Thursday, August 9, 2007

Last Day Before I Rest

At first I thought that talking to my Dad, who is in Phoenix right now and said it was 109 degrees yesterday, put my mental heat index on ice. But as it turns out, the horrendous storms that passed through NEOhio and the “colder” fronts pushing with them brought the still-humid night to 70 degrees.

I hadn’t even planned on running when I returned home from dinner this evening, but I couldn’t help myself.

My carbohydrating kicked off this evening at Mangiamo!, where I had eggplant with fettuccine for dinner with Neil and Jeff. Tomorrow I’m making room for sweet potato something for lunch and potato gnocchi with baked plums for dinner. On the way home from New York, I read a nutrition article in the latest issue of Runner’s World that detailed the goodness that is potatoes. I’ve been craving them ever since.

Between the pasta, wedding soup, bakery’s worth of bread and a decaf black coffee, I was pretty much filled to the brim at the end of dinner. But when I stepped out of the car and walked toward my apartment, I knew the “cool” evening wasn’t to be resisted. So, I ran inside, topped off my dinner with about half a Think Thin chocolate fudge protein bar (I didn’t have dessert, so I had to, umm, balance my taste buds—hey, it wasn’t a cupcake), changed into running clothes and hit the streets around 8:45 p.m.

It was just another round-the-hood trot, but felt even better, stronger, looser than the last several runs. Was it the shoes? I don’t know. But it really helped my confidence. Yesterday’s swim made me feel all right about the first leg of my race; tonight improved my running outlook. And, well, the cycling portion will be what it is.

I had only intended to run for a short bit (in fact, I felt a bit full and had considered just walking… but these Mizunos just won’t let me!), but stayed out for around 45 minutes and 5.25 miles. My legs and core were a little fatigued from 40 minutes of power vinyasa yoga over lunch, but that soreness seemed to turn into strength and energy as I ran. Ahh, the magic that is yoga.

The only thing that really pushed me inside was the total darkness and threat of mosquitoes/West Nile virus. Plus, we have some nutty drivers around here who probably don’t yield to runners (as I know all too well), and I have a race in three days!

2 comments:

Jim said...

Hi G. I'm so psyched for you and your upcoming tri! My fingers are crossed for decent weather.

This is a very low volume week for me. Kuppla reasons: 1) My body just seems to be telling me to give it some time to recover and rebuild. Only three workouts this week - none extremely intense. 2)It's hotter than Hades down here! I mean HOT. Yesterday's "official" high was 104. My car thermometer while driving home from work registered 111! Even the eraly mornnings are steamy - low 80s with tons of humidity. I picked a perfect week to tone it down.

I'm glad you're going to get back to using your HR monitor. There are a lot of helpful HR training rate articles on masterskier.com. The most importat thing is to try to find the best estimate for where your Lactic Threshold is so you can train around it. This article has a suggestion for estimating it if you don't have access to a testing facility to help you pinpoint it. http://www.masterskier.com/index.asp

Please say hi to Melissa for me. Seems like ages ago that we were all hanging at Vanderbilt for the week. What fun it was. I've been to a couple of other conferences, but nothing as fun as that one.

Papa Louie said...

You missed running in the heavy rains around 5 pm? I had so much fun running in that down pour.

Have a good time with your first triathlon and remember to focus on each event one at a time.