Nice day off

As much as I enjoy swimming, biking and running, it was really nice to have a day off yesterday. With Connor home from camp it was nice to be able to see Connor for as much as possible last night. We watched the Olympics for a while and saw the US Men win the 4 x 100 relay by 8 1/100th of a second! It was great to see him so excited about it. How could anyone not be excited after watching that race!

Masters swimming tonight and an easy one hour ride tomorrow morning make the beginning of this week pretty low key.

I'm 99% committed to doing a fall marathon. I thought it would be a good challenge to the end of the season and set me up nicely to starti Ironman training this fall. There is a small one in mid-October called the Green Mountain Marathon, in where elses...Vermont. All I need to do is sign up, and it is only $22! I've paid more than that for a 5K.

Cross training hike

This weekend I broke from the scheduled trainings to go hiking and camping at Mt. Moosilauke with my brother for his bachelor party.

The weekend started on Saturday morning with a 2 hour drive to northern NH. There was some talk of doing a bike ride but the weather forecast didn't look great so I scrapped that plan. On the drive up I found myself trying to figure out the difficulty of a bike ride. The Ravine Lodge at Mt. Moosilauke sits at 2,500 feet so the drive up was a good climb. I wish I could have biked up it while at the same time glad we decided not too ride!

I had never been to Mt. Moosilauke so I didn't know what to expect. I soon figure out that our cabin was not close to the parking area - I would come to find out it was around 1/2 mile, almost all uphill. This wouldn't be that big a deal except that I hadn't packed expecting this. So, I had to make two trips to get all my gear to the cabin.

Overall the uphill hike was worthwhile. It was a large one room log cabin with a deck around 2 sides with the longer side looking up onto the mountains. Inside there was a small kitchen area, large rustic dining table, bunk beds and an old cast iron cooking stove that was also the heating source.

There was no electricity and while there was a sink and faucet, the water didn't seem to work. The "facilities" were about 50 yards away down an embankment and across two seasonal runoff streams. Thankfully I didn't have to make many trips there. The one cool thing about it was the view. While you were sitting doing your business and if you left the door open there was a nice view of the mountains!

The climb up Mt. Moosilauke was good but challenging. The trail we took up was 3.6 mils to an elevation of 4,800 feet which is about 2,300 feet from the cabin which by my calculation is about an 8.2% grade, pretty steep! We a lot of Moose droppings on the way up which surprised me because the area we saw them was very densely wooded with a good amount of snow still on the ground. It seemed like it would be difficult for an animal the size of a moose to maneuver.

It took us about 2 hours to get to the summit and since we didn't leave until around 2:30, that only left about 2 hours to get down to the base for the 6:30 dinner at the lodge.

We took a different route down which was also 3.6 miles. However, this route was on the northern side of the mountain so there was a significant amount of snow for about half of the trail down. It had been packed down over the winter but softened by the warmer days so it formed kind of a ridge along the trail making it difficult to maneuver.

We did make it to dinner on time and had a great meal. Despite the sore legs that we all had the next day, the rest of the weekend was good and dragging all of our gear down the hill was obviously much easier than the trip up the day before.

I had originally intended on riding that afternoon after getting home from my son's lacrosse game, but my sore legs were telling me otherwise. I'll get back on track this week with my more "traditional" training program.

Saturday brick

I had a ride on Saturday. The forecast was cloudy and rainy all day. I put off what I figured would be another day on the indoor trainer but as the day progressed the sun came out and temps climbed to 60 degrees. So, I headed out for about 90 minutes on the bike and followed it up with a 15 minute run.

Not trusting the good weather I still brought a long sleeve jersey which ended up being a mistake. I was way too warm. I was smart enough to wear bike shorts so overall I was still comfortable. For the run I changed into a short sleeve short and I think it was the first time in several months I've been able to run outside with both shorts and a short sleeve shirt.

The ride was on the challenging side. I stayed off the coast so the terrain was rolling. It was the first rolling terrain I had been on this year but only my third ride outside so far. I felt good and was able to stay in my aerobars for most of the rollers. The forecast for the week is good so I hope to get outside on the bike a couple of times.

Run above freezing!

I don't think I can count the number of times on more than one hand where I've run this winter and it has been above freezing. Today was one of those days, it's about time, it's April!

It was only four miles but it felt good to not have several layers on and not have to wait for 15 or 20 minutes before I actually felt comfortable. Suzan had me include 8 pickups for 15 seconds each, which when I read it on the training plan never sounds like much, but it helps to break up the run and I definitely feel just a little more run down after adding those in.

Tonight I have Master's swimming which I'm looking forward to. I've spent more time in the pool over the past few weeks than I did over most of the winter and I can feel my swim form coming back together. Suzan gave me some tips in late February and right afterwards I felt like I was learning to swim all over again but I now feel stronger in the water with the revised stroke.

I've been having trouble figuring out my diet on the days when there are two or three sessions. I'm always good in the AM but it's trying to find the right combination for lunch and mid-afternoon meal that has me struggling some days. I suppose if I had more time in the morning I could bring in to work something that would give me more energy in the afternoon. However, I've been taking the easy route and bringing in a Clif Bar and Banana. Ideally I should probably start brining in some brown rice and veggies.

Overall I'm happy with the nutrition. My caloric intake has been where I want it though I struggle some days to get my carb count up to where it should be. I guess I need to start eating more cookies!

BA Blast

Today is the BA Blast at Bretton Woods. No swim, bike or run today but a full day of skiing will provide a good workout.

I took Friday off after doing Masters on Thursday night and staying up to watch Lost (a weakness of mine). No formal workout yesterday but plenty of time wrestling & playing in the snow with my son.

BA blast report to come later.

Weekend skiing

No swimming, biking or running this weekend but got out skiing for the first time this season on both Saturday and Sunday. My Dad is involved with the Adaptive Sports program at Bretton Woods and for every day he volunteers he receives a free ski pass. He volunteers enough that we haven't paid to ski there for several trips, a nice perk.

The program is a pretty incredible one, which is also in the process of raising money through the BA Blast, a major fundraising event for the organization that I'll be taking part in with my family.

The weekend was great. It was brutally cold on Saturday (which kept the crowds away) but sunny and the snow conditions were excellent. Sunday was warmer (which brought the clouds back) and the conditions were still excellent. We got a good four hours of skiing in on both days and it was really cool to see how my son picked up right where he left off last year. He looked at my wife and I at one point while we were stopped mid-trail and said "this is awesome". There was a genuiness and expression in his voice that was awesome to hear.

We'll be back up in two weeks for the BA Blast Fundraiser. Hopefully we'll still have great conditions and a little spring skiing weather!

Shock to the system

I wrote last week that I felt like I had turned a corner with regard to my training regimen. And for the most part I still feel that way. However, at our GSTC training today our coach had a workout that made me realize that it's time to train seriously again!

We started out with a one hour swim which was tough in and of itself. I think I made it harder than it was. After getting my swim form critique from the club coach, Suzan, I was hyperfocused on correcting the things she pointed out. Even though I had better form, I was using some new muscles with my revised stroke which made it more difficult to have that smooth flowing stroke you should have.

Then, we went to run. Our trainings on the seacoast are at UNH and the run we do is either through college woods or on the track. Well, college woods was wet and icy from our recent weather and the track was still snow covered. However, the stadium steps were dry so she had us doing some stair repititions. While I wasn't all that excited at the prospect of this workout when she told us about it, I found that I had this sense of fulfillment as Iwas in the middle of the repititions. It was reminiscent of the feeling I had when in the middle of the breakthrough workouts I was doing during Ironman training.

I don't know if it is the oxygen deprivation or the endorphins flowing through the body, but as odd as it sounds, I had an incredible feeling of fulfillment when I was at the hardest part of a tough workout. I think some of it was a feeling of gratitude just to be out there. Though whatever it was, it's shocked my system into really looking forward to the spring training cycle and racing season.