Week Four Wrap Up

Monday:
Feeling a little lazy, nothing happens.

Tuesday:
In the pool for a quick swim, just 1000m double the effective distance of the upcoming triathlon. Took me about 25 minutes.  Relatively slow, but felt pretty easy.

Wednesday:
On my own for a ride.  Went around the normal loop for a quick run.  A moving time of just over an hour and an average moving speed of 20mph.  Not the fastest I have been around (I am a failure!).  Actually the difference in time is (first run: 1:00:22, second run 1:00:39) 17 seconds.  I can't quite believe how close the times are.  Feel good on the bike, the Fooj is awesome.  I am going to have to get some aerobars bars soon if I want them for the race.

Thursday:
Out for a run, this time (since on the last run I ran too far) I turn one street to early.  Still a fairly good effort, every run so far (when they have been solo events) have been faster than the previous.  This one continues in that vein.  Averaged 7m 55sec miles over the 3.21 miles (just over 5km).  Knee feels good and doesn't feel too "different".  Feeling happy with it and I guess I am a fair way along the path to recovery.  Still a way from being completely recovered, but well along the path none-the-less.

Friday:
Out for a ride with Colleen.  Around the Alpine loop for a good ride.  We didn't have any issues and that was somewhat of a novelty.  Decent ride but it got a bit cold at times.  On the Trek again and tried for the "speed record" hit 45.2 mph (72.7km/h) for a new record.  On the Old Trek!  Be interesting to see if when I am not already tired from pushing myself hard all the way, what I could do on the Fooj.

Colleen's Specialized Allez

Saturday:
We have a busy morning and only get out in the afternoon for a late ride.  6.5 miles in and the Trek has a flat tire, the bike feels horrible the whole ride.  In the end with the flat tire we turn for home after a very short ride.  The Trek feels horrible and the back tire feels and is buckled.  I have no idea why the Trek feels so bad but it is "sidelined" until I have time to sort it out.  I feel pretty disappointed I spent nearly $600 on fixing it up, the bulk on the wheels which now appear, at least the back, to be buckled.  At the worst I think I might put the wheels on the Fooj for normal rides and use the "flash wheels" for the important rides.

Sunday - Practice Tri:
Decide since I haven't done to much this week that I will do a practice triathlon.  I will do all the "legs" Swim, Ride and Run and do them back-to-back.  I spend the morning trying to figure out routes to make it all work out into a nice loop and all the right distances.  So I end up with a 600m swim (a little longer than the "real" swim).  A ride of 12.6 miles (20 km) from the pool in a loop back to home and then a 3.2 mile (5 km) run from home back to the pool (so I can pick up the car).  I get everything ready.  Put my bike and all my bike gear in the back of the car, setup my gear for the run inside the front door, get my swimming gear together an go to the pool.

Swim:  Put the gear in the locker and jump in the pool, do two laps warm-up.  Then I am ready to go.  Hit the start button on the watch and start swimming.  The first thing I notice is that it weird to swim with a watch.  If i feel this strange about swimming with a watch I am not really looking forward to swimming in a wetsuit.  The swim feels good, I go out quickly to mimic a swim with lot of people and trying to find your own space.  After six laps I slow into a rhythm, and keep that until lap twenty.  For the last six laps I push a little harder finish up the 26 laps in almost exactly 10 minutes.

Transition #1:  I go to the locker and get my stuff and dry off a little on the walk to the car.  This section is not much of a representation of a real transition, but it is the best I can do.  I throw my swimming stuff into the car and get the bike and my bike gear out and on.  In the end it takes something more than seven minutes to sort everything out.

Bike:  On the bike in just swimmers is not real fun, the things we sacrifice in the name of speed.  I have never ridden the route I mapped out before and it starts out (and finishes) with a lot of traffic lights and seem to have to stop at almost all of them.  Something I will have to check on before I figure out the next route.  The Fooj feels fast and the ride feels pretty good.  Over the 12.6 miles (20 km) I average about 20mph.

Transition #2:  I stop at the gate at home and wheel the bike in through the front door.  Looking at my stopwatch it is right on the hour mark.  Pull on my shorts and change by shirt.  I put the 310XT on my right wrist, the left still has my stopwatch on it.  I know I must look pretty weird with two watches, but apparently these are the lengths you will go to when you start getting into triathlons.  Leaving the house about 4 minutes has passed.

Road:  Start running back to the pool.  Everything feels good, just tired.  I keep a relatively good pace, While running I came up with a name for this pseudo-maximum dynamic effort, it is the most you feel like you can do without completely exhausting yourself.  I am pretty sure it isn't actually the maximum I can do but it is the maximum my brain and body will let me, hence "pseudo".  The run takes me a shade under 26 minutes and feels about as good as I could expect.  The stopwatch that has timed the whole journey is showing 1 hour 29 minutes.

So the totals:
Swim - 0.37m (600m): 10 minutes
Ride - 12.4m (20km): 37min 56sec
Run - 3.2m (5km): 25min 56sec

Total Activity Time: 1hr 13min 52sec
Total Elapsed Time: 1hr 29mins

So 15 minutes of down time, this would include transitions and time stopped at traffic lights on the ride.  A decent effort but nothing special.  It makes me feel better about doing the triathlon, although I am still uninitiated in the wearing of the wetsuit.

Hopefully more exercise this coming week, was pretty ordinary apart from Sunday.