"Checking In"

It's been a rough week mentally.  One filled with questions and uncertainty.  I suddenly feel old and tired.  On Monday Roo and I took Kylie to the park for her bike riding lesson and it was me that learned a  lesson.  Yup!  When they're gonna fall you just have to let them fall!!  Unfortunately the thought of her elbows hitting the cement spurned me into action and I convinced myself I could catch her.  Half way to the ground I got tangled up with the bike as well and I had to make a decision whether to land on Kylie or land on my head.  I hit the concrete sidewalk so hard I thought I may never recover.  Kylie was fine, and as I thought about the whole sequence later I considered the possibility that at 57 years old I shouldn't be trying that kind of trick.  I also mashed my knuckles and bruised my left knee.

So after that auspicious start to the week,  despite reasonable workout results for the rest of the week,  I am only now starting to get my head back on straight (literally and figuratively). Hopefully my long ride tomorrow will bring my confidence level back up to where it needs to be at this point.  The bad news is that I will be doing it on my old bike as my Argon is still in the shop.  The holdup is simply a matter of the BS required in getting Shimano to own up to the warranty.  They don't trust the bike shop and insist of doing their own test of the faulty equipment.  I truly ain't too stressed over it, and in fact am grateful that I have a backup.

I think I have my routine for the rest of the program pretty well figured out.  It looks something like this.

Sunday-------trail run(easy)
Monday------swim, weights, hill run
Tuesday------swim, hard basement bike, transition run
Wednesday--long run/walk (4 min/1 min)
Thursday-----swim, weights, easy ride
Friday---------long swim
Saturday------Long ride, transition run

That's the plan but I will also try hard to listen to my body, and adjust accordingly.  Although it looks quite full I think it's generally do-able. Other than Friday my swims will be no more than 1500 metres.  The one basement ride will alternate between various workouts I used during my bike program.  Weight workouts will be limited to upper body only, and not take more than 20 minutes to complete.   Even my weekly hill run will be done at a reasonable intensity as I only want to simulate race day speed.  While just over half of the Tremblant run course is flat as a pancake the rest of it is rolling hills, including thr last 5 kms!!  The most important workouts from here on in are the long ride/transition runs, and with Friday and  Sunday being easy days, I will try to give it my all on Saturday.  If weather dictates I will also have the option of switching Sat and Sunday.  I don't mind running in the rain but wet riding just sucks, and it's more  dangerous.

So there you have my update.  Hang with me through this rough patch.  I'm pretty sure it will get better again as soon as I remember why I'm doing this??  I tried to buy my optimism back and while it helped a little bit temporarily we wll know that true resolve comes from inside.  Never the less here are the toys I spent Roo's money on.

While I didn't really need these I was never really enamoured with my red ones and these just soooo match my bike.  While they are not "triathlon" specific shoes, the advantages far outweigh the 4 extra seconds it takes to get them on.  To start with they are a whopping 120 grams (4.5 ozs) lighter than the old ones, and secondly they have this really cool thing called Boa lacing.  Those little dials that you see allow you to make very minute, on the fly adjustments, to either tighten or loosen the fit as desired.  On a long ride this is gonna be precious.  I think I'm gonna loose another second getting them off!!

And while I didn't really need this either, Old John and Grampa Brett both have one, and while that wasn't my motivation you know I gotta keep up!!   It's a GPS watch which will tell you in real time just about anything you may want to know, except for why your children are the way they are.  Each one of those 4 quadrants is programmable to a myriad of data. One of it's many great features is that it has a run/walk function which you can program to whatever you want, and set alerts accordingly,  But the number one motivator for me.....it vibrates....  Thanks to my old friend the chemo doc, I no longer hear my wrist watch unless it is pressed tightly to my ear.  I tried it out on my long run this past Wednesday and it was flawless.

And on my training today I had a decent 3000 metre swim despite the 60, ten year olds that were at the pool.  They all stayed out of my lane!  

Oh and Kylie now rides like a pro!!  Thanks to Roos advice I am now an expert.   I bet we can teach any kid to ride in 2, one hour sessions.

"Mental toughness is to physical as four is to one."---Bobby Knight

....and this one doesn't match but I really liked it...

"Men should not try to over strain their goodness more than any other faculty, bodily or mental."---Samuel Butler

Love

Peter