Oooh… he throws in a swim!
This morning, once again, right back on the bike. Actually, today was supposed to be my off day, but I decided to rearrange things and take tomorrow off. I’m feeling good physically and switching days makes tomorrow so much easier. We’re headed out to the beach for the long weekend and hoping to leave work early and get on the road mid-afternoon, so it’s going to be a crazy day working, packing, getting ready and generally running around until we actually get on the road. If I tried to get the training in as scheduled tomorrow, I’m certain I would have missed at least one of the sessions or given myself an ulcer trying to squeeze them in around everything else.
Last night, Elizabeth and I had a fantastic dinner at Blue Water Grill to celebrate Valentine’s Day. The food was great (and there was tons of it – especially since I ate half of Elizabeth’s dinner as well as my own!), we both had a little to drink and had a really nice time. Valentine’s Day dinner can be scary – on the one hand, it gets blown out of proportion and you feel that it has to be something special, but on the other hand, the restaurants are so packed and trying to squeeze in more people than normal so it can be pretty hectic and feel rushed. There wasn’t any of that at all last night. The restaurant staff were really nice and even though the restaurant was crowded, they totally had things under control and we were able to have a wonderful night. Even though there were tables on either side of us, dinner felt more private than I’d expected. I did wake up a little groggy – I assume a result of the wine and massive amount of food I ate.
Groggy or not, I set my bike up on the trainer, turned on the TV and started spinning. The hour didn’t go by as quickly as I might have liked, but I did get to watch a bunch of repeated videos and some other mindless TV. I meant to throw a DVD in the player, but forgot until after I’d already gotten started, and I’ve exhausted most of what’s interesting on Tivo, so I was stuck with what was on. Elizabeth got me the first season of “The Wire” on DVD for my birthday, but I’m hesitant to try to watch that while I’m training. I find that I don’t/can’t pay 100% attention to the TV while I’m riding. That’s shouldn’t surprise anyone. That’s why things like MTV or episodes of “Arrested Development” that I’ve already seen multiple times or stupid action movies are generally the best. I don’t have to concentrate too much to get the gist of it, enjoy it and keep my mind entertained while I’m riding. I think that if I tried to watch “The Wire”, I’d either miss a lot of what was going on or I’d concentrate too much on the TV and I wouldn’t be able to keep my mind on the workout. I’ll just keep watching the shows I’ve been watching. Fortunately, I can’t imagine there will be too many more weeks where I’m spending six days in a row on the trainer (a total of seven sessions for 8:15).
This evening I went to the gym and swam 3,100 yards. It took me a little bit longer than usual to warm up – maybe all that time on the bike has taken its toll after all? – but once I was warm, I had a really good swim. The main set was 15×100 with 10-15 seconds rest in between. The 100’s felt great and I was swimming them pretty quickly (for me, at least – probably around 1:35’s and defintely faster than 1:40’s), pretty comfortably. I thought that maybe I’d feel a sense of relief that I was doing something other than riding the trainer, but it didn’t feel that way. It was satisfying, but mostly because I was doing one more scheduled training session and getting one more session closer to Lake Placid.
Tonight we picked Charlie up from the hospital. I guess I haven’t described what happened: he had Patellar Luxation (click on link for a technical explanation). The vet figures that it was caused during his development in the womb. The luxation in his hind left leg was a grade 3 (out of 4), which pretty much always requires surgery. His hind right leg isn’t great either, but the doctor estimated that leg is a 1. We’ll have to see if he has problems in the future on the right side. The luxation doesn’t cause him pain right now, but it would probably have resulted in arthritis in his leg, which would have been very painful later in life. So, we’re putting him through some pretty painful stuff for a few days or weeks to save him years of pain later in life. Hopefully he would agree that it’s a good trade. He was originally supposed to be released last night, but in speaking with the vet yesterday, she suggested that he stay another night. The surgery went really well and his incision looked good, but he was having a reaction to the pain meds and wasn’t eating or being a happy puppy. It made sense to us that he spend one more night in a safer environment where he’d have someone watching him at all times. Anyway, we finally picked him up and were so happy to see the little guy. The surgery was a much bigger deal than either of us had really envisioned – he has a two inch incision running over his knee. Two inches is pretty damn long when your leg is only about five inches long! He’s pretty out of sorts and not really comfortable, but I think that’s all to be expected. He doesn’t put any real weight on the leg, but he’s not holding it up or totally hobbling around just on the other three. The stitches stay in for another ten days, and around that time hopefully he’ll start feeling better too. Phew. Here are a couple pictures of him hiding in his house with his protective hood on so he won’t try to get at his stitches.
Bike – February 15
Time: 1:00
Average heart rate: 111
Indoor ride with isolated leg training
Swim – February 15
Time: 1:10
Distance: 3,100 yards