7.16.2008

It never ends...

Charter still hasn't fixed my internet. When it works, it's slower than dial up. They're coming out once again tomorrow, and this is their last chance. If they can't fix it tomorrow, I'm switching to AT&T.

If that wasn't bad enough, an unauthorized e-mail address was added to my PayPal account so I had to call their fraud protection and now I'm trying to get the $1000 I got for my wheels out of that account. It's ridiculous trying to take care of things like that when you're internet is slower than dial up.

The last time I used PayPal my credit card was stolen. I didn't want to use it again, but I figured it might be okay to use to sell my wheels and it would definitely be the easiest way and now I'm having security problems again. If you can avoid using PayPal, I would. Their security is a joke.

Last Wednesday I realized I needed some time to recover. I've been a bit overtrained for a while, and I decided the best thing to do would be to cut back my training drastically and get some rest. I typically train at least 12 hours a week, and I've only trained 5 hours since last Wednesday.

Today, I went for a moderate ride at lunch. I planned on keeping my power in my endurance zone with 2 short hard efforts thrown in - one of them being 5 minutes in my tempo zone and the other one being 2 minutes at sub-threshold. I felt so good that I had to hold back to keep my power down where I wanted it, and I still ended up riding above my sub-threshold level on my last interval. What a great feeling. I haven't had that in a long time. I typically come up short of my goals because I go into workouts tired.

Tomorrow I might do a very easy ride, and then I have an aquathon in the evening. My plan for that is to swim all out and then run at a moderate pace and save my running legs for the Spirit of Racine this weekend. Friday is another rest day, and Saturday morning I'll do a very short workout with a couple of short, hard efforts to get warmed up for Sunday.

Sunday...all out. I hope to have a sub 35 minute swim, and then I'm going to hammer the bike and hope I survive the run. That might sound like a stupid strategy (and it might be), but I feel like I've been a little too conservative on the bike lately (mainly in training) because I spend so much time watching my power and trying to save it for the run. This time, I want to go a little harder and see what happens on the run. This might be a mistake, but I feel like I need to give it a try. My thinking is that pushing a little harder on the bike will give me a better idea of how to pace myself for the ironman. If I blow up on the run, at least I'll know where my limit is.

After the Spirit of Racine, I'm taking a few more rest days. Then I have a few hard weeks of training, but this time I think I'm going to get more rest and focus more on my key workouts than overall volume. I don't think I've been getting enough rest.

Then a 3 week taper followed by the Ironman.

Assuming I live through the IM, I might do the Sugar River Bike Tour century in Broadhead at the end of September. That was my first century, and I got lost many times so I want to do it again. Plus, Cheri is talking about doing a century and this would be a good one for her first since it's a flat course.

After that I'm going to focus on my running. I'm thinking about picking a 10K (maybe the berbee derby) and training for it for about 6 weeks to see what I can do. After training for a long endurance event like the Ironman I think training for a short, fast race like a 10K might be a fun change of pace. And I've never run a 10K so it's a guaranteed PR.

2 comments:

bigmike600 said...

Sounds like you got a good plan and everyone knows that planning is the first step to success.
I think you are going to surprise yourself.
I'm coming to do the aquathon tomorrow just to get the swim experience. I am hoping it better prepares me for Racine on Sunday.
Thanks for the e mail. It helps to know you have the support of others.

Anonymous said...

I also hate paypal. they are slow, unnecessarily complicated and generally rubbish. I hope you've got your money out of them by now. I sold a bass and used paypal as I thought (as their ads say) it was the secure way to do it. it wasn't until half way through the whole charade that I discovered I didn't even qualify for seller protection. so I could have just by-passed paypal as there really were serving no purpose at all. luckily the person I was selling to didn't try to mess me around. they are a proper bunch of bastards.

Good job on the blogging by the way, it's both interesting and a great way to spend a few minutes at work.

You didnt mention Mark Cavendish when you were talking about le tour. he is amazing, really powerful - you can see his track background coming through in those sprints. He'll be a contender for the yellow jersey in a few years I reckon. I'm really looking forward to watching the cycling at the Olympics too, Great Britain are actually really good in the velodrome (we won more golds at the last world championships than every other country put together) so will hopefully clean up - which never happens.