Week 16: Spring Break in Moab!

Tuesday 3/13/2012

Some days you sleep through your alarm and barely have time to eat breakfast, much less swim.  Some days you’re in lab for 12 hours doing experiments.  Some days, those are the same day, and on those days, training just doesn’t happen.  

Wednesday 3/14/2012

Thanks to all of yesterday’s hard work in lab I was able to sleep in and still swim and do part of a run in before heading to class (which for some reason we still had even though it’s technically Spring Break).  I was planning on doing weights and finishing my run at the gym in the evening, but by the time I got out of lab it was closed (due to it being Spring Break).  I guess unplanned disruptions like this are why morning workouts are emphasized so much in my training book.  I’m okay with it though, I feel like my body wants a Spring Break as much as my mind does.

Thursday 3/15/2012

Well, I made it through another Ides of March without breaking my nose; I broke it on this date in the second grade and I swear it has psychically warned me of impending injuries ever since.  I’ve never been hurt on March 15^th since 1997, but I still take extra caution on that day.  So, no injuries, but I did feel really weak and undernourished in the pool this morning.  I could only complete 1200 yards of straight swimming, and even then I could barely pull myself out of the pool.  I’m not sure what happened, I had my usual gel before starting and had eaten plenty the night before.  I started swimming at 8:30 instead of 5:30, so maybe my body didn’t have enough energy reserves left by that point?  Who knows, whatever it was, it wasn’t fun.  In the afternoon I headed to Moab, UT and Arches National Park with some friends with school.  We went on a pretty easy hike when we got there and then watched Gonzaga kick some West Virginia ass while having dinner at the Moab Brewery.

Friday 3/16/2012

An awesome day in and around Arches!  I rode for 2.5 hours on a flat road along the Colorado River.  It was beautiful but I had a hard time enjoying the view since I was aero 95% of the time and focusing on the road in front of me.  After that I rode towards Arches National Park to meet up with my friends.  The entrance to the park is a pretty long hill; I’m sure it would be nothing to anyone who routinely rides the canyons around Salt Lake, but it looked really intimidating to me from the bottom.  Regardless of how it looked, I did it! No problem!  It was kind of fun actually, especially when cars with bikes on the roof would drive by me.  I felt pretty bad ass to be doing it under my own power.  So a nice little ego boost to end the ride.  

My friends picked me a couple miles later (by that point I felt okay being someone riding in a car with a bike on the roof) and we headed off on a 7 mile hike (don’t worry, I had a couple Clif bars and a giant bottle of Gatorade first).  It was really beautiful (see the selection of pictures below) and a lot of fun hanging out with some great girlfriends that I don’t get to spend a ton of time with.     

  

I realized that a big part of training is convincing yourself that you’re capable of doing various things.  For example, during this ride I proved that I could do the following: remove my water bottle from its holder, drink and put it back (while aero), remove Clif ShotBloks from the back of my jersey, eat a couple, and put them back (while aero), snot rocket (while aero and without getting any on myself!  Sorry if that was TMI…) and ride up a long hill, all without tipping over or otherwise crashing.  A pretty successful day if you ask me.

Saturday 3/17/2012

We headed back to Salt Lake right after breakfast and I was able to ride my trainer while watching Gonzaga play an awesome game against the 2-seeded Ohio State.  We lost by 6 points, but watching them put so much effort in to the game helped me put in a good, hard 2 hour ride even though I was pretty tired.  I did a transition to a 30 minute run and once again felt really weak and like I was going to pass out.  I only had a small Gatorade (110 calories-worth) and a few Honey Stinger chews while biking but it seemed like enough since I’d had a big breakfast and had been snacking on pretzels in the car the whole ride home.  Maybe I was just still depleted from the 6+ hours of activity yesterday.  Maybe beer doesn’t replenish your glycogen stores as well as I thought…

Sunday 3/18/2012

I forced myself to slog through a 1.5 hour run.  I was really tired (gee, why?) so went pretty slowly but I ran the whole thing and didn’t give up and today, that was enough for me.  Now, getting a head start on homework!

Hiking in Devil's Garden

After I got picked up in the park

Partition Arch

Some pretty rocks!

Week 15: Already/only half way there!!!

Tuesday

I slept through my alarm this morning, so didn’t have time to swim but did half of the day’s run.  It was a really nice out and I realized how much I missed running in the mornings.  Maybe when it starts getting light out earlier I’ll be able to do more of it. 

Wednesday

I did yesterday’s swim this morning.  There was a cute guy in the lane next to me and I found myself working harder as soon as he showed up.  Actually, he might not be that cute; I think my perception is a little distorted at 5 AM when every male around me is 50 years old and wearing a Speedo.  I did the first 25 minutes of the day’s bike ride when I got home, and then the other 20 with a transition to a 15 minute run in the evening.  I was supposed to do a 30 minute run but got home too late to fit it in before meeting a friend for dinner.  I almost didn’t do any of it since I wouldn’t be able to do the whole thing, but quickly realized that a 15 minute transition run was much better than nothing.  A small victory, but I felt good about it. 

Thursday

I saw 30 deer crossing 500 S (a 6 lane road) and the way to swim this morning; they were crossing against the light, of course!  I was feeling really tired and even getting myself to the gym was like pulling my own tooth.  I got as close to swimming as taking a pre-swim shower when I decided to just lift weights and go home to take care of some things that had been hanging over me for a while.  I felt better after getting those things accomplished (although stressed in a different way now that I know how much I owe in taxes…) and it turns out I can lift heavier weights when I haven’t just swam.  So all in all I feel good about that decision.  I’ll still ride my bike tonight and make up the swim on Saturday.   

Friday

I got my swim in but didn’t have time to run.  I probably could have fit it in between lab experiments but I ended up walking around campus so much getting papers signed that I think I sort of made up for it.  Also, tomorrow’s going to be a really long day, I’d rather go in to it a little fresh.  

Saturday

6:30 AM: 1 hour swim (~2400 yards/1.4 miles?)

8:00 AM: Oatmeal breakfast

10:00 AM: 3 hour outdoor ride (thanks Sean for going with me and helping me get used to riding in traffic)

2:00 PM: 1 hour ride on trainer with transition to 30 minute run

Calories burned: 2700

Calories taken in before 6 PM: 1800 (I was full by that point and had to force myself to eat throughout the evening)

Sunburn lines: 2 (1 leg, 1 arm)

Functionality afterwards: Minimal.  I got my car washed and tried to drive it through myself but apparently you’re not supposed to do that, so somebody had to chase me down, stop the conveyer belt and ask me to wait inside.  I wonder if they ever do studies comparing people’s driving abilities after drinking and after endurance events…

Sunday

I felt pretty good this morning, my neck and shoulders were really tight but my legs were fine.  My legs definitely felt fatigued during today’s 1:30 run.  I realized that time-wise I almost did a half-Ironman yesterday, so no wonder running 10 miles today wasn’t exactly easy.  The good news is that I’m only half way through my training so this should be a lot easier in 6 weeks when I actually race a half.  

Monday

I’m still completely exhausted.  I don’t think I took in enough calories during Saturday’s ride and that’s why my recovery has been so slow. 

Week 14: A little more balanced

This week went much better than the last two; I was still fairly stressed by the weekend because I had two take-home finals to work on and one of them ended up taking about 20 hours (I probably should have spent closer to 30 on it, but oh well).  I started doing homework before training in the evenings and using the workouts as a break.  I ended up swimming 3 days in a row, which I thought would make me fatigued for Friday’s straight swim, but in the end it seemed to improve my rhythm and comfort.

Wednesday 2/29/2012

Got up at 6 and swam for an hour, had a leisurely breakfast before heading to lab.  Came home planning on doing my bike to run brick, but it started snowing and was really windy so the run part wasn’t going to happen.  Since I didn’t need to get it in before dark, and I was in a bad mood, I went to the grocery store.   I came back in a much better mood, but decided to tackle homework before biking (plus I had just eating some chocolate cookies and needed to let them digest).  By 9:30 I had a couple parts of my take home test done (the easy parts…) and still needed to work on my presentation for lab tomorrow. The bike ride might happen, it might not.  I’d rather go to bed at a reasonable hour and be able to swim and lift tomorrow morning and do a longer bike tomorrow evening anyway.

Thursday 3/1/2012

I had no trouble getting up and swimming this morning, even though I skipped last night’s workout.  It’s nice to know that missed workouts don’t always snowball.  My presentation went pretty well; I didn’t come close to passing out!  My 1 hour bike ride also happened, although I was on the phone for most of it, so I couldn’t do the Z4 portion.  

Friday 3/2/2012

3000 yard straight swim this morning!  It felt really good, although my splits weren’t what I was hoping they’d be.  The chorus of this song was stuck in my head; it was surprisingly perfect for a long swim with slow, even pacing.  It was also my first day in my new lab rotation and I really enjoyed it.  I was only able to fit in a 30 minute run in the evening because Sarah and I were hosting Chicken Friday (a potluck that happens on Fridays and revolves around chicken) and I needed to get home to start cooking.  I was supposed to do 60 minutes with 2x7.5 minutes at a Z4 heart rate with a couple minutes rest in between.  I ended up doing 30 minutes, with 5x2 minutes at Z4 with 2 minutes rest in between.  I was pretty tired by the end so I think it was a reasonable substitute.

Saturday 3/4/2012

Well between the several glasses of wine I had during Chicken Friday and the garlicky leftovers I had this morning (it was Italian-themed), I had a really bad stomach ache during my bike ride.  I had to stop after 2.5 hours because I felt like I was going to throw up any time I went aero or rode more than 13 mph.  I transitioned to napping in front of my fire rather than running for 30 minutes.  Lesson learned…

Sunday 3/5/2012

It was a warm, beautiful day, especially in Memorial Grove/City Creek, where I ran.  I just wanted to keep running and running, not go back inside and do homework.  Days like today make me so glad that I live and train in Salt Lake (although I hear Spokane had similar weather that day).  Maybe it just made me glad that I was able to get out and enjoy such a beautiful day, if only for 1.5 hours.

(Photo from: http://effervescentmediaworks.com/Photography/Locations/Memory%20Grove.html, one day when I have a smart phone I'll be able to post pictures I actually take on my runs)