Tuesday, July 6, 2010

A Weekend of Training and Relaxation

This weekend I officially did my first training brick, did 22 miles on the bike for the first time since last year, and have a new 5 mile time.  I'm a pretty happy camper, and feeling better about training for the first time in a while.

Saturday brought unseasonably cool weather (read: it was only in the eighties...and breezy!) so the later start that I got on the run wasn't too bad.  E ran with me, and his support helped me to reach a new 5 mile time of 1:10.  Not bad, and after I got over the feeling of wanting to die a little, I was pretty happy.  I managed to drink water the whole time, which is not normal for me, but I think made a difference.  I may hate these longer runs while I'm doing them, but I love the feeling of accomplishment at the end of them!

Saturday afternoon also saw a brief period of swimming, so that I could attempt to figure out this whole breathing thing.  We went to the pool in the neighborhood, and evidently everyone else in the neighborhood had the "hey, let's go hang out at the pool" idea about 5 minutes after us, as people showed up in droves.  Now, swimming, really swimming, not just floating around in the pool, looks rather silly when taken out of context.  So, I felt a little weird wearing goggles and going from one side of the pool to the other, trying to learn how to stroke and breathe at the same time.  It helped though, and I'm looking forward to getting back in the pool this week to really practice it.

Sunday morning I did 22 miles (the original goal was 20...guess I subconsciously wanted to burn off Saturday night's pizza and beer).  The way out felt great, kept it at an easy 16.5.  I went over the 210 bridge for the first time since last year as well....definitely made the quads burn!  The way back was tough, and it took me a little bit of time and a gel to recover from it.  Once I arrived back at the car, E had set up a sort of pseudo-transition area, so I could do a 1 mile run (actually, I think it was more like .75 mile).  My legs felt like lead.  Certified, ridiculously heavy, lead.  I ran so slowly, I think I may have been passed by several octogenarians.  And really, "run" is probably too strong of a word.  I think it was more "moving my body in a reasonable facsimile of a run."  Needless to say, I see many more bricks in my future, as tough as they may be.  And bridges, the Jacksonville equivalent of hills.  Bridge repeats, anyone?

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