Monday, February 8, 2010

Good run in the ice fog

We've had a lot of ice fog in Calgary, which is very unusual. It's built up enough that it nearly blocks all of the chain link fence for the ball diamond across the road. Here's some photos for your amusement.







Last my faithful readers knew, my run and bike sucked. Sat I did not get on the bike. I ranted instead. Plus we had a perfectly wonderful visit from Cath, Jase, and their buddy Colin who is in the process of emigrating to Canada.

Sunday is normally get up early and go to spin class day. I hope Chris doesn't think I have something against him, because the days I'm missing happen to be his days. Sunday I slept in. I have a whole new appreciation for sleep now that I'm working out so much.

However, I did hop on the bike a bit for Sunday, but only half an hour. By the end of the warm up, my legs felt like they had been on the bike for a tough 2.5 hour workout. I went out for a run after, but that was only a half hour, struggling to maintain a half decent pace, and failing. It felt like my legs were sacks of dough at the end. Let's not even talk about core, shall we?

I'm not sure why the bike and run were so bad after last Monday. I don't feel particularly tired. I'm getting good sleep. My swims have been ok at the very worst, and the other two were pretty good. In fact, when I looked at my 500 m free time it was 9:10, and was having no difficulty with that pace. I should have kept going another 500 m and called that my time trial. Yet I wasn't trying to swim particularly hard. But the warm up effort for the bike and the run feels like I've been pushing hard. There is no strength or stamina, but nothing hurts, there's no sore muscles. Just really really tired. That's why my weekly totals are down.

Weekly Summary
Swim 3.0 hrs
Bike 1.5 horrible hrs thrashing away
Run 2.5 really really horrible hrs
Walk 1.0 hrs mostly to get home after the horrible runs
Core 1.75 hrs
Total 9.75 hrs

Now today, Monday, started with an excellent swim. Lots of different intervals starting on a minute per 50 pace. My left shoulder was a bit stiff starting, but a nice warmup took care of that. No worries about lane till I was done the intervals, then a bunch of floaties moved in during the cool down. I felt very shark like cruising along, pulling nice and easy with the buoy, passing all of them. 1 hour.

It's still foggy here, and fairly cold and humid for Calgary. Dressed carefully and headed out for a 45 minute run. Warmed up nice and easy for 5 minutes and pushed a bit harder for the rest. My legs felt fine, for the first time in almost a week! Yay! I ran a steady low to mid zone 3 pace, feeling strong, knowing I could run faster at any moment, but kept it easy. Played with stride and posture a bit, and enjoyed being outside. Just about everything is covered with frost, and it really is quite pretty. Pity the sun isn't shining, as that would really light up all the diamond highlights from the frost.

Some of you that follow Steve in a Speedo might have noticed he is running a contest for the Gnarliest Injury photo. Don't bother entering. I sent in "those" photos. No Susi, I'm not posting them here again. Those that want to see what I'm talking about here, to see what they're going to have to top to win, can go back through my archive, to September 2008, and look for the blog with "graphic followup" in the title. Don't if you're the least squeamish.

Here's what Susi had to say about them.
"i didn't throw up...just held in an internal scream that would shatter the windows of every building downtown and impress the great alfred hitchcock. this was done while hastily trying to hit the wee 'X' in the top right corner of my computer. why do they have to make the 'X' so damn small in situations of emergency?! 

i should add it's really hard to hit the wee 'X' in the top right corner when your eyes are closed. "

Here's what Steve said, "Holy Hannah!! "

Don't say I didn't warn you.

8 comments:

  1. Jenna sent me a diagram of saddle sores and where they were located....a pretty detailed diagram. It's isn't a pic, but oh my God, Keith, you might have a run for your money!! LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  2. I feel amused by your photos. Mission accomplished.

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  3. I feel compelled to mangle myself immediately, thus earning the "Gnarliest Injury" title for my own.

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  4. Sorry we messed up your bike session :( But it was great to see you both, so hopefully worth it :)

    So, sounds like you're having a great start to the week. Last week was last week, and this is now a new week! BUT, for what it's worth here's my thoughts on your SBR experience last week!.... I reckon last week's experience is kind of part of the attraction of triathlon - the balancing of all 3 sports, and how one feels great, the others need picking up - for sometimes no obvious reason - but it just means we all keep coming back for more to try and figure it out - then hey presto things turn round, and we're off again - as you are today - yaaaay! Also, I do find that if I am slightly under the weather the last tri discipline to "feel it" is the one that you're best at (swimming for you, I suspect) so maybe that's part of the answer too...

    Over and out from Fernie :)

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  5. All this talk of gross things and no pics to show...wtf?

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  6. Shannon,

    Susi would have my guts for garters and my balls for bookends if I reposted those photos. She's probably squirming at just the mere mention of them. I did give some clues how to find them within the posting, but I suppose I could be more explicit. The story is told over three postings, with the photos in the last one. There's blood, and sufficient detail for dental clinical use. Don't say I didn't warn you.

    http://keithsodyssey.blogspot.com/2008/09/ow.html
    http://keithsodyssey.blogspot.com/2008/09/bbq-and-ow-followup.html
    http://keithsodyssey.blogspot.com/2008/09/more-ow-graphic-followup.html

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  7. So of course, like a dummy I cut and paste the link above to Shannon and look at the last one.

    O
    M
    G

    OUCH. Double ouch. Double gross (I know, I was warned). Man alive those were bad.

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