Friday, October 17, 2014

Return to Normalacy

With the Beetsdown campaign over and the Swim the Suck completed, life has started to return to normal.

Sort of.

There is still the little matter of a Big ASS investigation that is ongoing right now. I'm not worried about that, though, because I did not poison Randy Beets so how could anyone prove I did?

By normal, maybe what I really mean is the end of my open water season has come, and my yardage is dropping like the stock market. Furthermore, my yard grass is slowing its growth rate. That means my athletic focus is shifting back to running and weightlifting.

Monday was cool and rainy so I shuffled on the treadmill for 2.54. By the way, that is the only time I run on a treadmill-- when it is raining and too cool to get wet. If it is warm enough I will run in a downpour, but from here to next summer rain means at least some pretty cool wind it you are wet and partially disrobed.

Tuesday I went to Twin Rivers. The water was 75, but John has no will for cool water swimming this fall. Last year I couldn't keep him out of the pool, and we swam down into the 60s before Miss Debbie drained our concrete pond. Seems one of his doctors warned him about cold water swimming and now he just won't do it. I have never been to medical school, but I would bet the house that no physician in the country ever took a course or even had a single lecture on cold water swimming. In short, I am saying doctors weigh in on things they know nothing about. At least this one did. I warmed up with 1,000 and then swam 4 X 600 @ 13:10 on a new countdown pattern of 150/50. This was a nice set that I will use next year in my Beetsdown training. After the pool I ran 2.05 miles and did some light weightlifting, just trying to prepare my body for resuming strength work next week.
David Stroud

Wednesday was the MDCC 5K. I have missed this the last couple of times because of injuries. I recruited some of my students to make the trip from Greenwood to Moorhead. We met at the coliseum and Chief Manuel bused us out Macon Lake Road where he dumped us and we ran back to the flag pole. If I had not twisted my students' arms, I would have won, but instead I came in second behind David Stroud of my Monday/Wednesday Comp I class. My pace dipped from my last 10K tempo that had me a bit disturbed. I know, it was only a 5K, but typically there is only thirty seconds or fewer between 10K and 5K race pace. I averaged 8:10 and that made me feel like at least I am on the road back to better running. At my last 10K, I averaged 9:13 per mile and that had me so upset I had a long sit-down, self-bashing and loathing/planning session.

Thursday I was back in the Twin Rivers pool and the water had only dropped two degrees. I expected a more drastic plument since we had a forty-somthing night. Usually a fifty-something night will take two degrees away so I was expecting three or more. There is a huge differrence between 75 and 73. Seventy-three is still nice, but I can't stand around at all or I get cold quickly. After warming up with 1,200, I did 22 X 100 @ 2:00 and then 10 X 50 @ 1:00 with small paddles.

It is now Friday morning and I have a dog in the bed with me, but Luvie and Baby Kitty are attempting to destroy the house. If they get up here, the day may be lost. But what I am thinking now is a long adventure run in the hills. There is a road not too far from here that I haven't been on in years. Think I'll ride over and park the truck and see what I can find.

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