Midweek Update

So last weekend, though productive from an athletic standpoint....not great from a diet point of view....

On Sunday after a great bike ride, we had some folks over for for a cookout.  Great food, great friends, and lot's of beer.  A couple of Mexican families living locally.  Pilar and Rodrigo, and Beto and Maru.  My buddy Loucks came over with his kids for a few hours too.  Anyway, Loucks brought over his "Baggo" game.  Like horseshoes but you throw beanbags into some flat boards.  1 point if the bag stays on the board, 3 points if you make it in the hole.  Play to 21. (Oh and you're required to be holding a beer in your non throwing hand)  Beto and I took on Loucks and Rodrigo and the steaks were quite high.  Here's what the loser's got to do!

Kind of brings new meaning to Multisport.

So, tired, drunk, and sore, I decided to take Monday off!

Tuesday my plan was to cycle into and home from work, and do a brick workout.  I took the longway home 13 miles, and changed immediately.  My first 15 steps into the run, I felt a twinge in my left groin from Thursday's Swim practice and those familiar shin splints in my right leg.  I immediately turned  around back to the house with pride in throat and crow in mouth and took a double dose of glucosamine, advil and packed two bags full of ice.  "Live to fight another day!"

So today, Wednesday, I made it up for AM swim practice 5:45 - 7:00.

500 Ez

2X100 kick on :20 Rest

4X 400 Pull on 1:30 Rest

2X100 kick on :20 Rest

4X50 Fast :20 Rest

200 EZ

for 2900 Meters

This Afternoon  I did an interval running workout...

2 min HRZ1

2 min HRZ2

2 mini HRZ3

.5 mi on 7:30 pace 4 min RI

.5 mi on 6:08 pace 4 min RI

.5 mi on 6:40 pace 4 min RI

.5 mi on 7:49 pace 4 min RI

In all distance worked out to be 3.2 miles for 40 minutes.  I felt pretty fast, but out of breath and heart rate was 170 +.  Need to do this more often.

So for the rest of the week

Tomorrow.....Blood work for annual physical in the AM, CSH ride in the PM if no Rain

Friday.......AM Swim Workout,  PM Run

Saturday.....Bike Run Brick

Sunday CSH Ride.

P.S.  Last night I came to a funny realization.  I was moping around for awhile bummed about not getting my run in.  We sat down to dinner, and Liam didn't want to eat his beans and rice.  He made a comment about not eating food he didn't like.  So after getting sent to his room and back down stairs to "Talk!"  My wife showed him pictures of children starving in Africa,  abuse victims from Zimbabwe, and some other REAL and Graphic atrocities.  In the end he cried, and ate his beans and rice.  Great lesson for him, better lesson for me.  There's lots of people in the world dying for an opportunity to compete.  Puts in perspective how fortunate we really are.

Monday... Memorial Day weekend

Had a decent training week last week.

M- Cycle to work 10 mi

T-  Cycle to work 17 mi, run 4.   (12 mi / bike 4 mile run brick on way home with a 25:something 5K

W-Overslept AM swim practice, but got a ride to work ran home 6 miles.f

Th- AM swim 2700 yards

F- MTB 10 miles
S- Swim 2100 yards, Run in 5K
Su-Cycle 32 miles

Highlights....

Tuesday night, I did my first "Brick" workout.  I took a 12 mile route home cyclin, and immediately jumped into run after changing in the garage.  I ran about 4 miles and did the 5K in about 25: somthing.  So that's a low 8 minute pace.


Here's the workout from Thursday's Swim.

400 Ez

4 X 50 Kick  (Groin pull but more on that later)

4X 50 Drill (Catchup, R down - L Back, 6 kick rotation, finger tip drag)

3 X thru the following

4X100 IM on :15 rest interval  (These sucked as my shoulder flexibiity for the fly has gone to sh*t!

200 Pull

100 Ez Kick

I've been swimming with the OSB multisport  Masters team at the Triangle Aquatic Center in Cary.  It's a small team run by Marty Gaal of OSB Multisport.  For $6.25 a session you get a great workout and a coach.

Wednesday, I got a lift into the office and made an attempt to run home 6 miles.   Not a good idea!  Had a great trail run thru the nortel campus (future lunchtime activity planned here) and then onto Davis Drive.  Which sucked! Hot, boring and Lots - o - traffic.

Thursday Night I hit the CSH group ride .  Hung pretty well with the B group for 32 miles with a 19ish average.   Cycling Spoken Here is a local shop.  They sponsor about15 rides a week and it's a pretty open and fun atmosphere.

Friday, I went mountain biking with my buddy Loucks.  We had a nice 10 mile crank thru Crabtree park.  A local park with awesomly maintained single track trails.  Loucks really let loose on the tail end of the ride.  On the way home on the greenway we were talking about drafting.  I told Loucks to get right behind me and get in my draft.  Just as he was saying  "Wow, that's really cool!"  I stood up and farted!  HA

Saturday, I got up early and went to our community pool for a quick swim.  Then Saturday Night Cynthia and I ran the skirt chaser 5K.  This is a really fun race put on by Skirt Sports' owner and professional Triathlete Natalie de Boom.  The girls get a race skirt and get to start 3 minutes ahead of the guys.  I pushed Gracie and Catherine in the jogging stroller and came in at 30:27.6  - the 3 minutes, my pace came in at around a 8:50 mile pushing 75 pounds.  We had the girls dressed up in skirts.  Cynthia did great for her 1st 5K without any training.  After the race they had a beer garden a band, and a fashion show.  I drank a bunch of this!

Sunday I went on the group ride again.  About 12 miles in my seat fell off so most of the group left.  4 of us finished the ride together, and we had a great time.

Today, I get a day off!

Training update for Tuesday

• Still 181 lbs.
• Monday Cycle to and from work 12 miles 5 going 7 coming home with different route
• Tuesday.  Cycle to Work 5 miles Cycle Home via Western Route 12 mi immediately followed with a 3.5 mile run.  (Brick).  I ran pretty hard and held an 8:30 pace.

Tomorrow.  5:45 Swim practice.  And bum a ride to work.  8 mile run home.

I think I'll head to the tobacco trail on Friday after work and practice 3 - 3:30 ish half miles on the marked flat trail.

All for now.

~Dave

Weekend Update

Saturday....No official exercise, should have been a rest day.  Actually, I got up early and went to finish the deck project I started Friday night.  We finished around 3:30 PM, and I was pooped. I'll count it as a strength and core conditioning session.  The family is Indian, so it must be good Karma!  A couple of souvenirs from the adventure below.

So after a day of hard work, a double scrub in the shower, we scrambled to get the kids bathed and ready for the sitter (who was 1/2 hr late).  We met new friends Oliver and Vanessa Luker in Durham for an high calorie  awesome dinner at Vin Rouge in Durham.  Food and wine were great and so was the company (Oliver definitely "married up!")  And I was asleep by 11:30.

I was planning to do the CSH group ride first thing Sunday but it was raining when I woke up at 6.  So back to sleep 'til 8:30, and what to do.   So I went down to our neighborhood pool and swam in the rain for an hour and a half in 65 degree water.  Here's the breakdown

Warmup   400 EZ, 100 Stroke Drills

100, 200, 100  rest :10, :20, :10

200, 300, 200 rest :20, :30, :20

300, 400, 300 rest :30, :40, :30

20 X 25 rest :10 cool down.

Funny I was the only one in the water, and luckily there was no thunder and lightning!

My weeks run Monday - Sunday so here's the total

Swim 7100 yards  +4000 to my plan

Bike 35 miles  - 30 to my plan  (Bad, Bad, Bad)

Run 15.5  +2 to plan

I'm cycling to work in the AM and it's gonna be COOOOOLD!

That all

~Dave

Work, Hard Labor, Manual Labor

So this week proved to be pretty interesting.  To start. I had a terrible training week last week, due to business travel, and my penchant for good beer, and bad food at Jack Astors on Blvd Sources in Montreal.  BTW the only Jack Astor's worth a damn in the whole world, but I digress... 

Week in Review.

M - Run 6 miles

T - Cycle to Work, Run 4 miles .5 miles at 7 - 8 min pace, rest 1 min

W- Return to Blog-o-sphere, 25 mile crank, 2000 yard swim

Th- 2100 M swim with Masters Coach

F- 5 mile pitiful run / walk in an attempt to get 7 miles in.

So after a week of trying to get back in shape, I think I finally bonked out today.  The disappointing thing is that I really didn't work that hard in the previous workouts.   Anyway, chalk it up to experience, quit taking 4 days off in a row, followed by 2 more, and move on with the plan!

After my amazing display of mediocre athleticism, I had a happy hour meeting.  I previously commited to helping the family of one of my son Liam's schoolmates' parents rehab their backyard deck.   So I grabbed my leather work gloves, sledge hammer, hammer and shitty attitude and proceeded over to their house to demo the spalted and splintered deck boards.  The family had quoted the job with a local contractor to simply tear up and replace deck boards for a 24' X 18' deck for over $4000.  (Shitty contractors taking advantage pisses me off!)  When we measured up what was needed, it turns out to be <$500.  So after tearing off the old, tonight in about 2 hours time, we'll redeck the sucker 1st thing in the AM.   I told the Dad, we can get it done in <>

So, after a shitty week of work (I'm trying to avoid ranting about work, and cubicle ridden drone coworkers in this blog, so we'll leave it at that), a so-so week of training apexed with a terrible bonk in my 7 miler; I found my nirvana in destroying a backyard deck.  

There are a number to times in an athlete's career where the get into the "zone!"  Mine are so few, I remember most all of them.  The county championship swim meet my high school junior year where I won the 200 IM, and the 100 breaststroke.  A dual meet at Hobart  when i was in college and did a personal best in the 200 breaststroke.  A set of 3 X 5 X 200 meters free training in Florida long course where I was beating the distance freestylers.  And a couple more times.  

I hit the "Zone"  tearing up the floorboards of my son's friend's parent's backyard deck. (That's a lot of possessive participles in one sentence).  I was ripping that shit up like it wasn't there.  Hammer and tool placement was spot on, and even throwing the boards into the scrap pile was really accurate.  I hardly spoke, but I was a crowbarring, board bending, ripping machine.  I think I tore up a good 3/4 of the deck.  I felt great when we were done.  It was the type of experience Robert Pirsig writes about in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."  Hopefully I didn't waste a "zone" and will beable to get there for the triangle triathlon on July 12, 2009!

That's all for now!

~DAVE

Colonoscopy and Swimming.... A winning combination

At 37 years young, I havn't thought of myself as getting older until today.  Of course I have a few gray hairs, weight doesn't come off as easily, and in a few years I'll have my first prostate exam.  But today was quite different.  And not so much related to me but my wife Cynthia.  

My Mother in Law, Guadalupe is a Cancer survivor.  When she was 36 years old she was diagnosed with colon cancer.  Almost 30 years ago they didn't have the colonoscopy technology we have today.  Anyway during my wife's last physical our primary care provider referred her for the exam.  That was today.  Anyway long story short, after a few days of fasting, and all day yesterday of laxatizing and a sleepless last night, she had her exam this morning.  Thank GOD!!!! The doc said everything looked good.  Only one "diminutive" pollop which was removed and all is well.  His point to me was that if there's a family history of this, children should have this scope done up to 10 years younger than the "index patient" (Guadalupe).  So he removed the pollop and said cancer starts with a single abnormal cell.  This may be pre-cancerous, but now it's gone so it can't start from this cell.  We'll test it and go back in another 3 years.  So the message to my Cun~ados is...."GET YOUR ASSES TO THE DOC".  

I'm happy and relieved.  Sorta puts in perspective the Bills not making the playoffs, and Yankees losing at home!

Back to triathlon.......

I went to the OSB multisport masters workout again tonight at the Triangle Aquatic Center.  It was great!  3 swimmers and 2 lanes.  Two masters women showed up and swam circles around me, but I got a special 2100 meter workout while they had to do 3400.

So here it is...

Warmup 400 EZ, 200 technique

2X100 kick / pull  rest :20

3X100 rest :10 (1-Hard / Moderate, 2-Moderate, 3- Moderate / EZ)

3X200 rest :20 (1-Hard / Moderate, 2-Moderate, 3- Moderate / EZ)

2X100 kick / pull rest :20

200 EZ warmdown

I felt pretty good.  I stuck to the rest intervals but rested close to 1 minute between sets.  Everything about the 200's sucked and I need to work on strength and endurance.  Cardio, I felt OK.

So in closing....  Our Gastro Enterologist and his staff were really nice.  Great people and considerate and took the time to explain everything.  They even chuckled at my reference to Cosmo Kramer and an "Ass Man" personalized license plate...

~Dave

Long time no update...

I havn't updated this blog since since January. Here's the latest.

• 500 miles running 
• 300 miles cycling
  
• 5600 yards swimming
• Down to 181 lbs.
• My company filed for Ch 11. bankruptcy protection
• Got a new bike
  

    old Bike New Bike

Gotta do a better job of Blogging, and get faster....

Today's workout....

23 miles cycling got avg. 17 mph.  Would have been faster but traffic was heavy and wasn't comfortable in the aerobars, AND I got lost.  I worked from home this afternoon and played hookey between calls for the ride between 3:30 and 5.  I had calls 5 - 6.

2000 yards in the pool shortcourse, immediately after my last call.

400 Warmup (100 swim, 100 kick, 25 R. Arm, 25 L. Arm, 25 catchup, 25 3R3L 6 cycles, 100 Swim)

2 X 5 X 50 on 1:00  held 35 seconds 

1X 5 X 100 on 2:00 came in between 1:15 and 1:30 (lotta work to do there)

20 X 25 on :30 cooldown

100 Warmdown stroke drills.

I've signed up for the Triangle Triathlon here in Raleigh at Sharon Harris Park.  750M swim, 14 mile bike, 5K run.  I've figured my goals to be

Swim 12:00 includes run to transition

T1  2:00

Bike 42:00       20mph pace

T2  2:00

Run         24:00     7 something pace 

Total       1hour 22 minutes.

I've been working on doing some tempo running and cycling in group rides with a local bike shop.

Anyway....More to follow!