1) So outside of the car fiasco, this week was all about pain - in the glutes, groin, and hamstrings (the tendons, not the muscles). During physical therapy for my knees last year it was discovered that I am one super-tight individual. My IT bands and hamstrings are so tight that I stuck out like a sore thumb even amongst those who were recovering from recent major surgeries. Masseuses marvel at the fact I'm capable of movement. The nasty thing about being this way is in the case of injury there's no way to speed the healing process which is typically 2-6 weeks. Anti-inflammatories can help manage it in the early healing stages but full strength and function simply takes time. For this week, that meant I was able to stay somewhat active but anything requiring a burst of power was just not in my repertoire.
2) The kids being away provided a rare opportunity for my wife and I to do some workouts together. On Wednesday, I joined her at the running track where she's helping a Rockwall Running Center Couch to 5k class. Essentially I warmed up with them but took off at my own pace for 30 minutes when it was time to run. So I guess we didn't really run together but we did run at the same place at the same time ..... that's something. In the process I set a new best over 5k at 28:02, a full 2:16 better than the prior week.
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| the Rockwall hill route |
On Sunday, I had a hill route on my schedule. This is a 20+ mi route that hits some of the best climbs in Rockwall. We might not be the hilliest place around but when you get by the lake you can string together some quarter-mile 10% grades to get a solid workout. Well, as it turns out Angelia had a 2-hr ride on her schedule with the note "make it challenging". After some talking she was convinced to come along with me and ride the main vein of the route (which still has several really solid climbs) while skipping the back and forth repeats in a couple neighborhoods. It turned out to be a really good ride. The wind was at our backs for the 8.5mi warm-up stretch before hill time arrived. She did a great job on the climbs --- I think better than she expected, but much as I felt that first time, the predominant thought was "no more, please". It couldn't have hit her too hard though because once we were back on our normal flat roads she got in the drops and pushed the pace. I knew there was a cyclist hiding in there!
3) Happy Birthday to the youngest member of this team, uh, I mean family. Connor is 4 years old now and sprouting like a weed. In fact, he's growing so fast we had to change out some of his gear. This little surprise is in the garage awaiting his return. I wonder how long before he'll notice it ..... we're not saying a thing.
A strange thing about runners versus cyclists --- when a cyclist has ridden over a 100k on a ride, ANY ride, he can say he's done a metric century, when a runner has run 5k it doesn't count unless it was in a race. Seriously, you can find this discussion on a number of endurance sports forums. So, since I seem to be running over 5k every time I step out for a training session I thought it was time to make it official. Angelia was already planning to run the Trinity River Levee Run put on by Dallas Running Club as her first official 10k and now I'm signed up to do the 5k route at the same event. To round it out for team Tri4Success we signed up Julian as well. He'll unknowingly serve as my rabbit to chase.
So there you have it, all caught up. Till next post ......... (in less than a week, I promise)
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