Yarg

Wow, I'm in a really crappy mood tonight. I don't know why but everything is making me angry. Even more of a reason to come here and type about something that will cheer me up. And by the way, the weather is pretty crazy at the moment, so if the power goes out... you won't be reading this. So as I said earlier, there's a lot to talk about. Big race this weekend, which I will, unfortunately and unexpectedly, be doing by myself. My girlfriend has to work so she can't make it and my training partner is M.I.A. Oh well, sometimes you just have to tighten your bootstraps and get serious. A few of my teammates and myself had our VO2 max levels checked earlier in the week and I've had a few good workouts. So sit back, get some popcorn and relax (just don't fall asleep).

Lets start with the VO2 max testing. So, they set your bike up on a trainer and hook all these wires up to it. Along with all of the wires they put a nice book sized box on your bars that tells you a whole bunch of stuff. Some of it I didn't even recognize. Random numbers everywhere. Then (here comes the scary part), they put this mask on your face which covers your nose and mouth. The idea being that any air that you breathe out is picked up by the machine. It also has a valve that opens when you breathe in. Needless to say, you have to take slightly deeper breathes to make it open. When I was telling my buddies about this, they all said "Oh, yeah, like the Gatorade commercial". Yes, just like the Gatorade commercial, just not as smooth looking or feeling, and oh yeah, we all had sweeter bikes. So they start the test at 25 watts of resistance. You are told to pedal at a cadence of 80-90 rpm. The test will go on as long as you can maintain that cadence. Sounds easy? Of course it does, only because I forgot to mention that they increase the wattage by 25 watts every time your heart rate stabilizes. Everything is OK until you start breathing hard and you need every bit of air you can get, and the damn valve stops you from taking those breathes just enough that it gets a little scary at times. So from this test we should be able to get an idea about different training zones (i.e. for endurance, or speed etc.) and of course we can get an idea of how "fit" we are by our VO2 max. So my total was 65.4 (if I remember correctly). It was in the mid 60's I do remember that. The guy who ran the test for us said that the majority of people who come there to get tested are in the 50's. A few people are in the 60's (us apparently), and almost nobody gets in the 70's. So I think I passed. No training zones yet though. We're just waiting on him to send us our reports.

Workouts for this week. Let's see. Where did we leave off. Oh yes, golf on Sunday. So Monday evening I hit the gym as usual. This time I was pretty sore from all of the twisting and turning from the golf range. There are some very interesting ab muscles that get a workout when you play golf. I ended up getting a great workout in though. I did a lot of my sets to burnout, so by the end everything was pretty worn out. Especially my biceps and abs.

Tuesday we had VO2 max testing. Luckily it was early enough that I was still able to make it to swim practice and then run. We did 2000 meters at swim practice with A LOT of work on our transitions. Meaning transitioning from right arm stroke to left arm stroke and getting as much power out of it and making it as fluid as possible. It really was one of those practices where I made some significant changes in the hour I was there. Thanks Pat for fixing my stroke. Now I just need to work on my kicking. The run afterwards was good. I feel better and better every single time I put my running shoes on. I'm looking forward to working on my running this winter. I think I could be a strong runner next season.

Yesterday was time trial practice. It was supposed to be an "easy" effort since it was in the upper 90's to low 100's. Well, easy for the several cat-2 and 3 cyclists and world class triathlete and duathlete that were there. Jeez. I love time trial practice because its really a great workout and I get a lot of feed back from the people that are there on my form and other things, but man can I get a break??? I'm doing almost 30 mph at some points and I'm barely keeping up. Something seems off here to me. 30 mph... easy workout... barely keeping up.... Or maybe they're just monsters, oh yeah, I forgot, that's it. Same thing with the run. It was supposed to be easy. I was guessing 3 miles at an 8 min pace. Thats pretty easy. Nah, it was 4.5 miles at a 7:15 pace. Good god. It's good for me though. I keep telling myself that. It's why I succeed against other people in my age group at races.

Today... I just went to the gym. No cardio. I didn't want to wear myself out and spoil my legs for Saturday. I did light weights on everything in hopes of just keeping everything alive and awake with out tearing up too many muscle fibers. Then I came home and ate a ham sandwich, and damn was it good.

So now it's time for some race strategy. Crush it. It's longer, but not long enough that I feel like I should pace myself too much. I'll pace on the swim, a little bit, maybe in the begining, but as soon as I'm out of the water, it's on like Donky Kong... uhhh, ok maybe not like that. But it's gonna be crazy. I'm comfortable doing the 25 miles on the bike, and 6 miles on the run is just a matter of finding that rhythm and sticking with it. Since most of my training has shifter to longer distances, I'm confident that I'll be able to find that cruising pace and stick with it. In fact, I think I actually struggle at shorter distance races because I'm so used to a more long distance type pace. Not a a sub 7 mile for sure. Between 7 and 8 is more reasonable for distances over 3 miles. So that's what I'm shooting for. Goal time... under 2:30. I'd like to be under 2:27 so I can hopefully take the age group, that is if the competition is the same as last year. We'll see.

As soon as the race is over... it's off to the beach for 5 days. Finally I'll have the chance to even out my triathlete's tan. I'm really looking forward to running on the beach. And laying around, and reading, and eating good seafood, and doing nothing. I'm just disappointed my lady frined won't be able to make it. It'll be time for some self reflection... haha, maybe not. Maybe just some rest and relaxation. Who knows maybe she'll be able to get a day off work and make it down. That'd be great.

Good night ladies and gents. I'll be back on the 22nd. See you then!

Listening to: Thunder

Feeling: Edgy