Crucibulum

Year: 2009

  • First run of the year

    The whole family headed out to a local running track and we ran/walked/jumped around it at our various paces for my first run of the year. Just did 8 laps to ease my knee into taking the impact (around 2 miles). I’m feeling faint twinges tonight but hopefully as long as I slowly ramp up the mileage and let my feet get accustomed to the custom orthotics from last year I’ll be able to get this running under control for the half marathon distance needed for the 70.3 triathlon.

    As a bonus we all got in a quick swim this afternoon as well following swim suit buying for Susan and new goggle buying for me (Swedish goggles). Hopefully these ones won’t leak as much when I’m doing lap swims.

  • SIR Winter Training Series – Ride 1

    Saturday morning saw the first in the winter training series rides that SIR run each year. A group of about 50 people showed up to the start at Sammamish Valley Cycle and we went for a 40 mile loop. The route itself had been re-planned at the last moment due to extensive flooding in WA last week. Unfortunately (for me) this meant we had to get above the flooded roads and thus a fair bit more climbing was involved to get to the proverbial “high road”. My pace was pretty slow but I plodded along and finished eventually.

    It helped reinforce the decision to start commuting by bike again and so I picked up some waterproof panniers to carry my laptop safely and fixed up my bike for Monday’s commute. Hopefully a couple of weeks of daily riding will get my legs back to flying up these early season hills.

  • January Stats

    Weight 168lbs

    Body Fat 21%

    Hummm … not quite the 154 lbs/14% of my summer riding weight. Too much sedentary winter non-activity (and the odd bowl of ice cream)

  • First swim of the year

    I went swimming last night at Ballard Pool for their Master’s swim class. An hour is a long time in the pool going back and forth and my feet started cramping during some of it. I was doing the ‘B’ workout and even then had to cut some parts out.

    One of the drills is just using your legs to kick while holding on to a board. I seem practically stationary doing this so obviously some work to do.

    One interesting thing I found was that I was averaging 20-21 strokes per length initially but once I started focussing on reducing that I got it down to 17 or so which one would think must be more efficient.

    A long way to go before I swim 1.2 miles in open water later in the year!

  • First ride of the year

    I headed out on Sunday for a ride with SIR, a 52 mile “steady state” pace. Unfortunately a steady pace averaging 16.5 mph after a couple months off the bike did not translate into an easy ride for me 🙂 I ended up being dropped on the way back from our out and back to Flaming Geyser Park. The pace lifted a bit and I wasn’t able to hold onto the draft (then the wind hit me and pow off the back of the pack I went).

    So it was a couple of miles on my own before thankfully Peter and Amy came back to find me before my memory of the turns to take failed me. I rejoined the waiting pack after a couple more miles (queries as to whether I’d had a flat or mechanical problem were answered by “engine issues” i.e. me). I managed then to hang on until the finish.

    Anyway it was great to be out (ahead of our evening snowfall) and a good motivator to get back in shape so that these rides are indeed easy training rides.