Week in review

Haven’t had a chance to write in the last week, so here is a review of what I’ve been up to!

Went to Middlebury VT last weekend.  My wife was speaking on a panel at alumni weekend at the college.  Middlebury is very nice.  We stayed at a great bed and breakfast, and tooled around the various small towns there including Bristol and Vergennes.  Also went to the Robert Frost trail in Bread Loaf, but it was mostly closed due to some flood damage from the winter.

I brought my bike with me to Middlebury, and had an amazing, and humbling ride.  My intention was to bike out and back from Middlebury, on rt 125, to Lake Champlain (see route here).  It was about 15 miles each way.  The hills were relentless, and wore me down to no end, and I could only cover about 12 miles before turning around.  24 miles in total, and a really awesome and hard workout.  I realize that real bikers and triathletes can handle these kinds of hills with no issues, so I need to figure out how to add more hills to my bike workouts.  I like riding at my weekend house in Little Silver, NJ, but there are very few ‘real’ hills out there.  Anyway, it was an awesome ride, and a great tune up for my triathlon this weekend.

As good as the ride was, I think the hills aggrevated my groin.  It was really acting up on Sunday and Monday.  The good news is that it helped me to isolate exactly where the pain is coming from, so now I know where to focus my ice treatments.

Monday night was softball, up in Inwood.  With my groin issue, I was not able to run full out, but the light running in the outfield and on the bases, combined with lots of stretchng, actually made it feel a little better.  Collectively we had a great game, and won 11-7.

Didn’t do any workouts on Tuesday because I had to run down to my weekend house and do some lawn and grounds care, and morning workouts are too hard until school is over for my kids.  Wednesday nights are no good for swimming because there is only a small window the pool is available for lap swimming, so I went for a run last night.

Did my 4 mile out and back to East River Park.  I have a hard time doing ‘easy’ runs, and ran it pretty hard.  Finished up in 34:56, about 8:45 pace.  The groin issue is so far not preventing me from running.  It only bothers me a little as I get started with a run, and loosens up pretty quickly.  However, I’ve lately also been feeling some tendonitis behind my left knee, and that I can feel with every step in a run.  It is not a lot of pain, but just a little bit of very noticeable discomfort.  While not preventing me from running, I think it would prevent me from running all out in a speed workout or race condition.  So far, ice on its own has not done anything.  May need to work on leg based stretches and exercises to smooth it out.

It is interesting.  These are my first real injuries since I started this blog over a year ago.  In the past, I constantly had injury issues and I think this is the longest I’ve ever gone without issue.  My last big injury was when I blew out my lower back in July 2007.  Historically, I’ve always had leg problems on my right side – patellar tendinitis, plantar fasciitis, shin splits, etc.  Left leg was always great.  Therefore, never really focused on left side.  My current injuries are on my left side.  Ooops.  Guess I need to pay attention to both sides going forward!

This morning, heading to my older daughters school.  She is 13 and graduating middle school in 2 weeks.  Today is an honors ceremony, and she is doing a solo tap dance routine.  Then off to work, and hopefully to the pool to swim tonight.

With my triathlon coming up quickly on Sunday, I need to make sure I’m well prepared for all 3 events, for the transitions, and most importantly, need to practice getting the wetsuit on and off!

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Created my own race

With races routinely selling out in Central Park now, I’ve resorted to creating my own race!  Well, not really.  I only had time for a short 4 mile run yesterday, so figured, why not make it a speed workout, and treat it as a ‘race’.

The course was my usual 2 mile out and 2 mile back through East River Park.  The weather was OK, not much of a factor.  The temps were cool, around 50, but it was very humid.  Humidity becomes a problem for me when over 65 degrees.  There was a bit of a headwind coming back north on the return trip, but that also wasn’t so bad.  On my mp3 player, I have a short playlist of my favorite running songs.  Those songs help to keep me zipping along.  It is only 10 songs, which neatly fits into a 4 mile run.

On the first half, I did something I had never done before, passing a biker!  Now, the biker was clearly not riding too hard, but I won’t let that get in the way of my accomplishment.  I passed by the biker in the narrow pathway by the Con Ed plant just north of the entrance to East River Park.  I figured once in the park proper, the biker would get going and pass me by eventually, but that was not the case.  When I turned around at the bottom of the park, it was a good .15 – .2 miles before I passed him going the other way.

First half was completed in 16:07.  8 minute per mile pace is about what I’d expect in a race condition, so I was right on track.  The question was whether I could keep the pace up or not.  Last year, in the Fitness Mag 4 mile race, I started out fast, at around 8 min per mile pace, and then died in the last 2 miles.  It was hot and humid that day, though.  Yesterday, I was able to keep the pace up, and finished the second half in 16:10, 3 seconds slower than the first half.

My overall time was 32:17, which would be a PR for me if it was a real race!  Normally, at my training pace, I’d finish that run in 36-37 minutes, showing me the stark difference between a training pace and a race pace.  In a normal training run, I would negative split the course, and in fact, in the last few years, (besides today) the only times I haven’t have been when I needed to stop to walk due to a side stitch or shin split, etc. 

Very excited about the run, and nice to see that I’ve retained some of the speed I picked up in my speed workouts during the winter.  My concern right now is a slightly pulled groin muscle.  I was hoping it would go away on it’s own, but it has not.  Lately it is hurting more.  It rarely bothers me when I run, which is probably a bad thing, since I feel like I can run through it.  Rest would probably be best for it.  I finally looked up some info online, so I feel like I now know the right stretches to do.  I’ll continue icing and stretching over the next few weeks and hope it goes away.