Unbelievable!!!

I am soooooo incredibly pissed! Really.
I went to the pool 3 times this week and ALL 3 times I got screwed.
On Monday I did not even attemp the swim.
On Wednesday they closed half an hour early.
And today they closed 15min early!
WTF?!?

I was having a very good workout of 16x100 but got in only 13 of them and then the lifeguard came over and told me they were closed and I needed to get out!

I do not have money (and time) to go to a different pool! Therefore I hope they will not continue like this the whole summer. But they probably will. So I hope that at least when they go back to their normal hours in September it will be like it was before-problemless and noone but me in the pool.

I need to get in my swims!!!

Bike/run

I feel very non-creative today, if that's even possible. So this is going to be boring.

Bike ride - hill repeats. I was supposed to do 4-5min hill repeats but since this is Midwest, they do not have hills that take 4min to climb. The longest I found takes me 2min45sec to climb so I just did few extra repeats. Oh well...

Then went to the track. 3x6x200m at 40sec. It felt pretty good, easy but I was definitelly feeling some "fatique" in the legs by the end. Those hill repeats probably started to catch up:)
ITB feels great. No problemo!
I think that PPC is trying to kill me. I asked her about that yesterday and she did not say no. Hm. That probably means that yes, she is trying to kill me.
But it is hard to create a plan for me right now since I can do track intervals but probably cannot do slow longish runs. So basically all my mileage comes from intervals, which leads to 3 track workouts/week and I am telling you, next week will be brutal because all 3 sound very hard. My mileage is still very low, around 11 miles this week and 13 next. Then hopefully, I can start adding some easy runs to rump up the mileage.

I am not making this up

I went to pool and was little over half-way through when the lifeguard told me I had 5 minutes. What?!? 5 minutes? You are supposed to close at 9pm and not 8:30pm!
He said he was sorry and he really looked sorry and explained to me that the other lifeguard was 15 and 15-year old lifeguards cannot stay past 8:30pm and there must be 2 people to close the pool and thus they must close now.

Ok, I know that my attitute towards pool intervals is not the best attitute ever but that really was not a lame attemp to cut the workout short on my side. Even with a lousy attitute, I am dedicated enough to suck it up and do it.
So, how am I going to become a decent swimmer if there is always something going on with the pool? (Ok, I am exagerating a bit because it is not that bad overall, just some weeks are disasters)

Drives me nuts. I wish there were a lake closer to my place and I could go there more often. There are lakes close but they are private lakes:(
Ok, ok, it is not the end of the world. Chill out.

Another "awesome" thing that happened today is that the rear shifting string on my commuter bike tore and now I cannot shift, and it is always in high gear. I shifted the front to low gear and am going to ride it like that. So basically my commuter bike became a fixed-speed bike. I am not going to have it fixed because it is not worth it. It is not my bike so I should take care of it but it's one of those $50 mountain bikes from Walmart + it is all rusted and old. So not worth it. I am going to die riding that thing like that for next 6 months. Or it is going to make me really strong. We shall see.

Bike and track

You remember how I said yesterday that I need to do bike, run, swim today? Well, I should have but then I started to think about it and I realized that do bike intervals followed by running intervals followed by swimming intervals is not such a great idea. I am sure that I could do it, but will that swim still be quality workout? I doubt it. Plus I got my period and honestly the first day of that thing is getting worse as I get older. Plus, and I am really ashamed of this but I want to be honest: I like to use every opportunity I have to postpone a swim workout. I know that it will not go away, but I would rather do it on Sat with pool being half-empty than today with pool being half pool So I scrathced the swim and will do it on Saturday instead.

Today was my second day on my new job without any supervision. You know, a girl that trained me was there last time on Friday and my boss is on vacation for the whole month (she is German...) so you can imagine what I am doing there. But so far it is ok, I think that I have not messed up too many things yet:) But it was only second day. Still 2+ weeks to go before someone knowledgeable comes in.

So I did a bike workout, nothing too bad, only 1h of riding with 1min intervals. And I used my new pedals! I tried to focus on pulling and not only pushing. I think that it indeed makes me faster! But I need to adjust my seat because it is too low now.
I wonder how do people run out of/in to transition in biking shoes? I know that some people keep their shoes clipped in and thus run barefoot but I won't be able to do that because my shoes are not tri shoes but biking shoes and I cannot slip my foot in easily. Anyway, am I supposed to run in biking shoes and cleats on them? Is that even possible?

And then I did the track workout. I was again joined by the guy from work but this time he knew he needed to keep it controlled otherwise he would die by the end like he did last time. So he stayed with me the whole time.
800m w/up, 1000, 800, 600, 600, 800, 1000 w/2 min standing/walking break, 800c/d. With second half (upward going intervals) faster than first half.
1000: 3:45 Easy, well, relatively easy. This is the longest interval I have done since early December.
800: 2:55 Easy.
600: 2:08 Somehow easy.
600: 2:08 Managable.
800: 2:53 It is getting harder here, went steady, controlled and managed to make up time (2 sec) in a finish kick:)
1000: 3:43 Felt really sluggish/slow the first 600 (2:15) but then pull my s*** together and picked it up for the last 400.
Perfect! Exactly how it was supposed to be. It was not a super easy workout, especially last 800 and 1k, definitelly made my heart beat hard and my lungs gasping for oxygen in this water-filled air. I thought that I was not going to make the last 1k, but I stayed focused and mentally strong and did it and it was not that bad after all! 2min breaks went by too fast though.

ITB felt great, no problem. I do not know what the deal is because I felt it on Sunday. I am starting to think that although it is ITB it is not only it. Before, when I did aquajogging it felt as if my muscle on the outside side of thigh was detached from the tendon that attaches it to the knee. Ok, I know it was not detached but I had this weird dangling feeling as I was moving my leg up and down in water. And that inflammation or whatever it was this past weekend was exactly at that spot. I iced it every 2-3 hours yesterday and today and thus it did not bother me at all. Just weird. But these intervals do not bother it at all.
I did leg weights on Friday and I think that it might be what irritated it and caused that pain this weekend. It is either that or running.
So I am just going continue running and do not do any weights and see what happens.

I have very mixed feelings. But not like frustrating bad mixed feelings. I just cannot decide what I love more. Hard life, isn't it? I LOVE track intervals. And I LOVE tri training- long bike rides and intervals and long/steady swims (swim intervals, no so much because I suck at them for now). And I am sure that I will love IM training and I am looking forward to it. But I LOVE track intervals. I wish I could train on track for IM. Maybe I should start a new IM training approach:)

Attempt

So I tried to go to the pool today hoping that that one Monday I went there and had to stop after warm up because it was too crowded was just exceptional, but no. Today was the same. I got there, changed into swim suit, took shower, went to the deck, put my things down, picked them up, took shower and went home.

Swim team was there and only 1 lane open for swimming and there were 3 people already swimming there. It says on a schedule that swimming team is done at 8pm but reality is different.
So I can't swim on Mondays. Frustrating.

I need to think how to adjust my schedule because I must do track on Tue and Thurs and thus I want to bike on those days. Oh well, I will just do two hard swims two days in a row. Maybe it will help me at the end, who knows. Or I can do OW on Mondays. I need to think it through.

So today was a day off. Tomorrow will be bike, run, swim.

And it all seemed to be getting better

I woke up in the middle of the night with that same ITB pain when I pressed on it. But this time it is not the same "outside of knee" spot, it is little above but I am sure it is still that stupid ITB. Like it was inflammated or something. It is weird. And I have not even done anything yesterday to irritate it.
So this week my mileage is around 6.7miles or so.

It does not bother me when I walk, and it feels great after I ice it. it is definitelly inflammated. We will see how this continue.

Anyway, I went (actually a friend drove me) to a bike store today and I got new pedals. Nothing fancy, just something to use the shoes with. I do not need high performance carbon whatever pedals.
I installed them and went to try them. You should have seen me installing them. First I could not unscrew my current pedals so I put the bike on a trainer and was basically jumping up and down on a wrench to loosen them. It worked although I almost killed myself. And then I realized that I do not have a screw driver! I must have thrown it out when moving from LA. Well, so I used a knife and a penny to fasten the screws on cleats. Not very efficient.
I was also trying to figure out how that clipping in system works and clipped in the cleat while it was not on a shoes yet and then was too weak to unclipp it from a pedal. So I had to take the pedal apart to get it out.
And my wrench it too "thick" to fasten the pedals properly.

So now, the cleats are on shoes but not fastened enough (I need to find someone with a screw driver. Maybe this is a right time to get to know my neighbors) and pedals are on but those are not fastened enough either.
I went for a ride anyway and believe it or not, I am still alive and no road rash. But my shoes can move in different directions because of those loose screws.

But it was interesting. I think that I might like it and I need to work on pulling my legs up, not just pushing.

I also cleaned the bike. That machine was nasty. It is not perfect but at least you can see that a chain is somehow not black. I need to do that more offen because I almost used the whole can of decreaser! Yes, that bike was nasty.

I also bought 2 cases of gels, 1 case of some other gel-ly stuff and 1 electrolytes drink powder. (They have a huge sale in that bike store.) Michelle can be proud of me:) I am starting to take this seriously, at least until I run out of those gels. Then I will look more into making my own with honey or something.

Then I went grocery shopping and stocked up for next month or so. So I will not starve to death anytime soon.

And then went swimming. I liked it. Around 50min (2100-2200yards) with two 10minish faster intervals mixed in. It was good, I am definitelly getting better at sighing and swimming in a straight line!

Bike, biking shoes!!!! & awesome swim

I went biking with one of our German engineers. We did only 2.5h although I was supposed to do 3 but I usually bike more that I am supposed to so I guess it is ok.
It was not very fast, just moderate effort. I liked it.

Plus I scored these for $50:


Pretty sweet, don't you think? The guy ordered them last year but they were too small and he was too lazy to return them. So they were never used. And they are good shoes.

Now I need to buy pedals and I will be FAST! (Maybe)

And then I went to the pool and had an awesome workout. Maybe my swimming mojo is indeed coming back. 16x100 @ 1:50 (2 in 1:40, 2 in 1:35 etc). And it felt pretty easy although it was a decent workout. I was able to go little faster on all of those. I am happy about it.
I like workouts like this one. I do not like workouts that are tooooo hard for me and I cannot make the intervals. Those make me too nervous and I am always freaking out before them.

Friday speedwork

Since I did the TT yesterday I did not do the track workout yesterday. But for the following weeks I am sticking to the T/Th track routine.

Today's plan was 800m w/up, 3x5x300m at little faster than 5k w/walk back to start(cca 1:05-1:10) w/ ~4min between sets. 3.3miles total.

This track has very weird markings. I started what I thought was 300m start but after I did first 5 at 56-57sec, I knew I was not startig at right mark.
Then I found what was starting line for 300m hurdles and I continued from there. I might have found 300m starting line as well but there was nothing written there so I decided to stick with my hurdle line.
61, 60, 60, 60, 61; 60, 60, 60, 60, 60

It was pretty easy. These workouts are so much easier with walking rests instead on jogging rests and with fresh legs since that's what you get when you do my mileage:)

It is only 6.8miles so far for this week, so I guess I will not get to 11 by the end of this week. I have not really thought that throught and planned my runs.

Plan was to swim afterwards but I kind of forgot about it. I mean, I brought all my swimming stuff with me to the track but then I started stretching after the workout and well, I forgot that I need to be careful about pool closing time so by the time I got to the pool it was too late to do the swim workout. So I will just move it to tomorrow.
I did legs weights instead.

Bike Time Trial #3

Bike TT #1: 34:18, average speed 35.2kph (21.88)
Bike TT #2: 34:04, average speed 35.6kph (22.11)Course was little bit longer this time, not by much though.
Bike TT #3: 34:03, average speed 36.1kph (22.56mph). We never start from the same spot therefore the time is not a very precise indicator of my improvement. It is better to look at the average speed.
If my computer is accurate. It might be little off in absolute value but then in relative value to other TTs it should give the same data. I know it cannot be off by much because when I compare my comp data with other people data when we ride together they are pretty close.

Clearly I am improving! It was windy today, windier than last time and much windier than the first time and I went faster. Or maybe my new tires worked their magic:)
But honestly I do not know whether the wind helped or not because I went ~32-33kph into the wind and then ~37-38kph with the wind when usually I can hold more stable speed. So maybe wind made me faster. We do 2 loops so we get the same amount of headwind and tailwind.

I felt horrible for the first 3rd, probably because it was into the wind. Also my warm up for 19 miles at decent clip might have played a role. Yes, it takes me 19miles to get there from work. So I warm up for 19 miles for a 20k bike TT...

After that first third it was not that bad. TT felt much harder the first time I did it. This time, not so much. I should have gone faster the whole time because I had a lot left at the end and I was hammering last 2k really fast. But it was hard going into that wind thus I kind of could not go faster.

It was good though, I really like it.
Then we went to get dinner and I have learnt a lot of new things about bikes, bike shoes, powermeters etc. One guy in the club is able to get a whole-sale prices on Giant and Cannondale tri bikes. I do not have any money to buy one but that's what credit cards are for...He will make few phone calls to see what he can do for me. We will see.

Fartlek swim and new tires. Yay!

Oh, I am hungry! I just ate a huge bowl of steam veggies but I am still kind of hungry. Maybe I will get some cereal.

Have I mentioned how much I hate new pool hours?!? I am sure I did. The same story today. I got there and all lanes were taken with 2-3people there. So I just sit there for 20min hoping someone will get out. Eventually 1 person left and I joined one line.
Problem is that my swims take usually 60-70min and thus there are always people at the begining aalthought they eventually almost always leave with 45-50min before closing (at least on Wed and Fr, Mondays are a different story). If my swims were 45-50min then it would be great. Need to talk to Michelle about it.

But I had a decent swim, although I felt tired. Kind of treading water and powering through it but eventually I loosened up and it was better. Some paddle work and 1000 fartlek. I liked it. I felt smooth on fast sections. I was concentrating hard to keep my head down and breath without lifting my head because I tend to do that when I breath to the right side. It needs practice.

I got my new tires today! Continetal GP4000s and Ultra Gatorskins. They have also sent me some water bottles, biking socks and a lot of spare racing and training tubes. Also hometrainer tires. Although I wanted also one other different kind of tires that they did not sendit is ok. What they sent is still pretty awesome.
I have been using whatever 28s tires and now I put racing GP4000s 23s on so I should be fast(er):) I am doing bike TT tomorrow so we will see whether it makes any difference. I can definitelly see the difference. I have never realized how huge those 28s are until I compared them to 23s.
The only problem might be flats. Since I ride that bike on sidewalks and over potholes and whatever you can find in Michigan I might get a lot of flats:( Then I will switch to Gatorskins 25s. They are presumably one of the best training tires on a market and you never get flat but they are also one of the slowest. We will see how those racing ones survive my ride to the park tomorrow.

Track (again)

It is Tuesday and it means....SPEEDWORK on a track. Tuesdays and Thursday are my favorite days because of running speedwork and because of bike intervals. And Saturdays because of long bike rides. And Sundays because of long swims. Hm, it pretty much leaves out Wednesdays, Mondays and Friday because...well, those are swim speedwork days. I am sure I would like those days as well if I did not suck at swimming. But I will get there. I am just way too impatient.

I met with one guy (he actually works for the same company as I do and just came here from Germany for a work assignment) who is training for Detroit marathon in October. Some other people said they would come but 97degree weather might have detered them. Slackers.

Plan was 800w/up, 5x800 at 5k pace with 90sec rest (stand, walk, no jog), 800m c/d. Around 3.5miles total.

1st: 2:52, felt soooo easy. Really, like a jog.
2nd: 2:54, hm, not so easy anymore, but still nice and controlled
3rd: 2:55, the guy left me in the dust, but I had a feeling he would die on the last one.
4th: 2:56, felt ok.
5th: 2:55, as predicted the guy basically died and just somehow hang in there behind me. It was hard but not like dying hard.

Ok, this was not the best executed workout. I got carried away by running with someone faster (at least for first 3 intervals).
Normally I would start at 2:56 and finish at 2:52 but because that guy was faster than me at the beginning I went with him and then I paid for it.
Although the heat has played a role as well.

It was a good workout although I am not sure how I am going to run 2.5miles w/up, then 2.5miles sub-tempo, then 5x800 at this pace with 90sec jog in the future. Sounds hard. Last fall I did such workout and 800s were in 3:00ish on average. Maybe I can pull if off. We will see.
I mean it is only my 3rd week "seriously" running and doing speedwork so we cannot expect any miracles, can we? And my mileage is like few miles/week and I am hoping to do around 10-11 this week. And than rump it up more significantly next week, probably high tens (18-19miles) and then get over 20 the week after. We will see, I need to discuss it with PPC.

I was still little worried about jogging between intervals but I think that IBT might be ready for it next week.
I have not had any unpleasant feelings or anything in it for quite some time now.

Holiday workouts

I love holidays. Although I love them more during a school year when it means that I do not have to go to school that day. But I am not complaining. Holidays while working are also nice.

I went to the BBQ last night and I had a great time- lots of good food and nice people. The only problem was that I had to stay there until 2am until my ride home was ready to go home. Last time I went to the party I decided to not wait and just crashed at host's place and then it let to some interesting night events. I was not going to make the same mistake last night although I am sure that if I stayed there would be noone to wake me up at 3am with invitation to "try" master bedroom matress.

Still got over 6 hours of sleep before having to go for a bike ride with one guy from work. I went to the park and there were also some people from the club but we decided to stay just two of us. It was a good easy/moderate ride. We did around 23miles together and then he got a flat:( But it was close to his car so no problem. I went on to the beach for swimming.

I did only 5 laps instead of my usual 6. I was not wearing wetsuit and I could tell the difference. I did not have a swim cap either. Just swim suit and googles and a very small towel. Because that's all I could fit into my small under-seat bike tool bag.
I did not enjoy the swim as much as usually, proably because I was just tired and 3 days of swimming in a row have taken their toll.

Then I biked 16miles back home but it was very easy. Total of 3.5h biking.

I ate and then started watching a movie and I fell asleep on a floor by my bed. It has already happened to me once before and it just means that I am dead tired. Because if you do not have energy to climb into your bed and you stay sleeping right next to it it means that you are tired and need some serious rest.

Finally

a somehow decent swim.

I was pleasantly surprised that I almost managed to do 2 hard swims in a row (one more to go tomorrow, but that one is not hard, just long).

And I even hit my 1:30 and sub1:30 intervals! Finally. Maybe my swimming mojo is coming back. But I was so spent by those that last fast 2x200 was a disaster. One the first one I died after around 120yards and then on the second one I (or rather my arms) could not take it any more after around 70 yards. 3:09 and 3:14 adn I was supposed to go <3:05. Oh well, I can not have everything...


I also ran. 5x4min w/ 1min walk. That's around 8miles for this week. NICE!!!!

I will see how running next week goes, hopefully I will pass 10miles barrier.

Bike and swim

Bike was brutal. I wanted to go with a fast group of people but I did not find any fast people. But I managed to recruit one guy from the club to do somehow hard ride with me.

I warmed up for 13miles and then we did fast 2hours sharing pulling/drafting ~2miles. 43 fast miles. Actually last 8 miles were me pulling for 2 miles and then 6 miles alone because the guy could not keep up anymore:) Average 21.56mph (with guy average was 21.8mph for 36.7miles. The last 6miles I was totally alone and tired so I went slower but still decent clip. Last 10min were brutal though).
Then 13miles home and it usually takes me around 50min but it tool me like 70min. I was done! 4h10min total.
I was so glad to be home and sit and do nothing for 3 hours.

Then I went to pool.
It was finally open and I had a pretty good swim, so I am happy about it. I still did not hit my fastest intervals perfectly but I worked hard and my arms and legs hurt like hell. So good effort.

Swimming business and tire sponsorship!!!

Hm, this week is a disaster for my swimming.
Monday- too many people so I decided to move it to the weekend.
Wednesday- prefer to forget about it
Frida- pool was CLOSED when I got there!
Hm, seems that I will have to do my 3 swims for a week in next two-three days. That should be interesting.

ITB is great.

I got a small sponsorship from Continental Tire so that's exciting. They are sending me bunch of racing and training tires, tubes and some other small stuff. I wanted some biking clothing as well but unfortunatelly they do not have clothing line for the North America this year, only in Europe.
Now I need to buy a real tri bike! Next year, after I know which country I will be living in and after I save enough money.