Rain, Rain Go Away (and Take the Wind with You)

What happened to Spring? Okay, Spring is the time for rain. But why on the weekend, especially when a two hour bike ride followed by a 30 minute run is on the training schedule? Yes, today's workout involved riding and running in the rain. Even better, it was also windy with the temperature in the low 40s. Despite the less than ideal conditions, the workout was kind of fun. However, if given a choice, I would prefer working out in the sunny sixty degree weather predicted for tomorrow.

The fun part of the workout was testing out the new aero bars. This was the first time I have used aero bars when riding. Initially, I was a little shaky but became more comfortable as I rode longer. I wish that I had them installed earlier so that I could have practiced more with them before the race this Saturday. However, I will have another chance to try them out on Wednesday.

As for the race, hopefully the weather will be better in Vegas. If not, then at least today was good practice for dealing with poor weather conditions.

Ugh

This week has not been a good week training or otherwise. It started great on Monday and has gone downhill since then.

On Monday, I swam. Although it was a long swim, it was probably one of the best swim workouts ever for me. I felt strong and relaxed in the water. The swim was going so well that I was kind of disappointed when the workout ended. This is unusual as typically I am glad when the swim workout is done. If it is possible, I may have been on a swimmer's high. Despite the great swim, work quickly killed my motivation for the day. It was such a struggle that I barely billed six hours for the day, which was not a good start to the month.

On Tuesday, I was scheduled to run six miles. I say scheduled to run because the run did not actually happen. The day before, I had discussed this run with Steve. I was concerned about it because of my left calf. For the last month or so, every time I have run, there is a dull pain in my left calf. After a run, I typically limp around for a day or two. Because of this injury, I've not been running much lately. Thus, for this run, Steve wanted me start off very slowly to see if I could avoid the calf pain. If not, we agreed that I should stop the run.

As discussed with Steve, I started slowly. It didn't matter. Less than a few minutes into the run, the dull ache was back. I tried to give it a go for about a mile but the pain didn't go away. At that point, I just ended the run. I'm probably could have done the run but it wasn't worth it. I knew that I would just end up limping around. Later in the day I talked to Steve about the run. Steve suggested that I do a workout on an elliptical to see if there was still pain. That evening, I did exercised on an elliptical. The ache was still there although it was not as bad as it is during running.

Work was not much better than the run. Once again I didn't come close to billing the number of hours that I need to bill each day.

Wednesday was another swim. The swim was 50 continuous minutes of pulling. During this swim, I tried doing flip turns at both ends of the pool. Other than trying something new, the swim was uneventful. Work, from a billing standpoint, was a bit better than Monday and Tuesday as I least I hit the target number of billable hours.

On Thursday, Andrea once again worked on my calf. At times, it was painful as my left calf lit up each time she worked the inside of it. Afterwards, the leg felt better. Because I didn't feel like going to work, I talked with Andrea after the massage much longer than I should have. The end result was that I got into work after noon. While talking to Andrea, I also found that I was scheduled to ride 1.5 hours on the trainer. Knowing that I had to ride the trainer after work, I left work early even though I had billed less than five hours. This was the worst billing day of the week. Even worse, I already need to make up like five hours just for this month.

When I got home, Brenda wanted to go out to eat. So instead of getting on the trainer, we went to dinner. By the time we got back, it was almost nine. I really didn't feel like riding the training but did it anyway. I'm pretty sure the workout was not that great. Even though I had the bike on low resistance, I had no motivation to spin at a high cadence. After an hour, I just wanted off the bike. However, I struggled through another 30 minutes of riding.

Today was another long swim. This swim was not so good. During the swim, I felt anything but strong and smooth. In fact, I felt like a lead weight in the water, and flip turns were not going much better. It started with coming up short once at the wall. I then started to over think the flip turns and had numerous other almost not reaching the wall turns. At one point, it got so bad that I didn't do a flip. Instead, I ended up diving to the bottom of the pool, which I am sure was very funny to the watching lifeguards. Needless to say, the swim couldn't end fast enough. After the swim, I was very tired and my back muscles were fatigued.

Fortunately, I decided to work from home today. It was a good decision since I didn't get home from the swim until around 11;00. Despite the late start, I actually had a good work day. I completed a new project and got my required hours in for the day. Unfortunately, I will probably have to work either tomorrow and/or Sunday just to catch up on the other hours that I missed this week.