Thursday, January 24, 2013

Thursday - Jan 24, 2013 - Run/Racquetball

Thursday - January 24, 2013

The last few days have been rough, as I've had a cold in full swing.  I skipped my Wed & Thu morning runs as I was in a NyQuil coma both mornings.  But today I was feeling better in the morning and decided to run at lunch.  Nice, short 5K.  I did want to push the pace, but otherwise it was a normal run.  It was 20 degrees out, but with the wind chill it felt like 9 degrees.  Two shirts, jacket, 2 pairs of pants, beanie, and gloves and I was off.  I could not find my GPS watch, so I used my Timex stopwatch.  The route is 3.16 miles most of the time with the GPS, so I just worried about time and went on run "feel" and not trying to hold a certain pace. 

I ran the first half mile in 4 minutes, or 8:00m/m.  I got to the halfway point in 14 minutes, so I was moving pretty good.  I felt the pain in my side go from zero to daggers in about 0.25 miles.  At 2.25 miles I had to walk for about two minutes.  I finished the run in 31:01.29, including my walk.  Not bad, as this is my 7th fastest time on the route WITH walking.  Without the extra 2 minutes I was near a PR, but 2nd overall on times for this route.  The cramps were my fault.  I was drinking diet soda all morning and eating cookies, just being a fat slob.  I didn't know I was going to run at lunch until around 11am, and all the water I drank wasn't enough to get in my system fast enough.  My afternoon snack is a bag of grapes.  I should have had them this morning!

I'll be playing racquetball tonight for an hour with a co-worker.  Should be fun, though I'm awful.  This will be my second time playing.  Tomorrow is a run-free day, and I'm sure I'll head to the pool for some laps.  I will probably get a lap counter with timer soon so I can forget about keeping track of laps and just focus on swim technique.  Since my 100 lap swim Tuesday, I can't wait to get back in the water.

UPDATE: I got destroyed at racquetball.  He beat me 5 games in a row (we played 5 games), two games he skunked me.  I think I scored 10 points total over the 5 games. 

At this point, I feel of the three triathlon disciplines that my bike is probably the weakest.  Once it warms up I will be sure to get out and bike a lot for a few months so I can try to hang with the big boys during races.  I'm usually one of the better riders at races, but as you may know by now, that isn't where I want to be.  I want to "destroy" people on the bike.  Probably because my run speed is so "average", the bike is the only discipline I can use my size and weight to my advantage.  It's too soon to tell if my swim is good/bad/avg.  I'll assume it's bad now and I'll work toward average.  But I want the bike to be solid as it's the biggest chunk of time in all of my races.  Plus, I'm a speed freak, and would love to average 22-24 MPH at these races (I was around 20 MPH at the last race in October 2012 - I even crashed once).

I found this video last night and watched it several times.  It is making fun of people like me, and they really nailed it.  Hilarious video.  I like his HTFU/Ramones t-shirt, if anyone needs gift ideas for me... :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KTEgLKhjIw

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