Weekend Update

Saturday:
Start the day off with our 6AM Hill Repeats. It’s just Todd and I this morning. Todd competed in the Bermuda Triathlon last weekend, so I got to hear all about that. He really enjoyed it and says that I really need to consider doing it next year.
I haven’t downloaded the workout from my watch yet so I’m not able to compare previous weeks. I’m expecting that I was much slower but I’m really not sure. It was a good workout, we really pushed the uphills but definitely relaxed more than normal on the downhill.
When we did the short steep repeats I was surprised that we finished all 4 of them within 2 seconds of each other. We both commented that there had better be some payoff in race times for putting ourselves through the “super suffer” hill repeats. I would think that if you were looking to find your max HR. There is a good chance you would find it running this hill as fast as you could.

Next up, load the bikes onto the car. Get more food into the system and wait for Genine to get back from her IntenSati class. She also had to fuel up when she got home. The weather kept looking more wet. By the time we hopped into the car to go, it started raining. So instead of going out and getting a ride in, we ended up taking a nap. (all or nothing I guess...)

I had a swim lesson scheduled for 2PM. Unfortunately, there was an event that the coach wasn’t told about at the pool. So it was canceled, he might be able to fit me in Sunday. By the end of the day, I found out Sunday wasn’t going to work either. Ah well.
Instead of my 2PM lesson, Genine and I went to the pool to meet up with Maija and Paul. We get there and there is a girls meet going on. Fortunately we were able to get a lane or two and we kept shuffling around to get our workout in. The noise of the meet made it a bit chaotic but we got a good workout in. Because we were circle swimming I got to draft for a change. So I’d try to close the 5 second gap somewhat quickly and not be on their feet but at least I was able to hang with these people that usually are pulling away from me. 20x 50 on 1min we did that twice.
Genine swam for a bit more than an hour and then headed out. Swimming is currently her least favorite part of tri training. Our masters swimming program is beginning again. I’m hoping the schedule might allow her to swim with us once a week. I think if she had some direction on how to improve and the fact that it’s a fun supportive group of people, she might come to enjoy swimming.
At the end of the main set, Maija was going to practice her flip turns. I hadn’t ever decided that I should even bother with flip turns because typically I’m so out of breath, it’s the last thing I need to add to my list of problems. Today though, perhaps because of the drafting I was feeling pretty good about my swimming. So I figured what the heck. The observation deck is filled with “fans” hopefully watching their kids and not me, ha ha. I didn’t butcher the attempt anywhere near as badly as I thought I might. I’m not consistent enough with my swim times, so it will take awhile to know for sure if the flip are actually speeding me up at all. If nothing else, it will be fun just to be doing them.
It was a good swim workout. How do I know? Because I was cramping up big time towards the end. Ugh! I probably should have taken an endurolyte before I started…
Because the girls meet finished at the same time we did, Maija wanted no part of the locker room until it thinned out a bit. So she was leading me through some Abs work and stretching. I’m weak in both of those departments. When I get to plan out an official workout schedule, I need to make sure I include both of these, very regularly.

Sunday:
Nice sunny day out. Genine had to work a half-day. Maija stopped by, picked me up and we went out trail running with her dogs. Her dog Cooper was a good match for me. He would go slowly on the downhills and stay behind me, then race to catch up with Maija and Frito on the flats and uphills, pulling me along. Frito on the other hand was always leading Maija. We ran 5.5 miles or so. Frito would have run a 2nd loop. The rest of us on the other hand were done. There was a 2nd workout planned for the afternoon. No need to go crazy on the running.
I really had it in my head that I was going to swim today. I think I’ve been in the pool for 7 days straight tho’ and Genine is going to want to bike when she gets back at 3-3:30. So I guess I'm passing on the swim.
Genine had an easy commute to and from Long Island, which is amazing to us. It did cost her $14.30 in tolls plus gas to go 140 miles round trip…
Anyhow, she got back in time for us to go riding. Oddly enough, Genine always has a tough start to her rides. We get 7 or 8 miles out and we have to decide if we are going to do the short or long ride. She says it’s not feeling good and we do the shorter ride. Then when we get back to the car. She now feels she could go do the entire ride again without a problem. I wonder what it is we could do to speed up the “warm-up” for her?
We called it a day, which was probably good, the wind was going right through her jacket so she was cold, and the temp is going to be dropping quickly as we get to last hour of daylight.
I knew I should have packed our swim gear just in case we had a short ride! Ha ha!

Fun weekend!