Catching up
I’ve been so good about writing here on every training day, that I’m a little surprised I’m writing today to cover Saturday, Sunday and Monday. This weekend was a busy one – a fair amount of training (especially Saturday), a couple late nights, celebrating my birthday and all the other usual stuff we fill our weekends with. It was a good weekend, but exhausting and I felt like I was in a funk for most of it. Maybe I was still recovering from last week and the truth is that I stayed up too late both Friday and Saturday and got up really early on Saturday, so that certainly didn’t help. Today, though, thankfully, I’m feeling better than I have since getting home from California. I still was a bit woozy this morning and had more trouble getting started than I normally do, but once I was up and moving a little, I felt good.
I went to the gym this morning for some strength training testing – working on determining my 1 rep max for three exercises: squat, chest press and pull down. John didn’t want me to actually do just one rep (a good thing I agree; that would have been asking to get injured), so my goal was to see what the max weight I could do for 4-10 reps. There’s a pretty big difference between four and ten and I haven’t been lifting heavy recently, so I just made some wild guesses and came out close. For the squat, I warmed up with seven reps at 95, then did seven reps at 155; for the bench, I warmed up with eight reps at 135, then did five reps at 185; and for the pulldown, I warmed up with eight reps at 100, then did eight reps at 140. I think that I could have gone 10-15% heavier. My instructions were that if I got ten reps, to wait a few minutes, increase the weight and try again. But because I didn’t get ten on any of them and I figured that I was pretty close, I decided this was a good enough benchmark for today. Also , I did it without a spot today (dumb, I know). In looking at my schedule, I also thought that I was re-testing those same exercises on Wednesday this week. So, I figured I could learn from this morning and increase the weight on Wednesday. I looked at the schedule again and I’m doing different exercises on Wednesday and Friday. That’s OK.
This afternoon I went back to the pool for a swim. I warmed up for ten minutes and then was supposed to do a half-hour swim straight through. I was a little nervous as I’ve never swum that far in the pool, but it went great. I ended up doing 1,700 in the half hour, which I’m pretty pleased with (average pace 1:46/100 yards). I was pretty beat at the end of it, but not even close to totally spent. I think I kept up a relatively good form the entire time and my pace felt fairly even throughout.
Now, back to the weekend:
Saturday morning, I got up at the crack of dawn (7AM), got my stuff together and met Jonathan Blyer in Prospect Park for a ride. He told me that he was riding from 8-10AM and since I was scheduled to get in 2:45 on Saturday, I figured it would be better to ride with a small group and best to get it over with early. I struggled to sleep on Friday night, so I only got about 6.5 hours, which stunk, but I was determined to get out and do the ride. The forecast called for record high temperatures on Saturday and it was already in the mid-60’s when I left home. The ride to Brooklyn at that time of morning on a Saturday was easy. I got to Prospect Park and met up with Jon and a few of his friends. It was a great ride, and a few people came in and out of our little group. Riding in Prospect Park is so much nicer than Central Park. The loop is only about half as long, so it did mean going around many more times, but the pavement is smoother and you don’t have to deal with horses or pedicabs or nearly as many tourists. Also, the people in Prospect Park seem to be more conscious of the bikes. It was a nice ride and I sort of pushed myself. I was supposed to take it easy, so I didn’t push too hard (my heart rate monitor was on the fritz, bummer), but while I was there, I generally kept my cadence in at least the high-90’s and my speed in the 19-20 mph range. I did 11 laps, I think and by the time I got home had logged around 46 miles. I also had a half hour run scheduled for Saturday, so instead of waiting and recovering, I dropped my bike at home, changed my shoes, took just a couple minutes and went back out. By this time, it was sunny and definitely in the high-60’s. I went out for a nice, easy 30 minutes, working on keeping my heart rate down and my foot turnover sorta high.
My one problem (which definitely haunted me the rest of the weekend) was that I didn’t fuel very well either during or after the workout. I had a gel, a bottle of Accelerade, a bottle of water and a Clif Bar during the ride, had a little water when I got home and nothing during the run. That’s probably pretty close to enough for that workout, though another gel wouldn’t have hurt. The problem was that after I got back from the run, I felt bad that Charlie had been cooped up in the house all morning, so I got a bottle of Endurox and a Luna Bar and went out with him. We ended up out for two hours, walking all over downtown. The day was just too nice not to. I did buy a bottle of water, but no more food. Mistake. I got back after the walk with him tired, thirsty and hungry. I ate and then passed out for nearly two hours. I woke up feeling woozy, but we had to get ready for Myles Gordon’s 1 year old birthday party and then my birthday dinner immediately after. At the Gordon’s I ate a ton and drank a few bottles of water and I had a lot to eat at dinner, but I think I was still paying for not getting my nutrition earlier after my training. Then, I started drinking. It was my birthday dinner and most of my favorite people were there, so what was I supposed to do?! It made it until 1:30 before I started losing it. Home and crashed…
I woke up Sunday feeling pretty crap. Tired and achy and sore and dehydrated and had a headache to cap it all off! Excellent way to wake up on your birthday, no? The way I see it, I really celebrated my birthday on Saturday and then Sunday morning a little (brunch and some good presents, of course!). I had a 1:15 ride scheduled and planned on getting out on the new bike, but as the day wore on and I wasn’t feeling all that much better, I could see it getting less and less likely. I knew that if I didn’t get out before 3PM, it would start to get dark before I finished and I had no interest in that. So, instead, I took a nap. Not a very fitful or long one, but a nap nonetheless. I got up, ran a couple errands (including trying, in vain, to find acceptable water bottle cages for the bike) and came back home in time to put my Felt on the trainer and ride for an hour while watching the Eagles-Giants playoff game. I was not feeling “it” during the ride. I couldn’t get my heartrate up and didn’t feel very strong. I sorta just went through the motions. At this point, spending the time on the bike is pretty important, so I didn’t feel too badly about half-assing it.
I am not feeling all that great tonight. Not horrible, but achy and a little slow in the head. I’m a little congested and very tired. I’m hoping this is tiredness and overwork, which I can take a first step at solving by going to bed early tonight and not working out until tomorrow night. The bummer is that I’d love to watch the OSU-Florida game tonight (Go Bucks!), but I think I’ll put in on in the bedroom and hope that they start a blow-out early so I can sleep in peace. More likely, it will go right down to the wire…
Bike – January 6
Time: 2:50
Distance: 45.8 miles
Average heart rate: HR monitor not working… bummer
Course: Brooklyn Bridge to Prospect Park, 11 laps
Conditions: A little light rain to start, then beautiful and warm
Run – January 6
Time: 30:22
Distance: 4 miles
Average heart rate: 144 (not sure if it was totally working)
Course: West Side Highway
Conditions: Hot (70!) and sunny
Bike – January 7
Time: 1:00
Average heart rate: 113
Indoor ride
Strength – January 8
Time: 50 minutes
Swim – January 8
Time: 45 minutes
Distance: 2,250