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EC Day 5: Getting there... Wednesday, March 1, 2006 Not a fantastic day. I tweaked something in my left shin on my run this morning, and then forgot to get ice for it in the dining hall. I'm hoping it isn't really sore tomorrow. I also wasn't able to get outside to ride this afternoon, so I had to get my time in on the trainer after coaching instead. It wasn't too bad, since I had a long set of intervals planned. The time went by pretty quickly.
I might be spending the day riding indoors tomorrow, too: we're supposed to get hit by the southern border of a pretty nasty winter storm that should dump some snow and ice on us tonight. If the roads are unrideable, I'll have to split up my time between two sessions, plus at least two runs.
EC Day 6: In like a lion March came roaring in last night and this morning with a nifty little ice storm that slicked up the roads and kept things cold today. I stayed indoors on the bike, but managed to triple up today with a brick in the morning, another ride in the afternoon, and a track workout in the evening. All told, I logged almost four hours of training, and spent all day either sleeping, eating, training, or recovering. It was absolutely fantastic - it felt like I was a pro, getting to spend all day doing what I love. I'm really jealous of those athletes that get paid to train all day. I know it's more like a job at that level, but I'd take it.
As we get closer to the end of Epic Camp, I seem to be finding my groove and my legs feel strong. I'm really hoping this will help set up a good rhythm for training once I get back into teaching for the next six weeks. These are going to be the most critical weeks for my first racing season of the year, so I need to be firing on all cylinders starting right now.
EC Day 7: Winter needs to end I honestly can't stand winter anymore. It can feel free to leave any time now, the sooner the better. I had to cut my ride way short today, on account of wind chills in the mid teens, which made me miserable within ten minutes of starting out. If it stays cold much longer, I might go insane. I got the daily minimums in today, but only just barely.
We wrap up Epic Camp (which has not been quite as Epic as planned) tomorrow with a 10K bike time trial in the morning, followed by a longish run. I'll probably also ride again in the afternoon, assuming the temperature isn't wickedly cold.
EC Day 8: Good finish Epic Camp is over, but not before we got in some final suffering. Matt and I headed to Ohio for a Bring Your Own Bike 10K bike Computrainer time trial event early this morning. There were five people in our heat, and I pulled off a close victory by about 7 seconds. I haven't found out if I won the entire event or not yet, but my time was just shy of the winning time from the past two years. After the race, we ran about 8 miles at an easy pace, and I also put in another hour on the bike this afternoon because the weather was sunny and (finally) above freezing. It has been pretty miserable all week, and I'm really hoping this is the last winter I have to endure. As it warms up, my training will have to heat up quickly because the first multisport race of the year is only a month away.
Epic Camp by the numbers:
Time for a nap.
Triple Tuesday I tripled today, which may prove to be a bit foolish. I'll be able to tell when I try getting out of bed tomorrow morning. I'm totally shelled right now, and the only thing that will ge tme through the work I have to do tonight is the Wendy's I'm using as recovery food. It's not healthy, but I just don't care right now. When my body craves something, I don't hold out.
Randomness from the past few days:
Exhausted My legs are not pleased with me at all. It was very difficult to run yesterday, following Tuesday night's hard track workout. Today felt a little better, although my ankle has been complaining and my legs have been pretty dead.
I'm going to have to start running at 6:00 AM in order to fit in all the training that I need during the week. I will be very happy when April 13th rolls around and I can finally finish my student teaching. The next five weeks are going to be really tough, and I hope it all pays off.
Sun!
It was sunny today, and not just a cold sun either. It hit the mid-50s for the second time this year (the first being Tuesday when I almost lost my hands because it was raining and nasty out) so I had to get outside and enjoy it. I logged a pretty sweet 45 mile ride in which I became one with my aero position, and then turned it into a brick workout with a seven mile run. I guess this means I'm training through tomorrow's race.
Finally I finally managed to put together the right race today to break my four-year-old 5K personal record. I beat my old mark by eight seconds at today's Shamrocks 5K in Ann Arbor. The race report has all the details on that, but I'm absolutely thrilled to be running at this high level already, especially considering I was not especially rested for this race.
Matt and I got on our bikes after the race and spun for 25 miles, taking it easy to loosen up the legs after the tough race. It was another gorgeous day today, with a high of 65 (pretty warm for March in this neck of the woods), so we had to take advantage of that and put some time in on the roads.
Possum Note to self: when running at 5:30 in the morning, take care not to step on possums that might be crossing the road.
I got my run in early today with some of the fast dudes in town, and then chilled for the rest of the day. It's been super-windy the past couple of days, to where it's not safe to be out on a bike, so I have been forced to take a break from cycling until at least Thursday (because I have seminar tomorrow until late). I'm not happy, but those are the breaks. It's still winter/early spring, so these things happen. It has given me time to catch up on some work and to do some job searching, which is a decent trade-off for now. The back half of this week is going to have to be bike-intensive though.
Refocus I sent myself a memo today. It was a heads-up from my fast self to whoever has been running the show lately that I am going to be worthless if the past week repeats itself again. I have been a total waste of space since about this time last week. My head has not been in it, and I combined a low-mileage run week with absolutely nothing on the bike. I'm going to write off the past week as a mid-season mini-slump, but I need to snap out of it. I think working on my bike in the past couple days has helped. I got some new stuff yesterday, and was able to repair the spoke I broke on my rear wheel this evening, so my bike is looking pretty sweet. I picked up some new tubulars for my Zipps, so I think the process of prepping and gluing them will serve as a reminder that the season is drawing near and that I still have lots of work to do.
My slump ends tonight. If only the cold weather would do the same.
No excuses I have been slacking too much: since Monday, I have ridden once, run not quite as much as I should have (including no pre-sunrise runs, which I ought to be doing so that I can hit my mileage for the week), and I obviously dropped the ball on my blog. Why? Student teaching, coaching, training, trying to find a job, and the weather have all conspired to keep me from doing anything I actually want to do. I will admit that technically, teaching and coaching are what I want to be doing. It would help if I was actually getting paid for more of it, but that will come with time (I did manage to get paid for two days early this week, when my cooperating teacher was on a trip). The job search is exhausting though. It's been hard work trying to figure out where in the country I want to live, mostly because I'm not really sure what factors are most important to me. This is eerily reminiscent of my first college search (and, I guess, my second as well) when I had no idea that being in the middle of cornfields was not my thing. I need to get it right this time, though.
There seems to be fairer weather on the horizon, so that may help me get out on the bike more often. If I can manage to get myself in bed at decent hour every night, I should be able to make the early runs, too. I just want one week where things go well. If I have my way, that week will start on Monday.
Eat, sleep, teach, train, repeat... It is just after 10:00 PM, and it's definitely past my bedtime. I'm determined to make the morning run tomorrow - since I can't ride at all, I'm going to run twice. I hope my legs don't fall off, because the evening track workout ought to be a fun one. I think I'm finally getting back on track now. The weather has turned, at least a little bit, and it's not life-threatening to get out on the bike and ride (except on the way to school every morning). I have done back-to-back bricks yesterday and today, and I can tell I need to do more of them; my legs seem to have forgotten how to run after riding hard. I even had to take a nap after yesterday's brick, something I only have to do after really tough workouts.
Gluing tubular bicycle tires onto carbon wheels a) is really messy, b) is pretty awesome, and c) means the racing season starts in less than two weeks!
Computer issues So much for that morning run. I did not sleep well at all last night, so I skipped the morning run in favor of more sleep. I still felt awful when I had to get up for good, though. The Pioneer High School track is closed to the public now, as I discovered after having run there to get a workout in with Matt. Looks like we'll have to go to Huron to get our track workouts in, since U of M is stupid and gates off their track. Matt and I decided to bag the track workout tonight and just run for a while, which turned out to be fun.
My computer has a virus, apparently, so I am trying to go through the whole rigamarole of cleaning it and then getting reconnected to the network. For now, looks like I'll be spending time in the computer lab to check e-mail and do other related computer things. Very annoying.
BBQ, baby Hump day! I have developed a passion for BBQ sauce on things. I had BBQ pork ribs at lunch with my cooperating teacher today, and then had a BBQ chicken sandwich at dinner in the dining hall. Gotta love it.
Took the day off because of seminar and trying to deal with my computer issues. Not much to report, cause it's still not working right. Grr.
Spring has sprung We had absolutely gorgeous weather today - temps were in the 60s with sunny skies. I got out of coaching and zipped back home so I could jump on my bike. I got a pretty good ride in, going on one of my favorite routes with a few other dudes. We ended up coming home in a stiff headwind, but it was a good workout and a lot of fun. My computer issue still isn't resolved, which is obnoxious, but I have little time to devote to it right now - I need to get studying for my earth science certification test on Saturday. I should be good to go once I spend some time brushing up on some topics. Only two weeks left until I am done teaching, and therefore done with college. That's exciting.
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