I was able to get all three triathlon disciplines in this past week. I didn’t do any mid-week runs because of the guy’s training weekend where I knew I’d spike my mileage, though skipping the Sunday run shaved about 10 miles off the usual training weekend total.  The swim is still the hardest to work into my schedule and is also my weakest area.  I’m going to make sure I get in the pool at least once a week, even though the training program requires two swims.  As the summer comes around hopefully it will be easier to get to the pool or into the lake.

Your Training for 05/09/2011 – 05/15/2011 Miles: 46.28 Comments: 0 Time: 04:41 Motivations: 0 Calories: 4343 Among Friends: 10 Workouts: 6 Overall Position: 3032

Last week I was in Spain with a group of 33 8th graders. We got tours of Madrid, Segovia, and Barcelona.  I took two pairs of running shorts and hoped to workout at least that many times.

I got one run in while staying in Madrid – a short 3 or so miler.  And two runs while in Barcelona.  It took a long time for my Garmin to sync so I started the runs without it completely ready to go – so the distances were 100% accurate.

Madrid is fairly hilly and it was humid at 6:30 when I went out.  The streets were pretty much empty except the sidewalk cleaners and a few dog walkers.  I headed in the direction of a park that I’d seen on Google Maps.  Their parks mostly have crushed stone paths so that was nice. I didn’t have a lot of time nor did I want to get lost so I followed some side roads back towards the main road to the hotel.  It was easy to find the hotel because it stood above most of the surrounding buildings!

The first run in Barcelona almost didn’t have a good ending.  I ran with one of the high school students that came with, our plan was to go to the beach and see the sunrise.  We accomplished that part and walked along the water and enjoyed the beautiful sunrise.  We walked a bit down the beach and got to where we’d had dinner the night before and started heading back up the streets.  We were walking for awhile and realized we weren’t were we should be.  We walked a little bit and tried using my Garmin to get us back (remember the whole not starting right away thing) but it took us in a circle.  We stopped and asked a Policia (en Espanol) where our hotel was – we only knew the name so he couldn’t help us.  We walked a bit and then the student remembered that we had taken the subway the night before and we looked at a map to see if we could find the subway station we got out at.  The map was useless, but we realized we were just a few blocks from the station from the night before (and I had brought some Euro).  We got to the station and I started buying our passes.  We only needed 2.90 Euros and I thought I’d brought 4 so we were in luck.  Until I looked at the coins and realized I only brought 2.50, ugh.  We started looking around and a nice woman approached us, so in our broken Spanish we told her what we needed and she gave us the 0.40 that we needed!! We rode the two stops and walked back to our hotel! What an adventure!!

The next day I went for a 5 mile run on the boardwalk that was completely uneventful.  I made sure to look at the cross-streets, just in case!  It was a nice way to get out and enjoy being near the beach.  The Mediterranean was calm and I was looking forward to enjoying our beach day later! I thought that 5 miles might have been a little too far, but I felt good for the rest of the day.

I finished the week out with a 7 mile run on Sunday at home.  I left the house and ran towards the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, took a shortcut, ending by the Walker Art Center, ran through Loring Park, and then down Hennepin. I crossed the Mississippi and down to the Stone Arch back towards home.  It was a pretty random route and I wasn’t sure how far it’d end up being! It felt pretty good though.

I’ll post some pics and maybe some stories from Spain! I also owe a Goal Update from April!

Your Training for 05/02/2011 – 05/08/2011

The whole getting out of bed to go for a run thing is tough. When I was in the routine of it, I never had a problem. But getting back into it has been hard.  That’s why there aren’t many week day runs, but I know that I need to do week day runs otherwise I won’t improve…

Bike commuting every day is keeping my bike mileage up.  And on Friday (a non-work day) I actually did all 3 triathlon disciplines.  I went for an easy run in the morning, biked to a meeting, and swam at the YWCA (before riding home in the rain)!   I was tired afterwards and a little dehydrated, but that didn’t stop me from having a good run Saturday morning. After the run I stopped by the soccer field near our house and did some plyometrics on its fake grass surface barefoot.  The ground was still quite cold, but it felt good!!

I met up with the Team World Vision crew for one of their Saturday morning runs and we did 40 minutes.  I wore my heart rate monitor, but turned off the beepers and actually did pretty good, my average was just outside the proper zone.  Except, I’m not sure how accurate it was, because it said my max pulse was 217.  I don’t remember ever feeling like my pulse was that high and I think you’d remember that!  It was a cooler morning with a bit of drizzle at the start before we ran along the West River Road.

Sunday was another easy 5 mile run.  I headed downtown and then ended up taking a somewhat random route home through the West Bank.  I forgot to turn the beeps back on for the heart rate monitor but again did pretty good at keeping my average in the proper zone. It was a gorgeous morning.

Your Training for 04/18/2011 – 04/24/2011

What a difference a week makes.  A little bit of warmer weather (followed by some snow), a free evening, and a “sick” day meant 2 weekday runs!

Tuesday was in the mid-60’s and sunny.  I had to run! It was a nice easy heart rate run on the Metrodome loop (clock-wise) with nothing exciting to report, except some chickens.  I wore my Kinvaras and did the 3.2 miles in 28:27 which is probably my fastest heart rate run under 160!  I wear the Kinvaras maybe once every week or two, just to mix things up a bit and help make my feet stronger.  I only wear them for these shorter runs for now.  I might inch my way up in them.  They’d be a good show for the triathlon I think.

Wednesday night after work I had a meeting at Chatterbox in Highland Park  and immediately after a going away party for a YNPN colleague in Nordeast.  That made for a lot of bike riding, 19 miles to be exact.  Fortunately it was all pretty broken up and the weather was great.

Friday I was home with Nadia.  Daycare sent her home on Thursday with the suspicion of pink eye. The doctor wasn’t sure, but since another kid had it recently gave us drops and a note saying she could go back on Monday.  Nevertheless we had a great day at home that included her second ever stroller run.  Sadly, the weather had started turning colder and so she wore her snow suit and I had to wear pants again.  We ran the Metrodome loop counter-clockwise and the wind and stroller made it quite difficult.  The same distance took almost 4 minutes longer.

Saturday morning was another stroller run. I  had hoped to join up with the Team World Vision crew, but it was quite cold and a little bit of snow on the ground.  Christy was at work, so we waited until it got warmer and did an almost 6 miler on the Greenway.  If you haven’t noticed, the Greenway can be quite the wind tunnel.  I chose to head into the wind to start (good decision) and pushed the quasi-aerodynamic jogging wind catcher for 3 miles into the wind.  That was brutal, especially with the heart rate monitor beeping at me every time my pulse went over 160. Ugh.  Fortunately, the run back was much nicer and the stroller helped propel me along!

Sunday morning was kind of a last minute decision to do the FREE MDRA Mudball Classic 4 mile race at the Quaking Bog.  I had no real expectations going into this race, I figured if nothing else it would be a nice (aka tough and muddy) 4 mile run.  I was quite pleased with my time and exertion level. A 34:54 over some brutal hills on nothing but base training… I’ll take it!  I was disappointed that there wasn’t more mud though!

Afterwards I went to a tri clinic at the YWCA.  It was very basic information and it went long and was mostly female focused. They had lots of great information and a great list of resources.   BTW, the YWCA is really stepping up their endurance sports focus.

Mike and I had scheduled a ride for the afternoon.  He was recovering from a bug and I obviously was a little tired, but we ended up riding 25 miles.  I suggested what I thought was a 4 mile add-on but turned out to be quite a bit more and added a big hill. We went down the Greenway to West River Road, crossed the Mendota Bridge and went through Lilydale and back up East River Road to Franklin. It was a very relaxed pace and ride though.  It was great to get out there for a real training ride on my nicer bike (they handle quite differently!)

Your Training for 04/11/2011 – 04/17/2011

A little bit better this week. I was out of town for the weekday parts with 7th Graders at the Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center. We had a lot of fun, even if it was quite exhausting. I had brought gear to try and run, but didn’t get a lot of sleep!  Between the kids staying up late and some snoring roommates…

On Saturday I got a nice 7.5 mile run that included the East Bank of the U of  MN and the Rocky’s Run course.  It was humid and overcast, but I’ve discovered that doing the heart rate runs you don’t work up the same amount of sweat as a more traditional run.  The run ended at Freewheel Midtown where I picked up my bike and rode it the 1/2 mile home.

Sunday I met up with some of the guys at Jensen Lake and hammered out some trails.  I was beat at 3.5 when we went by the parking lot so I bailed.  It was great to be on trails again and to catch up a bit with the guys.  There was obviously mud and still some snowy parts.  One hill in particular we struggled to get up because of the icy snow.  That just added to the adventure of a first trail run!

Obviously 30 Days of Biking didn’t go well while I was out of town, but I did do like a minute on the trainer on Monday and the 1/2 mile on Saturday.  Christy and I did about a 9 mile ride on Sunday towing Nadia behind.  It was a brutal ride to the lakes on the Greenway thanks to some intense wind, but a more relaxing ride back!

Your Training for 04/04/2011 – 04/10/2011