Getting Closer

My knee has been a little more tweaked than normal. I must be getting closer to the race. Athletes generally tend to walk on the tightrope of training. We try to push ourselves to the point of breaking. We do this so we can have an amazing race.

I took Tuesday off. My knee was not happy with me for all of that cycling/running last weekend.

My body was still feeling the effects on Wednesday, so I swam an easy 3500m. I was supposed to do a track workout. Instead I decided to just go out and run. I do not recommend eating 12 danish cookies before hand. At one point, I almost stopped and made myself puke. As for my punishment for eating stupid food before training, I ran down to the bottom of Solo Point hill. The interesting thing was once I got to the top, my running pace picked up and I felt better. I ran a little under 11miles.

I lucked out with the weather on Thursday. It sprinkled just a few times. I basically stayed dry. I felt pretty good. Afterward, Crowieto and I had a I-Sushi feast. I ordered 4 dishes and we split them up.

Friday morning, I chose to swim at work. The "Y" group doesn't challenge me at all on the short stuff. It took several sets before I felt strong in the water.

I was going to ride 6 hours on Saturday. It was pouring. We set up the trainers and went to work. A couple of times, Crowieto decided it was better to turn the fan off and see how long before I noticed. My knee was not feeling good, so I stopped at 5 hours.

I had an awesome run on Sunday. I have never felt this good for a long run. The first mile was 7:19 and the average for the entire run was 6:44. I ran 22.22 miles in 2 1/2 hours. The last 10 I was averaging 6:30. During my long runs last year, I could start a decent pace. After 90 minutes or so, my pace would slow and my legs would feel heavy. This year, my fastest splits are on the second half. The best part of the run was when Crowieto was ahead of me and laid a challenge down (no, he was not running faster than me. I was adding loops into to get extra miles.). He yelled out, "I'm running 6:50's, catch me if you can." At that point I was running 6:35's. He thought I was going to run all the way to the top of Solo Point. I didn't need to because I already had enough miles. I figured he had about 90 seconds on me. I picked up my pace 10-15 seconds. I caught him 2 miles down. The first reason, he is like Fina (he has to mark his territory or has a small bladder). Do you think once I caught him, he would let me pass him? Of course not. If you said yes, you don't know Crowieto at all. Every time I tried to pass, he would throw in a little sprint. I laughed. I let him play his little game. He did this for about a 1/2 mile and then said, "I'll let you have it this time."

I got a text this morning telling me how sore his legs are. LMAO!!!

We went for a short swim to loosen up and headed out to visit Melissa's new place. It was really nice. We ended up taking the long cut version, which added 20+ minutes to the drive. The highlight was getting back to Lee's and hearing a hissing sound from my tire. Luckily we made it back. It was late and they were kind enough to let me crash and deal with it in the morning.

I didn't sleep well, so I swam at lunch time. It was okay. I didn't eat enough. I was going to run later. I don't want to take any chances with my knee, so I will skip a run and a bike over the next 2 days.

Less than 5 weeks to go. Getting Closer...