The second week of 24 weeks of training is history and I feel like it’s going well. I’m a little bushed after last week but I’m getting back in the groove.
Slight mistake at the pool this week. Since I right-side breathe, my right ear always fills with water and I have difficulty getting the water out. Always in the past I would bend over, tilt my head so my right ear was down, and shake my head back and forth to loosen the water. Has worked well except this week I’ve gotten that pesky post bike-dive dizziness back. If it was canaliths out of position before, I’m apparently getting them back out of position now (look it up on the internet or ask Diane if you don’t know what I’m talking about).
I have been staggering a bit when I walk and Jean thought I may have gotten back into the Johnny Walker Black (ask her about the day I returned from Florida) so she and Becky decided Thursday to drink all the wine in the house so alcohol wouldn’t be a temptation. I was tired so I went to bed at 10. Jean said she and Becky and Rocky were singing along with the oldies on the computer. I thought the neighbors left the cat out and it was howling to get back in.
If you remember in last week’s note I told about the bike ride from Hell. This week I rode the same route (56.33 miles), turned around at the same spot, had some peanuts mixed with raisins and a Chocolate Mint Clif Bar and came back. This week’s ride was 3:24 while last week’s was 3:50 which brings me to the question. Do you think the time improvement was a) A miraculous increase in fitness level from one week to the next, b) Because this week’s ride was in HR2-3 and I pushed a little harder, or c) There wasn’t a 15-25 mph wind in my face? Hint-choose c.
Slight mistake there too. I turned around after the hill past Hopkins which is always a good training hill to ride. The spot where I turned around was right before a dairy farm with fields on both sides of the road. As I stood there I smelled something and looked at the bottoms of my shoes to see if I stepped in anything. Now I didn’t grow up on a farm but when I lived near Three Rivers (ages 5 to 11) our house was next to a field that often held cows (more likely steers but, at that age, they were all cows to me) and I know in the spring and winter they spread the manure from the barns in the fields for fertilizer. I looked at both fields and they had both been recently sprayed with manure slurry. I will send a note and recommend that Clif Bar should not decide to come out with a new flavor called Chocolate Mint Manure in their energy bars. Sometimes even the good bars are hard to gag down and this made it even tougher.
It was cold so I didn’t leave on my ride until around 11. Jean was supposed to do a short recovery week ride and she and Becky went out around 10. On the way over I ran into them just before Hopkins. After I turned around and came back I stopped near the Shell station on M-179 (12 miles out) to finish the Clif Bar in a daintier setting and along came Jean and Becky. We rode in together. So Jean’s short recovery ride turned into a 4 1/2 hour marathon ride and still people don’t understand why we don’t train together.
Today’s run was good but I ran into fatigue at mile 7 out of 10. Diane was my sitter this week (the sign-up sheet is on the Trilanders web site) and I told her I would stop soon and walk in. For some macho reason I kept running until I got to the hospital ER and walked the three blocks from there to here. I was frozen when I got done and physically exhausted. All in all it was a good training week and now comes the first recovery week. I’m ready!!!
Two down and twenty-two to go.
Ta Ta,
Just Jack