Estela gets washed up in prep for the big day

This has been a quiet week for me, mainly resting, with some walking and stretching thrown in. Today was a bit more ambitious, with a 45 minute ride first thing this morning before it got hot. Warmed up, then spooled up to race pace, or so, and did that for about 10 minutes. Then alternated between some easy spin and some almost all-out intervals, then some nice easy spin to end up.

I did a somewhat leisurely transition then headed out for a run. Started with some short stride high cadence work, then settled in for 10 minutes at race pace or so. Then some short high turnover work with easy run in between. That ended up being a half hour to get back to the house. Walked a bit to cool down, nibbled, then stretched for a while. My left calf is still a bit tight, even with the rest and stretching. There were a few complaints, then it settled in for the run.

While getting ready for the ride, such as it was, I realized my bike was just filthy from road dust and other guck. There was a bumble bee tangled up in the shifter cables, poor little thing. So I set up Estela in the driveway and gave her a thorough cleaning. Cleaned and lubed the chain. That whole process goes much better when wearing rubber gloves, though my hands were so sweaty I wasn't sure I was going to get them off again.

I'll pick up my race package tomorrow. Saturday will be prep day. I'll have to drive out to Ghost lake for bike check in, which is about a 2.5 hour round trip. Before that I'll do a last quick spin and run to tune up my legs. This should be fun. There will be lots of people I'll know in the race. The weather is looking great. I probably won't post again till after the race.

A pooly swim

Not much to say here. I had an appointment in the far NE for 9am, so even though it wasn't on the schedule, I thought I'd hit the pool. I mostly tried to relax in the water and not think about meeting. Did some golfs, and was happily surprised at the time, even though the number of strokes was up a bit. I felt fairly strong in the water, which might be why I kept losing lane mates. People would join, swim a few laps, I'd pass them, and they'd swim elsewhere. Then KickingGirl joined. She does lots of kick only drill, and she is very fast. Her front crawl isn't much quicker, and is very splashy.

In spite of being well prepared, the meeting did not go well. They hadn't done their home work and it was essentially a waste of time. Sigh. I'll run tomorrow, with any luck before it rains.

A Ghostly swim

Today started with the roads drying up from an overnight rainstorm. It went from being cool and damp to being warm and damp very quickly. About that time I headed out for a quick 1 hr ride. Not much to say about it, warm up, some easy spin, some higher effort spin, a bit of a push up some hills, coming back to the house strong. My legs felt good.

Then at noon I met Leaha and Shannon up at Ghost Lake, where the Calgary 70.3 will start. There were lots of people getting out of the lake when I got there. Let's just say there was some evidence of the water being cold. However, it really wasn't that bad. I think it's about the same as Canmore, and Leaha thinks it's a bit colder. In the end we were in the water for a little over a half hour, and had no problem with numb hands or feet. Shannon and I swam toward the bridge and looked up toward where the course is, but we didn't swim it. There was just too many boats. We swam back to the dock then did another lap.

I tried out different strokes to see what feels good, and think I'll be ok. For a little while I was drafting Shannon, then he veered right to avoid some shallow bits while I was breathing the other way, and I never caught him again.

If you get too close to the shore it gets very shallow. The bottom is very rocky, mostly. I nearly grounded myself on a huge rock. The water is fairly clear, which is a nice bonus. I'm not sure exactly how we will be guided around the boats moored near the ramp. It looks like we'll sort of have to curl to the left, then right around the dock, to end up at the ramp. The run up the boat ramp ought to be ok. Under water there are concrete pads with a bit of gravel in between, which ought to give good footing. The ramp itself is grooved concrete. I hope they get someone to sweep of the mound of gravel just above the water line. From there, it's only a couple dozen steps up the ramp to the grass where I think the wetsuit strippers will be stationed.

Weekly Summary
Swim 1.25 hrs
Bike 3.0 hrs
Run .25 hrs (not counting a couple walks)
Total 4.5 hrs.

A quiet ride in the country

Today is humid for Calgary, and fairly warm. For some of my readers it would be a deliciously cool and dry day. It was hot enough last night that I didn't sleep well, which tells me I finally caught up on my sleep. This morning was a bit of a slow start, sleeping in a little, and getting some errands done.

At last I put on the tri shorts I won at Canmore and got everything ready for a ride. I didn't want to bite off too much, nor did I want to weenie out. I ended up riding 1:55, at an average pace of 28 Kph, out 22X and down 22. Warmed up, then did 5 min spin between 90 and 100 rpm, then 5 minute tempo, repeat for a while. It's a bit weird spinning that fast up a hill, since I'm going slower than I normally would. Just after I turned around I was passed, and gave chase. For about 20 minutes I was going at race pace or even a bit faster trying to get into his draft, but never made it. Rode a tempo pace the rest of the way home, with just a bit of spinning to keep my legs moving.

2 minute transition, mainly to relieve internal fluid pressures. Then headed around the block. I found my run legs fairly quick, though I didn't get solid on them for about 1.5 K. Ran 2 K in 13 minutes, walked to cool down. Legs felt ok, nothing special. Stretched afterword, especially working on calves and achilles tendon stuff. Somebody once mentioned some kind of stick that is good for getting at tight muscles, any details?

Lastly, a link to some photos from Canmore, courtesy of Jason. You get Cath's story of her day at Canmore, and some photos, mostly of her, which is as it should be.

Lots of sleep = no bike

It's not often you read other blogs and have them write the title for you.

I thought about going for a bike ride today. That was before I went back to bed again, and slept till 10. After getting a pretty good night's sleep last night, and a nap yesterday, and a pretty good night's sleep the night before. With a 4pm massage, and other stuff to get done, I didn't really have time to go for a bike ride. Oh, I admit, I suppose I could have if I'd been really ambitious about it, but since Canmore I haven't been ambitious about anything. Except for resting and eating. I've been eating my head off the last couple days. Only this morning did I wake up not hungry.

Did I ever mention I love my massage therapist and would happily have her babies if that lead to more massages? Maybe not that much, but almost. Still she worked me over good, especially at both ends of the achilles tendon, and the back of my shoulders.

Tomorrow is supposed to be nice. I'll go for a ride tomorrow. For sure. Maybe even with a short run after. How about that?

My swim showed up with a pink ribbon

The schedule didn't call for a swim today, but it was the day to change the oil in the car, and that is really near the pool I often swim at. Plus, sometime during the night my swim slunk in. It was much neater and tidier than I had expected it to be if it had been out carousing with my inner shark. (Inner sharks tend to be very hard on their playmates.) Julies comment and the pink bow gave it away. Thanks for finding it and sending it back Julie! There will be some cookies waiting for you at the post 70.3 party.

I slept much better after writing my fingers off yesterday. This morning I woke up and knew I was going to have a better swim than it's been lately. Not sure why. When I got into the pool I said to heck with the drills and trying to think about my stroke. I'd go back to my old stroke, not worry about roll, about pushing my hand all the way to my thigh, about my hands crossing center line, about where my recovery enters the water, and all that other stuff. Well, I thought a bit about keeping my left hand to the left side, since that's the one that drifts a bit.

And whaddya know?

I had a great swim, feeling very solid and strong in the water. I admit, my stroke was a bit choppier, not quite as pretty, but geez it's faster! Today was the fastest I've been in almost 3 months; 19:10 for 1000 m. I had a really steady pace, with the first couple laps being strong, and the rest consistent at just under 60 s per lap. There were a few times I started thinking about stroke, and I was very firm with myself about that. Things got a bit shaky towards the end, but a woman swimming in the next lane was doing laps in such a way that I was chasing her a bunch. She was doing intervals or something, and swam faster than I do. I pushed hard in the last 150 m to finish strong. Oddly enough I was never out of breath, though I made a point of starting to breath deeply before it was really needed, and being conscious about doing it throughout. I felt really good and decided that a short good swim was better for me than pushing longer, and having things fall apart on me. I did another 20 minutes core work in the dive tank.

I'm not sure why a technically imperfect stroke (being generous here) works better for me than a prettier, more efficient stroke, but at this point I'll go with results. Maybe over the winter I'll get video analysis done, take my stroke apart, and put it together again for next season.

A quietly gurgling river

No fitness in this post. None at all. I was resting. And thinking. Which is hard work, when you think about it, especially when you're thinking about the thinking process. That's enough recursiveness for now.

It's a beautiful day out, and instead of riding I took a note book and a chair down to Fish Creek. I found a nice shady spot and scribbled. There's been all sorts of stuff going through my head lately. I got some of it down, and some of it was headings for future scribbling sessions. Like tomorrow, probably.

Fish Creek isn't a big river this time of year. At one point a small class of kids waded upstream, and the water seldom came as high as their knees. I was right beside a bit of a gentle rocky slope. The sound of running water is very soothing. There was enough other sounds, like people talking or the occasional dog barking to keep me awake. What you can't hear is any city noise. The creek runs through a wooded valley (Fish Creek Provincial Park) that is beautiful to walk or ride through any time of year. The west end, very near where I was, is open to the Tsuu T'ina First Nation so it's very common to see wild animals such as coyotes, deer, fox, and occasionally couger, wolves and once a bear was sighted. None of that today.

Writing stuff down is one way of getting it out of my mind so things don't spin around like a load of unbalanced laundry. I get stuff on paper, and I can focus on particular things, and get myself organized. I make notes of things to look up, or think about more, or tasks to do. I can sort out how I feel about various topics, or what the pros or cons of a particular decision might be. Once I'm done writing, my brain is much more relaxed.

One thing was writing down is why I want to do IMC next year. Oddly enough, I've never really thought about it that much. I know I want to do it. People say you need to have a good reason handy to explain to your legs why they need to keep going when the going gets tough. I'm signed up as a finish line volunteer so I'm going to see how people look at the end of IMC; not just as they cross the line triumphant, but 10 minutes later when the pain sinks in. It just occurred to me that the first tri I ever did was a half IM, and the first tri I volunteer at is IMC. That seems a bit unusual based on what I've read in blogs.

I wrote "Semi-Retired" at the top of one page, and started to bring up all the things that phrase brought to mind. On first consideration, I'm very much liking the thought of that status. I never thought I'd work to some age, then retire and play for the rest of my life. My thought was that as long as there was things I liked doing that people were willing to pay me to do, I'd keep doing them part of the time, and play the rest of the time. I am seriously thinking about how much income I need to earn to buy food, pay the utilities and property tax, and have some fun. It turns out to be a surprisingly small number, but I'm still working on it.

One thing a co-worker said to me once that is making a big impact on me these days. "I strive to schedule my work life the way most people schedule their vacations."