It Isn't Easy Going Easy

My coach prescribed a couple of easy days for me this week. Monday, easy bike.  Wednesday, easy run.  Thursday, easy bike.  Saturday, easy run.

Monday and Wednesday were easy to do easy, as I did them with someone else.  Because I was with them, I was going their pace which for me is nice and easy.  That worked out great.  Thursday, I was suppose to have a nice easy 75 minute bike.  I decided to give Terry Hershey Park a try as there is an entrance to it about 5 minutes down the road from where I work.  I had forgotten that at that side of the park it has quite a few undulating hills. This caused me to start a bit harder than I figured I should have.  Then as I was coming up one of the little hills, I called out to the guy in front "bike back, on your left" as I do for everyone, and he looked left and started swerving left and I had already caught up to him, he wasn't going fast at all on the hill, and was just behind and beside.  He ended up pushing me off the path and into the bushes a bit, and I was a bit freaked as it was a quick drop there into Buffalo Bayou.  He was very apologetic about it, and I was on my way a bit scared that my tires may have a puncture in them.  But it seemed ok.  And the adrenaline was firing, so off I went speedy like to put some distance between us.  I continued along and managed to reach the end of the park which is about 8 miles long or so, and so I kept going as I still had time before I needed to turn around.  I was now at George Bush park on the path (they connect at a dam) and was cruising a long nicely.  And then it was time to turn around and I noticed that I had hit 10 miles in 40 minutes.  I wasn't really trying or caring about distance since it was a timed ride.

The way back was a bit more congested with pedestrians as it was now more "after work" than when I started, and so I had people dodging and most of them were kind enough to stop or move a bit over if they were too close to the middle.  And most of them even thanked me for warning them I was behind and coming around.  Been a while since I heard those thank yous on the bike! Good Job Houston!

And of course, the finish of the ride was those undulating hills, so I was pushing a bigger gear by this time and didn't bother to shift, so yeah, legs were hammering it.

Now, it wasn't a hard ride.   But it definitely wasn't an easy spin, and I felt it the next day.  Then today was suppose to be an easy run.  I was still feeling a bit of the bike in my legs today, and when I hit the trail at Memorial Park, I started what felt easy at the beginning, but quickly realized it wasn't when I noticed the times were on the wrong side of 8 min miles.  So I eased back a bit, but think I was still going a bit too fast for easy.  Normally when I run with my friend for easy we are running between 9:45 and 10:30.  And that is definitely easy.  Today, the runs were below 9:30 and even 3 miles at below 9.  Now it wasn't hard, but I was feeling it in my legs especially after the not so easy bike on Thursday.

But I guess the true test of how easy it really was will be tomorrow's 30 mile bike with a 2 mile run immediately afterwards.  I'm not predicting any land speed records being broken on that run at all at this point.

I definitely need to work on training easy on easy days.  It's what helps us (active) recover and keeps things working smoothly, but if you are hammering it and not letting the body do it's recovery thing, then you just keep piling more and more damage on the body and it will take longer to recover down the road and will end up harming the hard work!

It's definitely not easy, going easy...

2012 and A New Program

Hey Gang!

I'm still here! I didn't slack off (too much) since last weekend's 25k.    Just haven't had a chance to write, until now.

I've been riding the bike more now, as recovery and as prescribe by my new coach.

Saturday I went out to Brazos Bend State Park and road around the alligators for a while.  Unfortunately I broke my pedal, so I couldn't clip in on the left side anymore, which make things a bit more difficult.  Sunday I had a short crappy run, because of the legs feeling the problems from the bike the day before, and also these allergy shots I'm taking are taking their toll on me as well.

Yesterday was suppose to be a bike, but since Houston kind of flooded out, I thought it was best to not risk it, and after talking with my coach, her and I agreed that a short easy run would be OK instead.  Still trying to keep off my feet as recovery from the 25k.  Today will be a 15 mile bike.  Should be good, it's been several months since I've ridden the road bike.  Looking forward to the speed and agility of it again.

So, I'm just chugging along recovering and working on other things besides running, which is quite nice!

Enjoy your Tuesdays!

25k Done! Goal Achieved!

I did it!

Yesterday I went out ready to run.  I had some trepidations about it since my training was not what it should have been.  I knew I could get the distance in, but didn't know if I would be walking the last 5 miles or something.   I prepared as much as I could Friday night, making my bottles, gathering my clothing and gear, so in the morning, I just had to worry about getting dressed and getting to the park to run.

And that's how it started.  I got up, ate, and dressed and headed off to the park.  I got to the park, and geared up, got out of the truck, and proceeded to drop my bottle right into a big patch of sand.   Hoping that wasn't a sign of what was to come, I quickly got some towels out of the truck, wiped it off and started off on my run.  The plan was to run 5 minutes and walk 1 minute, repeat until the 25k (15.5 miles) is complete.  I also needed to make sure I didn't run too fast while doing my runs, so that I wouldn't blow up too early.

Things did start off nice and slow, the runs were good and steady, the walks were nice recoveries.  The first two loops (6 miles) went by relatively quickly.  I changed out my bottle and sucked down a gel and started back out again.  Things were still feeling pretty good until around mile 9 or so.  My legs started to tighten up, but the amount of tightness in the legs didn't increase at all for the rest of the run.  Then around mile 11 I started to bonk.  My nutrition wasn't quite where I should have had it.  I was only eating one gel every two laps which is about an hour when I really need to have two gels an hour.  After getting back to the truck and sucking down that gel and a new bottle of HEED, I was pretty good after 5 minutes.

Legs were starting to feel pretty fatigued around mile 12-13.  But I was managing to keeping them going. Running, and I was even able to do sprints to pass people in tight spots on the trail.  I kept going and kept going and when I was finished running for the day, I hit 15.96 miles or 25.7 km.  And I did it in 2:41:03.

Not my best time, but, I completed the run and completed it running!

Now, the real training starts again.

2013... Flubber to Iron here I come!