So after the let down of the Triathlon being cancelled (well truthfully it wasn't cancelled - I just cancelled for _me_ because there were going to be two runs and no swims). I had to make sure I didn't "fall off the wagon" and stop exercising. So I made sure to get out every day ...
Monday:
Into the pool, and I set myself the goal of doing 100 laps, which is about 1.4 miles or 2.25km. I did it in about 44 minutes, which I was pretty happy with. The issue I am currently finding, while there isn't a drop off in the speed the longer I go, but I don't seem to be getting any faster.
Tuesday:
Tried to push myself on the run. Decided to try 5 miles (8 km), I got through it pretty well, just under 40 minutes. My watch said it was 4.9 miles, Google maps said it was 5.1, so I am happy guessing it at 5 miles, so I did it in 8 minute miles (or 5 minute kilometers). Through the run I felt fine. But afterwards it wasn't so good. My knee swelled a little and was a bit achy for the next couple of days, which is a bit of a concern. 5 miles is probably a little to far. I may try two 3 mile runs next week and see how I go.
Wednesday:
Back in the pool, but not really feeling it, and I have to pick up Colleen from the airport, so it has to be short. 50 quick laps (.7 miles, 1.1 km). I forgot my watch and I was in too much of a hurry to check the time properly. I think it was around 20 minutes.
Thursday:
There is a big ride coming up on Saturday, so I try to take it easy. I go out relatively slowly for me riding on my own and I go around the normal loop in just over an hour. There was a lot of time stopped at the lights, with the difference between the total time and the moving time of about 7 minutes, over an hour 7 minutes this is nearly 10%! The moving ride time is 1 hour and 1 minute and my moving average is 19.7. It seems that this "slightly" off full paced ride only slows me down by a minute or 1 mph, but my heart rate was reduced by 10 bpm on average. So while riding at 95% of my top speed, I was 90% of my average "hard working" heart rate average. However without looking too deeply into it - it is easy to see one issue here. Since I know I was basically stopped for 8 minutes - the non-moving time has to be taken into account as well, as these rests may play a big role in reducing the average heart rate overall. Not sure how much time I want to spend "deeply" analyzing the stats, but I have the watch and the ability, if I really want to get the benefit from all the fancy stuff I bought, I probably should *sigh*.
Friday:
Colleen convinces me to go for a walk so we walk around "the dish". As it was getting late we didn't have the chance to do the "normal" dish walk of about 5 miles. So we had to take a different path onto the loop to reduce it so we could get it finished before dark. The walk in total then was just under 4 miles, and we had, what I thought, was a fairly impressive average walking pace of 14:30 minute miles. I think some, if not all of this was born out of Colleen's sense of competition when a mother and daughter went past us right at the start. Colleen saw to it that we caught and passed them. We were so far in front of them, that by the time they were approaching the finish they were still to far away for us to yell insults at them about their slow walking from the car as we drove away. We were that far ahead ...
Saturday:
The big ride. About 6 months ago I promised Koen (a Director at Cisco) a ride when he was back next, however when he called me on it - I had just had the surgery. This time he was out (he works in Amsterdam) I had to deliver. So I planned out a fairly decent ride where we would do about 50 miles. Colleen cam too however she went around the hills that we went over.
We started out picking him up from the hire place, out to OLH (Colleen went straight to the bottom of Canada for pastries). Koen sorted me out up OLH, he was probably finished for a minute before I got to the top. The gears were killing me, I couldn't keep a cadence. I have the new cassette at home and it will be going on this week. However despite that, and Koen. I looked at the clock not too long after I started (33:20), and checked at the top (57:20) and it showed a difference of 24 minutes. Assuming a whole minute had passed at the bottom before I looked Koen still pushed me a minute faster than I had gone before, meaning he must have done it in about 24 minutes. Very well done. I am very keen to see what I can do with the "easier" cassette on the back.
The rest of the ride was fairly tame in comparison. Up Canada, with Koen and I doing a loop through the back of San Mateo and chasing Colleen back down Canada, then back home. All in all about 52 miles with a moving speed of 16.5 mph, which is not too bad considering being on OLH for 30 minutes at about 7mph. Koen did really well on a hired bike (especially on OLH from which i am still smarting). Link to the ride here.
Sunday:
Did feel like doing much, but when Colleen went to Yoga I convinced myself to hit the pool, which I later learnt from this article may be the best thing I could have done. Although it specifically call out riding ... that is close enough to riding in my mind.
I did 2 km (1.24 miles), 88 laps. The tough part was making sure I wasn't passed by those in the laps closest to me. A guy jumped into the lane to my right as i hot about lap 20 and he went fairly quickly for 10 laps before stopping. Then at about lap 30 a guy jumped in sharing my lane and he put me into a bit of tough place trying to keep him from passing me. But a he stopped and started doing sets and I was keeping in front of him while he was doing those as well. The biggest challenge in this self created racing was the girl that started sharing the lane on my right. She was really fast and the only reason she didn't pass me is she started doing backstroke for 2 laps out of every 6 or so. Even then it as tough for me to keep in front of her! In the end I did the 2k (1.24 miles) in less than 37 minutes (the watch said 36:xx but then I bumped the button before memorizing it). That is over 3 miles of swimming this week.
Overall:
I definitely need to get that cassette onto my back wheel for OLH, and then I need to practice so I am ready for Koen's next ride! I need to figure out how to get faster in the pool, which will probably require doing some sort of planned activity, rather than just jumping in the pool and swimming bunch of laps. I need to ensure that the running I do is enough for the exercise I need, but not too much for my knee to handle. I also need to find a new triathlon, hopefully with a swim in water over 55 F (13 C) degrees, a long way over that ...
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