Swim

I have been neglecting both this blog and my whole exercise program. I think I was satisfied with my level of fitness and decided not to make exercise as high a priority in my life, but as a result I have done nearly no exercise in the last couple of months. I think other than a quick run with the dogs, I haven't done anything since the Allerton trail run. I even bought a whole set of cold-weather running gear and new running shoes a few weeks ago, but they have been languishing in my closet. Also, disappointingly, I am going to break my streak of running a race every calendar month, since I don't think I can fit in any races in November, seeing as they tend to occur on weekends. Anyway, it's time to re-prioritize and start exercising again.

TL;DR: I've been lazy and it's time to shape back up.

Lenore and I are splitting today, with me watching the kids before nap and her afterwards. I decided to use my free time to go to the pool. Other than my swim classes, I haven't been in the pool in, like, forever and it shows. I swam 4x25m to warm up (the pool was c-c-c-old!), and then did a staircase of intervals: 100, 200, 300, 400, 300, 200, 100. Even the first 100 left me out of breath, and by the time I finished the 200 I felt ready to quit. Somewhere around the middle of the  400, though, I finally found a good rhythm. My arms still felt really tired from disuse, but I was no longer feeling out of breath, and my form was a trifle better.

The good news is that I'm swimming faster: I timed the last 100m and it was 2:24, which is still pretty slow, but faster than what I was doing in the summer. If I can get my fitness back up, I might even be able to swim 100m in 2:00 by the time of my next triathlon.

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.