This is not an April fools joke-Those are over spent

Why can't check card theft just be an April Fools day joke? Apparently someone with a UPS online account jacked my card info and spent the day making small charges on my account. We'll see how this plays out. Hopefully I can pay mortgage tomorrow...

Otherwise, the shoulders are still sore and I still feel like I've got to pop my chest back into place a little bit. It basically just feels like a slightly misaligned spine does before someone pops it for you, but it's kind of more in my chest... Strange.

It's not holding me back too much though. My running has felt great and on Monday night I got in a decent swim at 3000 yards. I can feel the spots during swimming but it's not detracting from much. Running on the other hand things feel pretty good; looser then normal for the most part. After CB I'll probably continue ramping up the mileage.

That's right. That sexy tanned beast (aka the black guy? Damn I'm tan!) is yours truly. Cole's at stroke and Teddy is behind me in bow. Miss those days like nothing other. Miss those guys like nothing other as well.

In other news, I've managed to convince a couple of my boys from crew to do the Pittsburgh triathlon with me. These are the same two guys I did the Shamrockfest Marathon with a couple of years ago. Great people and lots of fun to hang with. Can't wait to get up there and see them! I think they'll really love the racing. They're still deciding between the sprint and Olympic but I don't see any reason they can't do the Olympic... Although considering the panic attack I had on the open water swim my first tri I can certainly understand the choice to do the sprint...

Other upcoming races, 12 Hours at Lodi Farms with a 3 man squad from DCMTB. Otherwise the slate is officially open with a number maybes and likelys in there for the season. Need to find out if Brian is planning on doing the Kinetic Sprint down at Lake Anna this year...

A bit of optimism

Well it turns out the eye issue is an actual infection and not just a corneal scratch. Shit. So, instead of rest and maybe some aspirin like drops I’ve got an every two hour anti-biotic eye drop regiment going on right now. Oh and some pretty serious aversion to staring at my computer screen and being in the brightly fluorescent lit office space that is my office, but a deadline is a deadline.

Anyway, yesterday upon approval of the eye doc I went to the pool to swim some laps as the last few days off of any and all workouts was beginning to drive me a bit batty. I jumped in the new wetsuit, the Quintana Roo Ultra Full incase you’re wondering and started with a nice little warm up. I felt pretty good and felt ridiculously fast in the suit. I definitely think that despite the fact hat it is an entry level suit it is a lot faster then the Nineteen rental suit, plus the neckline was higher and kept more water out and the suit itself was not as stretched in general as the nineteen.

Anyway, after my warm up I did a 20 lap set followed by a cool down, a hard five or so and then another 20 lap set followed by a final cool down. All in all I got in about 1 and ¾ of a mile or 3000 yards; twice my previous long swim which felt great. Not to mention my entire swim was just smooth and graceful even as I got a little tired. It has me wondering what the hell happened to me on Sunday for that swim, but I understand there were a lot of different factors affecting that swim like a lack of a warm up mixed with purple fingers and toes at the start, my first mass group swim, my first open water swim and then my general fatigue and high heart rate to begin with. Not so much excuses for last weekend as reasons why next weekend should be so much better.

I’ve decided not to do Poolesville on the third to save myself, and more importantly my bike for Sunday’s triathlon. I’m really in no shape to be riding a 60 mile road race like that at the moment, plus my Michellin Race 2 Pro’s wouldn’t stand up to abuse I’m sure. I was hoping to pick up some nice armadillo’s for the race but I think I’m just going to pass on it entirely. Some how I think last weekend I had more fun crushing myself in the time trial format of the bike portion. There is something about picking people off in a line, sweat and snot running off my face and the triumphant feeling of just handing it to people out there on the course that I’m strangely drawn to.

I'm feeling pretty good about the tri next weekend. Everything appears to be coming together well training wise and so long as I don't destroy myself too much the day before at the Leesburg Bakers Dozen I should put in a decent showing. My hope is to be competitive in my age group for the Lake Moomaw Sprint Tri in Mid/late June so this will be a test of how likely that will be. I of course am hopeful of mustering up some high level performance for the Kinetic next weekend but I'm certainly not holding my breath on that one.

Yesterday morning I drove to hains and did a few laps before heading into work, beating the tourists and crowds of lunch time. On Sunday while waiting for my bro-in-law to purchase his new Felt F85 (SWEET!) I happened across a set of FSA VisionTech clip-on aero bars on sale for half off. Of course I had to get them. I mounted them tentatively on the Cannondale and really tested them out for the first time yesterday morning. I figured I'd be too cramped but as it turns out my position feels amazing! It may not be as aggressive as it could be but it is very comfortable and I was able to produce plenty of power.

Over lunch I took a Mall run with a coworker I happened to bump into on the way out. The legs and body felt really good and I think I could have put in some serious miles and or speed work but we kept it pretty easy and stuck to the 4/4.5 mile mall loop.

Then finally after work I headed out to Falls Church to pick up the rented wetsuit from Bonzai Sports then headed home to my pool to try it out. After initially putting it on backwards and then swimming a lap (God that was weird and uncomfortable) I got it on correctly and got a good swim in. I timed myself for the 17 lap approximate 750 m swim and came in right around 14 minutes, though that included some brief breaks in between on my turns and was a bit long for the actual race distance. My hope is to be able to come in under 13 minutes for the race. I just have to remain focused on efficiency and not get caught up in the high stroke rates that tend to kill me. I also seem to glide so much easier and quicker really with limited leg kick which is good since I want to use my legs as little as possible during the swim anyway.

So, that's where I stand; the second half of next week I'll hopefully scale things way down and try to save some energy for the crazy weekend ahead. The Monday following I'm taking the day off to recover. My goal for now with the triathlon is to be puking as I cross the finish line, or at least as close as possible to that. I've never been able to physically push hard enough to get there so it will be a tough thing to accomplish.

Stupid emancipation day...

Apparently today is the official DC Emancipation Day and as such all DC public offices and services are closed for the day. Of course this would be no big deal normally and wouldn’t even cause me to blink an eye but unfortunately today I blinked. With my quickly filling schedule and busy nights lately I’ve been struggling to find time to get over to the pool to get in laps, especially since the Marie Reed Center pool is only really open from 3pm to 8pm and any time after 6 the lanes are uncomfortably full for me at this point in my training.

Last night I finally decided to bite the bullet and forego the extra hour of sleep and bike to the Takoma Community Center whose pool opens at 6am on weekdays. So come 5:15 I was rolling out of bed and 5:30 I was rolling up 16th St into the headwinds from hell with memories of early morning crew practice running through my head (except then I had a car and drove to practice). The ride there was actually not nearly as bad as I expected and I was able to safely ride up 16th street and over on Van Buren St with the only issues being the occasional blast of wind and the typical SUV blowing by in a coffee and war fueled rush to get to it’s next destination.

I got to the center 10 minutes early after my great warm-up ride and decided to ride loops around the building to keep from cooling down too much before the doors opened and when I finally rolled up to the front door and saw the signs I just wanted to kick myself. Who knew today was emancipation day anyway? I mean I guess if I watched the news every once in a while I’d have heard (though even wapo's description didn’t make me think the pool would be closed), but then I’d have to watch about this shooting and that robbery and the other natural disaster killing how many people? No thanks.

So, instead of my invigorating morning swim, this morning I got a nice, almost car free commute with a handful of extra miles and I’ll get a good core workout today for lunch. Unfortunately I couldn’t even go run when I got in an hour earlier then I planned since I don’t have any running gear here at work. Oh well, I guess if I can get out of bed again tomorrow morning then I’ll have to try it again.

To make things worse for this Emancipation Day, I doubt they'll have a great turnout with this gloomy weather we're calling spring.

And I'm off!

And I’m off to start my triathlon training! Yesterday I went out during lunch and picked up some goggles and located the local public pool after work. The pool itself is located on Champlain St. down inside the Marie Reed Center and is only about 2 blocks from my place so I was pretty excited when I found it. On top of that it is free to DC residents so really, I have almost no good reason not to go.

Having not attempted to swim since I was in 8th grade or so when I swam on the neighborhood swim team, I knew that it was going to be tough getting my swimming fitness in gear, but I had no idea just how tough. I hopped in the water and swam about 50 meters before stopping to catch my breath already. It’s amazing how unprepared my lungs and body were for this, and I could never get enough oxygen into my lungs as I swam along. I recomposed myself and tried to work on technique through the next few laps and worked back and forth between freestyle and breast strokes and lasted for about a half an hour.

Thankfully my recovery time when I’d stop was very quick and I could certainly have continued going at the end (with lots of short breaks involved of course) but I figured I didn’t want to kill myself on the first day in the water. I think overall it was a good start and I’m sure I will quickly improve as long as I make sure to get to the pool on a consistent basis. I wish the pool could be open in the mornings so I could swim before work but it looks like that just may not be available right now. But with free swimming two blocks from my house I guess I don’t have a whole lot of room to complain.