Posts from — July 2006

Thursday, July 13

Today I am taking a day off from training. I ran yesterday and my legs felt so dead that I had to take a couple of walking breaks during a 4 mile run. The Bronx Half Marathon took a lot out of me and I am beginning to worry that I won’t recover in time for IMLP. Perhaps I will get a swim workout in this evening and if so, it will just be a day off from anything that significantly involves my legs.

I’ve been a bit overly stressed lately regarding a work project, so perhaps that is contributing to the malaise and over trained feeling I am experiencing. My sleep hasn’t been optimal and I imagine that has been a factor in my recovery.

I don’t think driving over 230 miles yesterday helped my body at all. I was in my car driving for 7 total hours and it took a toll on me.

Friday, July 14

I did manage to swim Thursday evening. It was a short and interrupted swim. I arrived at the Red Hook pool around 6:25pm. I was hoping to finish quick, so I could get home to let my wife go to a Pilates class. At around 6:40pm, they closed the pool for the day session and I had to wait around 20 minutes for the night owl session to begin. That only left me with about 20 more minutes to get in my workout, so I just did what I could and called it a day.

Today my legs were feeling a little better, so I did an easy 18 mile ride with some short bursts of speed; or at least what can be considered speed compared to my easy pace. I rode with Rob for a while and it was over quick enough. It felt ok, but overall I was still tired. I got an afternoon swim in at the Red Hook pool. A continuous 2500 yard set with a 200 warm up and 300 cool down.

I got to the pool last night. It was a tough one to get in. My son was telling me that he didn’t want me to leave and wanted me to stay home. The guilt was getting unbearable. Fortunately, he was scheduled to take a bath and I promised him that if he went now, I’d be home by the time he got out of the tub. I didn’t quite make that, but he was happy and occupied when I got home. I was then able to spend some quality time with him and my daughter before they went to bed.

As for the swim workout, either I am swimming faster these days or the pool is not as long as advertised. I did a 180 yard warm-up, followed by the 3×980 in 15:55, 15:55 and 16:00. Usually I am between 16-17 minutes when I do 1000′s and I don’t think 20 yards adds that much time. I did feel pretty good in the water. Perhaps it was just refreshing after a hard and stressfull day’s work.

This morning I rode 18.6 miles. Truthfully, I almost bailed out on the ride around 10 miles as my legs were feeling quite tired. I began to worry about overtraining and burning out so close to IMLP. I was just completing my third loop (10 miles) when I saw a friend and slowed to talk to him. About this time, Todd rode by, so I figured let me see if I could go catch him. I had the help of a passing paceline to move me forward and when I caught him, I rode with him and another friend for another 2 laps. Technically speaking I did my scheduled fast bursts of 22mph or faster, but that was coasting downhill. I did increase my pace as the ride wore on, but I was also feeling better as my legs warmed up.

This week I am supposed to swim Monday, Thursday and Friday. This schedule actually works out for me since I have to go all the way to Amagansett on Wednesday and I wouldn’t have time to do a morning swim. However, I am going to take my swim gear, because if I get to leave early enough, I may have time to stop by Eisenhower Park and do Thursday’s swim an evening earlier, provided my coach thinks that’s ok.

Today I did a very easy three mile run during my lunch hour. I don’t actually have a lunch hour, but take whichever hour I desire. Usually it is less than an hour, except for the times that I actually get out of the office.

My legs could best be described as dead. They are very tired from all of the past weeks training. I am so happy to begin tapering, as I don’t know for how much longer I could have pushed myself without taking a day or two off.

I ran around the lower loop of Central Park. It’s a 1.7 mile loop and I estimated that distance plus the distance to and from my office would be 3 miles. I was close, but when I got back to the block of my office, I saw I was still short a quarter of a mile. I decided to run the long way around the block to a local lunch place to get as close to 3 miles as possible. When I entered it, I was .07 miles short. I figured that would be close enough to 3 miles, but the compulsion to make the pedometer on my Polar 625x tick over to exactly 3 miles was too much. Therefore I ran with my lunch around the corner to my office building and just past it in order to get exactly 3 miles.

Sometimes when I load the exercise data into the Polar software, it says that I went less distance than what is recorded on my watch. I thought perhaps I should go a fraction of a distance over 3 miles to make sure that my software log file said I went 3 miles as well. I decided against that though, because that would be just a little bit too compulsive.

I write this entry as I sit on the subway riding home. I just feel like lying on my couch and vegging out when I get home, but I know I will drag my weary ass to the municipal pool to get in my scheduled 3300 yards. I should have done both workouts this morning, but I was too tired to get up.

Perhaps that is because instead of going to bed at a reasonable hour, I let my wife talk me into going to the heart of Bensonhurst Brooklyn to see all of the revelers cheering Italy’s victory over France in the World Cup Soccer finale. It was quite a spectacle watch dozens of cars streaming by with ravenous fans hanging out of the windows clutching Italian flags and screaming out their lungs and blowing their car horns. People were spilled all over the streets, drinking, bbq’ing and partying while the police looked on. We searched fruitlessly to buy Italian flags or soccer jerseys for my children, but none were to be found. I guess we got to the festivities a little too late. At least it was quite in my neighborhood, so that when I finally got to bed, I could sleep in relative peace and quiet.

I rested for the Bronx Half Marathon by swimming a couple of miles in Brighton Beach, riding my bike 24 miles and then playing with my kids at the municipal pool on Saturday. It felt good to be somewhat rested, as usually I have 100+ bike miles in my legs the day before a run.

The weather cooperated by giving a clear, sunny and not too warm day. It reached a high of 85 degrees, but that was probably on the Grand Concourse which is always stifling hot and windy. I was driven to the race by my friend Chris who picked me up around 6am. I was perfectly happy to let someone else to the driving for a change.

After stopping by the Baggage Check, I realized that I forgot to bring my timing chip. I was annoyed at myself, because this is a very basic thing that you need to have. I was able to get a replacement chip for the race, but this meant I couldn’t run with my permanent bib number. The replacement number turned out to be a good thing, because I was able to use both of the bibs t-shirt coupons to double dip and get a child size t-shirt for both of my kids.

I went for an easy one mile run to warm up before the race. My legs were feeling kind of crabby and I thought I was feeling twinges in my right Hamstring. I started to worry about pulling something so close to IMLP, but I decided to go through with my race plan and just monitor it carefully. I was hoping to run 7:10 minute miles or better. I started off the race by running around 7:25’s for the first 5 plus miles.

While I was running, I overhead a couple of guys wearing those “I ran my fastest 10K, 20 miles into a marathon” shirt talking about their goal pace for the race. One of them said he is looking to run 7:45’s. I couldn’t help myself and replied to him that if he is looking for 7:45’s that he was going too fast now. I probably did that more to remind myself of how I should run, rather than as a desire to offer advice to another runner. The guy agreed though and we got to talking about how he just couldn’t help himself by going out too fast. I told him to think of it like sex; you don’t want to prematurely ejaculate. He agreed that was true and we proceeded to run next to each other for the next mile or so.

Eventually I let him get ahead as he was pulling me a little too fast for the pace I wanted to run at the moment. I throttled it back down until through the midway point between the 5th and 6th miles. I really wanted to try to break my PR and I was afraid that if I started to move too late that I wouldn’t be able to come close. I was feeling ok and decided I may as well go for it now.

I soon blew past the guy I was talking to earlier and concentrated on keeping my pace up. To help me do so I concentrated on picking off other runners. It kept me going strong and helped me keep my pace up. I was able to overtake everyone I pointed out and I refused to let myself start slacking off. As the later miles came on, it became a bit more difficult and eventually I was just running alone. I was feeling a great deal of discomfit, but I thought to myself that dealing with this discomfit is what I was going to have to deal with if I stood a chance of qualifying for Kona. I told myself to get over it and run hard to the finish line.

With a few hundred yards left to go, someone passed me. He offered words of encouragement to bring this thing home and I increased my effort to maintain pace with him. In the end I wasn’t able to retake him and I was annoyed at myself for letting someone pass me. I felt I could have dug a little deeper at the final 10th of a mile, even though I was already running at over 95% of my max HR.

I was ready to throw up and collapse after I crossed the finish line, but somehow got my body to settle down before I did. I grabbed my cold water bottle filled with Recoverite and sat down on the sidelines while I waited for Chris and other friends to pass by. Eventually my friend Rob came by and we sat and talked about the race. While we were sitting, some strange older guy wearing a Santa type had with white pigtails and carrying an ancient orange suitcase came by. I was amazed at the sight of this suitcase as it was the same kind my parent had when I was a small boy. I recognized it in a second, even though I probably hadn’t thought of it in 33 years. I had to take a picture of it, if for no reason other than to show my parents. The guy cooperated by stopping and starting to talk to us.

We talked briefly about the race. When the guy saw me with my camera though, he said that he would take out picture and proceeded to pull out a Polaroid camera that must have been from the same era as the suitcase. We responded that we didn’t want to pay for it, but he said “Oh no, it’s for free”. I was fine with that and smiled nicely for the picture. Rob though had a look of shear skepticism and leeriness. The guy even put it in a cardboard boarder for us. Here is a picture of the picture.

Rob eventually left to reunite with the group he came down with and I awaited the return of Chris and my ride home. He finally sauntered over the finish line in a little over 2 hours with Marcos, another friend that came with us to the race. I had to wait over 30 minutes from the time I finished to meet up with him, but I didn’t mind since it allowed me time to cool off and relax. It did take Chris just about forever to get ready to leave. By the time we got rolling the same amount of time it took for me to complete the race had passed. I guess that’s the price I had to pay for having someone else drive me.

My family wasn’t home when I returned as they went to my nephew’s birthday party. I would have liked to have been able to play with my kids when I got home, but by no means am I not enjoying the relaxation time I have now as I write this. Hopefully, they will come home soon though as I’ve now had enough time to relax.

Time for race: 1:35:50

Thursday night I went to the Red Hook running track. It’s a perfect 400 meter rubberized track. I asked my kids if they wanted to go with me and ride their bikes around the oval while I ran. I also asked my daughter to help me train by timing my speed intervals. She brought her stopwatch and clipbook to record my times for each interval I did.

It was a perfect night for a run – calm, cool and clear with a spectacular sunset approaching. My daughter camped out at one of the starting markers and got her clipboard ready to record my times. She wouldn’t let me go until she was perfectly ready to begin timing. My son got on his bike and started riding around with me while I did a warm up.

I had my scheduled workout printed on a sheet of paper. My daughter would check off every set as I completed it and record the time. She was using one of those freebie stopwatches which on occasion gave her trouble resetting. She was quite adamant about not letting me go until she could get the numbers back to zero. Eventually the thing wouldn’t reset at all, so we would let the stopwatch run up to the next minute mark and just subtract the time from the total for all subsequent sets.

My son would alternatively race me on his bike or run. I’d let him get way ahead of me and sprint to see if I could beat him to our agreed upon finish. During one of these races, my daughter wouldn’t let me go until she could reset the stopwatch. By the time I got going I had to run all out in order to make the race close.

I had run some hard sets and by the time I was done, I was tired. My kids were also tired from running around the track. For a cool down we all walked around the track one last time while the sun was finally setting. We then left for home where we each had a bowl of ice cream.

I finally swam in the Red Hook Municipal pool. It was after work and I was exhausted, but still I went. The evening air was cool and I felt chilled as I walked to the lap swimmer lanes. I shuddered a bit when I entered the water and quickly got on with the business of my workout. It was the only way I was going to generate enough body heat to stay warm.

My workout called for lots of drills, which I wound up doing with a guy I met at the pool who I think said he was on the French National Triathlon team. We started speaking while we were waiting for the lap swim session to begin and he asked me what type of workout I was going to do. I replied that I had a plan that my coach gave me and he said he would do it with me, since he gets bored while swimming and wanted something to focus on as well.

I was a bit leery of him at first, since I thought he may be some sort of weirdo. He turned out to be a good guy and excellent swimmer. He was watching how I did some of my drills and swimming technique and offered advice which was exactly what I heard from my coach. According to him he also coached swimming a Chelsea Piers. He pointed out several flaws in my technique, all of which I heard before. I guess I am a stubborn learning, because I would have hoped by now my form would have been better. It’s not terrible, but I probably waste a lot of energy when swimming.

After a while he had to leave and I got onto the rest of my workout. It was getting past 8pm by now and I was the only person in the pool. It felt kind of strange having such a gigantic pool all to me while several lifeguards were forced to sit around and wait for me to finish. I decided I wasn’t getting out of the water until my time was up and they kicked me out of the water. The evening sky started to turn a brilliant red from the remaining clouds from the day’s earlier rain. The water felt cool and refreshing and I enjoyed my remaining time in the pool.

When I finished, I was very happy I went swimming. It was a good workout and a great way to end the day. I wasn’t happy though with how late it had become, because my kids would be in bed by the time I got home. Upon my arrival I rushed to their bedrooms to say goodnight. I lay in bed with my son for a while who I tried to console when he told me a book he created in school got ruined from rain that crept in from an open window. After I got him to go back to sleep, I had my daughter come back downstairs with me so we could talk while I ate dinner; much to my wife’s annoyance. I didn’t really care, since I wanted to talk to my girl and hear about her first day at camp.

After that, it was off to bed for me in an attempt to get enough sleep to get this morning’s run workout in. I am usually trashed in the morning after an evening workout and this was how I felt today. I was literally staggering when I got out of bed. I heard rain outside my window and that convinced me I was better off getting some extra sleep. It looks like it will have to be another evening workout tonight.

July 4th was an easy day training wise. I had a 3 mile run scheduled (completed) and a 2300 yard swim, which I missed – not by my own choosing. Fortunately, I was able to get in a very long swim on Sunday out at Coney Island, a 3.1+ mile swim from Grimaldo’s chair to the white house (end of Brighton Beach), then to the Coney Island Pier (to the right is a picture of it from the water) and back to the starting point. Otherwise, I would have felt that I was seriously neglecting my swimming.

It’s not as though I didn’t try to swim. I went to the Red Hook Municipal pool with my children and a friend with his children. We had a great time in the pool playing shark attack and just horsing around. Running through the water with 4 kids holding onto me was quite exhausting on my legs. I couldn’t talk my friend into watching the kids while I did some laps, so I figured maybe I could come back later while the kids were taking a bath at home.

After the pool, we went out for lunch and ice cream. It was a pleasant pain free way to spend a hot and humid 4th of July. I brought my kids home and headed back out to the pool. I arrived there at 3pm, just in time for me to be told that they are closing for a one hour intermission. This pretty much wiped out the only opportunity I’d have to swim for the day. We were having company over for a BBQ later and besides, we had a thunderstorm between 4 – 5pm which meant the pool would have been closed anyway. Why they need to close for an hour in the middle of the day is beyond me.

The kids yelled, screamed and ran around all evening until our company left. After that, we waited for it to get dark for our annual trip to our roof to watch the fireworks. This is always a bit of an event, because it means climbing through a narrow, dark, warm, dusty and creepy crawl space. From my roof you can catch just a corner of the Macy’s fireworks display.

I wasn’t too concerned about missing yesterday’s swim, because I knew this morning I would be able to get in a scheduled 5000 yard swim. I arrived at the pool for the 7am start of the first day of early morning lap swims. The lifeguards must have slept in though, because as of 7:40am, there was still no sign of them. I sat with several other frustrated swimmers as we gazed out onto the crystal clear 330′ x 130’ foot pool. With no lifeguard in sight, we talked about the various events we were training for. Eventually, we all started to leave since it was getting too late in the morning to get in a swim. Fortunately, though they have evening lap swim this year, so hopefully I will get home in time to get it in.

Even though I went to the pool, I somehow feel guilty about not getting in the swim. I probably feel this way because I didn’t feel like going this morning and it was probably a relief not to have to do it. I think this stems from times when I went through the motions of doing something, but didn’t really prepare for what I was going to do. Specifically, I am thinking back to school days when I would go through the motions of going to class, sitting through them, but never really paying attention or studying. I always hated when I did that and going to the pool for the last two days and not swimming, gives me feelings of going through the motions. That’s so much how I feel this year in regards to swimming.

Hopefully, the lifeguards will get their act together and be available for tonight. I feel like I have vanquished the evil spirits concerning my biking; only now I am hoping they don’t keep me from getting in the water.

Somewhat reluctantly I went back to Harriman State Park to try once again on completing a 110 mile bike ride. Today should have been a nice recovery day and I was looking forward to spending the time lounging about with my children. I figured maybe we could go to the Red Hook Municipal pool and spend the day splashing and playing in the sun.

However, that was not what I did. Instead I woke up at 4am to get an early start up to HSP and hopefully finish my ride early enough to still go out with my kids. When I started on my first loop, the familiar doubts about whether I could do this creeped in. I just reminded myself that I always feel this way on the first loop and to give it some time. Sure enough I started to feel better after the first major climb and settled into a decent rhythm. The first loop took me 49:28.

I didn’t stop after the first loop and was happy to see a slightly faster time for my second. On my second loop I was treated to the sights of several wild turkeys running about a several deer. Most interesting, was a snake I almost ran over on the climb up to Tiorati. I decided to snap a photo of him and chase him out of the road before a car came and squished him. It was cool to watch him slither out of the road. I also set the downhill speed PR of the day, clocking in at 49.6 mp. For some reason I can never break 50 mph going down this hill; must be terminal velocity.

The third and fourth loops peeled off rather quickly and both were under 48 minutes. I was very happy with my pace so far. By this time of day it was getting very warm and was drinking a lot of water. Stupidly, on the fifth loop I decided not to fill my water bottle. I went out with half a bottle and it looked like I may need more. It was a dumb mistake as the thirst was really starting to set in. I’d have enough for the loop, but not as much as I would have liked.

The fifth loop also gave me a pretty bad scare during the big descent. I was flying down it at over 40 mph when I startled a deer. It made to jump out right in front of me and only at the last second changed its direction. It was so close, that if I wasn’t dehydrated I am sure I would have pissed my pants.

By the time I hit my 6th and 7th loops the temperature was up in the 90’s. I was downing over a liter of water per loop and started to battle a slight case nausea. The only way to combat this was to slow my pace a bit and allow my digestion to catch up with my fluid intake. I was also downing an Endurolyte every 20 minutes; chewing actually as I decided that having one get enlarged in my trachea during an earlier attempt at swallowing one while riding wasn’t working for me. I finished these two loops in 50:32 and 53:39 respectively.

The completion of my 7th loop meant I only had 12 miles to go. I stopped once again at the water fountain to cool myself and recover. I wasn’t sure if I would do a 6 mile out and back or make my suffering last by going the full 14 miles to make it an even 8 loops. I guess I really knew what I was going to do when my odometer ticked 104, signaling the turn around point. I continued on for the complete loop, figuring in for a penny, in for a pound. I was actually stronger on this loop that the previous and very glad I did it. I guess I am ready for IMLP.

Email to Coach@slb-coaching.com
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Neil -

My course didn’t allow me to go 22 so I went closer to 23. Actually according to the Polar SW I went exactly 22. According to the watch I went 22.4. I think I did 23 because a couple of times my watch lost the signal from the foot pod. I was going to hit 20 on my penultimate loop, so one more would have given me at least 22.5. Plus I think the thing is inaccurate on the under side.

When I got home I took an ice bath in warm water. That is to say the water felt warm despite the ice. When I got out of the tub I noticed a gray chest hair. Then when I weighed myself my scale told me I lost 3.4 pounds (this is after refueling with 16 Oz chocolate milk), gained 3.3 percent in body fat and aged 7 years compare to my pre run weigh in. Do you think I somehow lost 7 years of my life from this run? The gray chest hair wasn’t there before it.

Anyway, I feel ok right now and am relaxing on my couch. Mercifully, my children are at a friend’s house so I have my place alone for a while. I’ll swim tomorrow, but I don’t think I can get a bike in. I plan for another attempt at a 110 mile ride in Harriman on Monday. If I get it in, then Friday will turn out to be a bonus 54 + 11.

Today’s quick stats: Time: 3:28, HR 140/162

Charles