<- Left Turns Only!

Well, after a brief stint away from my blog it’s probably time to provide an update on how training is going (and any other odd topics). 

Last weekend I went to Austin (TX) to visit a friend for Memorial Day weekend.  My buddy Chris moved down there a little over a year ago - after spending some less than enjoyable time in Los Angeles for two years, on the heels of his time here in Chicago. 

First up, I have to mention my experience with Southwest Airlines.  If you’ve flown Southwest before, you probably know three things about them:

1 - Cheap flights (price). 

2 - The ABC Boarding process - which turns the gate area into a clustered mess of bodies, in lines, snaking around the floor… it makes the DMV look sane. 

3 - Every flight attendant that works for Southwest has a burning desire to sing somewhere, ANYWHERE.  It may not be a desire to sing on Broadway, maybe not even “off-Broadway.”  With that said, I want to know this — what the heck is their interview process like?  Where are the interviews held?  Dinner theaters?  Or at comedy clubs?  (That’s the other alternate ego of Southwest Flight Attendants… stand-up comedian).   Yeah, there’s nothing better than being held captive and forced to listen to bad humor and the Southwest Airlines version of Zip-a-dee-doo-dah.  

Anyway…. moving on.  My weekend in Austin would have been great, except once I got off of the Disney flight I started to feel a sore throat coming on.  Although it didn’t bother me much the rest of the day on Friday, when I woke up that evening I thought I was going to catch fire my face was so hot.  I alternated between being on fire and having the chills for the better part of the next 6 hours.  Good fun.  I was feeling better by the afternoon, but kept it low key for the evening.  Three of us went to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie.  (Which was excellent)

For the next two days we didn’t do much outdoors, as it rained pretty hard.  I wasn’t aware Austin was so prone to flash flooding.  I did manage to get about a 6 mile jog in on Sunday.  Oh, and we spent a few hours at the batting cages and racing Go Karts on Monday.  

After flying back on Tuesday it’s been back to the usual routine at work.  While I’ve been trying to get rid of the last remnants of this flu turned head cold and bronchitis-like mess.  Not pretty.  I did sign up for a 5K this Sunday morning… I probably shouldn’t have typed that, since I’ve jinxed myself for the first two attempts this year.  So, for now, the event will remain nameless…. until I complete it!    

I always love it when people say that (”it’s a good soreness though”) about the post-workout soreness that you have the next day, or two days later.  What’s good about it?  Who likes to walk around like they have someone sticking something into their hip?  Or pulling on their hamstrings?  Not to mention, you certainly don’t feel fast when you’re sore.  Ironic that working out with the goal of developing more speed can end up slowing you down (temporarily).  Regardless, in my book - all soreness is bad soreness. 

So, after taking it easy all week, trying not to overdo it on my knee, I am a little sore today (in case you had not already guessed that) after our dryland workout last night.  It was nothing too strenuous, but served as a good reminder that when I take it easy during my workouts (due to injury or because it’s a recovery week) I need to be doing more than light jogging.  Speedskating requires you to use every ounce of muscle in your lower body - if you are going to get it right. Even when you are doing imitations in sneakers/on land.  If you don’t use those muscles enough, and put them through the ringer every once in awhile… well… they will let you know the day after you try to trot them out for a workout.

Luckily, the boss is out of the office all day… and thus, I’ve been sitting with my feet on my desk for most of the day, catching up on reading for some work projects.  While trying to resist the urge to play a movie on my computer.  On the flip side of that coin, my roommate returns from her vacation today.  The first one she’s been on in a year, and she comes home on Friday?!?  Who does that?  Oh well, there goes the couch/TiVo for the weekend… then again, I should probably thank her.  Thanks to her monopolizing of the living room - I don’t watch nearly as much TV as I would if she wasn’t watching the Soap Opera channel all the time.

Well, the second 5K race of my so-called running season has come and gone… and I have yet to run a race.  Unfortunately, I missed this one because of an injury.  While I hate missing anything because of injuries, this particular injury (and the resulting missed race) was a bit more annoying.  I planned my three day weekend around this race, but since the flight and hotel were already paid for…  I went and got to hangout with my brother and an old college roommate.

As for the injury, last Thursday night I hyperextended my left knee during our warm-ups for dryland practice.  We tend to do our warm-ups and cooldown as a group - by playing ultimate frisbee before practice, and playing soccer after.  During the warm-ups, as I tried to stop after intercepting a pass of the frisbee, I tried to stop quickly on the grass - only problem is that my body was stopping, but my left foot was still skidding across the field.  My knee buckled backwards just enough to feel awkward.  I threw the frisbee, thought everything was fine, but then tried to run again and notice it didn’t feel quite right. 

I tried to squat down to test it out, see how it felt, but I couldn’t manage to stand up without pushing off the ground with my hand.  Therein lied the end of my Thursday night dryland session, and after two days, still not feeling good enough for a three mile run I skipped the race.  Part of me feels like it sucks - because I missed the race.  At the same time, I feel pretty good today and think I’ll be fine for this week’s dryland practice on Thursday… so I’m fortunate that it wasn’t worse.  One more week of waiting now.

For now, the 5K schedule is on hold… most likely not going to wait to see how practice goes before deciding to run a race this weekend.   Until then it’s me, the rowing machine and the spinner.   Not that I mind a light workout day, given the abnormal 89 degree heat we’re having today!

This morning before I ventured off to work, I drove the route that I jogged the last two days I’ve gotten out for a run.  Just trying to make sure I’m not overdoing it, while staying on course with race prep for the first half marathon in July.  Turns out that my Sunday and Tuesday jogs were just under 6 miles.  Not bad, at this rate I should easily be able to get my endurance runs up to the 10-12 mile range for the last couple weeks in June.  I’d like to be able to finish the Chicago race, in August, in under an hour and a half.  It’s a flat course that I’ve run before (when it was a 20k/12.4 mile race).   

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For those of you that have killed time at work reading this blog long enough… I don’t think I posted the results of the “Biggest Loser” contest that we held here in the office.  To fill in anyone that is interested in knowing: The contest was run for 10 weeks, 10 contestants (divided into two teams, blue and red - same as on the show) competing to lose the most weight (by percentage).  I was the judge, and general pain in the ass around the office… eating non-stop while everyone else was watching what they ate! 

Overall, my 10 co-workers lost a combined total of 107 lbs!  The winner (or, The Biggest Loser) lost 9.6% of her initial body weight.  Five co-workers, half of the group, lost more than 5% of their initial weight!  One person did gain weight (1 lb.)… so I’ll be harder on him when the second edition/competition begins in two weeks.  Oh, and the red team lost 3 more lbs. than the blue team, but ended up losing the team challenge because their overall percentage lost was smaller. 

I had to initiate the call for a second competition after the entire office ordered lunch from a local establishment… the name of the place:  Fatman’s.

Softball season starts tonight.  Every Monday night, thru August, (weather permitting as there’s always a rainout, or two) I’ll be making the trek from work in Lake Forest, past downtown Chicago, to the softball fields at UIC (University of Illinios Chicago).  It can be a nightmare of a drive… especially when I have to try to make a 6:15 game and deal with rush hour.  

Dryland practice starts out on Thursdays this season, moving to Wednesdays sometime in June.  Another event that pits me against the evils of rush hour traffic.  In this case, I don’t have to travel past downtown Chicago.  However, I do have to maneuver around Woodfield Mall traffic… not sure what is worse - suits on their cell phones or shoppers on their cell phones.  They both manage to make traffic come to a crawl.   

The weekend brings a quick trip to North Carolina… I’ll post some pics when I return on Monday.  Saturday morning I’m going to run a 5K in the outer banks (Nags Head Woods 5k).  The weather forecast is for a 40% chance of rain on Saturday… hopefully it will hold off.

And finally, for those keeping track, the Red Sox just fell into second place in the AL East…  oh wait, it’s still May, they don’t collapse until August.  Either way, the return of the Rocket should speed up that process… life is good!

Notice the clever capturing of the #1 in the background?  Soon enough…. 

If you’ve yet to click on the link to my friend and fellow speedskater Andrew Love’s blog yet, you can check it out now and see a good preview of my Memorial Day weekend.  Andrew has mastered the art of taping great speedskating clips and posting them to good music on his blog.  www.andrewlove.org/blog 

I doubt that my friend Chris is expecting to do a lot of inline skating that weekend… but after taking him out for a long run last time I was there (in October), and watching him suck wind for awhile, I’m sure he’ll welcome the change.

Last night’s training consisted of another light weight workout, followed by an easy 40-minute row.  I have a C2 rower (www.concept2.com) that I use to change things up once in awhile.  It’s great to have during the winter, when an outdoor workout is either not possible, or insane.  However, it gets less use during the summer months (same can be said for my spinner and my slideboard).  Tonight it’s back to the pavement for a 75-minute jog.

Movie review - As you may know, every so often I post something about a non-speedskating, non-training related topic.  Most of the time I steer clear of personal info, political events, etc… However, last night I watched Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.”  I would recommend that anyone reading this - see this film.  We all know that Global Warming is pretty much a fact - even though there are some that still have their doubts, for whatever reason.  After watching this film, you simply cannot ignore the information that is presented.  The only question remaining — is whether or not a film like this can get enough people to take action and effect change…. I guess we’ll see. 

We’ve moved into the third week of the transition phase of the season.  We are still focusing on building our aerobic capacity, mostly long tempo runs, nothing too strenuous.  I’ve mixed in some early weight training, but nothing beyond base building.  No heavy lifting yet, mainly low weight and high reps.  Barely enough to make me sore the next day.

It’s started to warm up here in Chicago now, which is certainly a welcome change of pace - after spending three days in Las Vegas at the end of last week and cringing at the thought of returning to the weather I left behind.  (On Wednesday it was 49 degrees and pouring rain when we reached the airport at 5:45am)   We’re not out of the woods yet, as there’s always potential for a couple of 40 degree days in May… but hopefully it’ll stay 60+ from here on out.

While I was in LV, I managed to play more golf in three days - and I even attended the conference I was there for - than I have played in the last two years. 

Note to anyone that has ever thought of buying a house on a golf course:  If you buy a house that is on a golf course, you should expect to see a golf ball or two from time to time (I know, I visited a “few” houses with errant shots, oops!) 

Anyway, our speedskating team banquet is this Friday.  Although we spend our time at the banquet going over the results from last season, it’s almost like a kick-off party for next season… as our team dryland training sessions start on Sunday night.  Alright, time to go hit the pavement…