Monday, April 9, 2012

I was worried there for a while

I had a double 50 m lane to myself today. Very nice. At first my left shoulder wasn't very happy with me and the recovery was clunky and weird. Times were nothing special, then got into the groove a bit and picked up the pace. I seem to swim a lot slower in the 50 m pool, or maybe the water is a bit thicker or something.

Part way through some fast people started swimming in the next lane. I finished my 1500 in 19:30, which seems slow considering how hard I was working towards the end. Did some dolphin kick, and regular kick. By then the next lane was pretty full and there was lots of splashing. One pull set I was going pretty strong, and they were still pulling away from me. At one point they were simulating a turn around a buoy. The lead swimmer stopped just at the T and stood up, and all the rest swam around him. One guy was doing this fancy roll during the turn and I thought he was going to slap the guy playing the buoy in the face. Pretty sure they are a triathlon training team.

I did some backstroke and a bit more pull. One freestyle length I tried really hard to keep up with them and it didn't work out so well. I'd like to think it's because they were in a drafting pack and I was solo, but I know better. I ended up swimming an hour.

Errands on the way home. I finished the roll of Tuck Tape, so I got a couple more rolls. Great stuff, once you get the hang of working with it. The hardest part is getting my head and arms into some of the tight spaces, while balancing on a ladder. I'd picked up bread at Cobb's and it was driving me crazy all the way home to smell fresh bread while I was really hungry.

Second breakfast, and a bit of work stuff, then prep for a long spin session. Here's some of the prep. The canned goods live there until Linda drags them up to cook with. The water bottles, cookies, Clif bar, bananas, iPad, and iPhone are all part of the bike prep.

Started with a 20 minute warmup, getting settled in.
1 hour at 75% of FTP. Mostly feeling pretty good, standing a bit more than I'd like, right knee a bit niggly.
30 minutes at 85 to 90% of FTP, working hard. Then 10 minutes easy. My towel is soaked. Good thing I can reach the next fresh towel.
60 minutes as 5 minutes at 110% of FTP, 5 minutes easy, alternating the work periods at 95 rpm and 62 rpm. Or trying to. My legs were getting wonky on the last slow effort.
15 minutes easy spin and cool down. Ate everything. Drank all but half a water bottle. Was about as wet as if I'd just got out of the pool. Felt pretty good, though my legs are tired. Stretched, and did feet in the air for a while. On the bike 3 hr 15 minutes. Longest ride on the trainer in a very long time. Need to be ready for the 5 hour spin a thon in a few weeks.

Shortly after starting I noticed this funny line on my bike. The first thing I thought of was the frame had cracked! It's not even 5 years old and only has maybe 13,000 Km on it, and I don't want to be buying a new bike. Not even a Cervelo P4 now that they are cheaper because the P5 just came out. Gotta love bike porn. I worried about that during the ride, and rubbed at it a bit during the easy sections. At the end of the ride I got this photo, and washed it a bit more. After looking really, really closely, I'm now convinced that I somehow rubbed some of the paint off. No idea on what, or how, but I'll take some rubbed paint as the problem any day over a cracked frame.




2 comments:

  1. 1500m in 19:30 and you consider that slow? I am in awe!

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