Shaping up

My training has been very pathetic over the past month or so. I didn't manage to do anything in Spain, then only got two workouts in last week. I think it's just hard to get motivated to go outside during this heat. I was thinking that this week it was time to shape up, but then caught a bit of a cold and was out of commission for a few days.

By Thursday I was feeling better and was actually itching to go out and do something. I was thinking of going out for a longer run late afternoon; I knew some rain was forecast, but I figured that would actually be welcome.  I got about a mile and a half out from home on country roads when I started noticing that the rain clouds off in the distance had lightning flashes. I decided that being the tallest thing within a mile radius would not be so smart, so I cut the run a little short. By the time I got back to the subdivision, lightning flashes were becoming more frequent, so I thought I'd sprint home, but after about a half mile, I had to stop and walk. Made it back inside as the first raindrops were falling. (Which, as I've learned since, was not soon enough to avoid the risk lightning, though I think being surrounded by two-story houses, rather than by soy fields, reduced the risk substantially.)

Don't you love this nice animation from NWS?

Friday morning my plan was to get up early to go for a bike ride, but I couldn't get to sleep until after 2am, so after I got up and fed the dogs, I fell right back into bed until about 10. So instead I took the dogs for a quick jog around the neighborhood. Miso does really well with jogging, but Soba less so. At first, she gets too distracted by sniffing every inch of the ground to keep a good pace, and then, after a mile or so, she just gets too tired (and hot) to continue and starts dragging behind. I keep thinking about going on a run with just Miso, but I know Soba would feel really bad about being left behind.

I also made it to the pool, after a 3 week (!) hiatus. The good news is that I didn't lose too much ability during the break. I completed week 3 day 3 of the 0-to-1650 plan, and while it felt mildly challenging, I think I'm ready to step up to week 4 during my next time out. On the minus side, the pool was fairly congested (at one point, I think there were 5 or 6 people in my lane) and I had to stop for a few seconds to check on traffic at each end of the pool, so I didn't really do the 400m uninterrupted interval. Who would have thought that so many people would have nothing better to do on a Friday night than doing laps in the pool?

Swim set:
400m, 12 breaths rest
200m, 10 breaths rest
4x100m, 8 breaths rest (may have only been 3, I always lose count here)
4x50m, 4 breaths rest

This morning I decided to join the distance run put on by our local running club. The start time was 7am, so I set my alarm for 6. I had trouble falling asleep again so I ended up taking an Ambien, but I think I took it a bit too late, since when 6am rolled around, I was still feeling a bit spacey and it took me about 20 minutes to actually drag myself out of bed. I quickly fed the dogs, made coffee (spilling the drip tray all over the floor in the process), printed out the course map that I then forgot at home, and jumped into the car. Apparently, I wasn't the only one feeling spaced out, since on the way to the start, a woman almost changed lanes into me. That got certainly my heart rate up!

The run was an 8-mile loop, which you would do once if you're training for a half marathon and twice if you're training for the full. In the olympic distance triathlon, I only have to run a 10K (6.2mi), but training longer distances should be helpful since the run will follow the swim and bike. I settled in at the back of the pack and ended up running with two older women who were both talking about their kids moving out of the house. One, whose last kid was just leaving, was 51; the other, who was on her third grandchild, was 44!! It's amazing that you can make such different life choices and end up with your kids out of the house before you even really hit middle age. For comparison, my parents were close to 70 by the time they finally got grandkids.

We started out a little fast, doing 2 sub-10 miles; fortunately, everyone agreed that we needed to slow down a bit. The women had both done marathons in the past but they were supportive of my first attempt at an 8-mile run. We took a couple walking breaks and the 51-year-old started to fall behind a bit because she was feeling too hot. I kept pace with 44-year-old (mostly); the last couple miles were a bit painful, but I did finish, making about an 11-minute pace overall, including the walking breaks.

I felt pretty exhausted by the end; I even allowed myself a little bit of gatorade to replenish my electrolytes, and it probably took me about 10 minutes to feel normal again. The women went out for a few more miles after the break. I now have a newfound respect for half-marathoners; I certainly was in no shape to run an extra 5.1 miles today. Though I think I will try to find a half marathon to run some time in the fall. The women recommended the Chicago Monster Dash in late October—sounds like it could be fun.

Back in the saddle

Tuesday was Bike to Work Day in Champaign-Urbana and I decided it was a good opportunity to start my cycling season. Monday night I dusted off my bike (untouched since last summer), pumped up the tires, and located my helmet in the garage (never an easy task), so that everything was set to go Tuesday morning. I left the house just after 7am and headed towards Savoy. It's a little out of the way, but this way I got to avoid the dangerously narrow freeway overpasses.

Very quickly, my muscles started complaining about being used in an unfamiliar way, so I had to use my granny gear when heading up a grade, but for the most part I was having a great time. I stopped by a bike station and picked up a free T-shirt, water bottle, and a sticker, and continued on my way. They did not have the promised coffee, so I was glad I had fueled up at home. I ended up using bike lanes or bike paths for most of the ride, except on campus things get confusing as bike paths are not very well labeled and end abruptly. At one point, I was dumped onto a one-way street facing the wrong way, so I ended up just riding on the sidewalk.

I finally arrived at my office just before 8 and ended up being a couple of minutes late to my (last!) lecture. After the lecture, I walked up the stairs to my office very slowly, as my legs seemed not to have much energy left in them. Somehow, by the end of the summer, I'm going to have to run a 10K after a bike ride 2.5 times as long (not to mention a long swim, too). No problem!

Just after 4pm, a rainstorm started rolling through campus. Lenore emailed me and offered to come rescue me in the minivan, so I checked the weather radar, and it looked like the storm would pass in a short while. Just after I told her not to worry about me, the tornado siren started going off. Everyone in the office filed down to the basement, except for a few students who were standing outside peering at what looked like a funnel cloud in the distance. I think they eventually came to their senses and went inside; I myself tried to watch the storm on our new building webcam, but could only see rain. Lenore emailed me that she was hiding in our basement at home with the dogs and the twins.

Fortunately, the tornado warning expired at 4:45 and the weather cleared up nicely. My ride home ended up being sunny and pleasant for most of the ride, except in the beginning, when my seat was super-wet. The last few miles were biking on mostly open roads into a strong headwind, so my average heart rate for that part was about 10bpm higher than on the outbound trip and I was hot and out of breath when I arrived home. But overall, I think I can declare my commuting experiment a success. The only major downside is that it takes about a half-hour longer than driving, but I think in the summer, I should be able to find the time to do this again.

I've also started dreaming of buying a new bike to replace my 10+ old bottom-of-the-line hybrid. Last summer, I was very close to buying a CAAD10 5 105, but eventually I decided that I couldn't fit it into my budget. It was a good thing, too, since I only made it out bicycling a half-dozen times the whole summer. This summer, I was planning to do a bit of a splurge to get a tenure gift for myself, and a nice road bike may be just the thing. To make sure that I don't end up with something I don't use, I've decided to make my budget equal to the number of minutes I have spent bicycling. I figure this way, by the time I have banked enough minutes for a new bike, I will have established a pretty regular cycling pattern that the money will be well spent. And it might even encourage me to bike to work more often, which is almost certainly a good thing.