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April 23, 2006
ONE WEEK TILL THE WILDFLOWER
Training this week went pretty well. Monday was a rest day, Tuesday was an early morning gym workout, consisting of a ½ swim, 22 minutes of running hills (treadmill program) and about an hour of spinning. Wednesday was a rest day, and the Thursday was pretty much a repeat gym workout, only this time I did speed work in the pool, and did the running after spinning. I ran 1.1 miles on the treadmill at an 8 minute/mile pace.
Friday a couple of my co-workers and I got together at the North Forebay for a workout. We are doing the North Forebay Triathlon this coming Saturday (the day before the Wildflower) as a relay, so we wanted to check out the trails, as well as get in our first lake swim of the year. The bike ride was really fun, as the course was relatively flat, and in pretty good shape considering how much rain we have gotten this winter. It was a little muddy in spots, which was kinda fun – by the time we got back both our bikes and our bodies were covered with mud.
Then we put on our wetsuits, and took the plunge into the chilly, chilly waters of the forebay. Going into the water, the coldness literally takes your breath away, and it is nearly impossible to get a good breath of air. Once you get your face and body used to the coldness (usually about 10 minutes or so) it gets a little better (unless you go out too fast and hyperventilate, in which case you will probably not even finish the swim). Every time I do a lake swim I laugh at myself; I spend hours working on technique and drills to try to perfect my stroke – then I get out into a 60 degree lake and within the first three strokes all that refinement is thrown right of the window, and I regress to “Survival Swimming�. Near the swimming/picnic area the temperature wasn’t too bad, probably mid 60’s. Once we got past the bridge, the water below the top couple of inches was so cold that you didn’t dare put your feet down. We discovered that with our wetsuits on, we could literally “sit� in the water – with our heads and feet well above the surface. We swam out past the bridge, and then over to the dock by the Kayak rental place. We stopped there for a few minutes and regrouped, then swam the return trip without stopping. Of course, I forgot to set my watch, so I do not know how long we swam – probably on the order of 23 minutes or so, which should have been close to a half mile. Our new wetsuits were great, there was no way I could have (or would have wanted to swim) in that water without it.
Saturday was my last big ride planned before the Wildflower. In order to meet family obligations, I planned on leaving around 5:30 Am, and ride from Durham to Chico, then up Humboldt, down Highway 32, across town and then up Honeyrun, across Pearson Road, and down Pentz Road, ultimately taking Durham Dayton Road back to Durham. This will end up about a 60-mile bike ride, with around 2500 to 3000 vertical feet. That should give me a pretty good taste of what next Sunday will be like, especially with respect to the vertical climbing. At least that was the plan….
But, as usual this spring that feels like winter, I awoke about 4:30 Am to the sound of rain again. I got up and couldn’t believe that once again my ride was going to be blown out. After a couple hours of waiting for it to blow over (which it never did) I gave up and went in to the gym. Did a ½ mile swim, 60 minutes on the spinning bikes, and then a 3-mile pace run (first half hills, second half speed). At this point I have just about relegated myself to being in pain during the last third of the Wildflower, cause I just have not been able to get in the longer training rides I needed.
Posted by Dennis at April 23, 2006 08:18 PM