Category Archives:

Slow ‘n steady

0, 06mi

Start time: 6/19/10, 6:00am
Location: National Mall
Distance: 6 miles
Average pace: 10:48min/mile
Total Miles For June: 31 miles
Total Miles For 2010: 311 miles

Was it the humidity? The earlier start time? Several members of the group not feeling well? Whatever the reason(s), we were definitely a little off our normal pace today. Can’t say I really minded, though.

Back to normal?

0, 05mi

Start time: 6/17/10, 7:30pm
Location: North Arlington
Distance: 5 miles
Average pace: 8:45min/mile
Total Miles For June: 25 miles
Total Miles For 2010: 305 miles

Took a few days off due to a strange cramp/ache in one of my quads, coupled with trying several times to make it over to the pool and the rest of the world getting in my way. Finally got my run in today, though, after work. Humidity was low and I didn’t feel sick, or unusually tired, or anything. A nice relief.

I did, however, decide not to run the DC Tri on Sunday. I feel ill-prepared at best, and as the temperature is being forecast anywhere from 94-98, well… I’m just not going to enjoy it on any level. Part of me sad to decide not to do it, part of me is relieved. But I just felt disaster on the horizon and sometimes you need to know when to sidestep it. My friend Beth and her boyfriend Chris might be doing the mini-tri that I did last July, and if so I’ll sign up for that. Since my killer-course Olympic tri this year was a 3:36 finishing time, and last year’s not-very-well-trained mini-tri was a 1:16, well, I think I can still handle that one just fine. It’d be fun to try and beat last year’s time.

(8:42, 8:35, 8:54, 8:39, 8:52)

Ah, humidity

0, 08mi, new shoes

Start time: 6/13/10, 7:00am
Location: Cap Crescent Trail (Georgetown to Maryland state line and back)
Distance: 8 miles
Average pace: 9:52min/mile
Total Miles For June: 20 miles
Total Miles For 2010: 300 miles

Finally, a run in which I don’t feel 100% dead by the mile three point. And of course, on one of the most humid and hot days of the year so far. Fortunately there’s a lot of shade on the Cap Crescent, and I’m sure an extra walk break in mile 6 while two of the four members of our group took a bathroom detour might not have hurt matters. But still, I didn’t feel like I’d been run over by a truck at any point, and that was a huge relief. Things are finally starting to feel like they’re getting back to normal. And oh, the siren call of getting an Arnold Palmer afterwards (green tea and lemonade, please) made it all worth it.

(10:12, 9:34, 9:53, 10:16, 9:34, 11:06, 9:36, 8:41)

Still Sucked

0, 05mi

Start time: 6/10/10, 7:30am
Location: North Arlington
Distance: 5 miles
Average pace: 9:14min/mile
Total Miles For June: 12 miles
Total Miles For 2010: 292 miles

Another crappy, tired run. Went to bed early last night to try and get some sleep. We’ll see. I know there’s no immediate fix but still, it’s hard to not wish there was immediate results. Also having serious doubts about the Washington DC Triathlon in 10 days. I’m starting to think it will be a really bad idea if this doesn’t right itself soon. As it is I haven’t swam since the Columbia Tri on May 23rd, and I’m trying to think if I’ve made it to one or two spin classes since then. I think just one. Not good.

Need to call Pacers today and find out wheremy new shoes are. It’s been 11 days now, that’s more than enough time…

Fireflies

0, 04mi

Start time: 6/7/10, 8:00pm
Location: North Arlington
Distance: 4 miles
Average pace: 8:56min/mile
Total Miles For June: 7 miles
Total Miles For 2010: 287 miles

Whole bunch of things.

  1. After Friday’s crappy run, I owe Cristina a huge thanks for making me feel not quite as bad about what was a bad, bad morning. It let me regroup a little bit later in the day and start moving forward again.
  2. I ended up taking the weekend off of exercise. I have been really tired for the past two weeks and I decided it was more important to just try and recharge as best I could, even if that meant having some shakier exercise in the next week or so. Trying to think long term here. I’d signed up for a practice tri on Saturday morning, and I’d really hoped on working on the swim, T1 transition, and then bike progression. As it turned out, they had some sort of problem with the pool so instead it was a duathlon (run-bike-run) instead of a triathlon (swim-bike-run). It’s nice to feel sometimes like you made the right choice by skipping an event; I’d have been mad if I’d talked myself into going only to have what I really wanted unavailable.
  3. Signed up for a July and August lap swimming class, today, which will get me through the months where the children have taken over Spring Hill Rec Center’s pool during the afternoon.
  4. Went running tonight and it was… ok. A lot of huffing and puffing, but nothing bad like last Friday. My pace is still off where it was a few weeks ago, but I’ve also been running much less. Slowly getting back there I guess. Glad to have gone out and done it and I’m not displeased. I’m glad it was cool out though because I was still overheating by the end.
  5. I hope my new running shoes arrive at Pacers soon because these ones have had it. Ouch.
  6. There were fireflies coming out as I was finishing my run, and that made me more happy than you can possibly imagine.

(8:52, 8:45, 8:56, 9:09)

Uh oh

0, 03mi

Start time: 6/4/10, 7:00am
Location: North Arlington
Distance: 3 miles
Average pace: 9:17min/mile
Total Miles For June: 3 miles
Total Miles For 2010: 283 miles

Started running this morning and within under a mile started feeling light-headed. Ended up turning around much earlier than normal, and even then had to take a short walk break around the 2.5 mile point. Not good.

(9:00, 9:10, 9:41)

Rest Time is Over

0, 08mi

Start time: 5/29/10, 7:00am
Location: Downtown DC
Distance: 8 miles
Average pace: 9:52min/mile
Total Miles For May: 41 miles
Total Miles For 2010: 280 miles

After my race on Sunday, I ended up taking Monday through Friday off. It wasn’t my plan to do so—I figured just a couple of days—but a slightly sore knee and other things going on meant that it just didn’t come back together. Today was an 8-miler with the group, which worked out well as always. We were a little variable in spots (oops) but on the whole it was a nice time. Good way to start the morning.

Afterwards, I stopped by the local running store and ordered a new pair of shoes (I can feel that these are on their last legs, and sure enough they’re around the 375 mile mark, plus added abuse from the tri and Disney), and also got a new bicycle seat to prevent some soreness problems I had at the tri. Phew.

(8:47, 9:57, 10:18, 9:03, 11:02, 10:19, 9:29, 9:58)

Wetness Everywhere

0, 06mi, 10k, race, triathlon

Columbia Triathlon
Start time: 5/23/10, 7:00am
Location: Columbia, MD
Distance: 1.5k swim / 41k bike / 10k run
Splits: 32:16 / 1:45:44 / 1:05:12
Total time: 3:36:12
Total Miles For May: 33 miles
Total Miles For 2010: 272 miles

The Columbia Triathlon was my first olympic-distance triathlon; I ran a sprint triathlon in July 2009 to see if I liked the idea of a triathlon, and it was good enough an experience to sign up for two olympic tris in 2010. This was the first one, and I must say that I hope the second one is easier in all regards, because this was definitely a hard one. It didn’t help that there was heavy rain and thunderstorms all night before; I got maybe 3 hours of sleep, and from there it was a very early drive up to Columbia. Once there, I set up my gear as best I could (my bike was already there), met up with Moose, and then headed into the water at 7am for the start of my swim wave. The rain had fortunately stopped a few minutes earlier, and the weather in general only pushed back the start by 15 minutes.

The swim was the first open-water distance I’d done since Boy Scout Camp (and the mile swim) back in the 1980s. This meant I had to learn “sighting” (aka keeping your eyes on where you are supposed to be going) on the fly; the first turn ended up being a little wide, but after that it sorted itself out. (When I got to that turn and realized I should be making a much tighter turn, another swimmer next to me stopped, looked, and said, “I think we need to start turning a little tighter.” At least I was not alone.) On the bright side, I never did get kicked in the head, something I was expecting. On the down side, the water was disgusting and at the end you actually swam through weeds. Ugh. Still, I was happy with my finishing time for this leg; it was actually the one out of the three where I ended almost exactly where I had thought I would.

After a really slow transition (I was mentally in “all done!” mode for too much of it), I headed out onto the bike course, which is pure hill from start to finish. Biking is still my weakest part of a triathlon, and this was a struggle. It didn’t help matters that the road was still wet and slick from all of the rain. I did pass one person who had wiped out on the course, badly; adding to the experience was that just earlier on that very steep downhill stretch, I’d felt my own bike slide a tiny bit on the course, but I had regained control almost immediately. I spent the entire bike ride eating spray from other bikes as they passed me (ugh), hoping I wouldn’t wipe out, and wondering how far along the course I was. I hadn’t brought my Garmin GPS, which was a mistake; next time I’ll just switch watches and call it a day. (It can’t go in the water.) I’d convinced myself that I was barely more than halfway through (and inching through the course) when I suddenly made a turn and realized I had about three miles to go. Oh, what a wonderful moment that was. I came in on the bike about half an hour faster than I’d expected, which was a really nice surprise.

The one downside to doing better on the bike than expected was that I didn’t have as much energy left for the run as I needed. If the course was flatter I might’ve been all right, but just like the bike course, it had large and steep rolling hills, and I’ll admit that I ended up walking a few of them because I just didn’t have the power left to move any faster. It was a disappointment, and while it wasn’t a bad finish time, it was the part of the race where I came in slower than I’d wanted.

I’m looking forward to my next race (the Washington DC Triathlon on June 20th) being a much flatter course, though!

Last Chance Run

0, 05mi

Start time: 5/20/10, 7:30am
Location: North Arlington
Distance: 5 miles
Average pace: 8:38min/mile
Total Miles For May: 27 miles
Total Miles For 2010: 266 miles

Wasn’t able to get to spinning last night for a variety of reasons, argh. This morning’s run is the last one before Sunday’s tri; we’ll see how it goes. I feel like I am in not as good shape for it as I should be, but as long as I don’t go splat I’ll take it as a victory.

(8:30, 8:42, 8:34, 8:43, 8:39)

Scenic

0, 07mi

Start time: 5/15/10, 7:00am
Location: Downtown DC
Distance: 7 miles
Average pace: 10:00min/mile
Total Miles For May: 22 miles
Total Miles For 2010: 261 miles

Went for a nice run with some of the guys on Saturday morning; we ended up running through some scenic parts of the area (Capitol, White House, Lincoln Memorial, around the Tidal Basin) and it was a nice change of pace. Stephanie and I also got a nice shock when we ran by a police dog in a parked cruiser that started barking like mad at us. We both gave off a little scream. 🙂