Recovering, Commuting, and Triathloning?

Recovery

Post marathon, I thought this entry might be entitled "Episode 2: Attack of the Boredom". Recovery the first two weeks consisted of eating, and then more eating...with a tad bit of running thrown in to feel somewhat good about myself. At the very least, I spent a lot of time running with the dog, which is always interesting. Here's what I did for the first two weeks after Green Bay:

Mon 5/16 and Tue 5/17 - Rest
Wed 5/18 - 3.5 miles @ 9:02 pace with Rudy (my dog)
Thu 5/19 - Rest
Fri 5/20 - 5 mi @ 8:44 on trails with Rudy
Sat 5/21 - Rest
Sun 5/22 - 6 mi @ 9:02 on trails with Rudy
Mon 5/23 - 5 mi @ 8:29
Tue 5/24 - Rest
Wed 5/25 - 7.43 mi @ 8:35
Thu 5/26 - 6 mi @ 8:36. I ran this without looking at the watch once. Splits were: 8:45/8:43/8:42/8:43/8:23/8:22. That was kind of interesting.
Fri 5/27 - Rest
Sat 5/28 - Soldier Field 10 mile race, which I ran as a training run. 10.1 miles at a 7:52 pace.

So lots of easy miles, nothing overly exciting. I felt very fresh at SF10, which made me start to feel like my legs were regaining some life. Weekly mileage was obviously pretty light, 14.57 and 28.59 in the two weeks.

May wrapped up as follows:

Sun 5/29 - Rest
Mon 5/30 - 8 mi @ 8:17 (around general aerobic pace I guess)
Tue 5/31 - 5 mi @ 9:06 (recovery)

Total for May: A very meager 137.51 miles. Oh well.

Commuting

On Wednesday, June 1st, I decided to try something completely new for me - I ran to work. I planned ahead - putting my work clothes in the closet in my classroom, along with a few basic toiletries - soap, shampoo, deodorant, toothbrush and toothpaste. When I woke up Wednesday morning, the only thing I needed to bring besides my running clothes were my school keys and a few bucks for snacks afterward.

The route I planned took me through about a 6 mile stretch of the North Branch bike trail. The weather in the morning was in the lower 60s and sunny, just perfect. I left at around 5:10 AM, and a few minutes later saw a deer in the woods. There were tons of people out biking, running...this was wonderful...

...until I had a sudden urge to use the restroom. On the runners world forums, I learned this week that this is known as a “bear attack”. All I knew was I had to take a shit, ASAP. Thank God there were porta potties all along the bike trail.

Business handled, I pressed on, got out of the woods, and ran through downtown Park Ridge. On the way to school, one of my colleagues saw me, and noted later that I was “cruising right along”, which made me feel good. I arrived at school, 11.11 miles in 1:30:50, an 8:10 pace. Great medium length run, not to mention saving some gas!

Triathlon?

All year long, colleagues in the math and science departments talked about organizing a triathlon, and soon, “Try the Tri” was born. The format was as follows: 10 minute swim first, followed by a 25 minute bike on a stationary bike, and finally a 20 minute run on the track. Whoever can cover the most distance in each event gets awarded with one point...whoever has the fewest points overall wins the triathlon. Simple enough to understand - but it does negate one major advantage I felt I had - the ability to make up ground during the run. There would be no ground to make up, as it wasn’t a fixed distance, and I was really not confident about the swim. The wildcard for me was the bike - I had no clue how the stationary bike was going to work, and I hadn’t trained specifically for this at all. Thus, I set the following goals:

A: Win the whole thing
B: Finish top-3
C: Win the run

I thought C was a lock...and quite possibly B was as well...really wasn’t sure I could win the whole thing, but I was going to try.

The final bell for the day rang at 3:15 and my heat was scheduled to start at 3:45. I went down to the pool area to check in, and they had a bag prepared with a T-shirt, gatorade, and granola bar for me. Nice touch, especially for an event that cost $15. I think the Rock and Roll goody bags have this in them and those cost 10 times as much. I hopped in the pool after changing and got a feel for my stroke, the water felt great.

The whistle went off, and I was off. I wanted to establish a nice rhythm, but at the same time go hard, as it was only going to be 10 minutes. The first thing I noticed is that the guy next to me was already quite a bit ahead of me. I didn’t worry too much at the time, I felt all along this was my weakest event. Just stay strong and do the best you can I kept telling myself. After a couple of laps I was feeling the arch in my foot cramp up a little bit, but then it went away. I was feeling pretty good with my effort level, but I wasn’t going fast by any stretch of the imagination.

After about 4 minutes, I was surprisingly fatigued. The biggest problem with my swim technique is that I am all arms. I don’t get my legs going consistently, and I was paying the price. Plus, I never swim, and my upper body is just weak, that’s all there is to it. However, I did get a boost when I noticed that I was lapping the guy in my swim lane, and he was one-third of a relay team, and pretty fit. That gave me a huge confidence boost and pushed me to go faster.

When the 10 minute whistle blew, I was about 5 meters short of completing 19 25-meter lengths, so I got credit for 18.5 lengths. I found out later I was 9th overall in the swim out of 24, not too bad considering I felt going in the swim was my weakest event. As long as I didn’t screw up the bike, I could be in this thing, as I was certain I’d win the run...

...and then I screwed up the bike. We had a 10-minute break to transition to the bike, which was an eternity, I was fully recovered from the swim and ready to go. Out of the 25 minutes, the first 3 were to figure out what gear you wanted to set the bike at, and the higher the gear, the harder it was. However, you’d be credited with a little more distance via a multiplier. Well, I had mine set on 11, and the people that did the best had theirs on 8 or 9, and the multiplier wasn’t nearly good enough to justify that difference, and I just couldn’t get the pedals to turn over as quickly as my colleagues could, and I ended up finishing 9th again, which was a real disappointment, as I should have done much better given my running background. This is where practice would have really helped, as well as being able to see what everyone else was doing...I had no clue I was doing that poorly until the end.

We then had five minutes to transition to the run, and I was angry. When the whistle took off, I shot out at about 6 minute pace and quickly realized after 200 meters on the track that I had already dropped the entire field. The first lap (400m) split was at 1:30 on the nose, and there was no way I was going to sustain that after swimming and biking, so I dropped down and ran 11 splits that were each in the 1:37-1:38 range. I lapped people 3-4 times, which was very satisfying. Truthfully though, it was a hollow moral victory, as I had already screwed up my race pretty badly, but it was a victory nonetheless as my colleagues were pretty impressed. At the 20-minute mark, I had completed almost exactly 5 km, and got credited for 12.5 laps, 1.5 more than anyone else would get for the day, and at least 3 more than anyone in my heat.

Overall, I finished 6th out of 24 people. Very disappointing. But at least I won the run. I’m not sure what I am taking away from this. Did I enjoy it? Absolutely, it was a blast, and a great way to see my colleagues and compete with them. However, I am very competitive, and I am really disappointed about my finish, I thought I should have done much better. That being said, I felt like I was a soccer player being thrown into a lacrosse match...I had no clue what the F was going on really, and I was just doing the best I could on the limited knowledge I have about swimming and riding a stationary bike. If I do this again, I definitely need to practice the swim, and most definitely get on those bikes more.

Going Forward

Going to run at least 13 this Saturday to get 40+ miles for the week in and (in my opinion anyway) complete the reverse taper and recovery. Got a 200-mile relay next week, and between those runs and other training runs I should be just under 50 miles for next week, and looking to build toward a Pfitz12/70 plan for a marathon in Toronto in October.

I’ll have a full report on the relay for next time. Until then!

-KPH