Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Relaxing!

I feel like I am cheating a bit as today I have the day off from work. Slept in until 6:00 a.m. and now I am checking all my favourite blogs and enjoying some coffee.
Around 10:00 a.m. I will be heading into the city (Edmonton) to pick up my in-laws who will arrive around 4:00 p.m. We have a little bit of running around in the city, West Ed, the Italian Centre Shop and I'll have to stop by the tri shop! If their flights are on time we should be back home by 7:00 p.m. at the latest.
The last couple of days have been hit and miss with the workouts. I'm getting them done, it just feels like some of them have been much better than others.
My swim on Monday hearkens back to my post "Swimming like a cat". I struggled through a 2,200 metre workout which should have been easier than it was. The workout called for a warm up and some drills and the main set was 4 sets of 3 x 150 m at varying intensities, with a minute rest between them. Well I never quite settled in and I felt really sloppy and the old "sinking" feeling on the repeats without the pull buoy. Despite it all I managed to get it done and hope that I will have a better experience at my workout on Thursday.
Monday night was a decent run. The plan called for a 45 minute run, but it was slightly extended as I was further from home then I wanted to be and ran an extra 3 minutes which gave me 6.8 miles. My Achilles seem to be getting better, but they are really tight in the mornings and I hobble around for the first couple of minutes until they stretch out. I have some topical cream that the doctor gave me and it seems to be working.
Yesterday's workout was a brick, which I really haven't done in awhile. After 1 hour and 45 minutes on the bike I just had a quick 15 minute run to stretch everything out and get used to the transition. The bike part was okay, but I had a tough time hitting my cadence targets. However the transition to running was great and I knocked off 2.3 miles in the allotted 15 minutes.
I have been reading the book "Run Smart - A Comprehensive Approach to Injury-Free Running" by Allan Besselink. This was recommended reading from Carrie at Tri to be funny
and it is definitely worth picking up copy. I really like some of what I have read thus far with regard to periodization and how to build a proper training plan. Definitely supports some of my own personal experience
Well time to start getting ready to hit the road as I need to pop into work for a minute or two.
Have a great day!

4 comments:

Grellan said...

Sleep in until 6 am and popping into work on your day off - are you sure you're "relaxing". Enjoy!

Andrew said...

Good to see you relaxing. You really put in the workouts. You tri-folks are incredible with your workouts.

TRI TO BE FUNNY said...

Glad you are enjoying the book! I've also started reading it and enjoy Allan's perspective. He's really into the biomechanics and doing the minimum amount of training to get the maximum results. Unfortunately, most of us (including me) fall into the "train as hard as I can all of the time" attitude.

Anonymous said...

Garry -

Thanks so much for your review of the book. I certainly appreciate any and all feedback you have ... especially from a fellow Canuck :-)

Good luck at Sylvan Lake!

Allan Besselink, PT, Dip.MDT