Training Update 4/3

Not too much going on, actually. Starting to get a little excited and nervous about running in Boston on the 21st. Managed to read the race booklet and packet they sent out last week, I found out there are two start times, 10AM for those with numbers from 1-13,000 and 10:30 for those with numbers above. I’m in the 10AM crowd, and I’m happy about that because when it comes to marathons, the earlier I'm starting and I'm finishing, the better. So I’m hoping to finish sometime between 1:30 and 2, and that’s that. I’ll write more about all this later once I start getting antsy during the taper and have extra energy to obsess over race minutiae.

As for other stuff, it’a about the same. The 10K race last Sunday left me somewhat tired and a little sore, no huge surprise there. So I managed a tempo run Wednesday, and it kicked my ass; 20 minutes easy, 20 minutes tempo pace, 20 minutes easy, 20 minutes tempo pace, 2 miles easy. Easy is easy, right, but the tempo pace just about did me in. It was like running a fast 5K, twice, in the middle of a 13-mile run. After running three miles in 20 minutes, and later doing it again, I was cursing life. I forget to leave out the best part, it was all on The Treadmill of E-vil. Oddly enough, but when I do these workouts on a treadmill there’s something about it that keeps me on the program despite all the crushing boredom. When it comes to pace, treadmills don’t lie, and I can’t be distracted by nature and crap like I am when I’m outside. Anyway, this workout was courtesy of running coach Jack Daniels, appropriately enough.

I have yet to bike outside due to the small but important detail that I have to use a borrowed bike and can’t get to it yet. And have to buy a real one if I intend to be able to show my face at a triathlon. But I’ve been doing the hyper-sweaty, quad-burning spinning thing indoors for 30-60 minutes a few times a week, and that at least gives me the illusion of training. The tri-team I joined has serious workouts in the park; once I’ve pushed up Visa’s second quarter profits through bike-related purchases, I’ll entertain the thought of showing up and getting my butt kicked by some kids with Australian accents named Jason or Caitlyn, all discussing the best hotels in Kona.

As for swimming, my daily pilgrimage to the swanky pool facility has been uneventful. And uneventful to the point that it hasn’t been something I particularly look forward to. With the help of one good swimming lesson once a week, I’ve gotten better, but in a one lap forward, two laps back kind of way. I’m far more comfortable in the pool, I regulate my breathing, but 25 yards is about all I can accomplish before I start swallowing air and water and the oil light comes on. I know what to do, I know how to do it, I even think my stroke and kick is passable. It’s just getting the oxygen to the muscles barely comes together. I had a lung capacity test and chest X-ray last summer, and everything checked out OK, but I feel like my lungs just don’t have enough room for the air I need after about twelve swim strokes. Could be just leftover insecurity over the collapsed lung I suffered a while back, but I’ve gotten comfortable enough in the water that I don’t think that’s an issue anymore.

I will say that each day I approach the pool like it’s a new day, and I have an disturbingly cheery ‘let’s try this again’ attitude, and that at least helps me get there, ready and willing. I arrive when the pool is jammed by extremely elderly swimmers making their way at a snail’s pace, through lap after lap, without even stopping. Which must be nice. Yesterday I felt good after a half hour of laps punctuated by mid-pool emergency rest stops, but today was just more of the ‘keeping-my-face-down-in-the-water-and-counting-seconds-while-running-out-of-air’ when it should be ‘this-is-so-much-fun-I’m-going-to-explode’. It’s been over ten weeks of training now, and I’d like to stop being frustrated, which is just about every day. I stopped pressuring myself to make a breakthrough, that wasn’t helping morale. However, I do wish something would help morale, though my swimming trainer lets me know when I’ve done well or when I’m being too hard on myself (also, I must admit, just about every day). Next Monday is my last training session because the current set of three is over, and quite frankly, I can’t afford any more of the sessions. I’ll continue to hit the pool and keep at it, but I know that my expectations have to be lowered to a level that matches my ability. I realize that most of you reading this have been swimming all your lives and are probably scratching your collective heads as to why I or anyone would have any problems in the water, and that I all I need is to hang in there with a ‘can-do’ attitude. Which is an attitude I have already. And you’d be right, I’d give the same advice, too.

SO, how’s my running? Fine. I’m looking forward to Boston, it’s going to be a running experience, not a race for a PR. Biking? Not much going on, but I sweat my ass off in the gym, so I at least feel like I’m doing something before incurring more frightening credit card debt. Swimming? I plug away, five times a week, producing frustration along with depressingly familiar results. Almost forgot, weight training has hit a plateau bigtime, but there’s so much effort spent on the other three sports that it’s no wonder I can’t lift as much weight as I used to.

Angry advised a while back that I should take a week off, and that’s not a bad idea. Maybe some week after Boston. I have a half marathon two weeks after that, and as they say in the old country, a week off is not ‘bloody likely’, but I’ll think about it.