Yikes, what happened? Seems like it was just yesterday that I wrote our previous post.....
Well, my excuses for lack of blogging are 1) work and 2) Ironman training. E will have to post his own excuses. Despite these two big "time sinks" soaking up all my blogging time, I have had plenty to write about, just no time to jot it down. Those theme-based posts will have to wait though, in lieu of pure news updates, 3 weeks is a lot of time to catch up on! Here goes nothing.....
At the end of my last post, I walked into the production area and my work project began. That day I was at work from ~8 am until ~5:30 am the next morning, then home to sleep a few hours and back in by 1 pm. That was Thursday-Friday. Saturday, the process was on auto-pilot so I snuck out with E for some Costco shopping, other errands (including the purchase of a stove-top esspresso maker, woo woo!), and a quick 2 h bike ride (glorious! but about all I could last for with my limited sleep). By the time Thursday rolled around again, I was mostly back to working day-time hours and getting 1-2 calls at night. Which was good because we had just done the longest-run-before-Ironman on that Wednesday after work. The run went well and the body felt strong despite the crazy-work-sleep-eat hours I had been holding. Recovery included a good session in the NormaTec pants after the run, but I still had my normal "cramping legs preventing me from getting good sleep" that night. Thursday night was much better for sleeping.
The Saturday right before Easter I was at work from 2:40am until ~5 am, then we headed straight out for what was supposed to be an enjoyable 6 h on the bike followed by a 60 min run. We planned a hilly route for the bike, loaded up the car, and headed out. The rest of the ride will be fully captured in a future post (look for the one titled "Canyons") but the quick summary is: it was windy and the wind soon made the whole ride an epic adventure. Truly. Epic to the point of a strong, ~100 mi ride spanning 7-7.5 h. The run was set aside and I headed home to sleep.
Easter came and I headed to church for the early sunrise service. It was short but meaningful. I headed home and we had a nice breakfast of homemade waffles, then hit the yard to plant the spring crops (lettuce mix, spinach, chard, and peas). We split an Avery Salvation as we finished turning the beds, planting the seeds, and doing some other random tidying and yard work, yum! Then we got in a mellow bike ride and run.
The next week got even more normal at work, and had the usual mix of swim-bike-run. Saturday brought a 112 mi, self-supported bike TT (actually ended up being 114 mi). E was looking so strong! I was good for ~25 mi, then slowly started to lose my mental focus and would get dropped by E easily (I was trying to stay close but sit totally out of his draft pocket, per USAT/WTC standards, and ride my own ride). At the 40 mi mark he turned back to find me and I made the decision to stick to his rear wheel like glue. It may have meant that I did not complete the workout as intended, but I still rode strong, tried to stay close and not draft when possible (there was plenty of wind to "catch" if I staggered my position from his slightly) and got really worked. Then we headed straight out for a 70 min run with 20-30 min of climbing to stimulate St. George some. This will be our last long bike before the race. I wore my brand-new tri shorts for both the ride and run and they performed charmingly.
This Wed. brought the last long run. We went after work and got a later start than planned. As we ran, the sun sank lower in the sky. We finished as dusk was fading into twilight, it was beautiful and ended up being perfect! We stayed to the dirt trails and roads north of Boulder. It was a glorious, glorious night to be out and running. No wind (!), warm, peaceful, and relatively quiet (busy trail heads, but we chose non-populated trails). A freshly grilled steak, quinoa salad leftovers, and a splash of red wine made a great end to a wonderful evening (yes my legs were throbbing, but some time in the NormaTec and some time on the foam roller quieted them enough for me to sleep, and the evening was just a special, almost magical time spent in a beautiful place with the man I love). The only thing that would have been better would have been more sleep between the 8:05 pm end of the run and the 6 am swim the next morning.
This weekend will bring a bike time trial. Our club (GS Boulder - Trek) is hosting the race so we get to race (yeah! haven't raced since Mt. Taylor) and work all day. We are hoping for no rain (only a 20% chance) and no wind. Come out and race the Haystack TT or TTT if you are in the area. It will be fast since some bridge work has shortened the course to 12.1 mi. Vvroooom! Then Sunday is a birthday (mine) bike-run-bike-run brick. Got that? A bbrbrb.
All told, it has been busy around here. We are well, happy, healthy (amazingly), and actually got seeds planted before the end of April. More gardening and yard work remain, but they will wait until after ironman #1 is done for 2010. Also, I am very, VERY excited to race in St. George. It is an excitement that has been slow to build, and has been muddled by the magnitude of work and training loads, but it is here and it is still continuing to build. Yeeeeee haw, let's race! (and let's see how taper goes, always a bit of a gamble).
It is also spring here now, here are the signs of spring: the apple tree is about to bloom in front of our house, tulips and daffodils are up, and, my favorite, the peepers are peeping from all the swamps, ditches, and anything looking remotely like standing water. I love those little frogs and their welcome to spring each year.
Happy Friday, happy Spring!
-A
Showing posts with label nap time. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nap time. Show all posts
Friday, April 16, 2010
Monday, June 23, 2008
Title-less
So, I (Eric) can't even come up with a title for this post, which i think is indicative of how the weekend went. I don't remember Friday, so we'll skip to Saturday.
Saturday
The Ride
Early start to our ride as we didn't want to deal with too much traffic and we wanted to get back to see Sunny before she flew back to Oregon, so we left the house at 5:45. Ride down to Golden via some pretty crappy roads and then head up Golden Gate Canyon. Not much traffic heading up, some nice views, not shifting out of my 25 ever during the climb, a few downhills that you actually dread since you know they just mean more climbing later, etc, etc.
Our coach instructed us to turn at the second entrance to GGC State Park and take the steep road (Mountain Base Rd) to the dirt road (Gap Rd). Now, the road we were on was plenty steep so i was curious about how steep Mtn Base Rd would be. We found out right away as we turned on to it as RV's are prohibitted from it due to 19% grades. Most of the way wasn't too bad, we managed to get up and over the steep stuff and it was a really nice road. We then made our way to Peak to Peak and over to Nederland.
At this point, we had the option of heading down to Boulder via Boulder Canyon or taking the Peak to Peak over to Ward via Lefthand Canyon. We were still feeling pretty decent and our memories of the road between Ward and Nederland were that it mostly rolling hills. The problem was all of those memories were based on riding from Ward to Nederland, not the otherway around. Our memories will be much improved now, knowing that Ned to Ward is hard, Ward to Ned isn't too bad. So, we truged up to Ward as I counted down each mile on my computer. There were some downhills, but the net elevation gain was about 1000 ft i think. Anyways, we make it to Ward and head down and hit headwinds (lovely). Well at least it was all downhill, until we got to Olde Stage which we took because it was shorter. Not as short at taking Lee Hill, but that was too intimidating. As you can easily hit 50 mph going down the back side of Olde Stage, going up pretty slow on our legs that had already been climbing for the good part of our 6 hr ride. Once we got over the top, we were able to cruise pretty easy the rest of the way home.
The Scooter
We stopped and got another helmet, jacket, etc to be able to ride 2 up on the motorcycle. I'm sure that will make a good post when we first try.
The Sunny
Sunny was briefly in B-town for a wedding, so we went to lunch with her at Illegal Pete's. Both Amber and I were able to finish off a Big Fish burrito. After lunch, Sunny wanted some Glacier ice cream before she left, but the kiosk on Pearl St didn't have a good enough selection, so we drove to another location. A cone of cinimon cookie dough and death by chocolate really hit the spot. Sadly we had to get Sunny to the airport bus and send her on her way. Fortunately, she'll be back in town in a few weeks for a whole week.
The Rest
Nap time.
The Neighbors
When it got time for dinner, we were struggling to come up with ideas and our leftovers weren't sounding good, so it took a while to come up with something. When we finally did, I was about to start the grill when one our neighbors (Amy) called over the fence that they were having a last minute party and we should come over. So we loaded up our salad, bratwust, etc and headed over there. We hadn't been over to our neighbors in the nearly 4 years we've been at our house, so it was about time. Pretty low key as we sat around eating and talking as Eric (neighbor, not me) burned the wood of a couch in his chimama. I did learn a new game (Frisbee cup) which involves drinking, throwing a frisbee and running, but i was too tired to participate.
Sunday
The Run
Up early again as we wanted to run before swimming and Amber wanted to go to church. Out the door again around 5:45. I was right about how long our run should be (2 hrs), but not about how hard, so we ended up going a bit harder than intended. Quick dip in the creek/ditch at the end was nice.
The Swim
An hour and half of going fast. My swim went okay as I tempered my expectations of what i could do. Not suprising that i was kicking even slower than normal, but pulling fine. Amber had a rough swim as she was tired. Really, really tired.
The Shopping
Headed into town to use our Tokyo Joes coupons (from races last year). They have some good food. We then walked to Target to return a headlight (picked up a 9004, not a 9003), went to McGuckin's for some yard stuff, went to Sunflower market for food, and finally headed home. On the way, we saw the sign again for Celestial Seasonings tent sale. Not sure what a tea company sells under a tent, but we went to have a look. What we found was pallets full of teas and such that they were trying to clear out. Boxes of tea for 50 cents. A case of boxes for 5 bucks or something. We also found coffee for 10 bucks a case. We have no idea if the coffee will be any good, but we now have 9 lbs of coffee that cost us 20 dollars. Just a little cheaper than the Peet's, I like to get. If you get a present from us in the future and it contains tea, you can guess where it came from.
The Home
Although we should have taken a nap, we ended up working on stuff outside, making dinner (Grilled pork tenderloin, grilled apricot salad, and a risotto with broccoli and zuccini), drinking a bottle of wine, and making Eric sized (2.35 oz) cookies.
Monday
The Run
An easy run this morning, but I misremembered (aka Roger Clemons) our workout for the second time in two days and went 10 minutes longer than scheduled.
The Ride
Easy ride to work on the new cassettes (12x27, 9spd for Amber 11x28, 8spd for me) that we got in the mail after our ride on the steeps on Saturday.
Saturday
The Ride
Early start to our ride as we didn't want to deal with too much traffic and we wanted to get back to see Sunny before she flew back to Oregon, so we left the house at 5:45. Ride down to Golden via some pretty crappy roads and then head up Golden Gate Canyon. Not much traffic heading up, some nice views, not shifting out of my 25 ever during the climb, a few downhills that you actually dread since you know they just mean more climbing later, etc, etc.
Our coach instructed us to turn at the second entrance to GGC State Park and take the steep road (Mountain Base Rd) to the dirt road (Gap Rd). Now, the road we were on was plenty steep so i was curious about how steep Mtn Base Rd would be. We found out right away as we turned on to it as RV's are prohibitted from it due to 19% grades. Most of the way wasn't too bad, we managed to get up and over the steep stuff and it was a really nice road. We then made our way to Peak to Peak and over to Nederland.
At this point, we had the option of heading down to Boulder via Boulder Canyon or taking the Peak to Peak over to Ward via Lefthand Canyon. We were still feeling pretty decent and our memories of the road between Ward and Nederland were that it mostly rolling hills. The problem was all of those memories were based on riding from Ward to Nederland, not the otherway around. Our memories will be much improved now, knowing that Ned to Ward is hard, Ward to Ned isn't too bad. So, we truged up to Ward as I counted down each mile on my computer. There were some downhills, but the net elevation gain was about 1000 ft i think. Anyways, we make it to Ward and head down and hit headwinds (lovely). Well at least it was all downhill, until we got to Olde Stage which we took because it was shorter. Not as short at taking Lee Hill, but that was too intimidating. As you can easily hit 50 mph going down the back side of Olde Stage, going up pretty slow on our legs that had already been climbing for the good part of our 6 hr ride. Once we got over the top, we were able to cruise pretty easy the rest of the way home.
The Scooter
We stopped and got another helmet, jacket, etc to be able to ride 2 up on the motorcycle. I'm sure that will make a good post when we first try.
The Sunny
Sunny was briefly in B-town for a wedding, so we went to lunch with her at Illegal Pete's. Both Amber and I were able to finish off a Big Fish burrito. After lunch, Sunny wanted some Glacier ice cream before she left, but the kiosk on Pearl St didn't have a good enough selection, so we drove to another location. A cone of cinimon cookie dough and death by chocolate really hit the spot. Sadly we had to get Sunny to the airport bus and send her on her way. Fortunately, she'll be back in town in a few weeks for a whole week.
The Rest
Nap time.
The Neighbors
When it got time for dinner, we were struggling to come up with ideas and our leftovers weren't sounding good, so it took a while to come up with something. When we finally did, I was about to start the grill when one our neighbors (Amy) called over the fence that they were having a last minute party and we should come over. So we loaded up our salad, bratwust, etc and headed over there. We hadn't been over to our neighbors in the nearly 4 years we've been at our house, so it was about time. Pretty low key as we sat around eating and talking as Eric (neighbor, not me) burned the wood of a couch in his chimama. I did learn a new game (Frisbee cup) which involves drinking, throwing a frisbee and running, but i was too tired to participate.
Sunday
The Run
Up early again as we wanted to run before swimming and Amber wanted to go to church. Out the door again around 5:45. I was right about how long our run should be (2 hrs), but not about how hard, so we ended up going a bit harder than intended. Quick dip in the creek/ditch at the end was nice.
The Swim
An hour and half of going fast. My swim went okay as I tempered my expectations of what i could do. Not suprising that i was kicking even slower than normal, but pulling fine. Amber had a rough swim as she was tired. Really, really tired.
The Shopping
Headed into town to use our Tokyo Joes coupons (from races last year). They have some good food. We then walked to Target to return a headlight (picked up a 9004, not a 9003), went to McGuckin's for some yard stuff, went to Sunflower market for food, and finally headed home. On the way, we saw the sign again for Celestial Seasonings tent sale. Not sure what a tea company sells under a tent, but we went to have a look. What we found was pallets full of teas and such that they were trying to clear out. Boxes of tea for 50 cents. A case of boxes for 5 bucks or something. We also found coffee for 10 bucks a case. We have no idea if the coffee will be any good, but we now have 9 lbs of coffee that cost us 20 dollars. Just a little cheaper than the Peet's, I like to get. If you get a present from us in the future and it contains tea, you can guess where it came from.
The Home
Although we should have taken a nap, we ended up working on stuff outside, making dinner (Grilled pork tenderloin, grilled apricot salad, and a risotto with broccoli and zuccini), drinking a bottle of wine, and making Eric sized (2.35 oz) cookies.
Monday
The Run
An easy run this morning, but I misremembered (aka Roger Clemons) our workout for the second time in two days and went 10 minutes longer than scheduled.
The Ride
Easy ride to work on the new cassettes (12x27, 9spd for Amber 11x28, 8spd for me) that we got in the mail after our ride on the steeps on Saturday.
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