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Always something Tuesday, January 3, 2006 Computer issues, a broken window, not being organized... at least there's no ice or snow on the ground right now (knock on wood). My first 24 hours back in Ann Arbor have been interesting, at least. I walked into my room, opened the curtains and found that the outside pane of the middle section of my windows had been broken over break. It looks like a branch from the tree outside might have hit it in a windstorm. The inside pane is intact though, so I'm not exposed to the elements. I'll just have to call it in to FIXIT and let them take care of it.
I ran twice this afternoon, trying to get my SDM calibrated right and failing each time. I had to scrap my ride to try and fix my computer though. Good thing I don't have much to do until next Monday.
Track attack My computer still isn't working quite right, but at least I can access the internet, sort of. I managed to be pretty productive today, finishing almost everything that I wanted to do. This included starting some work on a couple websites, getting an hour in on the trainer, coaching the track club kids again, and running with Matt. Today was a marathon session of fast 200s and 400s, and my legs will certainly be sore tomorrow. Official USAT National and Regional rankings for 2005 are not out yet, but I am listed as an All-American Honorable Mention in the January/February issue of Inside Triathlon. I guess that means last season wasn't half-bad!
On a totally random note, I discovered today that one can buy gummy centipedes and gummy octopi at the candy store on South U. That's probably too many legs/tentacles for me to handle while I'm spinning on my bike, but I will have to get some before I graduate. That's just too funny.
In the groove I put myself on cruise control today and got a lot accomplished. My internet issue hasn't been resolved optimally, but I can get online. I'm not going to worry about it anymore, because I've got much more important stuff looming in the very near future.
I spun for an hour, which went incredibly fast (surprisingly), and then hopped off the bike and onto the road for a run. I've felt some twinges in my calf, but in general my legs felt pretty good today, considering the shellacking I gave them yesterday at the track. I found myself in a natural state of flow, "in the zone" so to speak, and had I been dressed a little more properly, I would have definitely gone longer.
Taking the plunge I start my student-teaching experience tomorrow. I will spend seven weeks at an elementary school, and six weeks at a middle school. This is the semester I have been waiting for since I became a physical education major... but I am a lot more nervous about it than I thought I would be. Maybe I'm just stressing too much, like I usually do, but it sure seems like there are a lot more requirements and things I have to always be conscious of than I thought. One more sign of the impending real world: today was the first time that I have ever had to buy some groceries for myself. Having lived in the dorms for all of my college years, I've never had to sustain myself, but I think I will have to bring lunch to my schools every day. I didn't pick up much, but enough that I think I can keep my stomach from digesting itself until dinner.
I ran twice today, hitting the 50-mile mark for the second week in a row. However, I scrapped my planned bike ride (again). I should have ridden outside, since it was very warm today (for January, 38 is a heat wave) but circumstances didn't let me. I've been a little better about riding so far this year, but not good enough. I think - and hope - that settling into a routine that is the same every weekday will really help me stick to my training plan. I won't have as much free time during the day, but I won't have as much work at night either. I am determined to get my hours in; I cannot ride as poorly as I did last season, period.
Tired as a dog Today was day #2 of student-teaching. I taught one class yesterday and three full classes today. It's been a little rough around the edges at first, but I'm getting the hang of it and all of my child management tactics are coming back to me. The kids are all behaving (for now), and I'm a lot less nervous now than I used to be.
I've really tried to buckle down and force myself onto the bike, even when I don't feel like riding. It'll be easier when it's nice out, but that's months away. Running is going quite well now, as I work on a third 50-mile week in a row. My legs are holding up nicely (knock on wood) and aside from being tired all the time - partly from being on my feet all day - I'm feeling fine.
Quarters The past two days have been a blur: I've been busier, or so it feels, than I ever have before. Student-teaching keeps me occupied until about four, and then I coach track on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Today I left the school early for a series of seminars that lasted right up until coaching began, and then I had my own track workout to run after the kids were finished.
I had to skip what would have been a beautiful bike ride - it was an incredible 50 degrees here today - but I did manage to get in a lot of running today, capped off by 10 x 400 meters at ~69 seconds each. I am totally beat from that, and tomorrow's marathon session of seminars is not going to be much fun.
Always something
Yesterday was a complete waste of a day: I had to spend more time in seminars instead of at my teaching placement, and missed most of the daylight hours. I plodded through a run - painful after doing those 400s Thursday night - and worked at the Hands-On Museum in the evening. Today has been my day to just take it easy and enjoy having some free time, because the past week has been way too crazy. I rode this afternoon for an hour, but have otherwise done very little. Hopefully my internet will stop being screwy by the time I wake up tomorrow.
Steelers win! We'll win that one for the thumb this year. I'm certain of it. If the Steelers can topple a juggernaut like Indy, they can handle anyone else just fine. Roethlisberger is the man. This weekend is just what I needed, especially with an extra day to relax tomorrow because of MLK Day. I hit my mileage mark for the week, and I got in a few more bike miles than last week plus a quality workout, so the past week has not been a total waste. I still need to ride more, but I think my schedule settles down a bit from here, so that shouldn't be a problem (knock on wood). Next week is a recovery week for running, so that also gives me more time to ride.
My internet still doesn't work consistently. I'm about to go postal on ResComp. Grrr.
Another chill day I spent most of today just kicking back and relaxing. I didn't do as much as I should have, but I really needed this extra day to unwind and not use my brain much. I rode for an hour, got my behind-the-seat bottle cage mount set up properly (thanks to a trip to the hardware store to use their bench grinder, I should be more comfortable on my seat again), and went shopping for the week. Things I didn't get done that will have to be worked on this week: a couple of other website projects, a unit plan and a plan for coaching volleyball in March and April. I also need to figure out what I'm doing with myself this May, but I'm waiting on an e-mailed date to make that decision. I vow right now that I am going to get myself on my bike more often. I have put together three days in a row now, and I have no intention of breaking that streak anytime soon, no matter what my legs feel like. I may even be able to get outside this week, which would be a nice change of pace (figuratively and literally). Looking back, I put in almost 500 miles in January of 2003. If I want to actually ride well this season, I need to get my numbers closer to that than they are right now. If I can do that while keeping the throttle open with running, I will be ready to hit the nitro when race season arrives. No more weak 22 mph bike splits.
I ordered myself a Roethlisberger jersey yesterday, so that I can faithfully sport my team colors this weekend as the Steelers continue to roll. I'm already pumped for the game in Denver - it'll be a good one for sure.
The big question is: Will I have legs when I wake up tomorrow? They're threatening to leave me, and I don't blame them. I abused them pretty thoroughly today. I ran to and from school as usual, put an hour in on the bike after dinner, and followed that up with a hard track workout: 4 x 200, 2 x 400, 1 x 800, 2 x 400, 4 x 200 at :35/200 pace. Those intervals were pretty painful until the last 200s, but I powered through them and I'm not feeling too bad, considering.
Another sign of impending adulthood/apocalypse: I had to take a couple dress shirts to the cleaners to be washed and pressed. That's kind of scary.
Lazy Saturday I took today completely off (my first full day off in thirty days) - I'm really feeling the effects of training and teaching all day, even though this week has been fairly low mileage. My Tuesday track workout really wore me out, and now I'm sore all over from playing floor hockey with my classes for half of the day yesterday. It was tons of fun, and I wouldn't change the decision to play if I could, but I'm paying for it now! I should be good to go for my weekly brick with Matt tomorrow.
Life is getting complicated and busy in a hurry now: the demands of student-teaching and preparing for a job search are piling on. I've also got a couple other website projects to complete, a Steelers game to watch tomorrow, shopping, and laundry to get done. It'll be a long day, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
Refocus I feel like I lost focus this past week, even though it was purposely an easy week all around. I didn't really have energy for anything, and life just felt disjointed. I'm determined to change that, though, and my inspiration partly lies with the Steelers' win today. This is the year that athletes from Pittsburgh put the city back on the map, and I will be part of that. I've got my week all planned out, and although it will be brutally tough, it's conquering challenges that really makes a champion.
I rode with a bunch of people for a couple hours today: the longest I have been in the saddle in months, and my first outdoor ride of 2006. It went ok - I had to ride my road bike while I wait on a small part for my 10-speed cassette, so I had to readjust to that position, and I felt pretty sluggish because of the cold and the wind. I'm ok with being sluggish now, since it's still early, but I need to get outside a lot more, especially on my TT bike. All in good time...
This week's theme: tired I can already tell that this week is going to hurt. I ran nearly 13 miles today total in two runs, and I feel pretty beat. I think that's mostly from not running at all over the weekend - whenever I run after more than one day off, my legs feel out of whack.
This week is spirit week at my school, and today was sportswear day. Naturally, I wore my Roethlisberger jersey after the fantastic victory over the Broncos yesterday, and I was surprised at how much flak I took about it. These kids around here just don't appreciate a good football team when they see one, I guess... that must be what happens when you grow up being a Lions fan.
Sweet! Teaching today was really fun, for some reason. I think it's partly because I'm making more personal connections with these kids, and partly because I just really love teaching PE. Today was pajama day, so I also got to wear my flannel jamapants all day long. I don't think I need to elaborate on how sweet that is.
I ran a little extra on the way home, and forced myself onto the trainer in the evening. I found out right after getting off of the trainer that I just received another sponsorship deal, from KINeSYS Performance Sunscreen, so I felt happy that I got on the bike (since I am obligated to anyway, in order to work my way up into racing shape and perform well for my sponsors). The ride wasn't bad, anyway, and I averaged faster than any other trainer ride so far this winter without really trying. I'm still hoping to get outside more, when time permits, but if the rest of my trainer rides are like that one, I'll be just fine.
Mulligan, please If yesterday was fun, today was very much not fun. The day started off on the complete wrong foot: no pancakes/french toast/waffles, sub-par biscuits, and the wrong kind of milk. I think that threw me off just enough that everything I did seemed a little off today. Some classes that had never been problems before took more effort to get through, and to top it all off, I totally made a fool of myself by calling a kid the wrong name in the hallway. What's worse is that I was totally sure he was one name, and then I realized I'd been looking at the wrong spot on the seating chart all along. Oops. I'll have to say something to him tomorrow, cause now I know his actual name. I want a reset button.
I ran to and from the school today, and then after dinner, ran with the track club kids. We did an 8 x 400 realy (two-person teams) and 2 x 800 tempo. I was doing the 400s in 67 seconds, so I was pretty wiped out by the end of the workout. I decided to scrap my spin tonight, in favor of riding longer this weekend when I can get outside. Physically, I know I could have spun, but it would have been ugly mentally.
Houston, we have a problem Today was mostly better - there was a sub for my cooperating teacher, so I had complete control over everything. It was a lot smoother than yesterday, although I ran over by a couple minutes with two classes. I didn't have anything for Crazy Hair Day, but Mr. Maier and I are going to be twins tomorrow for Twin Day. Comedy will ensue.
I think I strained my right soleus yesterday when I was running with the track club kids, because it really hurt all day today. That didn't stop me from running (for better or for worse), and I even got my tough track workout in tonight: sets of 2 x 200, 1 x 800 fast. I'm icing my calf right now, and I'm hoping I can run tomorrow morning to get to school. We'll find out soon enough. The rest of tomorrow and the weekend will be full-blown injury rehab mode. Good thing I've got most of this week's running miles in already - if I can get on the bike a couple times this weekend, I'll be all set.
False alarm?
My calf was better today - it was sore on my run in to school, but not nearly as much as yesterday, and by the end of the day (having used it quite a bit during PE) it barely hurt at all when I was running. I iced it again at dinner and skipped my planned bike ride to be on the safe side, but I should be able to ride and run normally tomorrow. Now I just have to get my bike put back together...
95% What a difference another day makes. My calf felt great today, and I think it's almost healed. I'm not sure if that's because I happen to repair myself very quickly, or if it wasn't all that serious in the first place (although it did feel really serious), but I should be good to go for tomorrow's brick workout.
I rode today, after spending the whole morning working on my bike. My original project (started last night) was to trim my aerobars by about 1.5 inches. I trimmed the wrong end, however, and rendered my s-bends unusable. A trip to the hardware store turned out to be more fruitful than I had hoped: I picked up a length of aluminum tubing that had what seemed to be the same diameters as the HED tubing. As it turned out, it was a little too wide of an outside diameter, so I trekked back to the hardware store this morning to get a file so I could bring part of the tubing down to the proper size. I didn't realize that taking three-tenths of a millimeter of aluminum off with a file would take almost three hours and nearly destroy my hands, but I did achieve success. I now have a pair of straight-extension aerobars, which are the right size for me, and which cost a grand total of about $18 (much better than what it would cost to buy another set of s-bend extensions). They look weird, because they are the only bare metal part on an all-black bike, but I'll fix that some other time. I also shortened the ends of my base bar, which took a little while to get used to but turned out to be a great decision.
The plan Epic Camp: Ann Arbor 2006 will take place from February 27th to March 5th, mimicking the style of the real Epic Camps run by Scott Molina and Gordo Byrn. I've decided this is the year that I'm going to throw down and push my body to the limits for a week of overdistance training to see what happens. This will take place during my week off between student teaching placements. Here's the layout of the week:
Total mileage is about 300 biking and 60 running. My training partner Matt will be joining me for some of this week, so I will have someone to suffer with for part of the week, anyway. It promises to be a world of hurt, and I'm sure there will be stories to tell as we progress through the schedule. If anyone else in the Ann Arbor area would like to join me for this odyssey, please drop me a line via the links page.
Our weekly brick didn't happen this morning, so I took it easy instead and just got in a short run before dinner. I've hit my weekly mileage running, and although I'm still behind where I want to be on the bike, I'm ahead of where I've been in the past few years, so that's better than nothing. I do know I need to pick it up a bit more though, and I think that the weather should be good enough this week to let me do just that. It'll simply be a matter of putting myself on the bike once I'm home from teaching, no matter how I feel.
Time to buckle down
I need to spend more time in the aero position. My legs were burning today on a one-hour ride outside, and I wasn't even tucked for the majority of the ride. It's going to take time. Aside from that and a few mechanical problems (and wanting new winter gloves - full lobster gloves are not comfortable anymore), my ride was good. I forced myself onto the bike once I got home from school, and I'm happy I did. The temperature is supposed to start hovering around freezing later this week, and there might be some precipitation, so any time I can get outside now is going to be very valuable.
Quarters and aluminum dust Matt and I rocked some 400s down at the track today. We did the workout early in the week so that we're recovered enough for our first 5K of the year this Sunday. The set was 10-12 quarters at 1:11, and I was going to let Matt off the hook at ten and do the last two myself, but he out-thought his mental block and hung on to complete the full set. He even put it to me on a couple of the intervals, making me work to keep pace. It turned out to be more fun than difficult - I walked out knowing I could have easily kept going. I think the 800s in the past few weeks have really helped get my legs in shape (so has being consistent), because this workout would have been challenging last winter. All sorts of crazy things are going on elsewhere in life: I'm hamming it up with the kids at the school and having a real blast; I'm preparing my resume to send out to a potential employer in North Carolina; I have discovered the joys of Faygo Root Beer; and I am still finding aluminum dust and shards all over my room from my small project last Saturday. It's hectic right now, and I'm dead tired at the end of every day, but it's ten thousand times better than any semesters when I was in class. If this is how teaching in the real world is going to be (plus getting paid), then bring it on. I'm ready. This month's training was a mixed bag. I didn't get on the bike as much as I should have, and I know a lot of that was mental. However, I'm ahead of what I was doing last year and the year before, so that's a decent start. I'm also on the bike I'll be racing all season, so getting used to riding this machine outdoors early will be of great benefit. I'm absolutely crushing when it comes to running, however. I've been posting record numbers for the past four months, and I keep getting stronger. Part of me is waiting for the crippling injury that derails my season, and I almost thought the calf problem I had last week was it, but I'm over that and feeling better than before. My thinking right now is that I picked the right time to start upping my mileage, and hopefully I will reap the rewards of my patience when racing season comes around.
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