Some sort of milestone

Ordered a wetsuit today. Enough of renting. It will be cheap and cheery but it will be mine and save me trips across town to the sporting gear store.

Xterra seems to have a perpetual sale if you know where to look. Like thus: http://www.xterrawetsuits.com/April_Showers_2011/

At the discounted price, it is silly to rent more than once.

To determine the ever changing discount code, go to slowtwitch.com and do a forum search for xterra wetsuit.

Still plugging away here

Plugging, sure, but not blogging much.

The second half of February and all of March were crazy rainy. No outside workouts at all. Well, three. Snuck in a bike ride here and there. And managed to get in a three day motorcycle offroad event in around Death Valley that was epic with a small e.

But enough slacking around. Exercise brings motivation (possibly more than the other way around) so it is back to being disciplined about at least working up a sweat 3 times a week, preferably more.

When I was working though, if I went too long without a good workout, my upper back would tense up and it would be hard to sit at a desk. Now that I haven't been working for a while, that symptom didn't show up. Not working out just felt like having more free time. It was just that it was usually free time where I didn't really feel like doing anything and knew I probably should.

Swimming half a mile is a better pick me up than a cup of coffee. Strange things you learn in life.

Rainy season. The end of bike commuting?

Or the beginning of "the tough get going."

Riding home in the rain tonight from the train station wasn't too bad. It's all uphill so you warm up fast and the rain soaking in feels good in a way, which offsets the increasing wetness. Proper rain gear would help. Need to get over to an REI. Looks like they are the only place big enough to be serious about actually stocking gear you can look at before you buy.

Well OK then.

Work stress. Had lots of it.

One thing that helped this summer, which was a very moderately cool summer, was riding my bicycle the train, thus taking away all freeway commute stress.

Just be careful if you are into bicycling for fitness and you get a Hyperfold Tikit from Bike Friday, because it may not stand up to mashing on the pedals like a normal enthusiast bike. At least not 100% of the time. Like a lot of bikes with 1x drivetrains it may drop the chain if provoked.

Still though. Folding bikes on the train for the win.

Argh.

That inexplicable ease should have been an omen about something.

Missed the event due to epic dumbness. Should be able to make the July one though. It is scheduled at a time of high work stress though so now I've got something to be anxious about for that one at least!

So not anxious about this next race that it is making me anxious.

Hockey playoffs took a big bite out of my workout time recently, I will admit. Then there was an action packed business trip. Now it is race week and I haven't been doing bricks. Haven't been to the pool in a while. Haven't tried out the wetsuit I rented last weekend.

But hey, tonight after work 400 yards in the pool was quite easy. Nothing important had been forgotten. In fact I even picked up a new to me tip of taking an extra long glide every lap or two to get in one deeper than usual breath and it seemed to help alleviate that slow-running-down feeling that builds up as the laps go by. 9 minutes for 16 laps of a 25M pool is not fast but for me it was pretty good considering that I felt better coming out of the pool than I did going in.

Should be able to squeeze in a bit of lake swim this week after work as Lake Temescal is only a few minutes away. Worst case, only open water practice will be the day before the race. Already took that day off just to give myself time to recover from last week's trip.

So much for short posts.

Going full nerd this time

Rented a wetsuit tonight. Will get in a couple of test swims before the next sprint tri. Only 12 days to go. Much much less anxious this time. Gonna have a nice float across the lake breathing steadily instead of the 12 minute breath-holding dog paddle fest from last time.

At least that is the plan.

Healthy again at least.

Haven't been doing much special training lately. Weather this year has been very strange. At least now it is a bit warmer and the trails dry out faster after a rain.

Might buy a wetsuit this week. If nothing looks good in the local stores (and it seems really odd that the SF area doesn't seem to have at least one good we-have-everything store for Tri gear) I may just order one of the $99 Xterra ones as I'll get at least 3 uses out of it this year and that beats renting 3 times easily.

Never too experienced to make a rookie mistake

Upped my running to 4 consecutive weekdays per week, from 2 (Tu Th) to try and get my dog some more intensity in his excercise, and my left hip has some kind of spasm that has lingered even though I've now taken 3 days off.

Might have to take the old "mountain bike" out on some days to get the dog his higher tempo workout while taking it easy on me.

Too bad he can't lane swim with me.

Awfully quiet around here lately.

Just reread my race report from the first tri. Full of typos. Usually I catch that stuff, but I must have been too excited to take the time before posting. Good stuff.

One of the followups identified in the post-race analysis was a need to do more brick workouts. It's been a good year for that so far. Lots of swim-run at the gym.