Mind the First Step

Bike Day (Thursday)
time- 53 minutes
distance- 19 miles

Swim (Friday)
1 x 150 -Warm-up
5 x 100- 1:30
5 x 100- 1, 2, 3, Swim
1 x 100- Cool down
total- 1250yds


Note to Self (and all Dirtbag Readers): Taking three or four weeks off means that those first few workouts are going to suuuuuck. Remember how 20 miles on the bike would be an unsatisfactorily short amount of time? Remember talking a big game about how you were going to drop your 100m workout pace to 1:25? You

The Beatings Will Continue!

should put those things on the back burner for a few weeks until your base comes back.
The ride Thursday hurt more than I expected it to. It was an easy, mostly downhill or flat ride that had my heart pounding at the end of every climb. I even set out with the express purpose of "an easy ride, just to get my legs back." And I still got to where I was going pretty worn out.
On top of that, I think I must have forgotten how humid it is here. Damn, I felt hot and sweaty by the time I was done. The hot/sweaty feeling may have been exacerbated by my new jersey, which I just had to wear as soon as I got back.

I have the same tattoo that shoulder

It looks cool, but I think the breathablilty of this particular jersey may be lower than what I'm used to. Or it was really humid and I'm going to have to wait until I re-adjust. One of the two. Oh, or I'm a big baby now. One of the three.
Anyway, the ride felt harder than it should have, but I wasn't too sore the next day. I'll be hitting the road for 35 miles today.
As for the swim, I know that looks like ridiculously short yardage, especially if you've been following this blog at all. Especially especially if you take in to account that a week from now I'm doing a 1.6 mile open water swim. What the hell am I doing knocking out a mere 1250 yards? Two things- Important Thing One) easing back in to it. There is no way to possibly truly prepare for that long of a swim in one week after a month off. Not going to happen. So my choices are to either burn myself up trying to prepare or focus on getting my feel back, hence the 1, 2, 3, swim drill, and treat next Saturday as a long workout instead of a race. Less Important Thing Two) We had tickets to go see Captain America

Go See This Movie.

yesterday and due to less-than-stellar timing on my part I didn't have as much time in the pool as I planned. So my swim got cut short. Still, it felt ok, if not terribly fast. I could not feel the water, which doesn't mean anything to you if you aren't a swimmer but means everything if you are. Swimming, unlike running or cycling, has to be pretty. A general rule is, if your stroke looks nice, then it probably is fast. A corollary to that is, swimming is much more form-dependent than running or cycling. You will see more fast ugly runners than you will see fast ugly swimmers. Running is more forgiving like that. Also, the range of "ugly form" in running is bigger and up for more of a debate. (So much so that I just went to the YouTubes looking for an amusing video of awful running form and couldn't find one because I feel bad making fun of someone's form now. Instead, imagine a guy in massively heavy shoes who looks like he's fighting an invisible demon which is only vulnerable to flailing arms and knees. Him, he ain't fast. But he's still faster than the swimmer with an equally ugly stroke.) But not being able to feel the water makes it harder to assess what my stroke looks like as I'm swimming. It also means my catch-pull-finish under the water is less effective because I'm not finding the proper place to anchor my hand or the most effective path for my stroke to take beneath me. The drill helped, and I'll be back in the water Monday to keep working on it.Today, as I said, will be a 35 mile ride. Weather looks nice. Should be a good time to get some. Probably ought to eat a little more first.