Monday, April 19, 2010

A weekend of training and rambling.

I was looking forward to training last weekend since it was the first time in a while that I was going to push up my training volume a little bit. There is still hope for a recovery from my "injuries" so I have to keep the mindset just in case I find the still elusive miracle cure.

I had a ride scheduled for Saturday morning and the original plan was go out with the Long Island Tri Coach group that normally is on the road by 6am. There are a lot of hard core athletes in this group and they have a tendency to push the pace a bit. I had 2 hours or so of "easy riding on hills" scheduled and I figured that I would easily be back early enough for a 10am yoga class. Their rides are getting longer since many of them are targeting IMLP in July. This week they had two groups going out Saturday and Sunday: 30 miles and 50 miles.

Due to the craptastic weather forecast, they cancelled Saturday's rides and were only hitting the roads on Sunday. I decided that I would ride solo on Saturday if I could. Unfortunately, the forecast was right - Saturday morning was grey, windy, cold and raining. So I improvised. Plan B was to go to the 8AM yoga, give the weather a chance to improve and ride later that morning.

Yoga was yoga. When I left the yogatarium, while it still was miserable and dreary, it wasn't raining any more. Quick change into bike clothes and I was off in 45 degree dryness thinking I was smart. The mist started almost immediately, the drizzle after a few miles, and the real rain returned in force just in time for the hill work. I realized then I wasn't that smart after all. I was slipping and sliding on the bike (even going uphill) so I headed home to be safe. It was shorter than the plan but I figured 75 minutes in the rain had to count for something. Of course, the rain stopped as soon as I pulled into my street.

Then it was off to Amanda's soccer game in the cold, raw weather. Home for a few minutes and then into Brooklyn with Courtney to see her cello teacher perform a concert while my wife took Amanda to see Itzak Perlman perform locally. While music obviously is important in our household, late night concerts don't really help early morning training.

There was a triathlon expo in the big city Sunday morning and there was a 4m NYRR race scheduled in Central Park beforehand. Somehow the race wasn't sold out so I decided to register the morning of the race, "walk" the race to get credit for another or the 9 to guarantee entry into the 2011 NYC26.2 and then go to the expo with EagleCary who was doing the same deal. My plan was to jog a bit, walk a bit, and repeat until done. My Garmin was out of battery so I decided to do the race more on feel than anything else. I did have an old school Timex watch but figured 12:00/m was where I wanted to be while running.

My first mile went out in 11:45 (including a walk break). I thought that was a little quick. I then realized I was dressed for walking, not running (too many layers). The second mile went by in 23:05 (11:20 with a walk break) - way too quick. I decided I was a moron so made myself walk the whole third mile (went by in 38:00 (14:55)) to prevent my injuries from wreaking havoc with me. Jogged in the last mile (11:30) for a finish of 49:30. I was happy as I was sort of recalling the feeling of running but we'll see how long it takes my injuries to ruin my happiness. Meanwhile, EagleCary crushed a PR.

The expo was small and the only thing for follow up was on Infinit nutrition (thoughts anyone?). I got a free swag bag that the highlights were a Spinerval DVD (Troy Jacobson was presenting later at the symposium) and an Endurance Nation DVD. I needed to hustle home since we were having the extended family over to celebrate Amanda's birthday.

After the party I was supposed to get on the trainer for some cycling. The party ended late and decided it better to get some sleep than to stay up late training. I woke up feeling better than I have in a long time pain-wise but my muscles were complaining that I asked them to do something they weren't used to. To ask a little more, I rode the stationary bike for 45 minutes and then hit master's swim class.

In retrospect and with all this rambling, I realized I did a decent amount of training for someone who is injured and can't really do much. Next weekend, 100K bike ride on the calendar. If that goes to plan, I'm positioned well for the miracle cure.

5 comments:

Big Daddy Diesel said...

I have a gift card for Infinit I havent used yet, I guess I should order some to see if it works for me before it gets into the season too much

Spinerval in a swag bag, finally something cool one can use, Ohio swag bags suck.

Tri Mommy said...

It sounds like things may be on the mend... I think you did a great job in the race! Sometimes not getting a PR is just fine.

Jess said...

"I realized I did a decent amount of training for someone who is injured and can't really do much."

You rocked training this week, injured or not! Nice job!

Julie said...

Nice work on that 4 miler in Central Park:) You actually did pretty darn good!! It sounds like you are doing well in terms of other training too! I have to give you credit for sticking with the Yoga! Also, smart move on cutting your bike ride short....no reason to have a wipe out and hurt yourself more. Have a good one!

Caratunk Girl said...

Seriously, Spinnervals in a swag bag? I am jealous, that is awesome. Way to stick with training through injury, and great job on the race - racing with injury is super tough (as you know!) I haven't tried Infinit so I am not sure about it.