Feelin' good

Running

It is an absolutely gorgeous Saturday morning and I am headed out for my 'long' run (6-6.5km). I know, to you marathoners, it's a short run, but I'm gettin' there! LOL. I was forced into taking it easy for several weeks and I was only only able to squeeze in 3k and 4k runs this week at school so I hope I can push a little further than 5k today. I may take a walk break or two if I need it though.

If I want to build up to a half marathon by October, I do need to gradually extend the length of one run a week. I have a plan for increasing my mileage over the next few months (it's down the right side of my blog) but I have to be cautious because the triathlon is my main goal until the end of August. I will adjust as necessary.

I am really happy to hear about Adam Tinkoff's Zen Run 10K because if it turns out I'm not able to make the whole 22km distance for the World Wide Half Marathon by October, I'll for sure be able to do the 10K. So I have signed up for both!

Next Sunday, June 8th, is the 5km Women's Run. I am definitely going to do it but 'm not sure what my strategy will be. Last year, I was doing a 29-30 min 5km run on average before the race and when I did the Women's Run, I went all out and had a time of 26:17. Of course, I ended up injured and couldn't run for weeks so I should probably avoid that this time. Haha. It'll be interesting to see if I can rein it in this year and stick with a 5km no faster than 28-29 minutes. Since I had to start running from zero again this January, I shouldn't be worrying about trying to beat last year's time anyway. I gotta keep the big picture in mind and not get injured!

Tri Training

My plan for this weekend is to do a long run today and a swim on Saturday or Sunday. I will bike on one or both days depending on how our errands and household duties work out. Today would be the best day to ride because it's so nice out and tomorrow there is a 70% chance of showers. I guess we'll see.

Overall I didn't do too bad on my training this week.

I took Monday off after the big ride, and then did only a 3k run on Tuesday and an easy 25k bike ride after school. I was too busy on Wednesday with meetings and baseball so on Thursday I did a 4k run at noon and did a 1550m swim after school. Friday is my regular rest day. My shins are still acting up but are not debilitating so I am ignoring them for now. LOL.

This week's plan

Sun - bike
Mon - swim (during the kids' lessons)
Tues - run
Wed - bike
Thurs - run
Fri - off
Sat - swim, bike
Sun - 5k race

Ze Bike

My bike is still not in, not that I realistically expected to get it this week. They said it's on its way and I should get it late next week. I hope so!

Life

The eyes are still driving me crazy. I think my right eye has improved so now the contact I got last month seems too strong. Plus it's getting increasingly more difficult to get out at night. I think I need to use more drops in my eyes during the day because I think it is drying out and sticking to my sensitive eyes. I have an eye appointment on Wednesday so I am anxious to see if I can right. It's still taking me a long time to get used to the monovision and my brain still has not adjusted to having one eye stronger than the other. Argh.

Podcasts

I have been listening to a lot of running podcasts lately and I'd like to take a moment to give them some credit right here. These people have really motivated me to keep on running. I enjoy hearing their podcasts and reading their blogs and I feel like I am getting to know them, which of course is a little weird, because they don't know ME from Adam. (No pun intended...)

Phedippidations - Steve Runner

Running from the Reaper - Nigel

Another Runner - Adam Tinkoff

Running Adventures - Marathon Chris

4 Feet Running - Nik and Dan

Confessions of a Runner - Jodi

The Extra Mile Podcast - a lotta people!


Well I've gotta get out for my run before it gets too hot. More later!

3pm Update: had my best run so far. 6.5km, no pain. Didn't have to walk. I love Saturday mornings. An hour later, went out for a ride. Didn't plan to go for long so didn't wear sunscreen. Ended up out for 2.5 hours, 62km. Oops. :)

Okanagan Shuswap Century Ride

Sunday, May 25, 2008

As I had planned, I took it pretty easy all week. Did one run during the week, and had a great 1800m swim on Saturday but other than, nothing.

We made an early night of it Saturday (no wine either) and got up Sunday at 6am. Ate yogurt mixed with oatmeal and fruit, and a coffee. Nice to stick with the usual.

We had packed up the bikes the night before but by the time we had showered, dressed and eaten, it was time to hit the road. Armstrong is an hour and a half away so we left about 7:15 am. I noticed Jenn Davies, who lives just around the corner, leaving right behind us. I later saw her at the ride so I guess it was just another training ride for her with her upcoming 7600km ride across Canada starting on June 2nd.

Around Winfield, I started getting a stupid migraine aura. It was electric zig zigs of light mostly on the right side, which only lasted about 10 minutes, then disappeared. I had taken a couple of ibuprophen before I left so I didn't take any more but I drank half my water bottle and tried to relax. This is the second time in the past few months that I've had an aura but no headache. Hope it continues like that.

Anyway, we got to Armstrong about 8:30am and picked up our registration. There were 400 riders registered (300 of which were doing the 100km ride) and we got in just under the wire when my friend Teresa emailed me on Friday to tell me there were only 3 spots left. I logged in right away and #398 and 399 were gone in a flash. That was a close call!

This year the sponsors gave us backpacks at registration! I was really happy about that because I really need one when I commute to work. We chatted with a few people we knew, made sure everything was ready to go and waited for the signal. The weather was warmish (about 18C at the time) and mostly sunny. No rain in the forecast - perfect! I was wearing my short sleeved jersey and my riding jacket but right at ride time, I decided I would be too warm so I rolled up the jacket and tied it around my waist, where it would stay for the rest of the ride.

I felt like I had a complete pharmacy to store away though. What a pain in the butt. The epipen of course, my ventolin which I only need on rare occasions, my eye drops for the ever present dry eyes, my contact case and small bottle of solution, and the usual large quantity of kleenex. Today was the first day I would be riding with TWO contacts and what a difference that made! I could SEE the road!

We set ourselves up about 1/4 way into the pack and at 9:08 am, we were off. We went out fairly fast considering there were a lot of riders on the road, and we passed a lot of people until we got into a clear area where we could ride faster. The idea today was for me to draft as much as possible. When we got to the hills, Erik would plow on ahead and then wait for me. It worked pretty well although I did feel like I was alone for quite a bit of the first 45km. I would always lose the pack we were riding with when we started to climb and then, if the hill hadn't been too long, I could usually hammer hard and catch up. But eventually, we got into the longer 10km climb and I lost them. They were only about 300-500m ahead of me but they were mostly men, travelling fast, in a peleton, on carbon bikes. Little old me, on my aluminum bike, could hardly expect to ride that fast alone. Ah well. After a while, another fast group of men caught me and as they passed, one of the men said "join us if you can hang on!" So I did. That's all I really needed was a group to draft off, especially on the relatively flat or slightly rolling hills.

I met up with Erik again at the rest stop around the 30km mark. This was the turn around point for the people riding the 56km route. I stopped for a 30 second drink of water and then hopped on my bike when I saw that none of the 100km people were stopping. We rode together for a little while but again, I got lost on the hills. Erik was having a good time riding with some fast guys ahead so I just hammered along by myself. Eventually, he stopped and waited for me to catch up and we rode the last 15 km into into Salmon Arm together drafting part of the way with another guy.

The big Salmon Arm hill (Okanagan Avenue) was about the 60km mark. I told Erik to wait for me at the top so he climbed on. It is divided into 3 sections with a little leveling off after each section. The grade ranges from 10-15% (last year I clocked the max grade at 17%) so I shifted to my granny gear and hunkered down for the climb determined not to have to stop this year. Erik was ahead of me, slowly pulling away and there were only a couple of people behind me. Grind, grind, grind, up I went. Then I remembered someone told me they sang 100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall as they climbed so I began to sing under my breath. Trouble is, I didn't have much breath left so it soon became a whisper. And I was singing slower and slower as the grade increase to 15%. I was going so slow at this point that I decide to unclip my left foot in case I needed to stop suddenly. About 15 feet from the top of the second section, at the steepest point, my front tire hit a small rock but I was going so slowly that it turned my tire a bit, bumped my foot and I had to put my foot down suddenly so I didn't fall. "SHIT!" I yelled. I can never start up again on a steep hill like this. As I got off my bike and started to push it up to the next flatter section, I realized there were a bunch of people behind me. Oops - no more swearing.

As soon as I was up to the flats again, I got back on and started pedalling again. It was another 1.5 km to the top. I was mostly alone, but two men rode up to me and both encouraged me to keep at it. One rode beside me and chatted a little which cheered me up. I asked him why I was the only person panting up this hill. Finally, we rounded the corner and I saw the rest station - whew I made it! 65 km done and the rest of relatively easy, small climbs, rollers, and fast flats and downhills. Erik was there having a drink and a snack. I was greeted by the LBS guy who sold me my new Madone last week and he congratulated me for making it up the hill.

I took a hit off my puffer so I could breathe a little and grabbed a half bottle of gatorade. I'd been eating shot blox along the way and didn't feel like any of the food. I really don't like to stop for long, I just start to seize up, so within 2-3 minutes, we were back on the road again. I asked Erik if he'd take it a bit easier on the hills so I could keep up with him and then I wouldn't have to hammer on the flats to catch him. It worked really well and we were both able to go faster overall because I could draft and he didn't have to ride slow for long periods or wait for me.

We were alone for quite a while then a small group of 5-6 guys passed us and I sped up and caught on their rear wheel. I didn't ask so I'm not sure if they minded or not but we hung with them for about 5km until we hit a small hill and I lost my draft. Ah well, we were almost there. I had been managing about 26.5 kmh for the first 65km and now we were doing 35-40 kmh on these flats and downhills so my avg speed was climbing a little. There was one more short but ugly hill about 8km out of Armstrong. Once we were at the top of that, we flew all the way back, passing lots of people on our way. I had hoped we could break the 3:30 mark but it was not to be. I arrived at the starting line at 3:35:37. For Erik, it was closer to 3:31:00. Whoo hoo! That was still 12 minutes faster than last year.

My average speed overall was 27.8 kmh (17.3 mph) and my average heart rate was a whopping 160 bpm - Zone 4 the whole way! I ended up with about 20 minutes in Zone 5, 1:40 in Zone 4, and about the same amount in high Zone 3. A hard ride, but I knew I'd be doing that going out.

Here's the elevation profile of the ride.



Yowza - my legs were shaking when I got off the bike but I kept walking around and trying to stretch them out so they didn't cramp up. I ate half a bagel with cream cheese, a banana, half an orange, and 3 big cookies. And I drank more water. My whole upper body felt really tight and my chest hurt both from breathing so hard for so long, and from being in the drops pretty much the entire time.

I rode that 100km like a time trial. I wondered if I'd be able to walk the next day. Erik's buddy rode up to us a few minutes after we arrived at the finish line. He said he'd been trying to catch us for the last 30 km but just couldn't. He was amazed at how fast we were. :) :) :)

There is no time clock for this ride - it's supposed to be just for fun, but some of us like to challenge ourselves. :D I have no idea where we came in as far at the group was concerned but I'd imagine it was in the top third at least.

Overall, I was REALLY happy with my ride. I went as hard as I could the entire time, I didn't feel sorry for myself when I was alone, and I congratulated myself when I was able to keep up with the men. I figure I did pretty well for a 48 year old woman on an aluminum bike. Hee hee.

So today, Monday, I feel pretty good. My quads really don't hurt at all, amazingly. My knees are a bit sore but I don't think that will last and my hips are a bit tight but ok. The biggest pain in the butt was a pain in the butt. I didn't have any chamois cream so I rode without. I had no trouble the entire ride but I was sore last night and really sore this morning. I actually have what looks like rope burn on my inner thighs and the seam of my undies are really irritating it today. TMI? Well that cycling for ya. LOL. It will be fine in another day or so. The greatest thing is, I feel really good today - like I have my energy back and I'm ready to do some training this week. I really hope I can run tomorrow. If not, I'll give it an extra day.

Here's my very lame attempt at a cell phone self portrait after the ride. LOL...


PS to Kathleen. Are you still reading my blog?

Hmmm, not doing too well this week...

Mon - brick 40km ride, 1km run (too tired to ride hard tho)
Tue - nothing
Wed - nothing
Thu - 5 painful kms (run with 3 walk breaks!)
Fri - staff party - no time to workout today
Sat - SWIM no matter what
SUn - 100km ride I hope

Update to add that I did swim on Saturday and it was a great swim! I did 400m warmup with some rest breaks after 25m or 50m.

Then I did the Week 2b workout 6X200m with neg splits.

I thought that would bea hard to do Neg splits on 6 sets but I managed it. I jsut started off really slow and then built up slowly.

5:30
5:24
5:09
4:48
4:27
4:11

I was really happy with that last time. If only I could swim that fast for 750m, LOL.

Also, I got Terry Laughlin's Total Immersion swimming book out of the library and I'm reading it. I will try the method next time I go for a swim and see how it feels.

This Week's Plan

I decided to have an easy week in preparation for my hard metric century ride next Sunday. Also, it's a short week and I have a staff meeting as well. Good news is that there are no baseball games this week.

Sun(yesterday) - wanted to swim but only had time to test ride a bike.
Mon - 40km ride to NG and 1 km run (brick)
Tue - run 5km, swim?
Wed - or swim?
Thu - staff meeting, 5km run if time
Fri - staff party
Sat - easy ride, run?

(Sun - hilly 100km, hard and fast)

I am still feeling tired and "off" so I will take it easy. If I ride, they'll be easy rides. I might skip one run. I will only have time to swim once.

New bike on order!

Well I did it! I ordered the Trek Madone 5.1 today. I have to wait 7-10 days to get it but that's ok. It'll give me time to decide the details. (Erik bought the Madone 5.2 today and loves it. He got to ride his home, the lucky guy.)

My legs/shins feel great today by the way. No pain from the hard'ish' run yesterday! Yay!

Still fed up with my crappy vision. I've decided to get a contact lens for the left eye so I can ride. I'll call them on Tuesday.

Bikes, bikes, bikes....

Today we went to one of our local bike stores so Erik could try the Trek Madone 5.2. He really liked the Roubaix but wanted to give the Madone a fair shot as well. I decided that I would try the Madone 4.7 even though it's not as nice as the 5.1 but lo and behold, there was a 5.1 in the shop! Apparently Trek rethought its decision to discontinue the 5.1 and the LBS was able to bring in a couple. Well, that changed everything. Now I had to rethink what I was going to do because I had completely discounted the idea of the 5.1 up until now. They didn't have a 5.1 in my size at the moment, although one is available, so I took the equally lovely 4.7 out for a spin. It was VERY nice.

There are only two difference between the two bikes. The 5.1 has a carbon seat post that is an elliptical shape so it can't be turned, and it's made of OCLV carbon which SOME people think is better (because it's made in the good ole USofA and not Taiwan.) The 4.7 is TCT carbon and has a standard seatpost. The 5.1 is $150 more money (not a big issue to me since the Ruby expert is another $600 on top of that.) They are both pretty to look at although I have a slight preference for the 5.1 Take a look, what do YOU think?


Trek Madone 4.7


Trek Madone 5.1


My only ride this weekend was the 12km test ride. I couldn't swim today because we were bike shopping and we went to see part of the little guy's baseball game this afternoon. Later, Erik went for a ride and I did my run. The temps were still around 28C at the time but I managed. I am tired of taking walk breaks so I went steady the entire 5km. I won't know the physical cost until tomorrow I guess. My shins are bit sore right now though. I FINALLY got down to a 30 minute 5km. Still have a ways to go to get down last year's PR of 26:17 though.

Tomorrow, it's another test ride (Cannondale System 6), more baseball, and HOPEFULLY a swim. Thankfully it's a long weekend so I might be able to squeeze in a swim on Monday if I can't tomorrow. Hmm, I'd better go check the Y's schedule. They might be doing something special for the long weekend...

Weight is down to 117.4 today. That's an all time low I think.

Two steps forward, one step back.

First off, I MUST share this video. This man is amazing and inspiring. If you're feeling sorry for yourself, watch this and realize you can do ANYTHING you set your mind to.

Mid-Week Update and Mind Shift

So my weight loss plan is going well. I'm down to 118.5 lbs this morning and that's only 3-1/2bs away from my goal. That being said, I actually want to be at about 20% body fat and I don't care what my weight is at that point so once I get my new scale and can track body fat, I'll report that way instead.

This was going to start out as another whine but I changed my mind after watching that video. I just need to make yet another mind adjustment to my training plan.

OK, I am, crying "uncle". I will admit I am too much of a noob and I am old. I cannot do 3 hard weeks and 1 recovery week. My body will not allow it. It seems like I naturally do 2 weeks hard just fine but fall apart in the 3rd week. SO, I am going to go with one week hard, one week easier for awhile and see if I can avoid the 'fall apart' (overtraining) syndrome.

I trained 9 hours last week and felt awesome. If you read my last post, you noticed I was crowing about my awesome long run and awesome long swim on Saturday. Sunday morning, the weather was abysmal (pouring rain) so we couldn't do the Sunday ride. It cleared up by noon so we went out to ride the hills. I felt strong and rode hard, keeping up with Erik on most of the climbs which I can rarely do. He was a bit tired from a hard hill repeat ride he did on Saturday but, my legs were also tired from my run as well so I think I was doing well. Then we rode out to Gallagher's and I just hammered up the long 3km climb and did it in what I suspect was record time. All this time, I was feeling good.

From there, we rode into Belgo and I had what felt like a bit of indigestion (we rode right after lunch and I had eaten a fatty roast beef sandwich). By the time we got down to the flats on our way home, I was getting a stitch-like feeling in my right side. I rode like that for 4-5 km until it was hurting too much and I had to stop. I sat down on the grass and eventually laid on the grass until it subsided. I was convinced it was just a weird gas pain and would go away. Within a few minutes, I felt ok so we hopped on the bikes and continued out ride towards home. I got about 4 more km's before I had to stop again in agony and wait until it went away. I could not take a deep breath in and it hurt like heck. It went away when I stopped for a few minutes but hurt again as soon as I started riding.

The 3rd stop I was gasping for breath and the pain was intense and although I was only 6km from home, I asked Erik to go get the car and pick me up. There's a big steep climb all the way home and there's no way I'd make it. I limped into the nearest hotel lobby and waited for my ride. Again, it felt better when I stopped riding so I still assumed it was a stupid gas pain/indigestion-related pain from hard riding after a heavy roast beef sandwich. I could still feel it when I took a deep breath the next day and it continues to be tender even now, although much less so. I don't know what it was and I might go see the doctor eventually, especially if it doesn't go away.

Now, possibly related to this has been a tremendous feeling of fatigue on Monday and Tuesday, despite getting enough sleep at night. I had a rest day planned for Monday and I skipped my run and swim on Tuesday because I was so tired, and emotional as well. I booked off work today and slept all morning. I just got up to eat and then I think I'll go back for another nap this afternoon. I think this is the 'overtraining' syndrome I mentioned earlier. I have no idea if there's any connection to my side pain or not.

So what does this all mean? Take it easy. I could do that triathlon right now and possibly place in my age group so why do I need to kill myself training? I'm going to cut back a bit and do one easy week and one hard week and see if I can find the right balance. I feel so good when I'm in the midst of a hard week though, it's hard to believe I'm doing myself harm.

And on it goes.

Wetsuits Rock!!!

Oh yeah baby, I got to try out my new wetsuit at the pool today! Wahoo, it was awesome! First off, I barely felt the water when I got in (OK, I know it's a warm pool but still...) Second, I felt like I was floating as soon as I got into the water. I just put my head back and found I could just lie there and float without any effort. I think that alone will really take away some of the mental anxiety I have about the OWS. If I start to get too tired and/or panic for some reason, I just have to relax and float for a minute and catch my breath. I won't have to worry about DNFing during the swim just because I freaked out.

But the best thing was that it was SO easy to swim in. I had no trouble with arm movement, no feeling of constricted breathing or anything. And I felt fast - really fast (for me :). I timed myself and it took 10-15 seconds off my 50m time. That could easily mean 3-5 minutes faster on a 750m swim. All right!

So I only did 100m and then took it off and gave it a very thorough rinse because chlorine is not good for neoprene.

Overall, 10/10. It was a very good buy for $200.

Swimming

After my wetsuit test, I did another 300m warmup with a few rest breaks then my swim plan called for 1000m with 3 lengths easy, 1 length hard, no rest breaks. I did that and found I could do one length hard but really needed the next 25m to catch my breath. These sprints will be good for me to build up my speed I think. I'm glad I have 3+ more months to work on my swim and get my time down. I found it fairly easy to do 1000m so decided to keep on swimming and do 1200m instead since that's my next distance goal. I didn't bother with the sprints for the last 200m.

My 750m time was 18:57 (whoopti-do, 3 seconds faster than last time)
My 1000m time was 25:30 and my 1200m time was 31:00

Running

This morning I had an AWESOME run. I was worried that my shins might hurt because they were quite tender yesterday after Thursday's run but today they felt fine and NOTHING hurt the entire run. I took my ipod and did most of the run to Podrunner 176 bpm. This is faster than I usually run and it raises my HR a bit but I felt fine throughout. I LOVE running with the Podrunner music - it just keeps me going so steady and I feel like I could run a marathon.

Today I ran 20 minutes and only took a one minute walk break one time. I could probably dispense with the walk breaks but I figure it's not going to hurt to keep them up for two more weeks. This week, I'll walk after 20 minutes, the following week, after 30 minutes and then after that, no more walking.

Today's Stats

6 km ~ 38:08 minutes
Run total: 37 minutes
5 km time: 32:30 (including the walk break)

Somehow I gotta get those run times down. This time last year, I was running 5 km in 29-30 minutes on a regular basis. I'll start working on that in two weeks I guess. Next Saturday, I'm going to run 6.5 km.

This week's plan?

Sunday - long bike, hilly
Monday - probably rest break - it's baseball picture day and other errands to do
Tuesday - run and swim
Wednesday - bike hill repeats or Lakeshore
Thursday - run and swim
Friday - company coming for dinner, bike after school if I'm organized. :)
Saturday - run and swim

Contact(s)!

I had my eye doctor appointment yesterday and it seems my eyes have regressed since the last appointment 5 weeks ago. This is a good news / bad news scenario. The bad news is that they have regressed, and I suppose that increases the likelihood that I will need a second surgery. The good news is that this regression is CORRECTABLE and I can wear glasses or contacts to improve my vision now. My right eye is currently -1.75 and my left eye is -2.25 with some slight astigmatism. Because I didn't want to wear glasses, he decided to give me a contact lens for my right eye only so that will still be able to read. The difference between my eyes is fairly noticeable right now (after one day) but I am hoping that my brain will adjust and learn to pay attention to my right eye for distance. The other good news is that even if I get the touch up surgery next fall/winter, I know what to expect and can deal with it a little better (I think :)

Anyway - it was wonderful to be able to go to work and sort of see better. If I close my left eye, I can see really well - 100%. What an amazing feeling to be able to see clearly again for 9 weeks. You can no idea how good that feels. I wish I could see that well with both eyes but I will wait a week or so and see how it goes. If I don't seem to be adjusting, I might see if I can get a contact lens for the left eye as well - maybe only partially correcting it??

Weight

My weight has been down as low as 118.8 but mostly it's hanging around 119.5 right now. Half a pound a week loss is ok by me. I'm not really 'dieting' but I am trying to eat well. Still haven't been able to find the time to look for a Tanita Body Fat Scale....

Bike to Work Week

This is a challenging week to ride to work, deal with Jesse and his bike, and get all my training in. For example on Monday I had my eye appt at 2:45 and Jesse had a baseball game at 5:30. But I still wanted to go for a swim in between. So Erik took Jesse home and took him to his game while I RODE 5km to my eye appt, then RODE 12km to the pool, SWAM 1300m, RODE 10km to the ball park and met the boys there. I put my bike in the car and watched the game (bought a sandwich for supper) and then got a ride home at 8:30. A long day.

Today, I only rode to and from work because I ran 5km at noon. I had to ride slowly up the hill so I didn't work my already-tired legs too hard. And today Jesse ran the entire 5km with me! Whoo hoo - I didn't know he could do that!!! Not ONE word of complaint. Pretty good for a ten year old.

Tomorrow, Erik and I really want to bike after school but somehow we have to get Jesse home first. He REALLY doesn't want to ride his bike up the hill so I may have to do the climb with him and get him settled at home, and THEN go for my ride which would mean climbing the UGLY hill TWICE! Ugh. I don't know if I can convince him to ride home alone or not. He's quite capable but he may not be willing. We'll see.

On Thursday, I want to swim again and Jesse has a 5:30 baseball game so I'll probably ride my bike home and drive to the pool right after school so I can get home in time for his game.

And so it continues....

May 3 Update

Well, it's been a pretty good week overall but I still haven't been out on my bike as much I'd like.

Here's what I planned - I have put in bold what I actually accomplished.

Sun- run 5.5k, bike 20km
Mon - swim
Tues - run 5k (allergy shot, baseball game)
Wed - swim, hills if time
Thurs - run 5km, bike easy - did hard ride instead
Fri - bike? or rest
Sat - swim, bike (sort of)

So on Sunday, I just didn't feel well enough to ride and couldn't fit it in later because I had school work to get done. Wednesday - I just couldn't fit in the bike. Thursday - we did a hard ride up to North Glenmore. I really hammered up the long 10km climb and kept a good pace. I can't compare to my best time though because we had a flat and had to take a side trip to pick up extra tubes. It must have been a hard ride because I could barely walk on Friday. :) That also might have been due to the run as well. It's weird though because it was the inner thighs that hurt so much - that has never happened before. No clue why. So anyway, I took my rest day on Friday.

Saturday - I had a poor sleep and was super tired in morning and very hectic schedule - couldn't do swim. Sigh. I was really looking forward to it too because I FINALLY bought a WETSUIT!! It's a 2005 Orca Speedsuit in excellent shape. I got it for $200 which I think was a good deal. I guess I'll have to wait another week to try it in the pool. Can't wait!

The only biking I did on Saturday was a short 6km terst ride on a Ruby. So far it's the best fitting bike I've ridden.

So again, I've been tweaking my training schedule. We're going to do the "B" group for the Sunday ride tomorrow. I don't think I can do a 6km run AND a long hard 70km ride on the same day so I'm going to swim and run on Saturdays instead. Then that got me to thinking. Maybe I'll jsut keep on running at noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays once Running Club is over with. And then swim on those afternoons. That would leave the other day open for biking. That might work better since running and biking on the same day seems to be tough on my legs. (Hmmm, got figure that one out before the Tri, LOL...)

My running is coming along. I did 15 min run, 1 min walk this week and managed fine. if I can do a run tomorrow, I'll try for 6km, if not, I'll do that next weekend.

So here's my training plan for this week. It's Bike to Work Week so I have to factor that in too. It means I have to ride 15km to and from the pool to swim.

Sun - long bike (Sunday Ride 70km very hilly)
Mon - swim (this week only) (bike commute to work and to the pool)
Tues - run (bike commute)
Wed - bike (+commute)
Thur- run, swim (bike commute to work and pool)
Fri - rest - (+commute)
Sat - long run, swim (easy bike if time)

Eyes

Not much else to say - they're still the same. I have my eye doctor appointment on Monday. Crossing my fingers. I don't know he's going to be able to do about it though. Maybe I can get temp glasses for riding though.

I have more to say. Will add to this post later. :)

Bikes

I gave the Specialized Ruby a test ride yesterday and it fit like a glove. They didn't have an "Expert" in so I rode the "Comp" instead . I'm sure the Expert will be just that much better. I don't LOVE love the colour but it's nice enough. Here's a pic.


The other bike I want to try is the Scott Contessa CR1 Pro. It's a much prettier bike but the fit and feel will be what's important. Right now they only have a 50 cm in - so I'm hoping they can get a 48 in for me to try. I looked at the website and it looks like they only have 49 so I'm going to try the 50 that there and see how it feels.