Back in the saddle (again)

Thank god for CalTrain, or I'd never get any of this crap written!

Sun 4/30 – Happy birthday, Caroline – I hope I mailed you a card! Supposed to ride 45 minutes and run 2:15 (about 15 miles). Instead, get locked out of new apartment at 8 am (roommate in Tahoe), pick lock with a bobby pin, do laundry, finish moving out of old place, ride 2 hours, run 45 minutes, and have amazing Vietnamese beef BBQ (albeit at 9 pm) with Michelle. Look forward to going to work on Monday so as to avoid piles of junk at home.

Mon 5/1 – Visit with donors during lunch, so I couldn’t swim, which I’d hoped to do to make up for some of the past few days I missed. Instead, eat roast beef sandwich and talk about lofty environmental initiatives, most of which I don't understand. After work, still considering run and swim. Instead, do 180 on Pennsylvania Street, drive to Noe Valley and visit Minnie, who I hadn’t seen since right after her accident. She’s now able to leave the house (big progress) and has her sights set on Ironman Canada 2007.

Tues 5/2 – want to lift at lunch, but planning to (finally, 2 months late) do the Test Conconi after work, and you’re supposed to be really rested for it. So, sit around cube, wishing I was swimming.

The Conconi is a way to test your Lactic Threshold (LT), or the rate at which you start to produce more lactic acid than your body can absorb (this is what makes muscles get sore, and passing your LT during Ironman is very, very bad). You take your HR every 20 seconds while increasing your speed on a treadmill every minute, until “fatigue and burning make it impossible to continue at this rate.” (Doesn’t this sound like fun?) Heather and I set out to do this, both of us using our heartrate monitors (that we bought in October) for the first time. With the warmup, we each ran about 40 minutes, and then cooled down, so it was after 8 when we were done. We still had to do core and swim 3000 yards (you do the math). We opted for core, which still took another 45 minutes and got us home at 9.

Weds 5/3 – stuck in an all-day meeting, so no chance to workout at lunch (this is wreaking havoc with my week!) Track workout at Kezar after work – 1.5 miles warmup, 4x1600 L5 (was supposed to be faster but since we did Conconi last night we got to do L5), then 1.5 warmdown, for a total of 7 miles. That’s a lot of loops around the track.

Thurs 5/4 – core training at lunch. After work brick, with a 23 mile ride and 20 minute run. Turned into a 20 mile ride, because we left at 6:30, and the sun started to set around 7:45, and Heather and I didn’t have any lights. Rode from my house through Golden Gate Park, out Great Highway, then did some loops in the park, and back home. I ended up running 10 minutes instead of the prescribed 20, but that’s close enough.

Friday 5/5 – swim 2900 at lunch. Or, since I’m doing everything half-assed this week, swim 1800 at lunch, because you finally made all the phone calls you were supposed to make, talked with everyone, and got to the pool 45 minutes late. Which meant I had 45 minutes to swim before I got kicked out for varsity practice. So I swam what I could, got kicked out at 2, and went back to my desk. Close enough, yet again. Contemplated swimming the rest of the workout after work, but this is ridiculous enough – I don’t need to make it any more so!