Home "alone", part 2

... and we're back! When we last left our heroes, they just completed a 40-minute jog with the POD. The initial plan for Sunday was to try the bike trailer mode of the POD, but due to an error on my part, Tora's helmet had not yet arrived. The backup plan was to try out a strength workout using the GAIN Fitness app, but that also had to be scrapped when I woke up Sunday morning with a bad case of food poisoning.  So instead I spent the day feeling trying to remain horizontal while feeling miserable.

By Monday I was feeling much better. I also lucked out with our babysitter; she came to watch the twins while I went to work for a prelim exam and was able to stay a bit later, so I got in a quick swim at the pool. I noticed myself making progress; I was able to get through an entire 50m length without feeling terribly winded. I also spent some time doing some measurements: I was taking 90 to 120 seconds per a 50m pool length, and about 75 strokes. So definitely lots of room for improvement!

Tuesday morning the kids went to daycare and I went to the gym. I decided it was time to try out the GAIN Fitness app. It's kind of neat: you give it some goals about what you are aiming to do, such as build muscle or just improve health, how long you want to work out, what area you want to focus on, and what equipment you have available. It then creates a set of exercises for you and guides you through them. For each exercise, you get a picture and some tips; you can also switch among several (roughly) equivalent exercises, based on your preference. It can also upload a report to RunKeeper about your workout.

Overall, I like the ability to design a tailored workout for your particular circumstance (especially as I travel and have to exercise in various hotel gyms). The functionality has a few rough corners; if you look at the report, it seems to follow a template that isn't appropriate for all exercises and it also includes some exercises that I skipped. Also, during the warm-up and cool-down exercises, it assumes that you are able to instantaneously switch between them as it measures out 30-second intervals; I guess with practice, that may be the case. It's not a replacement for a personal trainer, but it seems to provide good guidance for someone like me, who's just beginning some strength training and needs flexibility in the workouts.

Finally, Tuesday afternoon, we went for a bike ride. The kids' helmets had both arrived and I got them adjusted as best I could. (The instructions kept saying things like "put the helmet on your head ...", which would have been much simpler than putting the helmet on a squirmy toddler, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't fit.) Tora for some reason didn't like the helmet too much, though Tavi was pretty happy; I think he just saw it as another cool hat.

I finally wrangled them both into the trailer and into the helmets and we were ready to go.

We went slowly out of the subdivision and then got out onto the country road... where the wind hit. The trailer has a terrible wind profile, so I ended up going very slowly in a low gear. The handling of the bike is also noticeably different; every once in a while, the wind shifts or the slope changes and then the pull from the back changes, sometimes even to a brief push. But we were in no rush, and once again, this training should help me go faster in a race sans trailer.

My plan was to go for about a 50-minute ride, as prescribed by my training schedule, but after about 20 minutes, Tora started crying. I don't know if she was tired, hot, hungry, or just cranky. Unfortunately, there was nothing much I could do other than turn around and bike home, which took another 15 minutes or so. Next time I will try going when it's not as hot out and/or bring something for the kids to drink to see if they tolerate it better.

Home "alone" (part 1)

Lenore has been in Florida since Friday so I have been home "alone" with the twins (and the dogs). This has put a damper on both my ability to work out and my blogging, but I'm trying to catch up.

I ordered a Baby Jogger POD, which is a combination bike trailer / jogging stroller. It's a little pricey, but I'm hoping this will let Lenore and me to work out together more often, and in theory it should last them a few years. I am a little concerned about the amount of shoulder room, since they're already pretty cozy in there:

(The Chariot Cougar 2 has a bit more shoulder room, but it's even more expensive.)  On Friday, I took the kids out for a quick stroll in the POD, taking the dogs along, too. It seemed to work fine, so on Saturday I went for a 40-minute run... and immediately felt the impact of the extra 70 lbs or so I was pushing along. Even going on a flat surface was a lot harder, perhaps in part because I couldn't swing my arms for counterbalance, and any minimal incline was immediately noticeable. Interestingly, it felt more like a whole-body workout, since pushing the stroller required engaging my arm, back, and core muscles. I ended up feeling pretty exhausted by the end, despite running only about a 11-minute mile. As it turns out, I wasn't the only one who got tuckered out:

I'm actually thinking that this will be good for my triathlon training. My training plan calls for "long" runs starting at 40 minutes and building up to 77 minutes over the course of 3 months, which makes sense aiming at a 10K run, but since I just finished a 10K training plan, a 40-minute session just doesn't feel like that long a run normally, and I could relatively comfortably knock out 77 minutes tomorrow if needed. But with a stroller, it's a whole different story and 40 minutes seems like a good starting point. In the actual race, of course, I'll be running sans stroller, but I will be tired from the swim and the bike, so it should be somewhat similar.

(To be continued—have to go pick up the kids from daycare now)

Taper week

I ended up again skipping my recovery run on Monday. I nearly skipped my last race pace run on Wednesday, too. My plan was to get in an early morning run, but then the dogs woke me up at 5 and I heard the kids crying. I went to check on them and discovered that it was 95 degrees in their room! The space heater we use has this UI bug where you have to set the thermostat temperature each time you turn it on, otherwise it simply ends up on the "max heat" setting by default, and Lenore must have forgotten to do that last night. There was no getting them back to sleep and I failed at waking up Lenore, so I ended up feeding them an early breakfast and watching them until Lenore finally got up, by which point I had to rush out of the house to make my doctor's appointment.

At the end of the day, I was feeling exhausted from being up since 5, plus suffering from either a minor head cold or allergies. But, after taking a break on the couch, I convinced myself that it was probably just allergies, and I was feeling really disappointed about not running at all this week (other than the 10K, of course), so I laced up my shoes and went outside. Once I was actually running, I felt a million times better!

My goal was to run a 3 miles at a 10:30 min/mile pace to practice for the 10K. My splits were 10:15, 10:25, and 10:37, averaging out to 10:26, so pretty close to the mark. My average heart rate was 163 bpm and it actually stayed pretty close to that during the whole run. So I think my target pace is right on target; I figure I'll aim for it for the first 5 miles and then pick things up for the last one, assuming I have any energy left.

I picked up our race packets this afternoon at the fitness expo. From what I saw, the event seems pretty well organized, with lots of signs and volunteers pointing you in the right direction. (Though they did screw up Lenore's shirt size and were unwilling to exchange it.) We'll have to see how much of a zoo it will be on Saturday, with 20,000 people. I also talked to the folks from the Second WInd running club; they seemed very nice. They apparently hold speed work sessions Wednesday nights, so I might try to incorporate that into my triathlon training schedule.

It seems that the allergies turned out to be a head cold after all. I'm hoping that a good night's rest will keep it from taking a turn for the worse, so it's time for some NyQuil and bed.