Beer Drinkers Appreciation Society (BDAS) 2023 Mentor Group - ALWAYS OPEN (Page 133)

Andrew - 1) agree on the break between running days. My plan has me doing at least 1, if not 2 days between each run as I work up. I'm still getting very slowly into it, but definitely spacing everything out.
2) re: breathing on both sides, I completely agree! That's another battle I have with him. He basically says, always breathe to one "wall," so one way it's all left, the other it's all right. I personally struggle with my right and would rather go back and forth than have one whole lap breathing to one side. It's all strange...lol
3) sorry to hear about the tendonitis, but so glad you caught it early and already have a plan! Similar to Robert's situation, would you be able to do a shorter run (10K or half) instead of the marathon? Great news that you can still bike too!

Gretchen - Oh no! What a terrible start to your trip! I'm so glad they were able to get you in somewhere, but that sounds like a nightmare! I also didn't realize how close together your races were, but can't wait to hear more stories (hopefully less nightmarish and more just your typical Gretchen hilarity).

Robert - Keep trucking along! Hope those exercises help and your achilles stops being such a PITA!

Had vball league Tuesday night, which was awesome as usual. It's in the park near my house, so very convenient and we get to play as long as we want, so we basically play until the sun goes down. I'm clearly increasing my fitness b/c I can actually walk and have energy after now

Got in a 30 minute run yesterday. Not really focused on time or distance, just easy runs (still doing 3 min run/1 min walk) and making sure my hip feels good. I've had some slight soreness, but nothing terrible.

Cleaned all morning before work today b/c I'm working from home and when my space is messy, so is my brain. Feels good to have a clean house, and now I'm done with meetings so the rest of the day I will just be cranking work (after checking in with you guys of course!).

Busy weekend ahead, with a dinner tonight to meet my friends boyfriend (it's actually crazy I haven't met him yet), swimming tomorrow morning followed by 3 birthday parties (no joke) and then hopefully an adulting day on Sunday after some SUP in the AM. Hope everyone else has a lovely weekend planned!

@Nicole - I totally get the clean office / clean mind thing. We just deep cleaned my home office (I work from home full time-ish), and we decluttered a lot of it, and it feels so clean and organized again!

Strength Training at the gym today, with two new core exercises. One I love, the other...maybe I'll grow to appreciate it.
- Pelloff Cable/Band press. This is a really good anti-rotation core exercise and was actually quite harder than I anticipated
- Copenhagen side planks - these just plain suck, but I can see the benefits

Some good news with my Achilles - I jogged for 5 minutes on the treadmill today as my warmup before lifting, and it felt fine. No tightness or anything. Another week of rest and then we'll see.

Anywho. We'll be having a game night at our house tonight with some of our college aged kids (my wife and I are the older youth/college age youth leaders for our church). Open Water swim tomorrow morning at the race site, then hanging out with the family. Quiet weekend otherwise here.

Copenhagens suck!!! But yes…they are helpful.

Finally in a bit more stable place in Aus…an AirBandB that totally isn’t what was booked based on the pictures, but is at least a place with a bed and a lock. The woman has divided her house into individual apartments, so there are three other triathletes here right now, a Polish guy, a South African woman, and a German guy. They all raced yesterday. The polish guy is leaving today, so we may move into his unit, because it has a washer and is a bit bigger.

So far no training, but we’ve walked around a bit. My wife and I have very different definitions of what a “walkable distance” is, which it probably good for my legs, to be honest. I just hate waiting around for a cab/uber when I could have walked there in the same amount of time for free.

Now that we are settled, I need to get my bike out together and to the team mechanic. I know I need a new skewer for the front. The airlines bent both my carbon fiber skewer (front) and steel trainer skewer (back). I’m not 100% sure I can get them out of the wheel hub at this point and I have no tools beyond my torque wrench.

I forgot to add that there is a lizard that lives in the tv room of this AirBandB.

My wife is being an absolute champ about not insisting me leave immediately (she HATES reptiles). He is cute though.

Open water swims completed! I haven't swam in a lake for actual swimming in years, so I had to get out of my head at the start of the first lap. Small slight panic attack and lots of doubts flooded my mind, but I took a deep breath and made myself relax and find a steady rhythm with breathing. And before I knew it, I had calmed down and was swimming better.

I finished the first lap and came out, rested a bit, chatted with a couple other triathletes on the beach and then went for a second lap. Much smoother and calmed on the second one. Sighted better and found a solid rhythm for breathing and sighting. Very happy with the second lap. 10:43 for 500m (+/-) will do well I think. I'm not racing for a win or anything, but I feel it's suitable for where I am with it.

All in all, I'm glad I had the opportunity to do it and feel way better about the race now.

The bike course is hilly but not terrible. The hills I have been training on will have me ready well enough.

Five hours spent yesterday getting my bike put back together. The airline bent my skewers so badly I couldn’t even get them unscrewed to get my wheels out of the box. I had to walk to the bike shop and buy new skewers ($12!—never escaped the bike shop that cheaply!) and then walk my bike in case to the team mechanic. He got the skewers undone and reassembled the bike for me and then I had to walk the bike and box back to my airB&B, which is only about a km, but that I’m is all straight uphill. It was a good workout!

Today we are going snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef. I hope it lives up the expectations I’ve built up in my mind.

edit b/c I was not able to delete my post.

Edited by robertChiefsFan 2024-08-18 2:01 AM