Following the Mont Tremblant 70.3 last weekend. My calves
were my biggest problem. I was being very careful to make sure not to do a
workout that could possibly injure them. My range of motion was awful. By
Tuesday, I was really wanting to do some sort of workout, so I decided doing
some core work should be alright. Dropped Ab Ripper into the DVD player and did
that to the best of my ability. (wasn’t great, wasn’t awful). Then I did some
planks after that. Good enough for now, leave it at that.
The next day my hip flexors were feeling the Ab Ripper. Makes
sense, I haven’t been doing that on a regular basis. My calves were getting
better but were still sore. I got on the bike trainer and did about 30 minutes
of very easy spinning. Got the legs moving and the blood pumping through them
to get the junk out. After that some stretching of the legs and core.
Thursday oddly enough my core felt even worse than the day
before. Again, mostly hip flexors. The calves were feeling alright tho’ so
taking some of my numbers from my power meter, I decided to hop on the trainer.
I decided to try a spinervals workout with intervals where I was trying to hold
a certain power value no matter what the gearing and interval. I think I may
have picked something a bit too high but I managed to get through about 50
minutes. Not bad for a first attempt, I have a long way to go in learning how
to properly train with power.
Friday: I keep thinking I’ll actually wake up early and swim
and I continue to fail at this. I haven’t been able to figure out what’s going to
motivate me to get to the pool on a regular basis. It doesn’t help that I feel
that the pool is the cause of many of my illnesses, sinus or otherwise. Whether
or not that is true, I can’t say. I can say I wish the water in the pool was
more inspiring and didn’t make me feel this way.
Saturday: It’s bike day. It’s humid. And it’s time to climb.
We took our Tri Bikes out today. 40 miles, 2,375 ft of climbing
over 40 miles and we hit one of the Fondo Hills “The Doggone Hard Hill Climb” http://ridewithgps.com/routes/868633
Part of me feels that I should be doing
this climb at least once every weekend until September just to get ready. We
will see if that really happens.
Sunday: Up at 5AM to meet up with Todd,
drive into the city. Run 6-7 miles pre race. Then “run” the 5 mile NYRR
Achilles race. We decided to run the extra miles before the race to avoid the
heat. Well avoiding the heat was only a small part of the problem. The humidity
must have been 100%. We did one loop, 6 miles and then took a break as we lined
up for the race. I probably should have found more fluid, COLD fluid. I was
very warm and my HR just standing in the corral at the start was 100-105. I
just made a point of stopping at the first aid station and taking a couple cups
of water at that point.
The most “exciting” part of the race
was on a down hill when one of the hand cyclists started to get some serious
momentum going and there were people in front of him with headphones on that
couldn’t hear the people yelling for them to get out of the way. I started to
clap and wave wildly in their line of view to get their attention. The one
person managed to step just out of the way. The 2nd person I think
was grazed as they went by, I couldn’t tell and since they had headphones on, I
wasn’t able to ask. I’ll admit that I’m in the “no headphones” camp for any
race, but obviously this is one where it REALLY should be a rule. That could
have ended badly.
After the race, back to NJ. It seems to
rain daily now days, so mowing the lawn has been impossible. I was hoping to
bike before the rains came but decided I had better use that window on getting
caught up with the lawn. After which we loaded the road bikes onto the car and
went over to one of Genine’s friend’s house to wait out the rain. It looked
like it might not be dangerous within the hour. Sure enough, it was.
Genine doesn’t think she’s been on her
road bike since getting her tri bike a couple years ago. I honestly can’t
remember the last time I’ve been on mine. Both bikes had clip on aero bars on
them for sure when we last used them. Those are removed now. I threw on a
profile design saddle we had laying around to see how that would feel. Genine
is still on the stock saddle. I’m sure that is going to have to change very
soon. We weren’t more than a few miles down the road before both of us realized
just how smooth these bikes feel compared to our tri bikes. The tri bikes only
have a carbon fork. Our road bikes have carbon fork, seat stays and seat post.
The difference was amazing.
Of course our pedal stroke felt completely
different as well. Genine said she felt much more powerful on the road bike
compared to the tri bike. I being pretty beat from the morning run felt slow, I
didn’t have a cadence meter on the bike but I’m fairly certain 90 rpm wasn’t happening.
Even in an easy gear I just didn’t have the energy. So I think I was mashing a
bit and I just got slower and slower over the 30 miles. (I also think I ran out
of calories).
We were both very glad to have put the
time in on the road bikes tho’. We both realized that we have to build up our
hand and arm strength to deal with riding on them again. I was changing
positions like crazy at the end because I was so tired/uncomfortable.
Fortunately immediately after, Genine’s
friend made me a recovery shake and we all got to hop into her pool for a bit.
That was great. It definitely brought my core temperature down and then I was
able to sit around and feel comfortable the rest of the evening.
I grilled up some dinner when we got
home. Then I promptly fell asleep on the couch just after 9. Genine was on the phone.
She woke me up at 3AM. It seems she fell asleep in the chair right after she
was done talking. Ugh! Unglued my contacts from my eyes then went back to sleep
for a few hours in bed.
As a side note, I saw some results for
Syracuse 70.3 on Monday morning. Ed’s brother in law took 2nd in the
45-49 Age group with a time of 4:47:56 which is amazing to me. Then I look to
see who beat him and it’s Doug Clark also from NJ. Doug finished in 4:28:21!!! Absolutely
incredible. Sometimes I see this and it’s truly inspiring. Other times it feels
absolutely demoralizing.
Yes I see that the pro finished 1st
in 4:02:58 and the first female pro came
in at 04:24:37. Even more amazing of course but the other guys are in their mid
40s and have a full time job!
Anyhow, there you have it. Have a great 4th everyone.
Matt
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