Meandering Starre

July 30th was swimming and spinning day. Once I week I’m trying to do a spinning class as training. It gives me “hill” work and interval training, and often forces me to go faster then I might on my own. Plus, the spinning bikes are probably the best bikes in the gym as far as similarity in riding experience as to my road bike. The Expresso bikes I use the rest of the time are also good, but the other one do not work well. The spinning instructor was a sub, but good.

I also swam another 500 meters. My body didn’t really want to swim and I had a few more issues than my last swim, but I did it. I only swallowed two mouthfuls of water.

Swim workout

Workout: Swim
Time:17:300 or so. This includes some breaks and stops.
Average lap time : 1:40 (I think my original 1:30 lap time was off)
Distance: 500 meters
Total training distance to date: 1350 meters
Body condition: awkward but fine
Time of day: morning

Bike Workout

Workout: Bike (spinning)
Time: 45 minutes
Distance: n/a
Total spinning time to date: 45 minutes
Body condition: Fine
Weather: Inside
Time of day: Morning

More biking and swimming on 7/28. I swam further than the sprint tri distance, which rocks! Now I know I can do the swim, as long as I don’t have other issues. I am really finding the swimming easier than last year.

Swim workout

Workout: Swim
Time:17:00 or so. This includes some breaks and stops.
Average lap time :1:35
Distance: 500 meters
Total training distance to date: 850 meters
Body condition: Slight breathing problems
Time of day: Late afternoon

Bike Workout

Workout: Bike (medium ride: black level course “Oh Mama”, lots of hills)
Time: 39 minutes
Distance: 7.8
Total training distance to date: 40.84
Body condition: Fine
Weather: inside
Time of day: Early evening

On 7/29 I ran the new 3.8 mile route backwards in a running skirt. I’ve run in the skirt a few times before, but didn’t really like it. The bike-short-like-things under it roll up and the skirt itself rides up in the back. It may ride up because of my water bottle belt. I’ve not tried it without. The running skirt does, however, look good (I totally don’t care about looking good when I run. I try to mostly match, which is about it. But hey, if I do look good without effort…) . It is very flattering and I look sharp, speedy, and hot in it. Apparently others thought so. I had several people drive by slowly and pause. It was weird. Of course, my skirt could have been hiked up in the back, but I don’t think it was each time this happened. It was a bit freaky. I must remember not to wear the skirt during later evening runs. Or maybe it was just a bunch of coincidences.

I may try a different skirt to see if I like it better. I like the idea of running skirts. Trying another before giving up would probably be smart.

Running my new 3.8 mile route backwards was interesting because I didn’t realize how many downhills I had running it forward. There were tons, which all became hills running it backwards. So, I now have discovered a simple technique to figure out the downhills on the run—try it backwards (skirt is optional).

Workout: Short run
Time: 42:00
Distance: 3.8
Total training distance to date: 23.4
Body condition: Humidity was bad, minor leg/over pronation issues
Weather: 77 degrees, ~86% humidity
Nutrition: water during, Gatorade after

I am still trying to get caught up with this. I really should write it up after each workout.

On 7/27 I did my weekly long run. This was 8.2 miles and I was dumb enough to start at 10:45 when it was already in the mid 80’s with 4000% humidity. The run was hot, sweaty, and not much fun. I didn’t have much in the way of pain or other issues, just heat and humidity problems. I took the run slow, as one should for the long runs, just looking to finish. I ended up walking more than normal, especially the hills on the last two miles. By that time it was after noon and I was getting dizzy and the world was turning just a bit darker. So I figured walking was smarter than fainting. By about 3 miles in my sunscreen was coming off in white rivers of sweat. Luckily I did not burn. I was happy to finish and drank a lot of water for the rest of the day.

Workout: Long run
Time: 1:33
Distance: 8.2
Total training distance to date: 19.4
Body condition: Humidity was bad, had some issues and walked
Weather: ~83-86 (?) w/ high humidity
Nutrition: 2 Gu packs, Endurox R ^4 after, water during

On 7/25 I completed two workouts: a 25 mile bike ride with a friend (whom I have not asked it I can use his name here yet, so he will remain anonymous for now), and the a strength and toning class with Bill.

The bike ride was good. The friend bikes a lot and it generally more into it, especially from a commuting and multiple use perspective, than I. We had biked together previously in his element—city streets—and we both were looking forward to biking in my element, so he could see what I could do. I was also interested to see which of us was faster. The answer soon became clear that he was generally faster, but that I have probably more endurance, which makes sense from our biking perspectives. My asthma kicked in several times, which greatly decreased my bike speed. But when I was breathing well we got into the 22 mph + range, which rocked.

The strength and toning class was taught by a sub and more of a core and leg work course, just what I needed after 25.6 miles of biking. I took it easy on the leg stuff, and, sadly, there was not enough upper body work that I was even sore the next day. In other words, the class had little to do with what it should have.

Bike Workout

Workout: Bike (distance on the comet)
Time: ~1:15 biking (I think)
Distance: 25.6
Total training distance to date: 33.04
Body condition: Asthma issues
Weather: July in Atlanta
Time of day: mid morning/noon
Nutrition: 2 Gu packs, Gatorade after, water during

“Other” Workout

Workout: Strength and toning (or core and legs this time)
Time: 1 hour class
Total training time to date: 1 hour
Body condition: fine
Time of day: afternoon

After being a fan for more than a year, I’ve now read a story for Escape Pod. well, not a whole story, just part of one. I’m the interviewer in “How I Mounted Goldie, Saved My Partner Lori, and Sniffed Out The People’s Justice.” Stephen, of Escape Pod, was the dog. My throat hurt for him while we were reading it. While I’ve not listened to it yet, the story is a good one, so I recommend going right to the site and giving it a listen (and then subscribing to Escape Pod if you have not already).

I realize I must be besieging whichever readers have not run screaming from my training posts with more traning posts. So here is a non-training post. Short and sweet even (well for me, Meb).

As I was writing my last post Ani’s song “School Night” came up on iTunes. Whenever I hear this song, it makes me stop and think. She does a great job of making one feel what they “main character” of the song feels–the struggle of love and overcommitment to another love, even if the struggle is foreign to the listener. The lyrics are so well done. And the part about the mom… Why don’t I share (okay not so short):

what of the mother
whose house is in flames
and both of her children
are in their beds crying
and she loves them both
with the whole of her heart
but she knows she can only
carry one at a time?
she’s choking on the smoke
of unthinkable choices
she is haunted by the voices
of so many desires
she’s bent over from the business
of begging forgiveness
while frantically running around
putting out fires
- ani difranco “School Night”

What can I say, Ani rocks!

Keeping up with my training here is apparently harder than doing the raining. I’m a bit behind. On 7/23 I did a 3.8 mile run on a new route. It was very humid and I sweat a lot. I took it slow. Further details have escaped me, besides the normal. I did like the new route. It combined pieces of a few other routes. I listened to Escape Pod 138, since EP leads to slower running then music.

Workout: Short & slow run
Time: ~42 minutes
Distance: 3.8
Total training distance to date: 15
Body condition: Humidity was bad
Weather: 69 degrees, 95% humidity
Time of day: Morning

Today I did my first swim of the tri training season. I was somewhat concerned about it, because it has been months. However, it went rather well. The pool was full, so I had to do circle laps. However, that worked out nicely, as the other two women were slower. So, I got some breathing time at the end of each lap, which I still need. However, I don’t need the breathing time nearly as bad as I did last training cycle. I must be improving. I had no idea how far I could go. I was rather impressed that I did 350 meters without real problems. I was beginning to feel my arms towards the end (and feel the a bit now), but otherwise I was fine. I stopped at 3250 meters because I did not want to push it.

I also did a stationary bike ride of 33 minutes. I used the good bikes at the gym that remind me the most of actually biking. I choose a harder hilly course. I was very sweaty, but otherwise felt fine.

Swim workout

Workout: Swim
Time:12:43 or so. This includes some breaks and stops.
Average lap time :1:30
Distance: 350 meters
Total training distance to date: 350 meters
Body condition: Slight breathing problems
Time of day: Late afternoon

Bike Workout

Workout: Bike (medium ride: black level course “Stormy [Something]”, lots of hills)
Time: 33 minutes
Distance: 7.44
Total training distance to date: 7.44
Body condition: Fine
Weather: inside
Time of day: Early evening

Instead of doing my weekly long run on the weekend, I did it on Monday, moslty due to air quality issues (both days were red days). Monday was only an orange day. This is my first long run of training, and since I did the Peachtree 10k without issues, I decided to start with 7 miles. The days was very humid and warm: 74 degrees when I started and 78% humidity. By the end it was 79 with about 70% humidity.

One nice thing about the heat and humidity is I warm up faster. One problem is I was sweating within a few minutes of starting. I had no real issues on the run, besides the heat and humidity. I started getting chills in the last mile, so I walked a bit until I felt better. for me chills are often the sign of get heat exhaustion. I ended the run very very sweaty.

Workout: Long run
Distance: 7 miles
Total training distance to date: 11.2 miles
Body condition: Heat exhaustion issues
Weather: 74 degrees, 79% humidity -> 79 with about 70% humidity, sunny
Time of day: Morning