Author Archives: jt

Lots of Rest

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I didn’t swim, bike, or run yesterday. Charmaine was going to meet me for a swim at lunch, but got caught in long lines while shopping and didn’t make it back in time. We thought about going for a short bike ride after I was done with work, but instead we did a little more shopping and then went for a walk on the beach at La Jolla Shores. It was really windy and the tide was high, so it wasn’t great and we didn’t walk too long.

Today we went for a bike ride, but it was filled with rest stops and taking it easy. There was a strong wind from SSW that built throughout the day and made things a little interesting as we rode home along the beaches.

We headed north up El Camino Real. I decided to push hard through the descent on El Camino from Linea del Cielo to La Orilla. I managed to land 7th overall for the segment (out of 337). I almost didn’t make the tight right turn at the end and had to slam on my brakes. I think if I had been paying more attention there I may have shaved off a few more seconds and been in the top 5. I guess that will have to be a goal for the future.

I was really strong today as we headed up Rancho Santa Fe. I felt like I could have gone a whole lot faster, but I didn’t want to leave Charmaine behind. We seemed to hit every single light just as it was turning red, so there was a lot of rest on that climb… and it really didn’t even feel like climbing.

Then we headed north across Vista and the wind was starting to blow into our face. It only got worse as we got to Oceanside. We stopped at a Walgreens for about 20 minutes to do a fluid exchange break. I picked up a Red Bull and a XXX Vitamin Water, as per usual. Then we got on the bike path to the ocean. The headwind was amazing. It was blowing straight at us. Charmaine had to tuck in behind me and it felt like I was climbing Sun Crest. I’m estimating the wind at about 15 to 20 mph and very steady.

When we got out of the canyon and headed south along the beach we were still facing a monster head wind. It wasn’t quite as bad as it had been along the river trail, because it wasn’t directly in our faces, but it was still pretty harsh.

I was feeling great from my Sausage McMuffin with Egg this morning and I was a bit hopped up on Red Bull from our stop at Walgreens. I wanted to pass everyone and push hard going south, but Charmaine was having a rough time. She didn’t fuel up with McDonald’s this morning and it was coming back to haunt her… You really do need to start off the ride with a good mix of carbs, protein, and fat. The carbs burn fastest, then the protein kicks in, and finally the fat. I was feeling great, but Charmaine needed some real food and we didn’t have any. So we wound up stopping a couple more times so she could rest. I also think the massive winds were causing her to play mental games… making her think it was a tougher ride than it was. I didn’t care too much, I was just happy to be outside in the sun with her.

When we climbed up through Del Mar the wind seemed like it had died down, but it hadn’t. We were just shielded from it along the 101. This became obvious when we made the turn and headed east along Carmel Valley Road. The wind was really strong and steady, still coming from SSW. It practically pushed us the whole way up El Camino Real on the way home. I know we were climbing, but I didn’t even need to pedal to go up the hill.

I feel like I have to comment on one more thing. I didn’t crash today. It’s about time I finish a ride without crashing. Let’s hope this trend continues.

Punishment

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I didn’t want to run today. The muscles along my shins were still sore from Tuesday’s run. I had completely convinced myself that I need to take it easy on my running and let my shins recover. I wasn’t going to run. I thought about riding my bike, but I had already declined the opportunity to ride with Charmaine this morning, so it would be pretty lame to go out and ride after that… and the pool is closed on Thursdays, so I wasn’t sure what I would end up doing.

I knew I was going to do something, because it’s the warmest day we’ve had yet this year. We may hit 85 degrees today. I absolutely had to go outside… and that pretty much meant I had to run. So I suited up and headed out.

Right off the first step my shins and ankles were hurting, so I headed straight for the dirt path along the 56. Despite the pain, I wasn’t upset about my jog down the hill to the 56 trail, but once I got there I fell apart. I was walking. My legs were buckling underneath me. It wasn’t pretty.

Eventually I regained my legs and decided to punish myself for the extremely poor performance on the 56 trail. I think that’s about as poorly as I’ve done on that trail since I started running it. It was really bad. So I decided to head on up to Old Carmel Valley, which has this massive hill at 25% grade or more. It’s insane. I let myself walk part of that and I didn’t feel bad about it in the least. Old Carmel Valley eventually connects to Del Mar Heights Road, which has been my main route the last month or so. I felt right at home along there and finished steady.

RunKeeper: https://runkeeper.com/user/jtalbot/activity/175085405

Strava:

Once again my POS Zephyr Heart Rate Monitor recorded nothing. I really hate that thing. On the other hand, my Pebble watch continued to perform very well. I’m really starting to like having it for these runs.

Swimming Cold

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If you told me last year that there would come a time in my life when I would call 66 degrees “cold” I would have laughed at you. But that’s exactly what I did today. We’ve had a bit of a cold streak the past two days and it’s dropped down to 66 degrees outside. They say it will be something like 85 tomorrow and through the weekend (which sounds down right hot), so it will be a huge change. I’ve been wondering if I would like to live somewhere warmer, but I’m not sure I can handle the heat. If it really does get to 85 tomorrow, it will be a good test.

So it was 66 degrees and not extremely sunny, but I decided it was the right thing to do, so I went swimming anyway. To my surprise, the pool was fairly crowded. That made it sort of fun.

500 warm-up
5 x 100 free under 1:15 on 1:55
5 x 100 kick
500 pull with paddles
100 free easy
2 x 200 IM
100 warm-down
—–
2600 yards

The Struggle

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All morning I told myself I needed a rest day. I didn’t need to run today. I needed some time to let my legs recover from the big ride last weekend. My terrible performance in the pool yesterday was proof that I wasn’t fully recovered yet. My normal run time came and went. It was going to be a rest day! But then something snapped inside my head and I knew I was going to run.

The run started off poorly. I felt wasted. I was hitting every light red, even lights that just go into driveways that I’ve never hit red before. I was sweating profusely even though it was nice and cool outside with decent cloud cover. I hadn’t been running even five minutes and I was already walking. I would find out later that my heart rate wasn’t very high either. I was just struggling mentally. It was pathetic. I told myself it was fine, because even walking was good for me. I would allow myself to walk the 10k, but I wasn’t going to cut any distance.

I tried to run a few times, but fell back into walking a lot of the first 5k. After the turn-around I was actually feeling pretty good, and I wound up jogging most of the way back. I did walk a few short periods up the big hill. I continued to hit every light red, which frustrated me enough that I ran a few of them where there were no cars.

I’m not happy with my performance overall, but I’m not too upset about the second half. I’m happy that I forced myself to go out and do the whole thing. That’s the best part about today’s “run”.

RunKeeper: https://runkeeper.com/user/jtalbot/activity/174118163

Strava:

Beat Up

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I’m actually not feeling all that sore from the big ride on Saturday, but for some reason I had no energy in the pool today. My triceps are pretty sore, but it’s not from the bike ride. I’ve started doing sets of 15 push-ups from time to time during the day, trying to get in at least 100 each day. I think that probably has more to do with my poor performance today than anything else.

The sunshine was the only thing keeping me in the pool after the first thousand yards.

300 free
2 x 100 kick
2 x 100 pull with paddles
2 x 200 IM with fins
3 x 100 free
3 x 100 kick
300 pull
—–
2000 yards

Dana Point (108 miles)

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This whole week I have been looking forward to doing a big ride today. We didn’t really have anything planned other than “doing a big ride” until last night. We decided we were going to ride up along the coast through Camp Pendleton and up to Dana Point. We figured it would give us about 100 miles, which would be our longest self-supported ride ever. It sounded awesome, so we called Ryan to see if he wanted to ride with us.

I haven’t been sleeping very well this whole week, so I was fairly anxious about how ready for this ride I would really be in the morning. I slept really well last night and woke up ready to rumble. Charmaine picked up our usual breakfast before a big ride… McDonald’s. I swear there’s nothing better than a Sausage McMuffin with Egg before a big ride. It has the perfect mix of carbs (32g), protein (21g), and fat (27g). I also loaded up one of my water bottles with a mixture of Red Bull and XXX Vitamin Water.

Ryan got here at six and we headed out by about 6:30. I was a little worried that it would be cold in the morning, but it wasn’t bad at all. In fact, the weather for the entire ride was perfect. I would guess it was about 60 degrees when we started and probably didn’t get above about 65 the whole way, except when we stopped to have “lunch” (banana pancakes, bacon, and more eggs) at RJ’s Cafe in Dana Point. It was really warm and sunny at lunch, but almost as soon as we got back on our bikes, the sun went back behind the clouds and we had an amazing ride home.

I did manage to crash my bike again. I’m getting pretty good at it. This was definitely my best crash yet. They have been doing a lot of construction along the west side of the 101 through Solana Beach, so we took the back roads on our way home. As we were heading down the hill from the back roads to get back on the 101 and head home through Del Mar, I decided to cut up onto the sidewalk where another biker was already waiting for the light. It looked like the sidewalk was all graded down to street level, but I quickly realized I was mistaken. The curb was graded down to street level on both the left and right of where I rode my bike, but between those two sections it was a full curb. I’m still shocked that I didn’t see it at all. I slammed my front wheel directly into the curb, stopping my bike immediately and sending me flying through the air over my bike and onto the sidewalk. Ryan said I looked quite acrobatic in the air. I wish someone had recorded it so I could see it. I rode away with only a few scrapes on two of my fingers and a bruise on the front of my leg. That’s amazing considering the violence level of the crash. I think it may have killed my crappy ($20) bike computer too. I’ll have to see if I can fix it.

Quick Dip

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I have a meeting at 1:30 today, so I had to be quick at the pool. That’s a shame because it’s so amazing outside today. The sun is shining and it’s 69 degrees. I could have stayed another hour, then blown off work and headed to the beach. But that was not to be. I have a meeting, so I had to be quick.

500 free
5 x 100 free under 1:15 on 1:55
5 x 100 kick no fins
500 pull with paddles
200 kick on my back with fins
4 x 50 IM order with fins
100 warm down
—–
2500 yards

Fail

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I have several guesses about why I failed so hard today. The obvious first choice is that I haven’t been able to sleep very well for several days. I have been anxious about the post office misplacing 2 of the 4 checks I mailed at tax time. One was tracked until it left the sorting facility, and the other was never tracked at all. I think the anxiety over those missing checks didn’t help my sleep situation any. Luckily, one of the checks cleared my checking account this morning, so I’m hopeful the post office just forgot to track my checks and didn’t actually lose them.

It’s another one of those amazingly beautiful San Diego days today, so I was looking forward to getting outside all morning. Right before lunch time I got a little anxious about the run, but I was feeling good. I stepped out the door to start my run and immediately rolled my ankle. I hadn’t even started yet and I knew I was in for some trouble.

I thought I might be fine, so I headed out on my normal 10k route. I hadn’t gotten too far when it was obvious to me that it wasn’t going to be business as usual, so I headed down to the trail along the 56 freeway where the running trail is in the nice sand that’s easier on my joints. I spent a lot of time switching between jogging and walking, but I eventually made my way back home. I’m not impressed at all with my performance, but hopefully I’ll be back ready for some serious biking by this weekend.

My heart rate monitor was fully charged when I started, but it stopped tracking just a few minutes in to the run. If this was the first or even the second time that had happened I might forgive it, but I’m really upset about it. It’s not critical that I record my heart rate, but I paid good money for this piece of equipment and I expect it to work. It doesn’t work at all when I ride my bike and it only seems to work about half the time when I run. My advice to you: Do not buy a Zephyr heart rate monitor. They suck.

RunKeeper: https://runkeeper.com/user/jtalbot/activity/172031547

Strava:

Cold and Dark

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I didn’t sleep well again last night. I’m still a little beat up from running yesterday. I had just about convinced myself to work through lunch and put off doing anything outside till tomorrow. But then I cracked. I put on my swimsuit and walked over to the rec center.

I was the only one there.

250 warm-up
5 x 100 free under 1:15 on 1:55
5 x 100 kick no fins
500 pull with paddles
4 x 100 drill IM order with fins
2 x 100 kick on my back with fins
250 warm-down
—–
2600 yards

Running with Pebble

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I supported the Pebble smart watch project through Kickstarter a long long time ago (more than a year). My watch finally arrived yesterday afternoon, right when I was contemplating switching from Strava to RunKeeper. That is significant because the beta version of the RunKeeper app for Android has native support for Pebble baked in and Strava does not.

So today I ran with my Pebble watch. I don’t know if it helped or hurt. It was sort of nice to know my pace at anytime, but I wonder how much of a distraction it was at the same time. The technology is very cool, but I’m not convinced that RunKeeper is the answer for me. For one thing, it doesn’t support the heart rate monitor that I already have. Of course, I’m not very happy with my heart rate monitor, but I’m determined to get my $70 of use out of it. Of course, I’m even more determined to get my (whatever I paid, I don’t remember anymore) of use out of my Pebble… so maybe I’ll be using both Strava and RunKeeper for a while. It may prove to be more work than it’s worth to use both. We’ll have to see how it goes.

I gave myself all sorts of excuses this morning. I woke up early this morning despite going to bed late last night. I rarely perform well without a good night’s sleep. I couldn’t find any of my running socks (dual-layered), so I was stuck using some old biking socks. I didn’t have any caffeine to prep with (they say a little caffeine before a workout helps you perform better and last longer). It was sunny and hot outside, despite the forecast of being nice and cool. I was wearing a dark shirt, which had no trouble converting all that sun into heat. Etc.

Despite everything, I had a decent run. I hit a few lights red on the way out, which probably stopped me from setting a PR on my 5k, but I managed to bring it home for a PR on my 10k. I cut almost a full minute from my previous PR. That means I’ve cut 5 minutes off my 10k time in the last week. I’ll take that!

RunKeeper: https://runkeeper.com/user/jtalbot/activity/171177078

Strava: