first peak.

monday again...

this last week was a little harder than the first two. again we missed a day, and made it up with a triple on friday. waking up friday morning we felt totally caught up physically. so we rode our bikes around the city for a while and then went running. the run was a bit harder than we thought. did both hills and a track workout then off to softball practice and more sprinting in the outfield. after 3+ hours of hard running we went to the pool for our last workout of the day. that night we went out on the town and didnt get re-hydrated. kinda the opposite. woke up really thirsty. saturday was going to be bike day but we switched it around and made it swim and run day instead. the run was pretty rough. only went 5 miles but it was pretty hilly and at the end i was completely out of water. so. bad move on friday night for sure. later we went for another swim and got our first massage.

not really sure what to think about the massage. was a lot of stingy moments in there. she found a knot in the middle of my back on the left side which stung for about 20 minutes as she smashed it into the front of my body. also both calves had ginormous knots in them. otherwise nothing at all. which sorta surprised me. i figured every part of me would be messed up in some way. when i swim its upper back, arms and neck that usually hurt. running is knee and calves, biking is more upper legs and oddly neck again. also my right shoulder has dislocated about 8 times in my life and has had surgury to repair it. the left shoulder was shattered in a bike wreck in africa and slumps down 2-3 inches lower than my right. my left hand hangs a few inches lower than my right because of this and sitting in the aerobars is not symetrical. i am guessing this is the cause of the knot in the left side of my back, it was just under all the mashed up bones of my previously sound scapula. the resa is on a board of some county something or other and gets coupons for stuff in the county. one of them is this massage person who gives us each an hour a week and at a great price. so we are probably going to stick with it. saturday is her last day of the week and so we decided to start our massages last week. now with mondays off we have decided to make that massage day. so our second week is today. kinda looking forward to it.

sunday we went on our bike ride. i think the book called for a 1:10 long ride. but riding an hour on the weekend just seemed a bit too short so we bumped it up to seven and a half hours. was a great ride. we took the mountain bikes on this trail by the house. they have made great strides in lengthening and improving it over the last year. its now almost connected between canton and cleveland. there are a few small exit areas - one in downtown akron and another halfway between akron and canton. this second one looks like its almost ready. the downtown one could use some better signage as we got lost in the city for about 20 minutes. but otherwise a great time. you ride through swamps, hills, valleys, cities, forests. just about every type of scenery you would want. flowers, squirrels and homeless people. one group of three meth heads were trying to figure out the deep meaning of some of the graffity as we rode by. tons of people were on the trail, but it was pretty wide. the ones the scare me are the people showing off their kids learning to ride a new bike. "jerry, get out of their way. jerry. come on jerry. jerry! oh, i am so sorry you guys had to ride through the bushes to get out of jerry's way." people with dogs were never a problem, my guess is that dog owners like their dogs more than parents like their children. but the worst people were the fat people. the 400 pounders. again i have a theory on this. and it goes like this. the trail is for exercise, if only slowly walking. but still its exercise. and these large people feel that if they are going to exercise, if they are going to be that put upon by the world as to actually have to walk on a trail for 1/4 of a mile. well the world owes them back. and to get off of the CENTER of the trail is just too much to ask. cant everyone see they are exercising? why should they have to not only walk a quarter of a mile, sometimes UPHILL but to then have to dodge people on the trail? or worse, walk on the side of it??? ah, well. another slightly less annoying set of people are the ones that walk side by side or ride side by side. one on each side of the trail. we say "on your left" as we come up on them. about half the time the resa, as we pass through the middle of the group says "or, as you like, on your middle" but thats a bit funner as their expressions are worth a chuckle usually.

but most of the ride is just the three of us riding along. resa's sister sheila came up for the weekend.

so. done with week 3. week 4 is a taper or recovery or something. didnt feel like i would need it until saturday morning. then i really needed it. but recovered all day saturday after realizing how bad i did it friday and so the sunday ride was hard on my butt and especially hard on my shoulders as i dont have areobars on the mountain bike. but was otherwise a really fun ride.


weekly scores:

on the workouts i give me a 9. no blowups. saturday's five miles sucked more than it should have, but that was two hill days and a 2 hour sprint day in 2 days. so... duh. biking was great, swimming was also very good - did my first longer sprints. learning new stuff each trip to the pool and finally going often enough to be able to experiment. plan on getting some video wednesday. resa wants to add weights on the weekend so probably next week we will hit the weights after the pool.

mentally i give me a 9 also. feeling better about all three events. legs are getting stronger and the pounds are still dropping off. 195 now. goal weight is about 188ish. so its very much in sight now. would be a 10 mentally but i have a bit of a worry, not an important one. but my worry and shared by the resa is that the weekend events are going to crush our weekly workouts. like the next event is a trail marathon at the end of the month. but seriously there is no way - knowing this trail that we can finish in under 8 hours. good runners finish this focker in 5. we ran there 4 times last year and ran 13-17 each time. 3 times we couldnt finish. 2 from me and once from the resa. now we add 10 more miles on it. to get this done we would have to taper for 2 weeks and do nothing but sit. but we will probably have a full schedule right up to the day of the event. also the other 4ish events we have planned are going to be a bit too much maybe. but - like i said this is a not very important worry. probably we will show up, get just obliterated and have fun anyway running a 18 hour trail marathon :-)

and lastly physically i am about 7 to 8. feeling pretty spent. but very happy. glad today is off and this week is an easy one. wimp that i am.


:-)