End of a LONG Weekend
by Charles Seegel @ The long road to IronmanAfter yesterdays long swim and run I was feeling surprisingly fresh yesterday for our long swim and bike. That's good! We showed up in Pleasanton to workout with the Northbay team and were pleasantly surprised to find the pool setup as a 50 yrd pool!!! I have never done laps in a 50 yrd pool but figured that it had to be good because it would be easier to count and it would be more like open water swimming (you rarely get to push off the wall in an open water swim).
We jumped right in and got right to the swim (well, I got right in and started but I was also 10 minutes late and everyone had already started). I could definitely feel a little fatigue in my arms from the previous day but was pretty happy with how I felt. The big difference was that I could definitely feel my core muscles sagging a bit more then normal (fatigue from the swim/run the day before) but even that was a good sign! Not that my form had degraded but that I could now feel that my form was degrading. It really is amazing how far my swimming has come in the past few months. I still suck but things are rapidly coming together in the water. I didn't keep a real good count of how much we did in our workout but I believe it was about 2200yrds. That puts me in Ironman swim distance for the weekend. Not bad for the first week in Febuary :-)
Next was the big 40mile ride. It started out just fine but I had to push a bit to keep up with other groups as we worked our way through town. Most of us were unfamiliar with the area so we tried to stay together to keep from getting lost (even though most groups did get lost for brief periods through out the early part of the ride). Things were going well and I was making pretty good time chasing the faster groups (maybe 1-2 mph faster then my normal pace) up until about mile 13 when we hot a small climb and I just didn't have anything left to chase with. The long weekend of running and swimming had finally caught up with me. It was a little bit of an emotional let down to have to drop a lot of speed and ride alone for a while. I usually ride alone but after spending the first hour of the ride with people it was kind of hard to keep a positive attitude tired and alone with a lot of miles left.
This is when things got really bad! At about 14 miles in, we got out of the city and out into the open countryside... And straight into a strong and steady headwind!! I was already tired and emotionally down and now to be into a headwind!!! This dragged on for several miles and the constant wind just kept my body from recovering at all and it just dragged on. What I had not realized was that most of this ride had been just slightly uphill. This helps to explain why the ride was so hard on me. I didn't realize this until about mile 26 when all of a sudden we hit several consecutive miles of steady down hills!!!! My speed was up, my legs were resting, and I was smiling again! Life was good again. When I finally hit flats ground again back in town, I was able to maintain a pretty good pace because my legs had rested quite a bit on the down hill and I was able to push a pretty good pace right up until the last 4-5 miles. At that point my energy dropped out again and those miles just seemed to never end. I wasn't nearly as upset at this point because it had been a long day and an even longer weekend and being tired like this was part of training for Canada.
Anyway. I eventually did make it back and managed to log a few hours of sleep before going to work Sunday night. I am surprisingly not that sore today but I do expect my lower back and glutes to be feeling it tomorrow.
We jumped right in and got right to the swim (well, I got right in and started but I was also 10 minutes late and everyone had already started). I could definitely feel a little fatigue in my arms from the previous day but was pretty happy with how I felt. The big difference was that I could definitely feel my core muscles sagging a bit more then normal (fatigue from the swim/run the day before) but even that was a good sign! Not that my form had degraded but that I could now feel that my form was degrading. It really is amazing how far my swimming has come in the past few months. I still suck but things are rapidly coming together in the water. I didn't keep a real good count of how much we did in our workout but I believe it was about 2200yrds. That puts me in Ironman swim distance for the weekend. Not bad for the first week in Febuary :-)
Next was the big 40mile ride. It started out just fine but I had to push a bit to keep up with other groups as we worked our way through town. Most of us were unfamiliar with the area so we tried to stay together to keep from getting lost (even though most groups did get lost for brief periods through out the early part of the ride). Things were going well and I was making pretty good time chasing the faster groups (maybe 1-2 mph faster then my normal pace) up until about mile 13 when we hot a small climb and I just didn't have anything left to chase with. The long weekend of running and swimming had finally caught up with me. It was a little bit of an emotional let down to have to drop a lot of speed and ride alone for a while. I usually ride alone but after spending the first hour of the ride with people it was kind of hard to keep a positive attitude tired and alone with a lot of miles left.
This is when things got really bad! At about 14 miles in, we got out of the city and out into the open countryside... And straight into a strong and steady headwind!! I was already tired and emotionally down and now to be into a headwind!!! This dragged on for several miles and the constant wind just kept my body from recovering at all and it just dragged on. What I had not realized was that most of this ride had been just slightly uphill. This helps to explain why the ride was so hard on me. I didn't realize this until about mile 26 when all of a sudden we hit several consecutive miles of steady down hills!!!! My speed was up, my legs were resting, and I was smiling again! Life was good again. When I finally hit flats ground again back in town, I was able to maintain a pretty good pace because my legs had rested quite a bit on the down hill and I was able to push a pretty good pace right up until the last 4-5 miles. At that point my energy dropped out again and those miles just seemed to never end. I wasn't nearly as upset at this point because it had been a long day and an even longer weekend and being tired like this was part of training for Canada.
Anyway. I eventually did make it back and managed to log a few hours of sleep before going to work Sunday night. I am surprisingly not that sore today but I do expect my lower back and glutes to be feeling it tomorrow.
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End of a LONG Weekend
by Charles @ The long road to Ironman
After yesterdays long swim and run I was feeling surprisingly fresh yesterday for our long swim and bike. That's good! We showed up in Pleasanton to workout with the Northbay team and were pleasantly surprised to find the pool setup as a 50 yrd pool!!! I have never done laps in a 50 yrd pool but figured that it had to be good because it would be easier to count and it would be more like open water swimming (you rarely get to push off the wall in an open water swim).
We jumped right in and got right to the swim (well, I got right in and started but I was also 10 minutes late and everyone had already started). I could definitely feel a little fatigue in my arms from the previous day but was pretty happy with how I felt. The big difference was that I could definitely feel my core muscles sagging a bit more then normal (fatigue from the swim/run the day before) but even that was a good sign! Not that my form had degraded but that I could now feel that my form was degrading. It really is amazing how far my swimming has come in the past few months. I still suck but things are rapidly coming together in the water. I didn't keep a real good count of how much we did in our workout but I believe it was about 2200yrds. That puts me in Ironman swim distance for the weekend. Not bad for the first week in Febuary :-)
Next was the big 40mile ride. It started out just fine but I had to push a bit to keep up with other groups as we worked our way through town. Most of us were unfamiliar with the area so we tried to stay together to keep from getting lost (even though most groups did get lost for brief periods through out the early part of the ride). Things were going well and I was making pretty good time chasing the faster groups (maybe 1-2 mph faster then my normal pace) up until about mile 13 when we hot a small climb and I just didn't have anything left to chase with. The long weekend of running and swimming had finally caught up with me. It was a little bit of an emotional let down to have to drop a lot of speed and ride alone for a while. I usually ride alone but after spending the first hour of the ride with people it was kind of hard to keep a positive attitude tired and alone with a lot of miles left.
This is when things got really bad! At about 14 miles in, we got out of the city and out into the open countryside... And straight into a strong and steady headwind!! I was already tired and emotionally down and now to be into a headwind!!! This dragged on for several miles and the constant wind just kept my body from recovering at all and it just dragged on. What I had not realized was that most of this ride had been just slightly uphill. This helps to explain why the ride was so hard on me. I didn't realize this until about mile 26 when all of a sudden we hit several consecutive miles of steady down hills!!!! My speed was up, my legs were resting, and I was smiling again! Life was good again. When I finally hit flats ground again back in town, I was able to maintain a pretty good pace because my legs had rested quite a bit on the down hill and I was able to push a pretty good pace right up until the last 4-5 miles. At that point my energy dropped out again and those miles just seemed to never end. I wasn't nearly as upset at this point because it had been a long day and an even longer weekend and being tired like this was part of training for Canada.
Anyway. I eventually did make it back and managed to log a few hours of sleep before going to work Sunday night. I am surprisingly not that sore today but I do expect my lower back and glutes to be feeling it tomorrow.
We jumped right in and got right to the swim (well, I got right in and started but I was also 10 minutes late and everyone had already started). I could definitely feel a little fatigue in my arms from the previous day but was pretty happy with how I felt. The big difference was that I could definitely feel my core muscles sagging a bit more then normal (fatigue from the swim/run the day before) but even that was a good sign! Not that my form had degraded but that I could now feel that my form was degrading. It really is amazing how far my swimming has come in the past few months. I still suck but things are rapidly coming together in the water. I didn't keep a real good count of how much we did in our workout but I believe it was about 2200yrds. That puts me in Ironman swim distance for the weekend. Not bad for the first week in Febuary :-)
Next was the big 40mile ride. It started out just fine but I had to push a bit to keep up with other groups as we worked our way through town. Most of us were unfamiliar with the area so we tried to stay together to keep from getting lost (even though most groups did get lost for brief periods through out the early part of the ride). Things were going well and I was making pretty good time chasing the faster groups (maybe 1-2 mph faster then my normal pace) up until about mile 13 when we hot a small climb and I just didn't have anything left to chase with. The long weekend of running and swimming had finally caught up with me. It was a little bit of an emotional let down to have to drop a lot of speed and ride alone for a while. I usually ride alone but after spending the first hour of the ride with people it was kind of hard to keep a positive attitude tired and alone with a lot of miles left.
This is when things got really bad! At about 14 miles in, we got out of the city and out into the open countryside... And straight into a strong and steady headwind!! I was already tired and emotionally down and now to be into a headwind!!! This dragged on for several miles and the constant wind just kept my body from recovering at all and it just dragged on. What I had not realized was that most of this ride had been just slightly uphill. This helps to explain why the ride was so hard on me. I didn't realize this until about mile 26 when all of a sudden we hit several consecutive miles of steady down hills!!!! My speed was up, my legs were resting, and I was smiling again! Life was good again. When I finally hit flats ground again back in town, I was able to maintain a pretty good pace because my legs had rested quite a bit on the down hill and I was able to push a pretty good pace right up until the last 4-5 miles. At that point my energy dropped out again and those miles just seemed to never end. I wasn't nearly as upset at this point because it had been a long day and an even longer weekend and being tired like this was part of training for Canada.
Anyway. I eventually did make it back and managed to log a few hours of sleep before going to work Sunday night. I am surprisingly not that sore today but I do expect my lower back and glutes to be feeling it tomorrow.