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.