NYRR Gridiron Classic Race

Whoo! That was fun.  Cold but fun. Now bring on the wings, mac and cheese and beer! 

• B:pb&J, accellerade
• L: turkey/swiss on ww
• S:melted cheese on ww English muffin
• D: Super Bowl party @ our place. See above. 

Didn't get out today to do much of anything.  Wife had to work, so I was on toddler duty, so the clipless practice will have to wait another day. 

• B: ww english muffin w/pb

• S: turkey & swiss roll-ups (2)

• L: Chicken soup

• S: 1/2 of my son's pb&j and a couple of bites of his scrambled eggs.

• D: Organic mac & cheese w/skim & no butter.  Mixed a little chicken breast in.  Grapefruit.

Lots of drills and intervals. Fastest 100y split was 1:37

 I'm 'bout ta get my Friiii-day on!  Gotta go at lunch and pick up my race-related stuff for the thing Sunday.  It's very quiet in the office today.  Lots of people travelling, sick or...gone.  Kinda weird.  Stayed up last night putting cleats on my shoes.  I'm going to take the new bike over to an artificial-turf softball field tomorrow and practice w/the clipless.  I'll take some pictures, too.  I've been remiss in that regard.  Then Costco to buy stuff for our SuperBowl party on Sunday.  Sunday's gonna be crazy--race, followed by little kids' birthday party, followed by cooking & preparing, followed by party.   

Guess I'll need to find something to cover my face with for the race, since it's gonna be in the 'teens.  Might have to stop at the New Balance store at lunch.  Damn.  Almost made it a whole week without buying any new gear. 

• B: turkey/swiss on 1 slice ww
• S: String cheese. 
• L: Sushi, miso soup
• S: 100cal bag of cheese nips, some almonds.
• D: chicken w/broccoli and rice.  Grapefruit.

Stationary bike.

Treadmill while waiting for the bike. Running angry, apparently.

Misc upper body and core

 Bike or swim, depending on when I get home. 

Got an ipod shuffle for a belated b-day present.  It rocks!  I really used to hate bringing my regular non-nano ipod to the gym.  This one's perfect.  I also tried out a new pair of running shoes (a sample one of the footwear developers at work gave me.) It's not really cushiony enough to wear to run outside, but it's great on the treadmill.

Ok.  I can say this, I guess.  Work sucks.  Really really really sucks.  And it's going to get worse--far worse before it gets better.  If I didn't have training and running, and BT and BT-people, I'd probably be really down now.  But I'm really pretty ok.  It'll get better eventually, or else it won't and I'll find something else great.  Either way, I've got LoneStar in 8 weeks. 

• B: Oatmeal (banana bread+ cinnamon bun flavor)
• S; Almonds/dried fruit
• L: 1/2 of a meatball sammitch (catered to work)
• S: none
• D: Some kinda lean cuisine thing or something.  Tired.

Nice easy run. Didn't push the pace or the distance. HR was in Z2 pretty much the whole time.

Tonight, I'm going to go for a run outside.  I've got the 4-miler on Sunday and I haven't run outside since I got hurt in December, so I need to give it a go.

Really wanted to run the bridge, but decided to stick to my plan of not trying to push too hard tonight, since it was the first run outside a)since the injury b) since it got really cold. Legs felt great.  No problems keeping warm, either. 

The Nashbar Fairy just arrived at my office.  The little Topeak wedge bag is really cool.  And I bought the big accellerade container.  It's roughly the size of an oil drum.  My wife will looooove to have it sitting on the counter in the kitchen.  I think I can now stop purchasing crap for my bike for a while, at least until I've ridden it a little.  Blue rasberry accellerade kicks butt.  Looks like cloudy windex, tho. 

• B: ww English muffin w/turkey+swiss
• S: 1/2 corm muffin, 1/2 blueberry muffin  (bad bad bad.  Must punish myself by having salad for lunch)
• L: Salad with lots o' stuff mixed into it.   And also 1/2 of a really really small cupcake wth almost all of the icing scraped off. 
• Post workout- accellerade.
• D: Turkey/swiss on ww w/tomato.  1 slice  ww with pb & a little blueberry jam

Stationary bike--chose the "random" setting and got lots of huge hills. Cadence was at or above 100 the whole time.

This was all at 2.0-2.5 incline.
Had to do this second, because there were no bikes. I think the incline affected my pace more than I thought it would. Still, not bad.

I felt really good in the pool. Got into a good rhythm and kept it. My first couple of laps were blazing. No flip turns, but made fast open turns at the wall.(Hey, I juest noticed that I hit my 500 yards in 9:30 goal! Cool.Done!)

So the Birthday Triathlon went pretty well.  Funny story--I arrived at the gym, and, while I was taking (literally) a couple of seconds to find my swipe-card pass, this guy cuts the line in front of me.  So I said, not loudly or aggressively, "excuse me?", and he turns around and says (loudly) "WhatEVER, Man!  Don't take it so PERSONALLY!" I just laughed, swiped my card, and went upstairs.  For the entire time that I was on the bike/treadmill, the guy was hanging out nearby, stalking me, obviously wanting to continue the discussion.  I don't think he expected that I'd be on the machines for an hour+, and he eventually left (to get a life, hopefully). 

Anyway, other than having to go swim-run-bike, since there were no bikes available when I got out of the pool, I was pretty happy with how things went. I would have liked to have run faster, but I was using a considerable incline for the whole run.   I didn't use my ipod or the tvs at all. 

I was drinking regular gatorade instead of my usual accellerade (ran out of it), and it was HORRIBLE!  I can't believe I used to drink that stuff.  It just sat in my stomach feeling sticky and gross.  I also tried a new variety of clif shot gel--cola. Eh.  I'll stick to chocolate and coffee flavors.

So tonight we're going to my Dad's for dinner, and tomorrow, I'm on the 5am (yes, AM) train to Baltimore for some meetings.  Yuck. 

Oh, also, I bought an inflator and multi-tool for the bike.  I think that's everything.  Now all I need is a dry road and a couple of hours to go for a spin.  Hopefully this snow and ice melts.  I'd prefer if the Lonestar Triathlon didn't turn out to be my first time on the bike.  Or in clipless...

Last January 29th, I was feeling pretty bummed about approaching 40.  I was not happy with my weight/fitness/diet and wasn't really sure that I could change my habits.  I couldn't run a mile without stopping.  So this was a good day.  Happy Birthday to me. 

• B: Chex w/blueberries
• S: pb on ww
• During workout-1 GU, 1 bottle Gatorade
• L: Apple/carrot/ginger juice, turkey/swiss on 1 slice ww
• D: Really good b-day dinner.  Dad and his wife are both amazing cooks: caviar, filet mignon, boiled potatoes w/tarragon, roasted stuffed tomatoes, ice cream from Graeters in Cincinnati, and a really good little birthday cake.  Yum.