Just part of the ‘hood I run in.
Okay, let me bring everyone current with my “oh so busy life”.
As evidenced in the prior posts, I’ve been training again for triathlon. My immediate goal is to finish the Mountain Man Triathlon in Flagstaff in August. A half marathon in November, a marathon in January and then Ironman Mont Tremblant in August of 2014.
My training has being going very well. A few hiccups, mainly that I really have a dispassion for swimming. If I skip a workout, it’s usually swimming. Shhhh! Don’t tell my coach!
The thing is, my last 70.3 triathlon; Honu 70.3 to be precise, went REALLY well on the bike. I held the same time for the distance as I did the last time I raced there, even with the brutal winds this year as I had 3 years ago. AND I had the same swim time as 3 years ago. My run on the other hand, was not so good. That wind that we had on the bike had gone away, and running through the golf course at the Fairmont Orchid, though beautiful to look at, was like running in a steam bath. There is no shade on the course, and the portions that weren’t through the golf course were on blacktop that wound through the lava fields. So, we went from steam bath to bake oven. I finally made a deal with myself: If the wind was blowing in my face or if I was on a downhill, then I would run. Otherwise I walked the majority of the 13.1 miles. It was pathetic. But I finished.
So, today’s schedule was written as a two hour run, building throughout and finish the last 30′ “strong”.
Well, it’s been rather warm here in the Valley of the Sun the last few days. I have to admit I felt rather fortunate that there was a pretty good cloud cover this morning and it was only 93 degrees when I started my run. I’m not sure what the temperature was when I got home. I CAN tell you this much: I weighed myself when I got home and had lost 3.6 pounds of water! That was AFTER I had taken in 1.5 liters of water on the run. If you like to do math, 1 liter is ~ 2.2 pounds. The “finish strong” part….yeah, not really much on the “strong” side.
The “swim workout” (3800 yards) was bypassed in favor of watching the Tour de France and a movie. Again, DON’T TELL MY COACH!
I know what you’re thinking: “Damn, GO swim! Cool off!” If you don’t live in the desert, you wouldn’t know that the temperature of the water in the pools is in the upper 80’s for the rest of the summer, and that “training” for swim is like training for any other discipline. You train to “race”. So, trying to stay “cool” while swimming in water that warm is kind of, well, impossible. You can’t really “sweat” in the water. So, anyway, that’s my reasoning! Oh, and we topped out at 119 degrees, I think that’s somewhere around 45C.
So, where am I going with this? I have NO idea. I’m just trying to get back in the mode of blogging my friends.
oneluckiegirl 