Weekly Training Summary June 6, 2010

I am feeling so ready to race again.  I know a lot of folks hate the heat, but I love it.  Heat means summer.  And summer means the training season has just kicked in.  Of course, I wish I was training for a marathon.  But, I'm content with the races I have coming up, including my first open water swim on Sunday and my first tri at the end of July.  And I'm hoping to use my Army 10 miler time to determine whether sub-3 is do-able next spring when I return to marathon racing.

Anyhow, a good week of running, although I bit over the map distance-wise.  Started the week off with an excellent 6 miler at Bethany Beach with my wife.  Normally, she's doing 6 at 6 (am) on Mondays, but we were on vacation so we slept in and did 6 at 7 (am).  Thursday, my colleague Larry convinced me to run 5.04 instead of my scheduled 4.  Friday, I convinced him to run my scheduled 4.17 mile.  Today, I did my first brick, and ran 4.09 miles (again with my wife -- it's worth not increasing my speed just to continue running with her, now I know why she's so popular in the running club).

Because of the holiday weekend, I missed my normal Monday swim.  Masters swim workout: 400 meter warm up; 6 x 50 m free (buildup); 6 x 200m free (slow, medium, fast); 50m easy; 6 x 100m (alternate IM and free); 6 x 75m kick (alternate hard/easy); 6 x 50 m free.  Total:  3300m.  Things were a bit confused at the swim.  I got into lane 3 like last week, except I must have missed when they shifted all the lanes over (why I have no idea) so I ended up swimming with the lane 2 swimmers -- a bit slower than I would have liked.  But, since I had run 5 miles earlier, I wasn't complaining too much.  Rounded out the week of swimming on Saturday, with 3300 meters in the wetsuit.  I'm getting to be very comfortable swimming in the suit, so I'm hoping things will go well next Sunday.  The only down side was that I forget to put the bodyglide around my neck and got some chafing from the wetsuit collar. My wife teased me that it looks like I got a hickey -- but it doesn't feel all that great!

On the bike front, I got my two early morning 45 minute sessions on the trainer.  I don't mind them, if they weren't so early in the morning (I get up at 5:15 -- although my wife is usually already out of the house for her runs by then...)  I have my Zune cranked and fan on (otherwise it's stifling in the basement workout room).  The best part of the bike training, however, was my first road ride today.  Got the bike out of the shop yesterday, bought a pair road shoes and cleats, successfully installed the cleats on my own, and prepared for my first brick.  Since I've never ridden in cleats I decided to park at Grosvenor Metro and bike along Beach Drive (mostly closed to cars on the weekends) until I got comfortable with cars (there are portions of the ride that have cars) and with cleats.  I was surprised at how easy it was to de-cleat myself from the pedals at stoplights.  Getting back in was another story.  I guess with time I'll know just how to position my shoe over the pedal to snap in without having to keep looking down.  Of course, the best part of my inaugural bike ride was having to call my brother halfway through to ask him how the gear shifters worked.  I did the first 30 minutes (about 8 miles) in 9th gear (small gear up front, small gear in back) because I could not figure out how to change gears.  Luckily he answered the phone because the return trip along Beach Drive had some serious uphills that would not have been too much fun.

So there you have it, sports fans.  This coming week, I up my mileage to 5 miles per run (YAY) and I have my first open water swimming competition (yay?)  A lot of excitement in store....