Chronicles of a fish: the days of surf and turf

Wednesday, August 27th, 2014

Run plan: 18 miles very easy

It's late...so this is going to be brief.

This run was supposed to be VERY easy, so that meant it was to be all about time on my feet. I'm learning to embrace the purpose of each session...and I'm following directions better. And for the most part I kept this very easy. The run looked something like this...

9:31, 9:17, 9:26, 9:20, 9:29, 9:25
Started to melt in the heat (88 degrees) and full sun on miles 5 and 6....took gel, Gatorade, water.

9:10, 9:26, 9:15, 9:21
Still hot, but the sun was starting to fade...took gel, Gatorade, water.

9:16, 9:21, 9:15, 9:17
More comfortable with the sun less of a factor...staying relaxed, but legs getting tired....took gel, Gatorade, water.

9:06, 8:58, 8:54, 8:41
Treated myself to the flat/straight section of the field, and allowed myself to up the groove while staying in the easy in spite of the legs wanting to call it a day. And it was starting to get dark by the time I hit the last mile.

Actual run: 18 miles in 2:46:38 for an average pace of 9:15 min/mile

pgmcpq wrote: »

No video ... but I really like this:

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." T. S. Eliot

Love it!!! Thank you!!

Friday, August 29th, 2014

I had to take the Black Cat to the bike shop today - I broke the tip of the valve off yesterday while pumping up the tires and I didn't have the proper replacement piece I needed to fix it. Plus, I thought the piece that had broken off was stuck in the pump, so I hauled that to the shop as well, only to find out the metal piece I was trying to pry out of the pump was actually part of the pump! Good god I don't know what I'm doing bike-wise. So any way....I had the valve fixed and replacement pieces secured in case I break more...the Black Cat got a little spa treatment from Collin...I had a refresher course in changing a tire....and Collin put my little tool/tube/co2 kit together for me so I'll be all set for IM Maryland in case anything goes wrong. (lovelovelove these grease monkey bike geeks!)

Run plan: Fartlek - 2 miles easy, 3 x (2 min HMP, 3 min easy, 3 min MP, 2 min easy), 2 miles easy

Mechanical difficulties altered the trajectory of this session.

I took great care to program my Garmin so I could execute this session properly....but apparently when I chose the custom workout to do, I chose the wrong custom workout!! Ugh! Note to self: take a closer look at the session details before I hit "do this workout"! But of course I didn't realize it was the wrong workout until the first 2 minutes @ HMP turned into 3 minutes...and then the 3 minutes easy turned into 1 minute. Double ugh!! So I stopped and thought I could quickly edit the session...however, once you stop the workout, if you start it again, you start it from the beginning. Triple ugh!!! Therefore, when it was obvious that it would be quite difficult to do this session as it was given to me, I made the executive decision to do my HMP/MP/easy segments based on distance instead of time. And because I knew I'd be shorting each segment a little based on the markers I chose, I just added a little extra to the whole thing. Oh, and I also hadn't a clue what pace I was running (don't ask!), so I just made the HMP fast, and the MP not as fast....sort of. (my poor head is spinning!) This was a mess, plain and simple!

Any way...here's the HMP and MP segment info...
HMP - 3 min, .46 mile, 6:31 pace
HMP - 1:09, .18 mile, 6:25 pace
MP - 2:21, .35 mile, 6:45 pace
HMP - 1:34, .24 mile, 6:31 pace
MP - 2:28, .34 mile, 7:15 pace
HMP - 1:35, .24 mile, 6:38 pace
MP - 2:27, .35 mile, 7:00 pace
HMP - 1:34, .23 mile, 6:49 pace
MP - 2:24, .35 mile, 6:52 pace

Actual run: 8.7 miles in 1:13:16 for an average pace of 8:25 min/mile

Monday, September 1st, 2014

Bike

With the holiday weekend upon me, this was to be 3 days in a row chock full of cycling!! The goals were: 80 miles Saturday, 40 miles Sunday, and 80 miles today. However, I was having a bit of a tough time mentally heading out on this 80 mile journey today. A combination of being semi-tired, cycling alone, and knowing the route I'd be taking would be familiar and repetitive (as opposed to new and exciting) made me become a bit introspective (translation: why the hell am I doing this?) and in need of a few incentives to get my @ss in gear. Incentives were: I perked myself up by wearing the outfit I'll be wearing at IM Maryland, I promised myself a Snickers break at the halfway point, and I had a bottle of Old Dominion Root Beer chilling in the refrigerator to be consumed upon my arrival back home. I'm definitely a carrot kind of gal!!!

Okay, the ride.....I was 5 bottles strong again since I knew it was going to be a long, hot ride. I figure the extra weight should only make me stronger, right? And, well, all was going pretty well until I decided to take my Snickers break after 5 out and backs of that semi-flat-with-an-up-and-down-grade section of road I did on Saturday. You see, I wanted to take my break by the stream, which was on the left side of the road, but I was cycling on the right side of the road (we do that here)...so I crossed the road, clipped out of my right leg, came to a full stop, then fell very hard to my left....all because my left leg was still clipped in. I landed on top of the Black Cat - specifically, my ribs hit either the handle bar or the arm rest, causing me immediate pain and the inability to breathe.....and in my bit of a panic, my thought process went something like this: OMG!...TURN OFF THE GARMIN!!!....broken ribs, punctured lung, how much time have I got until I'm out of air?.....jackyback....oh god, I can't not finish my ride....just lay still and try and relax to see if I can breathe. So I laid there on my back for a bit, not a single car came by (not many vehicles on that road, that's one reason I like it), and eventually I was able to sit up. But still in quite a bit of pain. However, I managed to eat my Snickers bar and down a half a bottle of Gatorade....and after a bit of a debate with myself, I figured I might as well see what I could do...might as well see if I could continue on. So I did. Long story short, certain movements and positions elicited a good bit of pain, so I tried to avoid them. Crossing railroad tracks and coughing was not a pleasant experience. My breathing was with a bit more effort. My side extremely tender. But once I felt like I was not doing myself additional harm, I made the decision to finish the ride....to finish the long weekend of cycling....and to get 200 miles in on the Black Cat in 3 days. And I did.

There are two Garmin links to this ride because I accidentally "saved" my data after only 3+ miles while at a stop.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/580553554

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/580684093

Actual ride: 83.31 miles in 4:47:58 for an average speed of (you do the math!) and an elevation gain of 3,684 feet

Swim

I really wasn't sure I'd be able to manage this recovery swim due to the bike injury to the ribs....but I went very slow, and it was okay. There is definitely discomfort when I swim, but I really wanted to see how much damage I had done, and I really wanted to shake out the cycling from the legs and body. Not sure where this leaves me with my ribs. Obviously I am hoping nothing is broken, and my gut tells me nothing is. Fingers crossed I've just bruised myself. I suspect I'll have a better idea in the morning if I have cause to worry.

Actual swim: 2,000 very careful yards

pgmcpq wrote: »

Ouch ! That does not sound good. Hope things are better today. So now you have two choices:

Rational mode: I have a lot of work invested. Let me let this heal and not aggravate it, and maybe focus on low intensity work, gentle swimming, recover. A couple of days step back will not make much difference.

or the DD mode:

Yeahhhhh .....let's push this and see how much it hurts, woohooh !

To quote a psychiatrist we knew : Just because it hurts does not mean it is good for you. So allow yourself time to recover this time !!!!

pgibbo wrote: »

It might be wiser to re-read your log and see all the solid training you've done. I think fully recovering is more important than an 18 mile run

Ugh!! There are just way too many reasonable (and very wise) people around here!!! :)

Okayokayokay......there will be no 18 mile run tomorrow night. Agreed. I will def take today and tomorrow easy to give things a chance to heal....may test out a teeny-tiny easy little trot either tonight or tomorrow to assess the damage....then play the remaining few days of the week by ear.

On a side note...(since I was asked about this earlier today, it's now on my mind).....my bloods came back, and the only real issue was my iron - it was low. So for me the correlation seems to be getting stitches while running (which is so uncharacteristic!) and low iron. Obviously I had other clues prior to the stitches (see posts regarding massive meltdowns and hissy-fits ), but the stitches stopped me in my tracks.

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2014

Swim

Was originally planning on doing my two recovery/easy runs and a swim that I normally do on Mondays, but with the blatant peer pressure gentle guidance of my boards peeps (who needs a coach??), I settled on a lunchtime swim with the hope of an easy tester-trot followed by another swim this evening. Ambitious, ain't I? However, when I found the effort to breathe during my lunchtime swim enough to make me want to stop swimming, I knew then that I was probably being too optimistic about my planned evening activities. Crap. And let's just say that after that my fertile mind started to get pretty creative about all the ridiculous things one can start thinking up when they are only 2 weeks and 4 days away from their first IM, dealing with a stupid-stupid injury (who the hell doesn't clip out??), being forced to nix planned sessions, and staring down god awful taper. :eek::( Toxic mix to say the least. So, I did what any red-blooded, neurotic IM wannabe with an imaginary collapsed lung and a full set of broken ribs would do :rolleyes:, I hauled my @ss over to the hospital for x-rays. I mean, if I can't train, I might as well put my mind to rest. And the good news is....drum roll please!....no breaks!!! Whoop whoop!!! However, the doctor qualified his diagnosis of a chest contusion with the statement that there could still be a fracture, but none showed up on the radiographs. Until proven otherwise, we're going with no fractures. Yay me!

So, I'll take it easy another day, then we'll see how I feel after that. I'm hoping with Marthastew's Child of Prague and epic magpie chasing, that I'll be fit as a fiddle and ready for a long run by Thursday.

Actual swim: 2,000 not so wonderful yards