I HATE When That Happens

Little Red Riding Hood is skipping down the road when she sees a big bad wolf crouched down behind a log.

"My, what big eyes you have, Mr.Wolf." The wolf jumps up and runs away.

Further down the road Little Red Riding Hood sees the wolf again and this time he is crouched behind a bush.  "My, what big ears you have, Mr. Wolf."  Again, the wolf jumps up and runs away.

About two miles down the road Little Red Riding Hood sees the wolf again and this time he is crouched down behind a rock.  "My, what big teeth you have, Mr. Wolf."

With that the wolf jumps up and screams, "Will you knock it off, I'm trying to poop!"

Moving On

I'm not even going to try to attempt to catch up on what I've done for the past almost two weeks. There hasn't been much training going on, mainly due to some seriously crappy weather (26 inches?!), a sudden onslaught in work (60-hour work weeks?!), and a wild birthday celebration that may or may not have ended with the birthday girl giving her underwear away. Ahem. Right.

Last night our workout was 3 timed miles around the reservoir at 1/2 marathon pace. I ran 8:25, 7:49, 7:52, which is most definitely not my 1/2 marathon pace. But wouldn't that be nice? With the warm-up, recovery, etc., it was about 8 miles. After the workout we did some form drills and I started feeling a weird pain in the top of my calf / back of my knee / bottom of my hamstring area. It was on both sides, which makes me think I am just tight. Anyway, I need to be nice to my legs because we have a big weekend of training coming up. I'm going to elliptical and swim after work today, and I'm supposed to bike tomorrow but I think I might swim instead.

Just for the record, not because I've done anything even remotely interesting in the past few days

Tuesday night's workout kind of threw me off. I couldn't figure out if it was supposed to be easy or if I'm just kicking butt, but it took nothing out of me. I felt like I was on the leisurely jog I've been longing for lately. We did 3 reservoir loops with pick-ups on #1 and #3, and steady state on #2.

Yesterday I swam 2200m in the morning. The main set was 400 free / 100 breast, both with a buoy, for 1400m. The breaststroke was supposed to simulate the upper body fatigue we'll feel in the big swim. It's really hard to breaststroke without the kick! You should try it sometime. After work I went to the gym and ellipticalled for 30 minutes. That's all I was going to do, but after watching all the girls in their yoga pants trotting along at 5mph, I just had to show them how it's done. So I ran a quick 3 miles in 24 minutes. This little workout was most definitely not on my training plan, so when I get injured down the road we can all look back on the day I started doing more than was prescribed and have a good cringe about it.

I overslept this morning and missed the team ride, but it was only 20 degrees so I'm glad I stayed in my toasty bed. I'll do the indoor trainer workout tonight.

Squatter's Rights

This does not have to do with the phantom post about pooping in a bush. As far as I know only one person read it, and if she knows what's good for her she'll keep her mouth shut! Rather, I'm thinking of claiming squatter's rights in my cubicle.

I actually left work for a few hours this weekend, and got some decent training in. Saturday morning I biked for 3 hours in CP. That was exceptionally boring. We were supposed to do 3 x 3 lower loop time trials with a full loop recovery, but the lower loop was crowded with TNTers and tourists (one of whom I played chicken with as he stood in the middle of the road trying to take my picture), so we did our time trials on the upper loop instead. I'm sick of Harlem Hill. And I don't know what the total mileage was.

Sunday I was supposed to run for 1:30:00 so I "warmed up" for 1:00:00 and then ran the NYRR 4-miler. I was plenty warm by the start, but my legs were feeling a little heavy from Saturday's bike. I decided to try to run 8:15 pace on negative splits. My first mile was 8:10. Ooops. I continued with 7:33, 7:52 (up Cat Hill), and 7:09 for a finish time of 30:44. I'm pretty sure that's a 4-mile PR for me, which is exciting. I didn't cool down because standing around at the finish line made me cold enough.

Swim + Spectate

This morning I swam 2200m. That seems to be the standard length of our workouts lately. It's nice because I can easily get in and out in under an hour. I really like swimming in the morning, but I don't like the faint scent of chlorine that follows me around for the rest of the day. Maybe I should shower after I swim. I'm kidding. I do shower, but I still smell. Story of my life.

The pool was long course (50m) this morning which was nice because I didn't feel like I was constantly turning around, but my workout called for rest after 75m and that was hard to do. I wanted to stop in the middle of the pool and tread water, but instead we combined sets. Sometimes my teammates are no fun. So yeah, we swam. Nothing too exciting. The main set was 3 x 400 pulling. I finally feel like I can swim efficiently with a buoy which says good things about my upper body movement. Now if I could only perfect the two-beat kick I'd be all set!

Tonight I'm going to the Millrose Games at MSG. I've lived here for 4 years and have never gone, so I figure I should. There should be some good races (Bekele vs. Lagat in the mile), and I hear the men's shot is stacked but I'm not is interested in that (though you'd think I would be, given my inexplicable attraction to fat bald men).

Hills, Hills, and more Hills

I biked 27 miles in CP this morning. We split into two groups and I opted to go with the slower group which might not be where I belong, but I'm slightly intimidated by the coach who rides with the faster group so I like to keep my distance. I think I learn a lot more when I'm not riding in fear of being yelled at. Or told I look like an elephant on a tricycle. Anyway, the workout: we did a 6-mile warm-up loop working on paceline drills, 3 x hard up Harlem Hill (seated, seated/standing, standing), another 6-mile recovery loop, 3 x hard up Harlem Hill, then a short recovery spin home. The first 4 months of our cycling training were exclusively in the small chain ring and now we're moving into the big chain ring, so those hills really get the quads talking. Maybe that's why we're supposed to be doing squats and leg press on our own. I should really think about that. Also, it must be said that I FLY up hills when seated. Standing? Not so much. At least I know what I need to work on.

Why Candy Rocks

My mom is the greatest. Seriously. I meet other moms and I think "you suck." But mine? She rocks. In July 2004, we went shopping and she bought a shirt that I wanted. I was debating between two, picked one, and she got the other. Then I changed my mind. But she refused to trade, and she was actually kind of nasty about it. Yesterday, the shirt arrived in the mail with the tags still on. It seems she bought it with the intent of giving it to me as a congratulatory gift when I passed my next exam. Unfortunately, it took me a year and a half.

Enough of that. Last night we had a nice hill workout of about 8 miles. We warmed up on the bridle path in CP to the west side underpass and ran 6 x hard uphill to the SW corner of the reservoir, recovery down. Then we moved over to strawberry fields hill and did another 3 x hard uphill, with a nice little recovery around the lower loop. I really like running on the bridle path. If I ever get back into leisurely training (as opposed to strictly regimented workouts), I'd like to explore the trails in CP more since I usually stick to the roads.

This morning I swam 2200m: 400 warm-up with drills, 4 x 400 with 10 push-ups on deck before each 400, 200 cool-down.

In response to my abysmal performance on Saturday, I'm making a concerted effort to be nicer to my body. I like to think that I'm young and resilient and can pretty much get away with anything. I still think that's true for the most part, but I'm starting to realize that this level of training takes a greater toll on my body that I initially suspected. I'm mostly concentrating on my eating (foods with more nutritional substance/benefit), but I also need to pay more attention to the little things like drinking enough water and getting enough sleep. Hmmm....these sound like resolutions. I think I set them about a month ago. We'll try again.