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On Sale: Tickets To See The Shit Show

Friday, March 9th, 2012

Two weeks ago, I went spent a few days in NY and NJ for work and managed to bring back a nasty cold with me. I even vividly remember walking past a well dressed old man by Penn Station whose mother apparently never taught him about covering his mouth when he coughed. My cough would sound exactly like his two days later.

I shake my fist in the air in your general direction. You’ll get what is coming to you.

It shut down my training completely, and I lost a TON of sleep due to a constant flow of snot from my face and relentless coughing that didn’t care what combination of drugs I tried to attack it with. Coach Hirsch put me on the bench until further notice.

Only two days ago did I actually start to feel normal again and gently eased back into training. I’ve still had to use my sweat towel on the bike trainer to catch some last remnants of bloody snot dripping from my face, but I can safely say that I’m 95% over it.

Now that the doctor and Hirshey gave me the green light to jump back into training, you’d think I’d be jumping for joy and itching to put my training plan in a strangle hold, but I’m not. Not even a little bit. Apparently two weeks is enough time to completely lose your training motivation. I had a nice routine going, but now it is completely gone. Blurg.

Making it (slightly) worse is that I recovered from the cold JUST IN TIME for my Master’s swim meet on Saturday – meaning I can’t even try to force myself back into a rhythm. Gottta stay fresh for the meet! The silver lining is that aside from some possible muscle atrophy (kidding…hopefully) I’m as fresh as a daisy! The highest my heart rate has gotten in the last two weeks has been when I had to run into another room to grab a tissue and prevent a river of goobers from covering my face. (Note to self – make sure I warm up extra and remind myself how to swim before the race.)

Needless to say, any expectations of stellar performances at the meet tomorrow have been thrown aside. Thankfully, other than my two week hiatus, the last 2.5 months have seen some pretty solid and frequent swim sessions. It’ll be interesting to see how much of that stuck with me.

I can hope, but at the very least, this weekend will be a complete shit show – and absurdly entertaining if I forget how to swim all together.

| Posted in Swimming, Training Log, Triathlon | 2 Comments »

Zeo Winner – And A New Contest

Tuesday, March 6th, 2012

A little delayed in announcing this, but Saturday morning I tallied up all of your donations to the Rev3 Run Across America, used the random number generator to pic a winner…

And the Zeo bedside sleep manager goes to.. Donna!

Congrats Donna. Email me your address and I’ll ship it across the pond to you.

I’m extra excited to hear Donna’s thoughts on the Zeo because she is a crazy globetrotter for work and I’m sure sleep is extra important to her. She’ll have a much different prespective (and sleep needs) than I do.

Bummed you didn’t win?! Don’t worry!

Fellow Rev3 teammate and hardcore momma, Laura Mount, is doing another contest! Check out her blog to get a chance to win some of this…

One of these…

… a WHOLE LOT OF THIS…

… and even one of these.

| Posted in Triathlon | No Comments »

Family Swim Day

Tuesday, February 28th, 2012

Sam’s new gym has a pool. While I loathe the idea of having a gym membership, she’d never workout in the cold winter so being a gym rat is her main option. It also means that she has a chance to return to her swimmer roots from +15 years ago and is jumping into the pool to do some laps again.

Except that my little grasshopper has a few things to learn. During her first trip to the pool (without me), she couldn’t tell why people were giving her funny looks. She has awful eyesight, so without glasses or contacts, she had no idea that the protective stickers were still on the front of the lens. We both got a good chuckle out of that one when I showed her.

Sunday is “family swim day” at her pool where the whole family can swim for free if anyone is a member. (Totally meant for families with little kids, but we’ve got the same last name now, so I’m taking advantage of it.) It is REALLY rare that Sam ever has me workout with her (because we are both super competitive) and even RARER that she asks me for advice on workout stuff. Needless to say, I was really surprised when she asked me to come and critique her form and help give her a swim workout plan. I didn’t ask questions, I just jumped in and started watching.

I’ve seen her swim a million times, but I’ve never actually seen her freestyle technique before. I’m not sure why, but I always just assumed that she had really good form. She didn’t disappoint. I was able to quickly notice some small ways that she could improve her rotation, arm entry and body position. I was only only impressed by her form after so long out of the pool, but my knowledge in how to break down people’s swim stroke. (Am I becoming a swimmer?) I did my best not to overwhelm her and give her one tip to work on at at time.

After a quick shower, we regrouped in the lobby and headed out to the car. Sam was quick to note that now we had swam, ran AND biked together. This, coming from the girl who for years has been content hanging on the sidelines, taking pictures and cheering during races. It has only taken my 8.5 years, but I think I’m slowly starting to wear her down. Maybe in another 8.5 years she’ll toe the line and do a triathlon with me.

Even if she never does race with me, family swim day made me a proud husband.

| Posted in Triathlon | 4 Comments »

It Never Hurts Less

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012

But if you do it right, you can make the hurt end sooner….

Sunday was the annual early season fitness test/suffer fest. 10k computrainer TT. Coach was iffy about me doing it as my first “race” of 2012 since my real focus for the last two months has been in the pool, but I jumped in anyway because it is a fun fitness test. I just figured I’d roll with it and not put too much emphasis on the results.

Somehow my poor directions, timing or plain stupidity got me to the bike shop 10 minutes before my heat started. Not ideal for warming up. I did manage to snag a spot next to Trakkers alum, Elaine, who was TOTALLY hoarding the only fan. What a jerk.

Working hard. Going nowhere. Sweating my face off.

I could geek out and tell you the story of my power numbers, but let’s try this version instead:

I pedaled hard. Then it hurt. Then I drifted. Then I tried to pedal hard, but I was weak. Repeat that for about 17 minutes and that was pretty much it.