Its now a week after my last post and I'm currently in Orlando. Its been a very very busy week with lots going on workwise and trainingwise. So heres the catchup...
First of all.... below is a photo of what brought me to Orlando. Which is that I am the scenic and lighting designer for a large corporate meeting here. So I'm essentially responsible for the entire visual look of the room. This is one of a few very large projects I work on every year. It took us three days to set it all up and those days are often long and tiring and very stressfull as all the pieces start to come together. So training around this is not terribly easy, but I'm proud to say I haven't missed a day all week.
All that said its time to get back to the training....
Saturday I'm quite happy to say I headed out with a six mile goal. And managed it at a nice relaxed pace and had a great strong run. My legs are finally starting to feel like they are coming back after the layoff to let my foot heal. I'm pretty confident I'll be back to double digit long runs in short order. I have an 8 miler planned for tomorrow and I have no doubt I'll be able to do it injury free which is great. So Saturday involved a great run through the rural suburbs of Chicago. Technically we were in St. Charles. I found a great route that ended up following some farmland around and it was a perfect sunny morning for it too. After that I went right from the shower to the airport to Orlando.
Sunday I got up at 5am and headed to the gym to get in a long bike ride on what I hoped would be a stationary bike. But the only bikes in the gym were recumbent bikes. I don't like those as I don't pedal laying down so why would I ride that way on a trainer? So instead I went for a five mile run as I wasn't sure what else to do and I wanted to do something. And the best bit was there was no ill effect from running on back to back days. Perfect. Then I when I got back to my hotel around 6 I headed to the pool to try and get some drills in. I worked on the TI drills for 45minutes to an hour and then called it a day. The pool session was mildly successful. Theres a nice pool at my hotel that even has lane marking on the bottom of it (although no ropes to divide lanes) but I'm in Orlando which means despite the fact my hotel has multiple pool there are always kids in every one. Who swim sideways across the lane markings. And frankly they should. Its Orlando which is a family place. So I can't complain, I'm just saying it makes it hard to do drills when your dodging kids and trying to look forwards all the time and mucking with your body position all the time. I was also getting weird looks from everyone which I should just get over... but I can be a bit self concious at times so it was a bit weird.
Monday I was up before the Sun again for a swim workout again. Which got cut short when the Mickey moust police tossed me from the pool for swimming in it before it was officially open. Theres no fence around the pool, and no gate, and no lifeguards, but the pool is technically closed from midnight to 8am. I was surprised they tossed the lone swimmer from the pool, but I respectfully got up and left. I did however manage to get in a swim workout at the end of the day to make up for it. But it wasn't a great one. In fact it was a bit lackluster, unfocused, and a victim of the current stressload I'm under on the project I'm working on. So monday was not such a great day.
Tuesday I went for a 5 mile fartlek run in the AM which featured a 6:15 average as the fastest mile, a7, 730, 8, and 830 mile if I remember correctly. It went well, and I was encouraged that I was able to put in a mile at my hopefull 5K race pace without any issues or pain. I'm slowly buidling confidence on my running legs again.
Wednesday I managed a strength training session for an hour in the morning and a swim workout in the early evening. This was a very successful workout in the pool. In fact I was really psyched. I managed to put a few lengths of freestyle together that I felt pretty good about. Still lots of room for improvment but I'm getting there! It was the first time I felt like I just might survive the swim on August 14th. Although if I don't find a way to relax more in the water I'm going to be exhausted for the rest of the race. Must work on that!
Thursday started way too early workwise to get a workout in ( I had to be at work at 6am ) but I did end the day in time to get a run in outdoors at the end of the day. The sun was even still out. Except it was 90 degrees with insane humidity. So it was a very very sweaty run! But the nice part of it was I had some company with two of my coworkers who also run. They aren't big distance guys, and their pace is a bit slower than mine but we managed to shrae some laps together which was great. I never carry water on short runs but it was so insanely hot yesterday that I'm glad I did.
Today (Friday) I had to be at work early again, but theoretically I'll be back in my room by 5-6pm after taking down the show this afternoon and I'm hoping to get in a strength training workout followed by another pool workout. So we'll see what happens with that.
Next up after this will be an 8 mile run tomorrow and then fly home, and on Sunday I'm meeting up with some club members from the NE-Tri club for a 40 mile bike / 5 mile run brick workout. Hopefully I still have some energy left after this week combined with all the training. It hasn't been easy but I've kept up with it well. So there we have it... all updated.
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