"Blah." That about sums up the first week+ of getting ready for IM-CDA. Started off with the Disney Half as a training run. Not bad, but coldness of the day in Florida should have tipped me off to the over "blah" that was about to show up on my door step.
It is so hard to find the juice to get moving when it is below 30°. You want to go, but actually deciding to run for an hour in the dark (oh so dark—sunrise isn't until around 7:00AM) and cold. Once you're moving it is okay, but that first step is brutal.
So, last week got moving on the swimming, biking, and running. The swim went pretty good. Once practice involved a 30-minute swim. For the first swim of the year I kept a pace between 1:20s and 1:25s per-100. Not too shabby for all the time away from the water. Then Wednesday the meat of the workout was 3x3x200s on 3:10, 3:00, and 2:50. The goal was the keep the same pace as the rest between 200s dropped off. Managed to keep 2:40s for all 9 while leading the lane. Only took 20 years, but I think I've got a handle on pace while swimming.
The biking parts actually worked out pretty well (save for a bike problem that I'll post about in a bit). The weather was petty warm on Saturday for a 2-hour ride with Karen. It went very well. Got to used my old-old bike as the new hotness was feeling under the weather. Riding the old wheels, I realized I love the elliptical front crank (Bio-Pace) installed on that thing. It was very cutting edge 15 years ago, then passé, and now hip again. Q-Rings seems to the way to go. I have to ask the folks at Elite about making the move from the standard round crank to the "Q".
The running... was the running. I'm starting to warm up to it, but, whoa, I'd rather do other stuff. Sunday was a 2-hour, 12 mile affair out and about from the gym. I was moving slow but it was all about the heart rate. I nailed the whole thing in Zone 2 and still managed 10-minute miles. For me, that is freaking unbelievable! I'm pretty stoked.
We'll have to see how this week plays out. Last night was another 4,000 yard swim. I am a tad under the weather so the laps were harder than they should have been. Still, I guess it says something that with no "umph" and feeling bad the 4K in the water was do-able. We did have a good laugh watching the (painfully young) blonde lifeguard nodding off while we swam.
So, now back to you regularly scheduled workouts!