Back-To-Back(-To Back?) Spin Classes

My first full week back (in town and in the gym) is going pretty well. After a decent swim on Monday, I've had two more good workouts.

• Tuesday: 60-minute spin class followed up 2 miles on the treadmill at a 5% incline in just under 20 minutes. Solid workout. Worked pretty hard with average heart rates of 159 BPM and 172 BPM for the bike and run respectively.
• Wednesday: 75-minute spin class. Almost non-stop mashing and held an average heart rate of 160 BPM for the entire session. No time for swimming so just did some free weights at home after work.

Here's the plan for the rest of the week:

• Thursday: Full indoor reverse tri - haven't done one of these in a while. A few miles of running, then spin class, then 500-1000 yards in the pool.
• Friday: Some swimming - 3,000 yards is the goal. Hopefully, I will be able to follow through with it (mentally and physically).
• Saturday: Quick run and bike just to make sure everything is still working properly.
• Sunday: Take On The Heat Sprint Tri.

Productive lunch break

Had a productive lunch break today. I was able to (1) mail out some bills and a package at the post office, (2) stop by Bicycles Inc to get new Velox rim tape for my rear wheel, (3) swam 2,000 yards in 43:19.5 at LA Fitness (splits:10:33, 10:53, 10:49, 11:04.5). Not super fast, but a good start on my comeback from traveling/vacation swim training oblivion.

The reason for item (2) was because I actually gotten flat (rear) tires after 3 of my last 4 rides. Luckily, the flats didn't occur during those rides, but instead appeared the next morning. After some careful analysis, I concluded that there wasn't anything wrong with my tire and it seemed unluckily (or very very unlucky) that I would have three bad tubes in a row. A post-mortem of the "holey" tubes showed that all of the punctures occured on the rim side of the tire. Sure enough, the original rim tape inside the tub had failing/failed adhesive and was sliding around in there. Most likely my tubes had rubbed against a rough edge of a spoke point and developed their holes in that manner. Problem (hopefully) solved for $4.50 + tax.

Absent-Minded

Was planning to start this morning with a run. Unfortunately, it didn't happen because

(1) I got up late
(2) I couldn't find my Garmin 305, so I was scrambling around looking for it
(3) By the time I found it (it was buried under a pile of laundry) I realized I had to ton of things on my to-do list (including the aforementioned laundry) and so I bagged the workout and started on those chores instead.

Oh well ...

Feeling Like Slug

I'm still vacationing and haven't worked out at all since Thursday's run in San Diego. Except for some short walks around Seattle's East Side - it's been working in the mornings, and then eating, relaxing, eating, and catching up on sleep in the afternoons and evenings. I'm already mentally planning out my workout activities for when I get back to Dallas on Thursday.

Good Luck tomorrow to Derek (who's running the San Francisco Marathon) and Jarrod (who's doing the River Cities Triathlon)!

San Diego Workouts

Crazy work commitments, traveling, and a mobile developers conference (Tuesday through Thursday here in San Diego) have kept me off the workout path since last Saturday's Tour de Goatneck ride.

Yesterday, I said "enough is enough" and squeezed in 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer at the hotel gym between the end of the day's conference sessions and heading out to dinner with the team (we went just one block down the Broadway to Ra, a pretty good sushi restaurant). It was short, but pretty intense, so that was good.

Then this morning, before checking out of the hotel and heading out for the last day of the conference, Derek and I went for a run. (He's tapering before doing the San Francisco Marathon this coming Sunday.) We did about 4.8 miles - ran west down Broadway until we hit the waterfront and then followed Harbor Dr north to the airport - then turned around and went back. Did the out-and-back in 46:40 - only a 9:43/mi pace, but any workout is better than no workout.

On another non-workout-related note, the Marriott Courtyard Downtown San Deigo is a pretty interesting hotel. The building used to be a bank and lots of its details remain - the "front desk" has tellers' windows, the entire lobby/restaurant/bar area is what used to be the bank floor, and the basement is labeled the "Safe Deposit" level on the elevator button panel. The gym is located on the Safe Deposit level and the former vault has been turned into a conference - that's one meeting I wouldn't want to be trapped in! :-) Check out the photos if you're interested.

Too Hot To Handle 2008

Lesson learned: Don't try to run a 15K at a 10K pace. :-P

Overall, my time for this morning's Too Hot To Handle 15K was okay – 1:21:12 – about the same as the Too Cold To Hold 15K (which is on the exact same course, but with cooler weather) back in January. That’s a 8:38/mi GPS-computed pace (the course was 9.38 miles per Garmin). I would have liked to get that down to an 8:15/mi pace for a 15K since I had a PR 8:30/mi pace for the Cowtown Half. Oh well, maybe I'll do better at the Fort Worth Runner's Club Labor Day 15K ...

I was close to my goal pace (8:17/mi) through the 10K mark, but then everything started to fall apart. Probably walked about 4 or 5 times in the last 5K. Sigh ...

Here are my official split times/paces:

• 5K: 196th place, 25:02.95 (8:05/mi pace)
• 10K: 205th, 51:21.05 (26:18.10 ... 8:29/mi pace)
• 15K/Finish: 284th, 1:21:12.10 (29:50.25 ... 9:37/mi pace)

Obviously, I really struggled during that last 5K (as nearly 80 people passed me).

My heart rate was quite high with an average of 175 BPM even including the (heart-rate-lowering) walk breaks. In fact before the 10K mark, I was bumping up against 180+. No wonder I conked out by the 6 mile (50-minute) mark!


Still, I was 38th out of 82 in my age group and 284th out of 1032 total 15K finishers. And a lot of improvement over last year's race, when I placed 573rd out of 789 finishers with a time of 1:40:52. So I’ll take it!

Full results at: http://www.runontexas.com/Results/Summer2008/TooHotToHandle2008/TooHotMenu.htm

Long-Range Goal

I'm putting a stake in the ground today. My long-range (next year) goal is to do the Redman Triathlon, an IronMan-distance race in Oklahoma City to be held in September 2009.

Reasons why I think this is a good plan:

1. It's at the end of the summer so I'll have the entire '09 tri/bike season to prepare for it.
2. It's next year so (hopefully) I'll have run a few marathons by then and have improved my running.
3. It's in Oklahoma City (less than 4 hour drive) so I don't need to ship my bike and the travel logistics will be simplied. (Don actually has family in Oklahoma City so we might even take advantage of free lodging for the trip).
4. It's easy to get registered. Unlike an official Ford Ironman, I won't have to try to sign up a year in advance. In fact, as of today, only about 2 months from this year's Redman (September 20) I could sign up for it and even get an early registration discount.
5. As compared to an official "dot-M", it's a relatively inexpensive race - $275 for the IronMan-distance race. (Scott and Don tell me that a Ford Ironman race is $500+, especially after you get the extra T-shirt and order the DVD :-)

This race looks so interesting that I’d be seriously considering doing the “full aquabike” (2.4mi swim, 112mi bike) this September, if it weren't only 2 weeks before my Ironman Longhorn 70.3 (October 5). :-P

Okay, now all I have to do is train for it. :-)