Friday, February 16, 2007

Back in the ring

Last week at this time, I was in the middle of a gnarly stomach bug. Thankfully I’m all better now. I don’t do sick well. Thanks for all the get-well vibes and messages you sent my way.

I had a surprisingly good mile swim Monday morning. However, I had to cut the long run I had planned for Monday afternoon in half. My body just wasn’t ready for it.
I’m in the sixth week of my return to strength training and began adding some heavier weight and cutting the reps during my strength workout Tuesday morning. I did my normal three sets and it went well. I started developing a little soreness later in the day, so I may have overdone it a bit. I did an hour on the trainer Tuesday night, keeping my effort aerobic the entire ride.
I added in some “pickups” to my swim Wednesday morning. After warming up, I did one lap at near max effort, recovered for two laps and repeated. I did 5 sets and finished out the set with easy laps. I ended up with just over a mile. I did my first tempo run of the year Wednesday afternoon. I warmed up for about 5 minutes and then maintained 8:30 miles for four miles. It felt good to hold a decent pace. My effort was about 6 or 7 on a scale of 1-10. I felt great afterwards.
I was back in the gym Thursday morning for more strength work. I didn’t add as much extra weight this time and didn’t have the soreness that followed Tuesday’s workout. I did a cadence workout on the trainer Thursday night in which I held my cadence above 130rpm for 1 minute, lowered it to 100 for two minutes to recover and then lowered it to below 70rpm for 1 minute. I’d then go back to 100 to recover for 2 minutes and repeat. I adjusted my gearing to accommodate each cadence. I did about 5 sets and ended up with an hour total, including warm up and cool down.
I didn’t sleep well last night (work stress) and had a less than stellar swim this morning. I made it through 1.3 miles and called it a day. I’ll do a 45-60 minute aerobic run this afternoon.
Tomorrow’s ride is up in the air right now. D.J. may be going out of town shopping with some friends. If so, K.J. will be with me, which means no outside riding. Oh how I loathe long rides on the drainer. If D.J. doesn’t go out of town, I’ll probably go in to work during the morning (forecast says low 20s Saturday morning) and ride 2-3 hours after lunch.

In other news, I made my lodging reservations yesterday for Ironman Florida. We’ve stayed at this condo before and have been very pleased with it. It’s about 1.5 miles from the race, has a full kitchen, living room, 1 bedroom, washer, dryer, private parking area…..all the comforts of home. I reserved Wednesday before the race through Tuesday after the race.
All that’s left to do now is show up trained and rested…..

TJ

5 Comments:

Blogger Wes said...

Glad you are feeling better. I'll be volunteering for Florida. I'm hoping my dad will let me use his place by St. Andrews Park. I don't see why not. He doesn't go there during the fall/winter. I've got to start working on my upper body. I keep sayin that, but its not happenin.

12:10 PM  
Blogger jen said...

Glad you are feeling better. :)

Great work on all those workouts. Whew... I'm impressed. That's a lot of stuff. Keep it up.

The condo in Florida sounds perfect. The kitchen will make your race prep easier since you'll be able to prepare and eat your normal foods. Sounds really nice. That's exciting!!

5:07 PM  
Blogger M said...

Hi! Thanks for visiting my site and for the supportive words! Two hours on the treadmill is a bit absurd, as if five hours on a trainer in my living room - ahhh, good old Chicago winter! Good luck in FL - my training partner is also doing that race so I will be there to watch and cheer!

8:31 AM  
Blogger SingletrackJenny (formerly known as IronJenny) said...

what? 1.5 miles from the race site at IM FL??? Good thing I and a bunch of my peeps are in the host hotel... you have a "base" where the actions is!
Jenny

10:55 PM  
Blogger TJ said...

Jenny -- I thought there might be too much action happening at the Boardwalk and decided on something a little more low key. I'll know where to go for the after race party.... :)

12:25 PM  

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