Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Really? May 20?

Is it really May 20th already? Really? Holy crap, May is gone. And guess what happens in the first part of June? June 7 is the Festival of Flowers, my first oly tri. THAT'S ONLY 18 DAYS AWAY!!!1! Then 6 days later is my first marathon? IN 24 DAYS??!?!?! I knew it was less than a month away. The training plan has a 20 mile run this weekend, my only 20 in this cycle. Then it starts the taper.

WHAT KIND OF IDIOT RUNS AN OLYMPIC DISTANCE TRIATHLON AS A PART OF A MARATHON TAPER?

this kind of idiot that's who. {imagine me pointing 2 thumbs back at myself with a stupid grin on my face}

and it's all coming to a head in less than a month. wow. Looks like a little paranoia is starting to set in. I know my training is going fine (but not fantastic) and I feel good about all of the distances (0.9 mile swim, 24 mile bike, 6.2 mile run, 26.2 mile run) but I don't think you are ever really confident about a marathon until you have completed one.

Every week for me is exactly the same. I write the same code on the same projects for the same time periods every day while I watch the same shows on tv. So I tend to measure time by weekends. This weekend is memorial day. Then a free weekend. Then it's the tri, then the marathon. That is almost right now. I mean it's getting close.

I need to get into the pool more, but we've had a recent cold streak. Just last night it got down into the mid 40's here. I looked at the training log and I was surprised how little I have been on the bike this month. So the plan is to hit the hills tonight on the bike, and get my normal thursday night brick in tomorrow. I missed last week's brick thanks to work, so this one is even more important.

Yesterday was an interesting day. it started out innocent enough with some yoga before work. Then I hit the weights over lunch for my normal tri power workout. After getting the kids to bed, I made it to the gym for some speedwork. I ended up doing a warmup on the bike for 5 miles in 13 minutes. I think the resistance was flawed, that's way above my 20 mph target speed and it didn't feel like the resistance was changing even though I had the bike set to "random" and level 10. Then I moved to the treadmill for some speedwork. The training plan called for timed intervals, and it turned out to be awesome. A 10 minute warmup, then 2 minutes fast followed by 2 minutes easy, and repeat that 5 times. So I did the 2 minutes fast at 7.3, 7.4, 7.5, 7.6, and 7.7 speeds, which is much faster than I normally run for speedwork. But since it was only 2 minutes at a time it ended up being ok. I did the warm up, cool down, and easy 2 minutes at 6.2 or 6.3 speeds. Total run ended up being 4 miles in 34:04. I'm not calling that a brick because 13 minutes on the bike and 34 minutes on the run is not challenging enough. bricks should take more than an hour in my book. It's a warmup.

I have to admit that while I know some people don't like speedwork, I have really come to enjoy it as a part of this FIRST marathon training plan. The tempo runs and long runs are really fun too, but speedwork really has a nice fat burning effect and it makes the other runs more fun. Only running 3 days a week on this plan is great, and (earlier paranoia aside) I feel well trained for the distance. I really want to find some standalone 5k and 10k races here to try out some of my newfound speed. maybe after july.

Happy hump day! long weekend coming. I will leave you today with a few pictures that describe how multicultural Greenville is. I didn't take these, but I like them.
HA!

14 comments:

Wes said...

ROFLMAO... I got nothing...

Mel-2nd Chances said...

hmmm, wonder if following that plan will make me do crazy things too :) just got your comment, thanks!! I'd appreciate that! LMAO at the shirt. too funny.

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

That last series of pix would have been funnier if the words were actually legible - or if you had made the graphic clickably enlargable or something.

Good luck with the upcoming racists.

I mean, races.

P.O.M. said...

I don't know how you find time to get all those workouts in. Kudos my friend.

That shirt is freakin' HILARIOUS!

Missy said...

I will pay money for you to wear that t-shirt at B2B! bahahahahah. Very funny. Marathons are scary, Oly's are fun!

tfh said...

Yep, I watched the seconds ticking down out of the corner of my eye as I read this post...crazy.

Jenny said...

good deal! have fun with your 20 miler this weekend...i can't even imagine doing that yet!

Alisa said...

I've run 2 marathons and I'm still not a confident runner.

Good luck with the 20, stay hydrated and power through.

I'm very interested in reading your olympic tri race report when it's out. I am close to choosing mine. Either end of August or end of September. Have a couple of sprints on the calendar for june and july too, just haven't fully committed yet.

Carly said...

LMAO! those pics are so funny.

Amber said...

I can't believe it's the end of May too. You ARE crazy to do a triathlon then a full marathon! Wow!

joyRuN said...

I think that shirt would make an EXCELLENT addition to any race goody bag!

I'm with you on the speedwork for FIRST. So far, that's the only part of this g*dforsaken training plan that I've liked. I'm about to scrap FIRST & just keep the speedwork ;)

Jess said...

You'll do fine with both the Oly and the marathon. In fact, having the oly may help you keep your mind off taper madness!

Jess said...

OMG those shirts....when I saw them I completely forgot that insightful comment I was going to leave....failure lol!

RBR said...

WHAT KIND OF IDIOT RUNS AN OLYMPIC DISTANCE TRIATHLON AS A PART OF A MARATHON TAPER?Umm, me?

Oh and you.

LOL!