Monday, January 26, 2015

Catching Up

It seems as though more than usual of late I am "catching up" on the blog front. I had good intentions when I started the "series" of "42" posts generally surrounding the idea of "Ironman" and I still plan on fleshing that out but I think it's important that I get back into the routine of my once-weekly postings that I so often brag about.  Just kidding, I don't really brag about them (or do I?).

But generally, it's pretty tough to keep going week after week after week in the blog world. Ask anybody that's started one or kept one or never posted anything other THAN one and the general consensus is that it's pretty frustrating to keep a continual streak going.

In a sense, I like to look at it as similar to keeping a run streak going. Day after day you run, even if it's only 15-20 minutes (or less) and all of a sudden after a couple of weeks and 15-20 runs in a row (or more) the "job" gets quite a bit easier.  Same thing with the blogosphere. Regular posting keeps you, well...regular!

Funny I should mention that, as I had a pretty good run streak going myself. From November 24th to January 15th I had a streak of running every day. In totality during that time frame I ran 62 times.  Not too shabby! Unfortunately while playing in the first games of the Ultimate Frisbee league I signed up for on the 15th I strained or pulled my left hamstring quite remarkably while sprinting to block a throw.  I didn't run hardly at all the following week and have only just started back. LAME! Sucks getting older and frailer.

The run streak DID include the Frosty 25k "trail" race



that I did with Mr Behme, which was quite fun. We took it "easy" the first hour and then picked it up a bit to the finish.  It was my longest run in all of 2015 (obviously) and actually my longest run since late 2013 (my longest run in 2014 was a half-IM I believe).

So that was fun and I was feeling pretty good running wise.  Unfortunately my swim and bike were lagging behind quite significantly.  That's ok though, because it's January and the big race of the year isn't until October.

So, plenty of time...

Be that as it may, this week marked my second week of getting back on a "regular" schedule. Swimming on Tues/Thurs morning (a bit of a departure from before; trying to get in more LCM swimming), running 5-7 times a week, and biking 3-5 times a week.

One thing that has, admittedly, somewhat "revolutionized" my bike training is the setup of my indoor riding. I have [finally] admitted defeat and realized that I needed something that was very, very easy to get on (i.e. permanently set up on the trainer, so to speak) and I needed something entertaining to do while riding it.  With that in mind, I've got my P5 set up on the Wahoo Kickr and it talks to both TrainerRoad.  I have been extremely tardy in adopting this technology due simply to the fact that I have always HATED riding indoors. The thought of doing hard workouts inside while stationary just really "rubbed" me the wrong way (haha, get it? kinda lame).  But now I have turned a complete 180.  I am actually ENJOYING my rides indoors. I am working HARD for an hour. And it's fun! TrainerRoad is kind of like a video game to me. I want to "win" each workout.

If you haven't tried it yet, you really should.

I've been taking more pictures




And this past Sunday I participated in my first bike "race" of the year at the Winter Short Track Series (opening weekend).  I decided to race Super Sport (vs Expert) for a variety of reasons but primarily because I know Bobby and Chris W race expert and I cannot hang with them. So it's a question of being off the back of the Expert field or on the front (hypothetically) of the Super Sport field.



Given that I haven't done Short Track in a couple of years I opted for (what I hoped would be true) the latter.  I ended up placing second after a long battle holding off Terry and another of his Total Cyclist teammates through most of the back half of the race.  Unfortunately on the last lap I ran into a tree but luckily had a good gap on the duo behind me so was able to recovery and finish ahead of them.  I am a little scarred but with smoked legs but all in all it's been a good couple of weeks!

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