Wednesday March 5, 2014. 3000 yard swim and 5.2 mile run. Tuesday was a bleh day. So I went to bed crazy early (9:30) and woke up late (8:30). After a busy day, I jumped in for a long, fast paced swim. I did the swim speed 14-1 workout, which centers on 10 fast-paced 50's. I added some distance to hit 3000, which might be my longest swim this year. This was followed by more shopping for the imminent arrival (if you read this some day, you're taking a lot of time, and you're not even here yet!). Getting home, I went out for a night run just as a storm came though. I ran down the hill, through the neighborhood, and back up. I kept the pace down, since Monday's run still seems to be working it's way out. Oh yeah, and over the last week I decided to register for a 50 mile race in December and the Malibu triathlon again.
Thursday March 6, 2014. 1.2 mile run. I've been unable to get out for morning workouts lately; there's been a lot happening. Biking is what's suffered the most. Until I get that back on track, which might take some time and might involve a trainer to get it in at odd hours, I'm going to squeeze in short recovery runs when time allows on days that aren't running focused. I saw two deer.
Saturday March 8, 2014. 9.9 mile run. This was a tired one, especially after the first climb. I started in Sibley, ran the Huckleberry loop, and came back for the Round Top loop and an out-and-back on the bay area ridge trail. I'm keeping these long runs closer to home for the next few weeks. Lots of mud after all the rain we've been getting.
Sunday March 9, 2014. 40.5 mile ride and 2.5 mile run. Another brick in the wall, ok dumb joke. The next long ride of this slowly progressing ramp up to 55 miles. Wanting to stay close to home, I rode back and forth on Skyline and Grizzly Peak, covering the same section three times. Of all the repeat routes I could choose, it definitely stays interesting, and pretty. The middle time through seemed the strongest and fastest. It's also the first ride I've found time for since my bike repair. And something else is breaking, the pedal attachment area starting clicking and eventually became a loud clacking. I followed this with a run on the Huckleberry loop. While the weather was great for the ride, the run, being in a consistently moist valley/hillside area, was muggy.
Monday March 10, 2014. 1800 yard swim and 1.3 mile run. I decided to loosely start following one of the training plans I've been mostly following since December again. In part to cover the major weekly goals in addition to day by day specifics; I'm better at the latter. This week prescribes a lot of swimming, much of it fast. For this swim, I did 1000 yards of mixed strokes and kicking, my somewhat usual Monday recovery swim. I followed this with a 2x25, 2x50, 2x100, 200, 2x100, 2x50, 2x25 ladder at my fastest paces for each distance. I've also been sneaking in some strength training since last week, mostly using resistance bands.
The relatively fun swim was followed by quite the downer of a run. I set a not-very-strict goal to run at least a mile a night on days when I don't have any good reason not to for a while, since there's no excuse not to, and it'll help build hill endurance. I still like to rest the day before a fast run or a long run. Anyway, I ran down the street, and there were about 25 pairs of green eyes glowing back. All deer. A group was close to the paved path I run on at night, so I slowed to walk through. A car came speeding down the hill. One of the deer between the path and the road startled, and ran into the road. The car hit the deer, and the deer rolled over a few times, landing at the side of the road. The car took off. I was shocked and saddened. I watched the deer for about five minutes from a distance, it wasn't moving. I finished the downhill part of my run, and checked on the deer a few minutes later on my way back up the hill. This was one of the saddest things I've ever seen. The struck deer now had it's head up and was looking around, but it was unable to move its body. Another deer stood at the edge of the road, across the street, looking at it, and occasionally lifting its legs, as if wanting to do something. I don't know much about deer social behavior, but I got the sense it was the injured deer's mother. I made the call to run home and look up who to call who might be able to help, even if it meant putting the deer down. I called the Oakland police, who presumably went to handle it. The next morning I checked the spot, and the deer was dead.
This was shocking and humbling. If I hadn't been on that run, the deer would have probably run away from the road, and to safety. Deer get struck many times a week on my road, but I've never seen it happen.
Tuesday March 11, 2014. 3000 yard swim. Swim speed 14-2, which centers on 10x50 overreaching. I added some breast and fly to up the distance to 3000. For compulsive reasons. And I dropped the bike off to get the pedal assembly fixed and to get everything with any wear taken care of.
Wednesday March 12. 6.2 mile run. I had a long enough lunch break to get out for a run again. I ran out to the Emeryville Marina and back. I kept the pace mostly on the slower side, since I ran 8 tenth-of-a-mile all out intervals in the middle three miles. If the gps data is correct, I might have hit my fastest momentary running speed (faster than 6 min/mile pace). I haven't been running many intervals like this lately, since I've been mostly focused on building endurance since last fall. I certainly felt it later, not wanting to do much in the evening or next morning, and sleeping a good nine hours. It's nice to be able to work on speed again, and I hope to work more speed workouts back in, since I'm planning to level off my regular racing distance at 50k until next winter.
Thursday March 13. 3000 yard swim. Swim speed 15-2. This workout focused on the finish. Some of the drills have to look really ridiculous to others. :-) I added 450, mixing all strokes, to get up to 3000. I picked up my bike in the evening too.
Friday March 14. 6.6 mile run and 15.7 mile ride. Two hard workouts in one day. Tempoish run over lunch, followed by an impromptu GrizzlyPeak/Skyline ride during sunset after work. I was feeling antsy, and I also wanted to take the bike out for a spin after getting it fixed up.
Saturday March 15. 11.1 mile ride. I was getting work done, so I took the opportunity to ride out to the end of the Bay Bridge bike path. It stops just short of treasure island, but it's a fun, although noisy, ride. My legs were tired after the two hard workouts on Friday, so I cut the ride shorter than intended.
Sunday March 16. 19.5 mile run. I started at Huckleberry, ran over to Sibley, and in and around most of the trails in the park. I'm playing stay-close-to-home-on-long-runs, since I'm on call for a new arrival, and this has had the side effect of motivating me to explore the odds and ends of some of the trails nearby. I ran back through Huckleberry and made a loop through Redwood, on the East Ridge and Stream trails. Somewhere around mile 15, my feet got sore, so I slowed way down. I ended up finishing after dark, getting the first use of my headlamp on trails.
I'm posting this weeks later; I've gotten behind on editing.
No comments:
Post a Comment