Follow up on stolen gear!

Got a call on the drive home -- the suspects are in custody and I might get my stuff back! More later.

To spice it up, I biked then swam today

BIKE I dunno what I did, it was 40 mins of something
SWIM 40 mins, I think 1700
PT with JH

This is a fill-in post being written the next Tuesday after I realized I missed it. Just wanted to log it because I did it and that's what I do!

This swim was with my new gear, damn my old goggles were messy. These are clear and not tinted, big difference. And my new bag is a great commuter bag too, pink is a nice visible color and the space is great. Just need some reflector stickers.

And a session with JH before stopping by lab, dropping of the dog and driving home! When JH asked what I did today, I said same as yesterday (a swim and a bike) except I reversed them today to keep things interesting. he, bee humor.

Maybe I should get my stuff stolen more often

SWIM 1 hour and 2300 yards
BIKE COMMUTE 11 miles

What?! I swam?! Though I had no gear?! Well let me tell you a story...

I realized yesterday that I was a teensy bit happy that I was going to miss today's swim because I had no gear. That was a lie. I have gear. Back up, race, retired, stuff like that. So I dug out my shiny new Blue70 goggles (literally, shine and new, mirrored finish and worn maybe once?). Dug out a tri suit of the gray Orca shorts and the TTT top. Savageman cap from my IMCDA bag. Ha, take that fuckers.

Up early, BEAUTIFUL morning, so calm and quiet and it rained on me and the doggie during out walk. Then bike to gym, swim a 600WU then MS of 1x400, 2x200, 4x100, 8x50. Oooooh so tired I alternated swim and pull.  Then a random 100 CD to wrap it up. My form was getting shitty. But I SWAM anyway, and I'm so happy for it.

Bike to lab, oh so gorgeous again. A sin to be indoors. I passed a flock of 5-6 Lime Bikes near the SLUH I-64 underpass, smiled at them. Then found a lonely Limer on the other side of the tunnel, said to it "your friends are just on the other side, go!" haha. I was in a good mood.

Stole my fucking swim bag, you assholes

RUN 3.9 of 5 miles, trackwork
BIKE COMMUTE just under 6 miles

Full moon at 9:44am. Probably about the time my truck window was smashed.

Met BE for a resurrection of Sunrise Speedwork, pulling a workout from my beloved iron distance plan: 1x1600, 2x800, 4x100. Ideally a jogged lap for recovery, we walked a lap or half lap. And ideally progressively faster as distances got shorter, but we nailed a very steady 8:20 pace.

A laff to remember -- when we finished the last 400 in 2:05 and I wondered on pace and BE immediately said 8:20. I was like WOW how you do that. Uh... 1 lap at 2:05 x 4....  No garmin required :)  Again I expected to be really wore out for this, I was but still done splendidly.

Rode Puppy to the track, took 12 mins and was a good WU and CD. Home. Dog. Shower. Drive to FP for brief lab hour. While in lab, some shitbag broke into my beloved truck, smashed a window and took both swim gear bags. Fuckers. They don't want my swim gear, I want it, why can't we just work this out and I get my stuff back!?

Took brief inventory of replacement values, upwards of $200 which the kind police officer smiled at. I lost my red speedo bag, the gray WashU bag, my flippers, goggles, shower bag, new black/yellow and halloween suits, my new rainbow and black/gold caps, my finger timer, (OK that sounds weird...), the $7-ish I keep in the red bag in case a master's class breaks out, a bottle of my beloved peppermint lotion, (word of the day: beloved), and much more I'll slowly recall as I need it. Oh, my beloved broken lock and my blue flip flops. Fuckers.

In the end, lots of vacuuming, time spent waiting for insurance to call back, time with Sugar. I was surprisingly calm with all of this and didn't get overtly stressed. I had a few stomach-churn moments but otherwise ok. It's just a window, I guess. But they're still fuckers.

Memorial Day weekend summary

Friday full rest, PT with JH
Saturday RIDE 50 miles !! in 3:08 on the MCT
Saturday BRICK 1 min run in 20 mins total, LOL!
Sunday RUN 6.5 miles with 4x8min intervals in 61 mins, out of 9 miles in 1:45
Monday RIDE 25 miles of TGP loops and work commute

Whew! Love me some Memorial Day weekends :)

Friday -- JH and I discussed Tuesday's 6 min intervals, he granted permission to try 8 min. But he didn't say how many..... [give me an inch, I'll take a marathon!]

Saturday up early to ride the MCT on my own, goal of 3 hours or 50 miles. Turns out they happened together. What a great day to ride, less pollen than 2 weeks ago. I kept the pace kinda easy but still on the move. No fuel, just water. And unlike last week, this time I had the aerobottle and extras to refill. I rode from Culver's to the end of Goshen, then extended out on Wanda thinking I might could see some river. After a while of bumps and wind and fatigue, I turned around with no river or Confluence Tower sighting. Later looking at a map I realized I was going south, not west. Loooooong time before I'd see river, ha!

At the turnaround at 1:15 I was just starting to feel some fatigue, but not hungry. Just dulled, and distracted by the fact that only after  I passed the porto potty I needed to pee. Humph. I did an out n back towards E-ville, bathroom locked at the ball park. Then out n back on Nature to porto potty, this part of the trail had awful tree root bumps that kept me out of aero. At least they were highlighted pink for me to see with paint!

These little out n backs left me almost on time/distance goal. I just did an extra spur to the south then back to truck right on goal. The last 8 miles felt great, I could have gone more. But I wanted to at least try a brick run. Walking warmup then.....only 1 min run. Just wasn't there. Yet. No issues with this ride, and the lack of fueling during and after surprises me --I do OK with it.

Sunday! Funday! Drove out to the Greentree/Meramac trail to simulate a track-like flat run without the track. WU as usual with 2' min walk/run then started off on the 8 min intervals. My legs were a bit heavy and it was warm, I'll blame that for the elevated HR in the 150 range. But it didn't drift higher, and dropped fast in the 2 min walk interval to rest. So I kept going. By the 4th interval, I was done with 8 mins -- mentally and physically. Of course, I didn't stop there. I walked about 6 mins then did the out n back south/west of Simpson lake. The problem was I didn't brink a water bottle because I thought I'd turn around at the truck (where my squeeze was waiting for me), and instead I'm doing this Simpson route. 3' run/2' walk until done. I felt this -- my left IT/quad/leg was pained in the weight bearing phase of the stride. But all good numbers for HR and cadence.

Monday! Another Funday! Met with BE for a resurrection of the TGP monday rides. We got in a full 3 loops this time, each progressively faster: 17:48, 17:11, 16:38. Setting a high bar for subsequent rides, we are. This felt amazingly good after the previous two days, thought I'd be suffering (and I was up late Sunday night) but nope nope nope. Resilient, I am. When I want to be. And BE is there to push the pace. :)

After the TGP, rode to lab for short mouse work, then home for a total of 25 miles or so in a little under 2hours. Was home by 9am! Spend the day doing gardening and patio work. Super productive day.

NUMERICS for all but Monday: 8 hours and 44 mins, that is SBR only no W or BC
SWIM 4400 y
BIKE 80.8 miles
RUN 11 miles, with 6' and 8' intervals
BIKE COMMUTE 2 miles
WALK 16.8

I do have two wetsuits

Quickie story because I don't want to forget. Tuesday at the pool I couldn't remember -- do I have two wetsuits? I know I have the full sleeve, but why do I keep thinking I have a sleeveless?

So last night I pulled out my not-since-2014 red tri duffel bag, and YUP I have two wetsuits. The 2XU full and the XTerra sleeveless. When did I buy the sleeveless?

Tried to skip my swim. Failed. Swam. WON!

RUN 2.7 out of 3.7 miles, 25 out of 42 mins
SWIM 1700 in 45 mins
BIKE COMMUTE 12.6 thanks to forgetting something at home

Another one of those "up early yet not to work until 5 hours later" mornings. What the hell do I do all morning? Good question. So I started a little notepage from a spreadsheet, with 15 minute increments to track where I am and what I'm doing. It's just for a week, patterns will emerge and I can go from there.

I'm up at 5, don't walk dog until just after 6, start my run 630, end run 715, get dressed to leave on bike but then don't leave house until just after 8. Huh, half hour of....packing, nom'ing, delaying. Hence another spreadsheet to ask 'what was I avoiding doing' and 'what was I doing to avoid it'. Again just until patterns emerge. Today, I was avoiding leaving to swim because I wanted chicken. Wow, great reason.

Off to swim, get half mile out and realize I forgot my bike lock. Back home, and on the way home that tempting thought of "just shower at home and get to work" pops into my head. Sure I didn't want to swim, but not that badly. I did want to swim to some degree. So home, grab lock, leave again 8:23. I told myself that I just needed to swim 30 mins, and that's good enough.

Pool, shower and to deck. The Plan called for a Locomotive swim of 3x500, so I just did those as S-P-S then rounded up to an even 45 mins and 1700 with a CD. The swim felt sloppy at times and good at others. BUT IT'S DONE!

Shower, out, (saw Deb!), bike to work, stuck at a train for a while on Manchester. (Haha, I wrote trail instead of train). This was kinda cool, the train was stopped and when it started moving again the clang-clank-clang-... went from left to right as all the cars started being pulled. Then again as the train (haha, trailed, habit typing!) paused and started again I got to enjoy the effect two more times.

Got to work around 10:10. So....5 hours and 10 mins to get from bed to work. Ugh. Then another 15-30 mins of making the spreadsheets, and more minutes filling them out and looking at them. Ugh. But productive day otherwise.

HOT out, finally, I'll be tired for my commute home. I'm still optimizing a non-construction route home, until then I'm seeing old neighborhoods, new bumps, and fresh pave.

When tagging this post I saw my Swim Challenge tag. What was that? Gotta go check that out. :)
And log it as time wasted on my spreadsheet hahahaha. Turns out it was a March 2010 personal swim challenge to get me in the pool more. Goal was 3-4 swims per week of 45' or more, on a set MWRF schedule. I spent more time thinking about the "carrots" i was going to use as a reward. I came up with all foods described back then as "highly pleasurable": Lara bars, nut butters, and cashews. Good Lawd Jeezus Krist, was I trying to make myself sick? And a $ carrot of $5/swim, 3 month accumulation. And benchmark times like <1:50 100y.="" for="" nbsp="" p="">
On Day 1 I ate the nut butter before I even dipped a toe in the pool. In less than a month I'd broken the benchmark times and set new records for myself. I soon gave up on the $ carrot and stuck to foods and being able to watch the TV show ANTM. Bought my TeamUSA armwarmers with my cash. Then I puttered out after 2 months. In July I tried again in one post, then mentioned it again in January 2011. This time I did a cashew butter on a banana if I went to Monday Master's.

Aw, I was so cute back then.

And it's a good idea to get my benchmark times measured. Was bemoaning what I perceive as a lack of progress this morning at the pool...look into it.