Ayerd{dot}com :: Triathlon

This has not been a good week for training. It fell apart on Sunday night. Sunday was good: 1.5 hour run. Sunday night I must have slept awkwardly or something. When I woke up my neck was killing me. Over the course of the morning got worse and worse and worse. By Monday afternoon I couldn't move my head without some pretty solid discomfort.

At first I was, just do something light! Maybe was just a muscle thing and some swimming would lossen it up. Ha! I got the pool, crawled into the water and started to swim. Once I got moving it was okay... up to the first flip turn. Tucking the head for the turn and then lifting the head to look forward again about made me want to puke. Sticking with my "muscle" concept I kept going for all of about 400 yards. At that point, I had to stop. I kept think "it will feel better any minute now", but it never did.

Getting changed was a hoot and driving home felt bad.

Tuesday morning was bad so I loaded up on Advil and headed to work. Sitting at the desk was less fun than you'd like to think, but by Tuesday afternoon the neck started to feel better. I could turn a little to left and right without feeling like someone was stabbing me in the neck with a knife. I decided to skip the swim and a weight/core session.

Wednesday morning felt even better. I could sit up and down without pain and coughing didn't make me want to throw up. I was feeling good enough to risk a run. A wee 4.5 mile, 40 minute jog down the canal path. It didn't feel great, but it wasn't too bad either. Everything but the neck was working it. The neck complained but got the job done. Wednesday night I headed back to the gym with visions of lifing and swimming but after the weights there was slight neck pain.

93 days to the White Lake Half, I think (hope) I can afford some more rest, so home it was.

Today was even better. Neck feels pretty good. Only slight pain at the extreme range of left/right/up/down head movements. Maybe I somewhat pinched something in the neck? For sure it didn't happen while exercising, so I think that is a positive. I'm hoping it is even better tomorow.

If things are good tomorrow morning will be another run and then yoga (Bikram style–my favorite as you just feel so über relaxed afterward). Saturday we're back to a long bike and run with Sunday being a long day of events: long run, Chili-fest, Super Bowl).

The neck, however, did put the pinch (haha, see a clever play on words!) on getting lots of other stuff done. Things like the promised pictures of the new new Hotness. I'll try and make that happen this weekend! Whoa, I hate being sick/ill/laid up. I just don't have the patience for it.

On the plus side, time away from working out allowed me the time to post stuff on the main blog. Cool. Even scored 15 nanoseconds of fame with a mention on Instapundit.com! Yea me!

This has been a rough two weeks. Real Life™ has been puttin' a hurt'in on the triathlon updates. To start off with, lost almost a week with something in my neck. Don't know what happened, but I'm glad it passed. It sucked not being able to move about, let alone train, without out pain.

Once the neck was better, it was back to the swim/bike/run routine. Then the weather crapped out. Stupid winter. You'd think it would know that snow and sub-zero temps interfere with Ironman training. There is a greater chance of getting out for a 3+ hour bike ride then hoping on a trainer for 3+ hours. On the very plus side, when the indoor ride is needed there is a super group of people I can spin with, but it is not the same as riding out side.

Then we got another dog! Went to see Jordan and while we where there, we met a great dog named "Killer". Don't know why you'd name a pug Killer, but someone did. We were weak and brought him home. We may have too much dog-power now, but only time will tell.

Sorry for the lack of updates. Things are still on track for IM-CDA and the White Lake Half, so I have that going for me. Next step is to get my act together and get back into the habit of updating my training (b)log.

As triathletes go, I can hold my own pretty well in the water. My only swimming goal for this year is a 55-minute Ironman swim and I think I'm on a good pace to reach that by the end of June. Against actual swimmers I don't fare as well. I used to.... but I think those days are past.

This weekend was the Ocean County YMCA Unofficial Team Championships. As part of the team "rah-rah" score points thing, I signed up for 5 events: 1000 Free, 200 Free, 100 IM, 500 Free, 50 Back. I also got talked into two 50's as part of relays. A lot of yardage for a swim meet, but since I was blowing off a 3.5 hour ride for the day I had to make the most of it.

The meet was packed. Three teams - Jersey Area Masters (my team), Ridgewood Y, and OCY - decided to make a go of it so there were around 120 swimmers and most of them swam lots of events. There were 7 heats (10 lanes each heat) of the 1,000. 9 for the 500. It was a long day.

My thousand went 'ok'. I was in the end lane of heat 6 of 7 swimming next to the warm-up lane. To make it worse, the guy in the lane next to me no-showed and I couldn't see the other swimmers. I finished the swim in 12:55. I think I could have done better. The guy counting for me told me he could tell the extact lap I started to get tired. My stroke smoothed out and got real long. That is great for Ironman. Bad for competetion. I came in 2nd in my age group but pretty far down in the overall placement.

Good for Ironman, how? Well a 12:55 swim averages out to a around a 1:17 for a 100 yards. The pace chart claims that works out to a 52-minute IM swim. Oh yea... and I'll get to wear a wetsuit for IM. :->

Very cool side note: in the 1,000 Free, Austin Newman set the WORLD Master's recored for the 1,000 in the 90-95 age group. He came at just over 20-minutes! He's 92. At 92, I just hope to be able to get in and out of the pool. Being able to swimming would be a bonus! To swim a 1,000 with a good time would be almost unthinkable.

Right out of the 1,000 cool-down it was back into the water for a 30-sec 50 Back as part of the Medley Relay. It was my first backstroke start since this time last year. At least I didn't flop it. Something must have stuck from all those years of swimming. Our relay fell a bit short, but until the results are published I won't know how my 50 stacked up.

Then it was the 200 Free. The first 100 felt great. I peaked at the clock and thought I saw a 1:03 (man, they have to post the results soon!). Then between 100 and 175 my body remembered that I'd just swam the 1,000. My arms felt like lead. Finished with a 2:17. Not great, but I think it should have been closer to 2:10.

The swim meet went down hill from there. The 100 IM about killed me: 1:13. Shameful. The 500 was bad: 6:23. Way slower than last year. Grrrrrrrrrrr. The pièce de résistance in this suck-a-thon was the final 50-Back. 32-Eat-me-seconds. 32! I've disappointed not only myself, but my country.

The moral of the story is that while I'm going to rock the IM swim at CDA, I clearly need to try and avoid trying to hanging with actual swimmers. It is too depressing.