I know that it is not a proper Tri olympic distance training but who cares

I kind of got caught up in a very enjoyable ride and end up doing almost 5 hours instead of 2:30.

I did around 80miles (126.5km to be exact, I am too lazy to calculate exact mileage). I went with bunch of tri club people. And nice weather and nice people made me want not to go home!
We also went for lunch together afterwards. Sweet.

I do not really need to do 80 miles for my Olympic distance tri but since I cannot run, I figured that a longer ride might be actually good. That's my reasoning. Correct me if I am wrong.

Btw, my ITB has been feeling GREAT the whole day! I do not understand it but biking is really good on it. I have read that biking is worse for ITB that running but for me biking is great. Hm....
I have not felt it at all today. Which kind of makes me want to run tomorrow. But I won't do anything stupid, no worries.

Man, I wish I could have run today after my bike ride. It would have been almost perfect day!!!!

My quads are pretty beaten up now, so I am just chilling and watching Reba. That show cracks me up. And I have been eating nonstop since I got home from a ride...Bad, very bad.

Randomness

Nothing exciting going on.

It was so nice outside today that I almost went for a run. Well, I knew that that would have been very very stupid, so I did not. But it was HARD not to. Not that my ITB feels that great, it is just that I want to run.

I was very unproductive at work today. You know, the ice hockey world champs started today and I have spent most of my day checking the live results. Russia got beaten by Germany. By Germany! Ouch. Well, I should not be too harsh on them since we almost got beaten by Slovenia...But we won and even without any help from Hossa, so Chicago lost in play offs for nothing. I think that Boston loosing would be better because we could use some good defense players aka Chara. Ok, you probably do not know what I am blabling (that's not a word, is it?) about, so I will just stop.
But I just realized that I have planned my Montreal trip for the final game weekend. Oh, well, if Slovakia makes it into finals (I am little skeptical about that one, but others are very optimistic) I will find my way to watch it:)

I might have mentioned this before but I want to run! Badly.

I had a decent swim today. I hit all my intervals! It was not too hard today, just 50s and 100s. But fast.

I have my triathlon in 4 weeks. 4 weeks! And I have not run for 5-6 weeks and probably won't for next 2-3. That should make for an interesting race. Maybe I should try to switch to sprint distance...

Surprise (although that's what you get with settling for low expectations)

My ITB has not miraculously healed itself. Although it has surprisingly "re-injured" itself on Saturday...Why does not it work the other way as well?
It feels much better than 3 days ago but nowhere close to what it fell just a week ago:(

I have not done any workouts or anything training related since Saturday. I had ZERO desire to exercise, I just ate cookies and cheesecake (I am not exaggerating, I really did) and spent my days interviewing for jobs. I got one job offer but I think I will decline that one. I have one interview tomorrow as well. Keep your fingers crossed, that job would be awesome!

Today I started to feel that I should do something. I wanted to run, but well, I could not do that, could I? So I had to settle for bike and swim:) Just kidding, I love biking and swimming!

I was supposed to do bike hill repeats but I had to do them inside because this is Midwest and there are no 6 min hills. There is only one hill where I can do 3 min repeats...
I decided to do them on trainer and it was scary to do standing climbs on trainer. I was waiting for a moment when I fly off, crack my skull on a kitchen counter and nobody will find me for days. Fortunately, that did not happen. But I think that I will not do it again. I got my HR to over 170 but I do not think that I have worked hard enough muscularly. Stationary bike would be better for climbs I think.

Then I tricked myself into a swim. I was supposed to do this swim on Monday. But it looked very very hard and I was trying to postpone it...bad bad mmmonyka!
I was hard, really, at least for me. Main set was 4x400 in 6:25, 6:20, 6:15, <6:10 with 1min rest. I went into the workout with a very bad attitude: I basically gave up even before I tried it because I have been feeling pretty bad in water lately and I was not confident at all about my ability to do this swim.
But I kind of surprised myself! Well, I did not make the last interval but I worked hard, pushed myself and tried. Immediately after I got into water I forgot about my bad attitude and just pushed it. Maybe my initial attitude was a good thing because it helped me to lift the pressure of myself. I tend to put myself under a lot of pressure when it comes to swimming and then I dread swim workouts.
I did not know very well how to pace myself so I was off on those intervals.I always started way too fast (1:30pace) and then tried to slow down, but I slowed down too much so then had to push it hard to make up for lost time. It was a mess for the most part.
I kept checking my splits every 100 yards. I know that I was loosing time by lifting my head and looking at the pace clock on a wall, but I had no sense of pace so I had to do it:(
1st: 6:19
2nd: 6:15
3rd: 6:13
4th: 6:11 I tried, I really did, but I kind of slacked on the 3rd 100 and then could not make up the lost time in the last 100.
I wish I could take more rest, I am sure I would have hit it on time with 30 extra seconds. I was this (holding my thumb and index finger half an inch apart) close to taking 1min30sec rest before the last one but then I told myself that that would be cheating so I did not.
The last 150yards hurt (both arms and legs) and it felt great!I think that this pushing myself will be great for my running. Since I cannot run I might forget how hurt feels but pushing myself on bike and swims helps me not to forget.

I did not make the last interval but I am still pleased with myself. I did other intervals faster than I was supposed to and I did better than I thought I would- although that's nothing to be proud of since I had very low expectations initially.

At least some things are starting picking up

ITB feels way better than yesterday but of course it is nowhere close to how it felt just two days ago:(((

I have spent the whole day at interviews. Actually I had only two but couple hours apart and in different towns.
I got a call couple hours after my 1st interview and they invited me for the second round, which is tomorrow from 9:30am to 5pm! I am going to visit some clients with them and stuff and I have no idea what to expect. I have never interviewed for a consulting company. But it would be awesome to score this job, it sounds very very interesting.

I should know tomorrow about the other interview I had today. Hopefully they invite me for the second round as well but I did not have great feeling about that one.

And I also got a call from the company I currently work for but different location and department and they invited for an interview later this week as well.

My boss is "thrilled" about me running around at the end of month (month close)...but he is a good guy, he supports me.

So at least my job search is starting picking up a bit. If only I found something and then the US approved me for visa....But work visa don't get released until Oct 1, so I am little skeptical that any of those start-up consulting firms would want to go through the whole application process and wait till Oct for the outcome. We shall see.
Therefore I am not dumping my plan B just yet:)

I did not have time to swim today, therefore would have to shift training around a bit this week.

"Insert a very very VERY bad swear word here"

My ITB started to hurt last night. I woke up in the middle of the night couple times because it hurt and it kept bothering throughout the day today.
It does not hurt when I ice it though probably because I tend to freeze all my nerves (2 years ago I caused myself a serious frostbite. It looked like a huge blister at first and later like a nasty bruise and I had no feeling in that spot for couple weeks).

Come on! It has not been hurting for past two weeks and I was able to run painlessly so what's the deal?!?

Maybe it is just a one day thing....

Another crazy Saturday

Because of pool closure due to Easter I again had to pack everything into one day.

So I did 3hours bike ride in the morning. It was AWESOME. I was almost 20degrees today! I rode alone for around 70min and then was joined by another rider. Did some fastish intervals and I loved it.
I also got to ride a $7000+ tri bike for a short while. Now, that was even awesomer! I got into aero immediately and was just cruising around. I need to get one of those when I grow up! It is so much different than my crappy road bike.

Then I did 4 easy miles on a grass, 7:56 min pace per Garmin, cruising around (again). ITB felt great but I can feel it a bit now:( Icing, Icing, Icing.

Ad then the bad part came: swim. I have been feeling pretty bad in water lately and today I finally found my "smoothness" again. But even that did not help me to hit all the intervals. Main set was 15x100 w/ every 3rd fast. And I could not hit the pace for "easier" 100 after 10 of them. This type of workout is really hard for me: fast intervals followed by relatively fast/steady intervals. I am not strong enough for that. I had the same type of swim of Tuesday and it was the same story. I did not hit the steady intervals. And I was doing so great! :(

I also walked for 5miles to store and 5 back to buy 7 pounds of bananas. Saturdays are new "banana days" here:)

Hm

I am the laziest person ever (well, for today only. I am usually full of energy)

I wanted to swim and aquajog but of course the pool was closed today. Then I was thinking about going running, but no, I have a biking/running date planned for tomorrow and that would make 4 days of running in a row and that might not be such a great idea although ITB feels great. Maybe I should have biked at least. But I did not, you see, I am lazy. Although, I have cleaned the apartment. But it was not that difficult since I do not have anything in there.

So I have spent the whole day watching movies and reading.

I also had two phone screening "interviews" and am having two real interviews on Monday. Keep your fingers crossed for me!!!
There is also a slim chance of scoring a job at the company where I work now but I am getting fed up with them (them=HR) more and more. One week they are like, yeah, here is the offer and the next week they are like, sorry we are going to do this position as a contractor and of course I cannot get visa for that. (Yeah, I still have not found a husband so I need visa. I am sorry now that I declined SteveQ proposal last fall:)) And it is like this back and fort. I am just going to work for Bosch or Michelin and show them! Jerks!

Bike, run, run

Spin class- ouch! Wow, when I was there the first time, I could work hard, suffer and my HR went to 191. Today I suffered, and thus I assumed I worked hard and my highest HR was 181. Although I did not suffer as much as the first time.
My legs are muscularly tired and I cannot work as hard as I would like to:( Running is killing me:)

Then I went for an easy run, 2x10min with 1min walk break. No pain.

And finished the day with a pool workout. 45min with 6x3min fast. I do not like aquajogging workouts. They are weird. Boring.

Track!!!!!!!

It has been raining and raining and raining past few days and training fields look like a lake and I do not like running in lakes so had to do my mini workout on track. Well I would take track over fields anytime but I believe that grass is still better for me at this point.

I did 20min w/up, then 5x1min fast (my current fast, sign) w/ 1ish mn easy, 10min c/d.
Nothing hurts!!!!!!!!!!!

I do everything reversed

Grrr, swim-bike-run, that's the right order. Unfortunatelly I usually do it in a completely reversed order. I think that I got it right only once. I always swim at the end of the day and I usually start my training day with run. Nobody is perfect...I did not run today but still did bike before swim.

My legs almost fell off on a bike. I was on trainer and holding HR 165 for 12min on that thing is brutal. I took me 1min to get from 100 to 150 and then another 2min to get over 160 and then I was huffing and puffing keeping it there. I was impressed by my toughtness:) the second 12min interval felt little bit easier but still it was pretty hard.

But my legs did not have time to get even sore because after rolling and stretching I hoped back on a bike and went to the Y for a swim. I swam yesterday and I was supposed to swim tomorrow but I have something tomorrow night so I had to suck it up and do it today.
The schedule said "this swim will kick your butt" so I knew that it probably will since I won't be doing it on rested arms. But it was not too bad. I swam 3:07-08 (except 1st was 3:04, and last 3:09) for 200s with easy 300 @ 1:45 pace after every 2 200s. I do not know whether it was fast enough but that's what I had in me tonight.
My turns were horrible, totally inefficient, I was too tired to push off the wall. And I am not sure what's going on but last few swims I was not going with water, it's more like I am fighting the water, powering forward, not gliding efficiently. I have lost my smoothness somewhere! Maybe it is because my arms are tired.

Keep your fingers for me tomorrow at 2:45pm, big bosses at work are going to decide my future!

30 minutes aka half an hour

I have run for 30 continuous minutes!!! Awesome! But other than it being a painfree run it was really nothing exciting. I woke up into a snowstorm which made my bike ride to work interesting but the snow melted by mid-afternoon leaving training fields where I do my runs totally soaked with water. I hate wet and cold feet:(

Then went to the pool for a very easy swim. Just cruising around.

I also wanted to waterjog but, well I have issues and I have been under a lot of stress recenly and I just could not relax and took my mind of the not very enjoyable things and I decided that it would be better to go home and go sleep so that time passes by very quickly and more enjoyable times come around.
It is so unlike me, this is the very first time in my life that I am stressed out about something (might it be that I am growing up?:) and not satisfied how things in my life are going. I told my mother today to stop asking me questins about my thesis and job hunting because she asks in every freaking email she sends me and those are my two huge stress factors and she is not helping me asking questions that cause additional stress. I hate questions, just leave me alone! Please.

Snow, seriously?

But I am not gonna lie. I felt like a bad-ass and I LOVED it.

It started snowing just when I was leaving my apartment for a 3-hour bike ride with hill intervals. It was not cold enough for snow to last but it was cold enough for small icy flakes to fall and hurt my skin and eyes (I was not wearing sunglasses). It lasted for about 20min, then we had sun for couple minutes, then snow again, sun, snow, sun, snow and so on until I was done.
I was not very enjoyable, I was frozen to my seat, could not see anything and maybe I should stop wearing underwear and running spandex on my bike rides but as I said I liked being a bad-ass:)

I stopped my ride at 2:53 at the HS training fields and went running. I should start with some bricks I guess. I only did 2.5 miles at 7:51 pace but AGAIN ZERO DISCOMFORT. FOR THE WHOLE 20 MINUTES!!! I am totally thrilled and happy (if only that hockey guy from last week invited me for dinner or something, then I would be totally happy, but one can't have everything, right? I am going back to my 5-years-younger-than-me-husband plan, this guy does not fall in that category anyway:) I got invited to the Easter dinner next week and a 20-year-old son will be there...I will just shut up now.)

Then I biked 9 minutes home, for a total of 3 hours and 2minutes!

I was really cold and the last thing I wanted to do was to mount the bike again and ride to the pool at the Y. But since I have been kinda chaotic with my training this week/and after the yesterday's fiasco I had to go.
Now that I know that I can run, I have hard time persuading myself to go run in the pool. I WANT TO RUN OUTSIDE!!!!

But nevertheless, I did 1.5 hours with 20x35ish sec pick-ups. It was not that bad after all and was able to take hot shower to defrost myself afterwards.

Looking forward to tomorrow

Not the best day ever.
I have learnt today that I am not made of sugar. I have spent the day being wet and soaked but all my body parts are still solidly solid. No visible dissolving processes.

I has been raining on and off the whole day.

So I decided to move bike hill repeats to tomorrow:( I hate cold rain and 3 hours in it is way too much for me.

Then I got my girly monthly thing literally few moments before I started my swim and I just felt horrible. Blah. I did 2/3 of the workout and called it quits. And then did not even attempt aquajogging.

I was one huge slacker today.

I felt bad about it so I walked for an hour to Trader Joe's, bought soybeans and then walked back. At least something, right?

I hope tomorrow would be better.

Water, water again

60min aquajogging: 15min w/u, then 5x4min intervals with 2min rest (actually the first one was 5min), 15min c/d.

It was pretty hard because water was kind of warm and it smelled as if someone has poured a whole bottle of perfume into it. Blah. And my favorite lifeguard was not there:( He used to work Fridays!

I am feeling happy

It's starting to feel like spring finally and I can run again!!!

Yesterday I did 4x9min with zero discomfort!!!
I was also supposed to do a swim workout yesterday but there was problem with pool so no swim.

Which meant that I am pretty much trashed now because I decided to fit everything in today. I left work early, shhhh, and ran 5x8 min. Again, no problem!!!! I AM BACK! I was supposed to aquajog only today but with that missed swim yesterday my already very messy and chaotic schedule got even more chaotic.

After the run I biked to the Y for a spin class. I loved it again. I forgot my HRM so have no data but I did not work as hard as last time. but that does not mean that my legs did not want to fall off, it was still hard. Those 40min of running trashed me:)

Then I sat on a bench for an hour and read a magazine. That was my rest before dragging myself to the pool. As I was walking on the deck I felt my leg muscles being sorish. It is a good thing that you are supposed to use your arms in swimming, not your legs.
Apparently I did a good job using my arms because I hit my paces no problem. Which is great.

So it was a pretty tiring day. Just the kind I love!!!

Grrr

I could not waterrun because of my poor pool logistics management skills, grrr. I do not know where I have left my head today. Probably at my 5+ hour meeting at work today...I'll make up for today later in the week.

But I managed to bike. 2min intervals but I feel that I did not do it right, I went to slowly I think. It is hard to duplicate 40k TT effort if you have never done one, or 10k effort if you have done that only twice in you life. It will be better next time!

I am sooooo tired

I have not slept well past two night and for past months or so I have not be able to get home before 10pm almost every day and it is totally catching up with me.

The ITB felt horribly the whole day, no pain, just constant pressure. I thought that I would not be able to run hut as I was biking home it has loosened up. So I decided to give it a try and did 3x9 min w/ 1min walk. No pain at all, amazing.

Then I went to the pool and it was pretty much horrible. I did my fast 100 intervals but then I did not make the following one (200) and the third one (100) was so-so. And it went like this 4times. It was supposed to be 4x3 intervals but I was so close at my sendoffs that it was more like 4x 1 long interval with last 100 @ <1:30 pace. It was freaking hard.

When I got home I as too hungry to let it go away, so I guess that I just ate close too 100% of my daily caloric needs.

I need to get more sleep!!!

Shoot me

It has been the warmest day of this year so far (almost 20 degrees. Celsius, of course...) and I have spent it inside!

I would kill for being able to go out and run but I did not find any suitable sacrificing-worth beings so I had to go to the pool again. I did 2 hours again, but I mixed it up with 12x30sec pick-ups. It was a nice change. Plus they had music in the pool today which was great.

ITB did not feel too hot today though. It did not hurt, it just felt strange. What the hell is the deal with it?!? Sometimes it feels like if a muscle that attaches to my knee was loose. It is a weird feeling.

Things are coming along (almost) greatly

I got picked up at my place this morning to do a bike ride with the group. People are very nice for asking me whether I need a ride to the park.
As I was coming off my apartment I got a flat on stairs. Even before I started riding. So I changed the tire and the tire I put on was not good neither. So put the wheel down and repeat. This time I put on a brand new tire and it worked.

We went at a pretty good clip for around 2.5hours.
It is hard to tell whether I am improving on a bike or not because there are so many factors that affect the ride. But I guess I am an ok biker. I know that because I am getting a lot of crap (in a good way) from group male members. Today we stopped for something and I started fiddling with my computer. All those people use GPS things on their bikes but I had one of those old computers with a wire down to your wheel. And they started making fun of me because of my crappy equipment and not wearing padded biking tights and such and still keeping up with them riding alongside them and not it their draft. And then someone said that "holy shit, she is not even wearing biking shoes" and then I was told not to get biking shoes because then I would be way too fast for them.
Ok, I am not better than any of those guys, it is just them talking bullshi* but when they do that I know that I am an ok biker:)

But there is this one guy who is freaking fast. On his easy biking days he brings his mountain bike so he is not too fast for a group but he still goes 25mph on that thing for miles and miles. So even on his easy days on a mountain bike nobody can keep up with him. He is trying to qualify for Kona o he takes it very seriously.

I also ran immediately afterwards for around 15min keeping a good clip. ITB felt good, although I felt it tightening up in the middle of the run so I walked for a 2min or so and then start running again and then no pain or tightening at all.
But it hurts when I press on it. That is strange because I do not remember that ITB would hurt when I had pressed on it when I had had the issues with it in 2009 and 2010. But maybe it had hurt, and I just do not remember or maybe I had not tried pressing on it before.


Then I took a three-hour break, ate lunch and went to the pool. I was supposed to do long intervals: 3x1000 yards descending (first one like a warm up, 2nd @ 1:45 pace, 3rd @ 1:40 pace if I can and I if I can I can go faster). I was supposed to do this yesterday but I had to move it to today. Only later I realized that it was probably a very stupid idea because I would be already tired from a bike ride. But well, I would do my best.
First one was a warm up, very easy, loosening up.
2nd one right on time, 17:30, right on 1:45 pace. I was checking my splits every 100 yards. It felt pretty easy.
3rd on, 16:30 @ 1:39 pace. I felt great on this one as well. I got little distracted on the last 200 yards but I finished strong although not as strong as I hoped for, I wanted to go all out for the last 300 to have nothing left but that did not happen. I kept very even splits just focusing on one 100 at a time. And my arms did not even hurt as they do when I do fast intervals:)
This was the first time I did something this long. Although it is only 1:48 for 100 meter pace I am stocked about the last 1000. I know that also Michelle would be pleased to hear that!

I am very happy about today. Both bike and swim are coming along (almost) greatly. If only my ITB would cooperate more with me that it would be without almost!

I am pretty tired now. I went to bed at midnight and I did not sleep well at all. I woke up at around 3am because I was freezing so I had to turn the heating higher and then could not fall asleep until past 5am! I am not sure why. In addition, I am hypersensitive about my ITB. When I roll in my bed and when it touches my bed (I have an airbed and it is wavy, so sometimes the "upper" wave pushes on my ITB) I could feel it hurting and I always wake up and start analyzing things and getting frustrated. Grrr. I am probably going to bed very soon.

21 minutes

I did 7x3 painless minutes with 1min walk between this morning!!! I think that my ITB is all good now and I am hoping to start workouts next week!!! We shall see.

On a different note, I had a lot of fun tonight at the hockey game! I enjoyed both the company and the game. Our seats were awesome in a suite from where we could see the ice perfectly. The guy I went with was very nice, he used to play semi-professionally and was telling me all the random stuff about hockey that general public usually does not know. It was one of the best fun evenings I have had in a long time. Downside is that Chicago won, which means they might make it to play offs and now Marian Hossa and Tomas Kopecky probably won't play at the World Championship for Slovakia. The Champs starts in less than 3 weeks and Slovakia is a host country this year. And I will miss it:(

I just got home and it is past midnight and I am getting a car ride for group bike ride at 8:30 tomorrow morning. I better go to bed!

Wednesday & Thursday update

Wow, I almost went two days without writting anything here! May it be that I am getting a life? No, not really.

Anyway, on Wednesday I did a swim, and it went pretty good. I did not run though:( Because I needed to get up early the next day so I did not want to stay at the Y till 10pm again.

Thursday (today) I did a bike workout on a trainer in the morning. It was hard intervals. It hurt but I loved it.
I was asked to come for a group ride in the afternoon and I decided to go. We did around 23-24 miles and it was great. I wanted to run afterwards but the lady that gave me a ride wanted to join the others for dinner so I had no choice and had to go, so no run again:( But that bike ride counts for a run, sort of.
But I am glad I went to the dinner because one of the tri guys invited me to the Red Wings game tomorrow night. I love hockey and he got tickets from one of his clients to a suit and we are going to dinner before that so I think it would be fun. He said it would be a nice experience for my first Red Wings game.

But that means that I am going to run on a short stretch of grass by my apartment in the morning and move my swim from tomorrows night to Saturday. I mean, I do not go anywhere so I think that I should take this opportunity and do something different apart from work and training and therefore small adjustments to my training schedule are ok.

Woo-hoo-hoo, 2 miles baby!!!!

Of course not continuous but who cares? I did 10 laps on a strip of grass around HS track. I walked for 100m and ran the rest, so it was somewhere in 2 mileish area.

No pain, no discomfort, no tingling, no tightening. Awesome! I hope it continues like this.

Then I did bike workout on a stationary bike, sprints and steady riding. Pretty hard, I was sweating like crazy and got my HR into mid-180s.

Then went to run again, but into the pool this time. At first I wanted to do intervals but then I decided that maybe it is not such a great idea and maybe I should just do easy running since I already ran and biked today and ITB probably needed rest. Plus I can talk to lifeguards if I jog easily, which is not that easy when running hard. So I aqua jogged easily for around an hour.
I will do intervals tomorrow.

I really need to get better about sleep. Unfortunately most days now I do not get home until past 10pm and then I cannot fall asleep because I am still pumped up from workouts and then I go to bed after 11pm and I had to get up at 7am so I am not even getting 8 hours of sleep. Grrr.

Banana peanut butter bread a la moi

Last week one colleague brought me a piece of banana peanut butter bread from Cooking Light to taste and it was very good so I decided to try to make it myself.
And today was the day, kinda.

Ingredients it called for:
bananas
plain yogurt
creamy PB
butter
eggs
granulated sugar
brown sugar
all-purpose flour
flaxseed
baking soda
salt
cinnamon
allspice
peanuts

Ingredients I had:
bananas
PB
yogurt
eggs

Hm, but I decided that white sugar and honey will count for granulated sugar and brown sugar, yeast will substitute baking soda, whole-wheat bread flour should do as all-purpose flour, butter spread is just like butter and chunky PB is creamy PB and peanuts in 1. And scratch the other ingredients, I am sure they are totally overrated.

It turned out pretty good. Sure, I will not bring it to work for my colleague to taste it but it is good enough for me. I would eat anything that does not eat me. Oh, who am I kidding? I would eat that as well:)

Wanted to run today but ITB has felt superb for past 3 days and I do not want to disturb its healing process. So I did not run outside, I aqua jogged for 50 min in a pool. It seems that all lifeguards dread the days I am in a pool because it means that they have to stay on duty until the very end. For past few days I was always the only one in a pool for last 30-60min before pool closing and I was not even swimming, just doing my tiny 90sec loops. Before, when I was swimming only I was there only 3times/week but now I am there every day, and I stay until the last minute every day. But I should not feel bad about them, it is their job after all.

I had a superb swim today! 3 x (6 x 100 @ 2min) with each set faster and the last set I was going 1:28-1:30. So I am pleased!

I am going to RUN tomorrow!!!!! Yoo-hooo!!!!

Long (way too long) run

It is official, I am the most boring person even, because if doing 80 90sec loops in pool does not bore me, than well, I must be at least as boring as doing those loops.

I decided to do my long aquarun today, that is 2 hours. That's part of my resolution about not obsessing and beating myself down about missed real runs....
I can run only in a very tiny part of a pool, and it takes me 1min30sec to do my tiny pool loop. So for 2hours, I did 80 tiny loops. In a pool. Staring at the same walls all the time. No one to talk to. No music. But I did not get bored, I would say I enjoyed it. I just enjoy running so much that I never ever get bored doing it. Of course it was not the most trilling experience ever but it was not something I would not want to do again. I am definitely doing it again next week.
The only down side was that I got cold after the first hour. Maybe I need to run faster to warm myself up:)

I also did bike intervals today (before the run). It was only two hard 3min intervals, but they were really hard. My HR went up 184 on the first one, 189 on the second one. The rest of the workout was easy riding and steady riding for a total of 1h50min.
I did it on a stationary bike:( I do not mind cold and I do not mind rain (actually I mind rain but I can deal with it) but I do mind cold and rain/snow together, and it was raining/snowing pretty heavily today. It was awful enough to walk to the Y in that weather so I was not even thinking about riding outside (actually, I was, but my wussy aka rational side won that battle).

Yesterday I went to watch a race (5k, 10k, HM, M) with some tri club people. It was great to meet new people although watching a race without being able to run is a torture. Lady that gave me a ride to the race invited me to their cottage at lake Michigan for a weekend if I stay here for summer (I might stay here 4 more months as a contractor after my internship is over at the end of May! Keep your fingers crossed!). That would be awesome if I could go there!
People at the tri club are very nice. They are not all tri people, some are only runners, some only cyclist and it is a very good mix. And they do a lot of races together and organize training camps. If I stay here, I will probably join.

Weekends go by way too fast:(

When do I start dissolving?

With all that time I am spending in pool these days I would not be surprised if that was pretty soon...

I had a pretty hard swim today. I have been complaining that I do not feel warmed up enough for my main sets and I really should stop complaining about things because people are actually listening to me...So 1000yards warm up today. Hm...okaaaaay.
The main set was pretty interesting, it was basically 1 steady interval followed by few fast 50s. Steady intervals were getting shorted and number of after each 50s kept increasing but at easier pace. It was a very good mix, it make me work on being able to switch gears.
Last set was 8x50 @ 65 sec, sounds very easy, doesn't it? I did 50s in around 50sec so I had 15 sec rest which was a plenty of time to rest but always the last 12yards of each 50 were torture, my arms started to hurt a lot and my form collapsing.

It was a good workout.

Then I ran for 30min. I enjoy aquarunning! Forget everything I wrote on Monday, ITB does not feel that great.

This seems like a very obvious thing but I kind of realized it only yesterday: I have no running races planned for April, so there is no need to rush to get into training. My first race should be on May 15 and that's plenty of time to have ITB sorted out and even do some training, although my performance will be less than stellar. But it is not Olympics so that's no problem, I will do it for "fun" to know where I stand.

So from now on, I am not going to obsess about my ITB and beat myself for missed runs!
I am going to do my best not to loose fitness and take care of my ITB.