Over Night at La Grange Hospital Followed by Electric Fence Fun!

I spent last night in Austin, watching a musical.  So rather than driving all the way back to Houston, I decided to find a place in La Grange, since at 8am I was going to be going to Warda to mountain bike.

It was about 2 am and I decided to just crash at the La Grange Hospital.  So, I parked, pulled out my beach towel and tried to sleep for the next 7 hours.  It wasn't pleasant, but it was free and I got some sleep so I wasn't completely trashed when it came to ride.

So, that was the stay at the La Grange Hospital (;

I waited on Helena and Mike to show up, they got there shortly after I did, so not much waiting around.  We geared up and headed on out!

This will be my first time on trails since I had my bike crash where I fractured my collar bone and separated my shoulder.  I was very much tentative out there.  So between that and having no fitness, I was slow.  I've lost my stamina to ride, and my technical abilities.  It was a bit ... Scary I guess.  Oh yeah, and I had no front brake either.  So I was down a bit on the braking power for some of those back hills out there.

But, since when would any of that stop me, right?  So out we went!  I struggled to keep up with Mike and Helena.  But it was good to be pushed like that, helped me get over some of the tentativeness I had around some of the stuff I should have zero problems, but still thought about too much.

So about half way through the trails, we get out of the trees onto the fields.  There is a pond that you ride around, and you go between the pond and a fence.  The fence also has an electric line on it, to help keep the cows away from each other.  So we come around the pond, and there is a big puddle in the way, looking deep we decide to dismount and walk around it.  Helena walked around the left side which was pond side.  I decided to go around the right side, which was fence side.  I knew the fence was electric. I have touched them before, and been zapped.  So I (thought I) knew what to expect on the fence should I accidentally touch it.  But I wasn't going to.  I grab ahold of the barb wired fence to steady myself, and start walking around the puddle.  And then my foot slipped and **ZAP** my hip touched the fence, and it felt like a wasp bite.  And there was also a popping/cracking/straightening in my spine as well when it happened.  WOW that was ... Shocking!  I couldn't do much but start laughing at it.  My life, the comic strip!

So my right leg feeling a little wonky from the zap, we get back on the bikes and head to the back forty! This is where I started to walk more than ride.  Because my front brake doesn't work, I couldn't go down the steep hills, so I walked them.   We finish up that lap, and take a breather, refuel, etc.  Then we head on out for a second lap.

This time I'm feeling a bit better on the trails, and have a bit of a warm up in my legs, so I go out and do some harder riding on the fun bit at the start... And proceed to wear myself out! HA!  So I'm slowing down but building up confidence at the same time.  Kind of a dangerous combination, especially with no front brake.  So we get through the first half of the trails... up to where we come back out on the fields and I decide I'm done.  I don't want to do anything stupid.  So, I let the gang know I'm done but will wait  for them at the vehicles.

All in all it was a good ride today!  Very happy with it... Even with the zapping of the electric fence! Which, by the way I now have burn marks on hip where I touched the live wire.  Ouch!

Wednesday Night's Bike Ride

It was a nice easy night out with a buddy today.  Just went and did around 15 miles around the picnic loop at Memorial Park.  We did do a couple of pick ups during the ride, only because there was a guy on inline skates and we didn't want to get passed by him.  But as we were doing around 23mph he passed us pretty quickly.  So much for that plan!

Then we hammered out one last lap, where I got half way through and started to choke out due to mucus problems.  I must have had something with cinnamon earlier in the day, I'm still not sure what though.  I have to pay very special close attention to that now that I'm back to training.  Being allergic to something as yummy as cinnamon really sucks.  But luckily on low intensity weeks I can eat some to cover those cravings!

So all in all it was a good day on the bike!

Run vs T6c

My new toy showed up! The Suunto T6c Multi Sport Pack.  Basically, it's the T6c and the GPS pod.  And of course I gave it a try tonight for my run.  But let's go with the basic parts first, I did my normal 2.46 mile run around my house.  I did it in 23:26.9  First lap was 12:03.3 and the second one was 12:05.2.  It was slower than what I have been running it, but because I was trying to figure out what I was doing with the T6c.

So, other than slowing down my run, since I don't know what I'm doing with it, it confused me.  At first I thought it was wrong. I was running along, and it was showing 7minutes... I was thinking, there is no way I'm running seven minute miles.. Then I thought maybe it was mph. But when I was sprinting across a street I noticed it went down to 3... So no way that could be mph!  I got home and it dawned on me!  It's a Finnish device... It's defaulted to metric! 7 minutes per km!  Now that makes a lot more sense! I still haven't figured out how to figure out how to get the various stats from the watch. I played with the software a bit, but it's slightly confusing as well.  Much more playing around required to fully understand it.  But no more time left tonight...

Time for bed... Night All!

We Have Failure.

Keeping myself honest here. 

I failed to go swim this morning.  I went to bed 2 hours later than I wanted to, and then I didn't sleep well at all (because I actually slept in bed for a change, long story there.) 

So between not enough sleep and then getting bad sleep, my body just didn't feel like it was up to get out there and swim.  And since I'm still dealing with the whole body rebelling against being active again, I'm listening to it while it gets use to my abusing it.  But this won't last for much longer as I don't have enough time to be missing out on workouts that are needed.  Especially to build up a base this early on.

So, I missed my morning swim, but won't miss my afternoon run! 

Biking Fun!

Went out biking over at George Bush Park today.  It was pretty good, nice and easy out there with a friend.  The 20 miles we did in about an hour and forty minutes.  So pretty slow going, but still working on building up the miles in the legs.  So the slow is not a problem, and I could have probably gone for about another 10 miles with out too much trouble at that speed.

But it was a good place to stop to make sure my legs aren't toast for tomorrow's run after work.  And I also am suppose to start swimming tomorrow morning, so we shall see how that goes!  Hopefully I remember how to and don't drown in the 3' pool! (=

Bloody Brilliant Day out there today though! Glad I got to enjoy it a bit before I deal with all those nagging indoor chores!

Motivation and Sore Calves

So today, I started my day off helping out the Team in Training folks with a water stop.  The full marathoners were doing 18 miles, and the halfers were doing 10 miles.  It was good to see them out there, and a couple of surprise friends as well!

Seeing them out there definitely motivated me for my planned 3-4 mile run today.  So after I was done with helping them out, I went back to Memorial Park and ran the loop, 3 miles.  It was a bit painful because my calves weren't fully recovered from Thursdays run (I knew that was going to much me up!) but it was still not a bad run.  I did the 3 miles (Yes, I added a bit extra to make it really 3 for your pedantics out there) in 27:33.09 or an average pace of 9:11 minute miles.  Which tells me, I was running way too fast at one point because I did stop to walk and massage my calves a bit.  But it also tells me, I'm getting back into the swing of things.

When I got back to my truck, I got my recovery bottle and while I was drinking that I actually did some proper stretching.  I need to get more of that in so I don't seize up like I use to.

So the running continues... And it continues to not completely and utterly suck.

Running When I Shouldn't.

So I wasn't suppose to run today, because my calves were very tight.  But after a rough drive home, in bad traffic and lots of other stuff going on in my head, I needed to get some relief.  So, I ran.

For those who don't know me, I hate running. Loathe. Detest. Abhor. etc. Yeah, I kind of don't like it generally.  And normally when I am feeling bad, down, upset, disconcerted, disconsolate, and wordy, I just want to curl up and gorge on bad food.  So, this going for a run thing instead of eating... MAJOR breakthrough for me.

Of course since my calves were so tight I really shouldn't have gone out.  It may have been more detrimental to my legs and ability to run again soon.  But the ability to go out and run the demons out was way worth it.  It was a slower run than my last one because of the sore legs.  But, it was a good mental run.

I do not think I hate running as much anymore because of this.  I still don't like it.  But, I can't say I hate it anymore.

I just did my 2.46 mile route.  1.23 miles out at a pace of 9:34, and then 9:14 on the way back.  Still doing negative splits, with huge gaps, so I could totally be running faster that first bit, but I'm still relearning that I can run.  And so I'm happy with these numbers.  And happy with the over all results of todays run.......

Even if I can't walk tomorrow.

Running Again...

Last night I ran again.  Third time in three weeks!  I'm starting to get pretty consistent there.  Although I do realize I need much more running than once a week for this.

So I did a short 2.46 mile run, averaging 9:01 min/mile.  I'm apparently regaining my running form faster than I figured.  Now if I can get back into distance at these slowly faster times then things will be good!  My first "lap" of 1.23 miles was 9:13 pace, and the second one was at 8:49 pace.  So I am doing negative splits with out trying too hard for it. I just go out and run and pick it up as it feels good.  Now to start making the run a bit longer I think!

My legs aren't feeling too bad today either.  So they are adjusting to the pounding again.  Should make Thursdays run alright.  And then Saturday I will plan on bumping up to 3 miles to see what I can do there.

Here we go...

I use to blog about my training when I first got into adventure racing.  I was excited about AR and just wanted to write my experience down about it.  I was pretty good at keeping that blog up to date for a couple years.  Then I slowly let it slide.

Now that I'm doing this small race up in Canada next August, I am thinking about blogging it and hoping who ever looks at this can help keep me honest and accountable.  If you don't see a post here... Call me out and find out what I'm doing instead of training!

That said... Let the journey begin....