my run for this morning. I woke up several times during the night and kept looking at the window. Still no snow. Despite the fact that everyone was claiming 10-24 inches. I was thinking that I might luck out after all - the storm wouldn't come and I'd be able to ride outside this weekend.

No such luck. The alarm went off. Still no snow. But I really didn't want to get out of bed. I decided to reschedule for lunchtime. Since there wasn't any snow, it was pretty unlikely that we'd get all 10-24 inches by noon. It was still raining at 11:30 when I started to psych myself into running. I checked the weather. About 2 miles north of me, there were 20 mph winds from the north. About 2 miles south of me, there were 2 mph winds from the west. Why are there 2 weather zones between north and south Boulder?

My team looked at me like I was nuts. They didn't even want to leave for lunch. I put on all my layers and headed outside. My Garmin could not find a signal and I didn't want to stand out in the wind and rain waiting. Besides, 2 Garmins's ago, I ran in the rain and the whole thing steamed up and started to fill with water. I didn't want to take that chance again (they'd replace it, but I just don't want to waste 2 weeks waiting for the new one). So back inside I went and dropped it off with my clothes. I left the heartrate strap on because it was too many layers to get through to take it off. Finally I was off and just as I started, it turned to snow. I appreciated this. Somehow it just doesn't seem as awful - running in the snow versus running in the rain. I headed south and sure enough, the weather changed. The snowflakes were HUGE and the slush was starting to accumulate. I was kicking up water with every step and could feel it seeping through my shoes. I saw my first partner in insanity around mile 3. Another runner sloshing, slipping, and splashing by. By this time, every step had my foot submerged in slush. I could feel the sloshing in my shoes. But there wasn't much I could do about it at that point. It was really so bad. I wasn't cold, so it was almost a little fun. And then I turned around. I had forgotten the winds from the north thing and was promptly reminded as soon as I turned around. Snow whipped my face, painful at times. It was hard to see and I was starting to get cold. It wasn't so fun on the way back. I only saw 2 other crazies out after the first guy.

Had I been home, I would have weighed my clothes to see how much extra weight I had picked up. I probably also would have wrung my clothes out into a bowl just to have that visual comparison. But I was at work, so I had someone take a picture instead. But it really doesn't capture it. My gloves were so wet at the ends, it was like the tips were weighted with lead. I had to kind of hold my hands up or they would have fallen off. The bottoms of my pants were so full of water that I slung water with each step. All 3 layers were soaked through. My cheeks and chin were red from being pelted by the northerly snow.

But I got almost 7 miles in and at a nice pace (all estimated of course). I have no idea how my HR was behaving but I didn't feel like I was working too hard, so I'm hoping it was back to normal. And because I braved the weather, it made it a whole lot easier to blow off swimming tonight. Especially when it looks like this (it's much nicer to stay inside by the fire and just look at it):

Worries...

6.5 mile run
27 mile ride

Yesterday was a rest day. So I should have been all refreshed today. I felt fine. Not tired. Everything seemed normal. Until I started running at 6am. It was a Z2 run. It starts going up hill after a mile. It's not a huge hill and not all that steep except for one little section. But as soon as I hit the beginning of the hill, bam! I'm in Z3. I thought it was a little weird. It had only been a mile, half of which was Z1, so it's usually pretty hard for me to get to Z3 without a bit more warmup. Oh well, I just kept going and finished the run in record time for a Z2 run. Maybe there was nothing to worry about after all.

And then...

I went for a ride after work. I was supposed to do 4x1min "Z5" sprints (the ones that I never even come close to reaching) and then a 12 mile TT. I wasn't thrilled about the TT - I just wasn't up for the pain of that much Z4. I started on the Z5 and bam! I'm almost immediately in Z5. Z5! I didn't even hit Z5 the last time I rode up Old Stage. Something was wrong. I did 2 more in Z5 and then stopped thinking it might affect my TT which I started shortly after. It didn't take much to get into Z4 and I probably did about half of it in low Z5. It definitely wasn't Z4 perceived effort. I never reached the point where I start saying to myself "when is this going to be done?" or "am I done yet?" or "how about now?" I never got that burning sensation in my legs and lungs. I ended up not doing the full milage, but mainly because I had to pick the dogs up before daycare closed. But I'm not sure if I would have made it another 12 or so miles that I was supposed to do.

Clearly I'm still tired. Or getting sick. But I otherwise feel fine.