A Tough Week for Training

Wow – last week flew by and it’s time for an update.  After the great snowmageddon of St. Louis on January 5th, the temperatures plummeted and we had a few cold days and a bit more snow.  Since then, the temperatures have rebounded, stores were able to re-stock their eggs, milk, and bread, most of the snow has melted, and people around here have stopped losing their s*&@ over road conditions and school closures.

 

On the training side, the weather made last week tough so I spent most of the week indoors:

Monday           18 mile ride (trainer)

Tuesday           4 mile tempo run (indoor track)

Wednesday     1 mile swim

Thursday         rest

Friday              20 mile ride (trainer)

Saturday          8 mile run (Forest Park)

Sunday             1 mile walk

Total = 52 miles

Ideally Sunday would have included a bike ride and/or swim, but I was completely and totally exhausted for some reason.  I thought a walk with the dog would have helped, but it didn’t.  I remember having days where I felt like this during training last summer for Ironman 70.3 Muncie – sometimes you just have to listen to your body, rest, and live to fight another day.

In other training news, we’ve been working on “cleaning up” our nutrition.  Last week included a number of vegetarian meals, juicing, quality snacks, etc.  The week did end with a few treats at a trivia night and a piece of my son’s birthday cake on Sunday, but overall it was a good week. 

While I still have a number of “gear issues” to address before racing season starts (aero helmet, on-bike hydration system, etc.), I have been working on getting acquainted with the GoPro I received for Christmas.  I am continually amazed at the quality of the video you can get from this tiny device as I think back to the old shoulder-mounted home camcorders.  The GoPro unit fits in the palm of your hand, can be mounted virtually anywhere, and quickly downloads for editing.  Here are the results of some of my testing:

You can’t watch a few of these from a mobile device due to copyright issues on some of the music.  I haven’t found a legal way around this yet – sorry about that. 

I’ve purchased a bike mount for the camera so that I can take some video and/or stills during training to help document the journey.

The GoPro was also a deciding factor in signing up for the Quivering Quads trail half marathon in March.  I’m not as interested in running the race as I am in running the race with the GoPro.  This course should make for some interesting footage, I hope.  Seems like misplaced priorities, but a number of people from my running group swear this is a good time.