Lacking Focus

The past few days have been tough, I've been lacking focus on my training.  My sessions haven't felt like they've been very productive.  I've done the workouts, biked last night and this morning and I also got a swim in tonight.   I think I have been focused on other things the past few days. Barring any unforeseen problems, i will be signing a lease on a new apartment tomorrow.  I'm moving about four blocks to the north to a brand new building.  It will be a great set up, leaving "the box" for a real one bedroom apartment.  It's a great building, gym, roof deck, screening room and a lot of great services.  I think once i get this sorted out, I'll be ready to return my focus to training.  Saturday morning should be good, a tough coached workout to get me back on track.  

The Past Few Days

I'll start with Sunday, the "day after".  Saturday's long run left me expecting a rough time trying to get out of bed on Sunday.  I woke up early, as usual and hopped out of bed.  My legs were definitely sore, but honestly, not as bad as I expected.  I had a trainer ride schedule for Sunday.  I got on my bike and realized very quickly that I may not be sore but I didn't have much juice in my legs.  I did the minimum prescribed workout and got off.  As the day went on, I felt worse and worse.  My legs were hurting and I was feeling run down.  I stayed off my feet the rest of the day and made it to a couple of fun Oscar parties.  

Monday night was a group workout.  We met Ramon and he offered two workouts for the evening, and easy and hard one.  Like the true motivator he is, he "convinced" everyone to do the tougher workout.  We did our usual warm up followed by a series of sprints up and hill in Central Park.  We then did a tempo run of a couple miles, followed by a serious core workout.  We did some more sprints and finished the evening with more core.  I'm still working on the six pack, but these workouts will help me get there.  

This morning was another early wake up call and hour trainer ride.  I followed Ramon's workout and caught up Sunday night's Amazing Race episode.  I know, I know, reality TV, but this show is great, you should watch it if you don't.  I'm still trying to figure out what my angle is to get on that show.  I bailed out on tonight's swim, but I'll make it up later this week.  I needed a night to myself.  I'll be ready to run tomorrow.

Longest Run of My Life

This morning was the first of many long runs I will have leading up to August 30th.  I covered between 16 and 17 miles and experienced the following things during the run.

1.  Two States

2.  A Bridge

3.  Near the site of the most famous duel in American History

4.  A Landslide

5.  A Chain gang

6.  I think I was hallucinating at mile 15 and may have seen the Virgin Mary in a rock formation.

7.  Some fine car dancing to a Beyonce song.

It's time to eat and take a nap.  

The Past 24 Hours

The past 24 hours has been full of training. Yesterday, the schedule called for a weakness workout. The weather didn't allow me to get out and run, so i did the same bike workout i had done on Tuesday. It was a pyramid type ride utilizing all the rear chain rings. I rode hard for a hour, worked up a good sweat and then had a great meal.

This morning I woke up early and went for a 40 minute run. I guess I'm so tired these days that I can't read a my workout plan. It wasn't part of my workout plan for this week to run this morning, but no question I need the time running so it's not a big deal. I worked, got my teeth cleaned and came home and went to the pool. My swim was about endurance tonight and it was another pyramid type workout. I did the following: 4x25 yards, then 4x100 yards, 4x200 yards and finished with another 4x25 yards.

These pyramid type workouts are used to raise your heart rate, then recover, then raise it again while pushing the distance. I'm guessing this is a good way to build endurance, or at least that's what it seems to me. We've been doing so many of these pyramid type workouts, I'm expecting Dick Clark and Nipsey Russell to show up at my apartment. The only thing that I would ask if they did, is that Nipsey lay down one of his dope rhymes. (skip to the 1:35 mark to hear the OG Nipsey Russell spit some rhymes) Nipsey Russell has been gangsta since like 1978, RIP.

Two For Tuesday

I'll actually start this with Monday night's workout.  We usually have an evening team practice on Monday but due to the holiday, the coached practice was moved to a morning swim up at Riverbank.  Unfortunately for me, i had to work so i missed the a.m. swim.  there was a group session in Central Park that night, but I chose to run on my own from my apartment.  the run workout for Monday was a series of out and back runs with pickups built into the run.  if this doesn't make sense, it was basically running hard for a certain distance then slowing the pace, then picking it up and so on.  I obviously didn't need the park to do this run, so I headed out on the West side Highway Path.  My knees and ankles were pretty sore from Saturday so I wanted to get warmed up before i started my pickups .  I'm a person that likes to know how long or how far of a workout I'm doing and tonight i didn't really have that.  I kind of felt like Forrest Gump, i just started running.  It took me over 3 miles to finally start to feel good, my legs got loose and my knees and ankles warmed up.  I got to 60th St. which is about  4 miles from my apartment and was feeling great.  After I made the turn to head back home, i knew I had these four miles to do my pickups.  I did these pickups by running hard for a few street lights, then slowing the pace for a few.  I continued this for my 4 miles home.  I logged about 8 miles in total and was out there for about a hour and a quarter.  By no means a blistering pace, but it was a good amount of time on my feet.

Okay, onto to my Two for Tuesday.  Unlike every classic rock station that was playing two tracks from the B side of Dark Side of the Moon, I was doing two workouts today.  My morning started at about 5:30 with a ride on my trainer.  Ramon's workout today was what he called a pyramid ride.  I rode on the big chain ring in the front and worked my way up and down my rear chain ring.  I spent about 30 seconds in each gear and did this progression 4 times.  I had a 10 minute warm up to start, the pyramid took about 35 minutes and cooled down for 10 minutes.  I clocked just short of a hour this morning.  Tonight i hit the pool for some more work on technique.  I knew I'd be in the pool again on Thursday night, so i tried to not get caught up in distance, but work some good technique and drills.  I swam about 1600 yards working in a variety of drills and doing some  two beat kick as well.  the pool was crowded tonight, a lot of Chinese people and i was lucky enough to share a lane with a women who didn't share the same grooming habits of most American women.  I finished my swim and headed to Whole Foods to pick up some dinner.  They have a lot of great prepared foods; I opted for the roasted chicken, mac and cheese and veggies which included sweet potatoes and brussel sprouts.  As i waited in the annoying long line to check out i did see Nicole Ritchie; who knew she'd ever been seen in a place that has food...  It's been a good few days of "star sightings".  

A Very New York Weekend

My weekend of training started early on Saturday morning.  Once again the team met at 7 for a tough workout in Central Park.  We started with a mile warm up from Bethesda Terrace up to the Reservoir.  Once we reached the reservoir we did a 2 sets of the following workout.  A half a mile warm up, followed by a half a mile at 75% of max, repeat, then the same effort for a mile instead of the half.  Like I said, we did this twice.  The goal of the workout was to maintain a similar effort and similar times through the sets of runs.  I successfully ran the half mile splits between 3:58 and 4:08 and the hard miles around 8 minutes.  We finished with a cool down and I covered about 10 miles in total for the workout.  I felt good about my effort and times, and was happy to log about 10 miles.  

I got back to my apartment, got cleaned up and headed up to Bryant Park to see a fashion show.  It's fashion week in NYC and i had an opportunity to see a fashion show in the tents.  You can insert your gay joke here, but I will say this is something that was on my list of things to do in NYC.  It was interesting; a lot of faux hawks on guys, and the highest of high heels on the women and these were the spectators.  On my way out I had my one legitimate  star sighting, Jennifer Love Hewitt was there being interviewed by someone.  she looked good, not like this, the pics she had some much recent press for.  I also saw one of the yentas from the Real Housewives of NYC, but she doesn't count.  I hopped on the subway and headed home.  The "star" sightings didn't end at Bryant Park, as I walked down N. Moore St. to my apartment, i saw Damon Dash, Jay-Z former partner from Roca-fella Records.  He lives on my street a few blocks down.  He's not the biggest star, but had a lot of cash at one point.  Not sure he's doing so well anymore.  

A solid Saturday starting in the park and getting to see a real NYC event.  

Sunday morning i was up on the early side again, logged a hour and half ride on my trainer and headed up to my teammates apartment to get fitted for my team tri gear.  I bought some bib shorts, tri top, tri shorts and a cycling jersey.  It will be cool to have some team gear in 4 to 6 weeks.  

I'm now waiting for the single greatest grouping of athleticism anywhere in the word to start, the NBA All Star Game.  Also the most entertaining all star game in all of pro sports.  

Two A Days

Today was my 2nd double dip workout of the week.  I woke up early this morning to do an endurance run.  My training schedule showed an endurance run and endurance swim for today.  I was up at 5:45 to do my run.  Motivation was very low this morning, I was sore from last night's run and would have rather stayed in bed.  My first dip into some internal motivation was provided by my newest cousin in law.  Ann had emailed me yesterday to find out about accommodations in Louisville for the race.  She also mentioned that she and my cousin Ryan had been waking up at 5:25 to workout.  Now I could have taken this two ways, one, the supportive if we can do it, you can do it, or the other, stop complaining about getting up early, we get up earlier than you and we're not doing an ironman.  I'm sure it was meant in a supportive way, but i needed the motivation so i considered both.  I may lob a little challenge back at them sometime soon.....  I got myself out of bed and out on the West side Highway path to do my 40 minutes.  It took all of 15 seconds to realize that this wasn't going to be very pleasant.  This brought me to motivator number two.  When i'm out there running, i try to set little goals, they usually involve trying to catch other runners that are out there with me.  I also try to create some rivalry with people, i happened across a guy running in a Michael Strahan jersey which was just what i needed.  My first thought was why would anyone be running in a football jersey, my 2nd thought is what would any adult male be wearing a jersey.  I have a real problem with men wearing jerseys, i just don't think it works because usually the guy is like 400 lbs and appears to never done anything athletic in his life.  if you wear a jersey, sorry it's just the way i feel.  I'm not even sure I like a girl in a pink version of her favorite teams jersey.  When i'm running i'm left with my thoughts.  This morning I was thinking what was the root of my hatred for men in jerseys and i figured out where this came from.  My freshman year in college there was this guy in my dorm who wore a Patrick Roy hockey jersey 3 days a week, strike 1.  He also used to sit in front of the dorm attempting to play a guitar, strike 2.  He wasn't good and i often considered pulling a Blutarsky on this guy.  The story gets better.  My good friend, we'll call him PD to protect his identity, also had a similar hated for this guy.  PD and i weren't really friends freshman year, so when we became friends the next year and discovered our similar feelings about this guy, it made our friendship stronger.  PD informed me that one day he couldn't take the crappy music anymore and shot this kid with a pellet gun.  God i wish i could have witness this.  I imagined it much like the JFK assassination and totally would have been the 2nd shooter on the grassy knoll if i had the chance.  We lived on the 3rd floor of our doom, so it took a good shot.  PD sized him up and shot him, i don't remember where he hit him, but it had to hurt.  I did remember that there was a specific point when the douchey Patrick Roy wasn't out there playing.  I have to thank PD for his efforts.  Anyway, back to the run, I ran down Michael Strahan this morning and finished my 40 min run covering just over 4 miles.  Over the next 6 months i'll be experiencing these types of workouts where I don't want to be out there and will need to call on some internal motivation.

I went to work, got home and headed out to the pool.  After my poor swim the other night, i decided to focus on doing more technique tonight by doing a variety of drills and working in some distance as well.  I did some finger tip dragging, catch up stroke, longer strokes and fist swimming.  I ended up swimming  1600 yards.  The drills work different parts of my stroke during the swim.  They work on elongating the body in the water, feeling the water with your hands and forearms and increasing efficiency.  My swim was better tonight and after the early morning, i felt pretty good about it.  I'm off tomorrow, but will be back at it Saturday morning.   

3 Fine Days

Okay, time to rehash the past few days of workouts...

We'll start with Monday night.  We had a group practice tonight; we meet at Bethesda Terrace in Central Park.  From there  the group, about 10 that night, did a warm up run of about a mile around and met Ramon at the bottom of Cat Hill.  Ramon explained we would be doing some strengthening exercises with fast runs up Cat Hill.  The first round of strength exercises were squats.  We did what seemed like about 100 of them at varying levels of a squat and got a good burn in my butt and upper quads.  After this first round we headed up hill utilizing a pretty fast past.  My guess is Cat Hill is about 400 yards in length with a pretty steady uphill grade.  Run hard up and recover back down to Ramon.  The next round of strengthening was a variety of lunges, this time working the quads and hips.  This was followed by two trips up and back on Cat Hill.  Upon our return we moved to a variety of leg lifts which were not pleasant at all.  I had no idea there were so many variations of a leg lift.  From there 3 trips up and down Cat Hill.  After the 3rd trip back we worked our core doing planks and side planks.  A great workout and I was expecting severe soreness the next morning.

Tuesday was another double dip day.  I hopped out of bed at 5:45 feeling like the triathlon version of Ernie Banks.  Surprisingly I wasn't to sore from Monday night's workout.  I rode a hour and headed off to work.    After work I was in the pool and swam 1600 yards.  Definitely not my best swim, I felt like my form was off and I really struggled through it.  Oh and my secret is out, the pool was pretty crowded, for most of my swim there were 4 people in my lane.  At this point the soreness from Monday night had really kicked in.  I've been stretching every day, but I was really hurting last night.  Just before I got into bed I lubed up my quads and butt muscles with some natural version of Ben Gay and hopped into bed.  It took about 45 seconds for me to realize that some of the lube had made it's way to my privates.  I felt like Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds.  I jumped out of bed, made my way to the kitchen to find some relief with some wet paper towels.  

On to today.  My workout schedule said today was a "weakness workout".  My weakness is definitely running. so tonight I was going to run.  I set out up the West Side path unsure of how far I would go.  I did notice very early how easy it felt to run at a normal pace and not up hill.  I ended up logging 6 miles in about 54 minutes.  I felt good.  Got home and had some of my newest addiction, coconut water.  It's billed at nature's Gatorade.  A good dose of electrolytes and Potassium as well.  Only 60 calories for 11 oz.  I stretched and finished the post workout routine with a bucket, some cold water and a tray of ice cubes.  I put the water and cubes in the bucket and stick my feet in there.  Maybe it's mental, but I feel like the ice bath helps me recover.  That pretty much sums up the last few days, we've had a taste of Spring, especially today, hopefully it will hang around.  Also, check out my teams website at www.tri2b.org, so you can see all my teammates.    

A Taste Of Spring

As i sit here watching the Cavs v. Lakers game, I thought it was time to recap a good weekend of training.  

I'll start with Friday morning, once again I woke up early to ride my trainer before work.  Nothing monumental to report, rode for a hour, did some drills, watch some Sportscenter and VH1.  It's interesting, it appears the only hours that there are videos on TV anymore are before 9 a.m.  That morning, I rode, got cleaned up for work and got dressed.  I sat down on my couch to put my shoes on, got one shoe and and fell asleep.  I guess I was tired, b/c i woke up with one shoe on, 20 minutes later and almost was late to work.  Needless to say, I was in bed by about 10 on Friday night.  

Saturday morning I was up before 6 a.m. again b/c I had a team practice at 7 in Central Park.  I really like these early morning practices b/c it's the only time NYC is really calm.  I can drive the 80 blocks from my apt. to the park without getting stopped by a single traffic light.  No one is on the streets, it always reminds me of the Tom Cruise movie where he's in Time Square and there is no one there.  Anyway, i get to park, meet the team and we start our workout.  Ramon explains we're going to work on more technique and then get some miles in.  We warm up with a run to The Great Lawn.  Once we are there we do laps around the lawn counting foot falls at different exertion levels.  From here we went back out onto the loop and did what I used to call an Indian Run, maybe more PC called a native american run??  Okay or a pace line, basically you run single file, we had 6 runners, the person in the rear runs to the front and sets the pace for a few strides, then the person who is now last follows suit and runs to the front.  We did this for a few miles and finished by running some hill repeats on Cat Hill.  These were a fast pace up the hill with a cool down on the way back down.  I'd guess we covered 6 or 7 miles all before 9 a.m.  I think this is a great way to start a Saturday.  After all the serenity and calmness I experienced that morning, I was reminded where I was as I was exiting the park.  As I walked by the Imagine mosaic by Strawberry Fields, I walked past a homeless guy who had his  pants down for some reason.  Nothing like some homeless nudity at 9 a.m.  

Skip ahead to this morning, our workout plan showed a endurance ride or run.  The temps today reached into the 50s so it seems like a good chance to get out and ride.  I put on my bib shorts, which i think make  me look like a 1940s weightlifter, it's a good look, trust me, but they do provide a lot of padding for the boys when out for a ride.  I headed up the west side path and over the park.  The warm weather created a lot of snow melt, which in turn created a lot of Rhode Island sized puddles.  I felt like I was on the Log ride at Kings Island circa 1982.  I got to the park and did a few loops in a crowded, crowded park.  Everyone was out, runners, walkers, rollerbladers, families, dog walkers all the usual suspects.  There is a lot of rivalry amongst all the groups.  Depending on what i'm doing, I'm in a couple of these groups.  The dog walkers are annoyed by everyone and they are usually the cause of most of the problems in the park.  They never control their dogs, have those super long leashes and seem to think everyone should be exercising around them.  Most of them are middle aged Upper Eastsiders who probably were never spanked as children.  You know what kind of attitude this brings.  I really have a lot of animosity towards them b/c I saw an out of control dog take down one of my teammates on his bike a couple years ago.  He was probably riding to fast, none the less ended up with a dislocated shoulder and broken wrist.  He crashed right in front of me.  It was awful.  The dog owner seemed to think it was all his fault too.  Between the dogs and the people not paying attention b/c of their cellphones or ipods, it can be pretty dangerous to ride in the park.  The fear this creates usually means i don't ride super hard b/c i don't want to end up splattered all over the road.  I rode in the park for about an hour and headed by the west side path to head home.  As I was riding across 72nd street towards the path, i was thinking i was kind of surprised I didn't see an ambulance in the park picking someone up.  When I made it into Riverside Park, where the path is, low and behold there was an ambulance there.   An older gentleman was laying on the path next to his bike, not sure what happened to him, but when the roads are wet and your brakes are as well, it's pretty tough to stop.  I'm sure he was fine but these are the dangers of riding in the city.  I made it home unscathed but covered in water, salt and dirt.  I stripped down outside my apartment door and went into clean up mode.  Another issue with living in NYC is I don't have access to a hose and my bike needed a bath.  So I went with option B, which was putting my bike in the shower.  It took some good maneuvering, but I was able to give old blue a bath.  Washed all my gear and was finished.  Tomorrow night brings another group effort, and I'm sure another challenging workout.

Game Night

I got up early again this morning. I might be able to get used to the 5:45 alarm, it would be in my best interest so I could get in a workout in the a.m. Once again I mounted up on the trainer and rode for an hour. I did some drills and worked up a good lather. I wanted to get this done b/c I'll be at the Garden tonight when the Cavs come to town. What's your over/under on Lebron's total points tonight???? Can he answer Kobe's performance from Monday, I hope so.

Double Dip

Unlike this kid, my double dip didn't involve any ice cream.  Today was my first morning/evening combo workout session.  I woke up at 5:45 this morning and dragged my sore butt out of bed.  I managed to get in a solid one hour ride before work this morning.  I spent some time doing drills on the bike.  Single leg riding, varying the rpms and changing gears to mix it up a little bit.  My legs were pretty sore when I woke up, but the biking did help loosen them up.  I showered and headed out to the office.  I stopped to grab a bagel after my hour commute, hopped out of my car and nearly fell into the street.  My legs got really tight on my hour ride out, even after some stretching post ride.  I'm pretty sure you would all be attending my funeral had my legs really given out b/c there was  a bus rolling down the block and i'm pretty sure it would have run me over had i fallen into the street.  

I hobbled around the office all day, headed out around 5 and dealt with a long snowy ride home.  After a hour and half commute, i got home, put on my bathing suit and headed out to the pool.  Tonight was my first night utilizing Coach Ramon's swim workout.  I did two sets of the following exercises.  2x100 yards, 2x200 yards, 1x400 yards, giving me a total of 2000 yards.  This is just over half the distance I'll be swimming in August.  Swimming is all about technique, my swimming experience, up until 3 years ago when i started doing triathlons, was cruising around a pool, basically doggy paddling.  Not much technique there.  From my first coach I learned a technique called a two beat kick.  The idea here is to utilize your hips, core and upper body to propel yourself through the water.  In triathlon you obviously need to save your legs so you can cycle and run.  I'm sure my form is far from perfect but I can propel myself through the water and get myself through any race swim, hopefully.  I've heard from many of my friends that are Ironmen about how much they ate during training, today was my first experience with this.  I was hungry all day, all day.  The biggest challenge I'll have with this hunger, is not resorting to eating slices of pizza and other garbage to help satisfy my hunger.

Technique, Speed and Strength

After a super fun saturday night, I had a few cobwebs on Sunday.  It took me a good part of the day to shake the headache and then I forced myself to ride my trainer for an hour.  I worked up a good sweat and felt much better after the ride.  Lucky for me, I had the Cards and the points last night, so I enjoyed the game.  That, of course coupled with having some friends over to watch, made for a good end to the football season.

Tonight was Tri2Be workout number 2.  We met on 72nd street in Central Park.  It was another run tonight and we had two options.  A speed or technique workout.  Ramon suggested that I do the technique workout, so I followed orders.  We started with a mile jog to get the legs warm.  After the warm up we did a series of drills to build foot speed, lengthen our stride and build strength.  The drills we did reminded me of basketball camp, back in the day.  The most physically challenging one being a kind of quad based leap frog thing.  Next time you see me, remind me to show you this one, your quads will be sore  for a week.  After the drills we did some strengthening exercises and then some stretching.  I really can't put into words how sore i'm going to be tomorrow.  I'm still trying to shake the soreness from Saturday's sprints and tonight was just a "dog pile" (stick witih the one or skip ahead to the 3rd mintute) on my leg muscles.  It was brutal.  I got home tonight and did some additional stretching which left me lying on the floor in my apartment feeling like this women.  To top it off, it's my intention to get up and ride before work tomorrow.  I can only hope I can get of out bed to do it.    I had some dinner, a shower and now I'm relaxing.  There is some quality entertainment on TV  tonight, I just watched Kobe drop 61 on the Knicks and now I'm watching the greatest French export of all time, Andre the Giant, in the Princess Bride.  I'm sure I'll pass out shortly.