A Bit Off

Have you ever had one of those days when you just weren’t “into” the workout ahead? I had one today. I just wasn’t looking forward to the long ride ahead. On top of being a bit off my game mentally, I woke up late. I’d set my alarm for 5:00 am….only thing is, I set it for PM. Dooooh! Luckily I woke up 5:17. No problem…my breakfast would just have a little less time to sink in. 6:15am rolled around and it was time to get suited up to go. I pulled on my shorts and immediately something didn’t feel right. I looked down and the shorts were inside out. Dude…where’s your head? Get it together! Quick turn around and I was good to go.

I headed out at 6:30am. 10 minutes from home, I looked down at my heart rate monitor and saw two dots where my heart rate should appear….the dots that mean no signal from the chest strap...which means dead battery. You’ve got to be kidding me! I made a quick turn-around in the parking lot of the Moose Lodge and headed back home to change the battery.

At this point, I considered calling it a day….thinking maybe there was a reason I wasn’t jazzed about this ride. But I changed the battery and headed back out…. wondering what would be next. However, the next four hours went by without any further delays….other than a few nature breaks. I ended up with 70 miles at an average heart rate of 152. I did a short, VERY hot, 20 minute run off the bike and was glad to be finished. The rest of the afternoon was spent mowing the lawn…which has been neglected the last few weeks.

Overall, training is going good. I’m a bit tired, but I suppose that’s to be expected. I’m ready for a rest week, but won’t get one for a couple more weeks.
I have two more weeks to go in the bike block and then I get an easy week.
Tomorrow is my day off and I’m looking forward to it.

Totals for the last two weeks:
Swim: 4.8 miles
Bike: 319 miles
Run: 27 miles
Core: 45 minutes

Hope everyone has a great 4th!

Happy Training.
TJ

Checking In

Not much new to report here on the home front. Still grinding out the miles in this humid Georgia heat. My long ride this week was a 70 miler Saturday morning followed by a 5k run. The heat during the run was brutal, but I survived. The nice cool treadmill is looking better every day….

Had a bit of an injury last Wednesday. I started experiencing some pain in my left shoulder at about the half way point of my swim session. It was sore for a couple of days afterwards but feels great now. John told me to take the rest of the week off from swimming. I’ll try it out again Wednesday. I’ve never had any issues with my shoulders, hopefully this was a one time occurrence.

Hope everyone has a great week of training and racing.
Good luck to TriJack, Iron Jenny and Iron Girl Nyhus at IM Switzerland, and Wes at Callaway Gardens.

Happy Training!
TJ

Back From Vacation

Just rolled back into town last night about 8:00pm. We had a great week down in Florida. I caught up on my rest in a major way, ate lots of good food, and best of all, got to hang out with my two favorite girls.
Our camera decided it needed a vacation as well. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not, so the picture selection was a bit slim on this trip. Here are a few that survived:

On the training front.....
I got TONS of rest. A little too much I think. I did absolutely no training the first four days. For the week...I managed two runs....TWO....that's it. No biking. No swimming. The undertow in the ocean was very bad. Red flags every day and double red flags one day. So...no swimming in the ocean. The pool was big enough for laps, but it was always filled with kids. So, no swimming. I finally got my lazy arse out the door Wednesday and did a thirty minute run. I don't know if it was the four zeros, the humidity or what, but this run sucked, as did the one the following day. Maybe being back on home turf will turn things around. I've got a run to do later today, so I'll find out soon enough.
It was great to get away and throw the schedule out the window for a few days, but I'm kinda looking forward to getting back on track.



Happy Training.
TJ