Foundation wrap-up

Sunday marked the end of our foundation period - 8 weeks that started in January, as well as a recovery week.  The later is ironic, since it also marked the most hours (9:50) of triathlon training I've done in 2012,  so while it may have been recovery for TNT, it was maybe less so a recovery week for me, though I do feel fresh this week and up for anything.

As I mentioned before, we also had to do some timed benchmarks- for our swim and our run.  Scott asked us to do a timed MP (Marathon Pace) mile in the middle of Wednesday's run.  Since I had missed my morning run time, I decided to run to make a delivery in the east 30's, then continue on to TSNY for Wednesday night's class.  Knowing that I had trapeze immediately after, and not wanting to be completely exhausted helped keep me honest during the run, and at a nice and easy pace.  So after a mile warm up, heading into Central Park, I decided to take mile 2's time as MP time.  Truthfully, I was at about 78-80% HR the entire time, and just chose that one in advance since I knew I'd be in the park for all of it, and that I wouldn't have to contend with foot traffic.  So that mile was 10:40.  Not loving it, but not devastated either.

I already mentioned Friday's tech snafu when trying to get my swim time.  So Saturday morning, I managed to get up semi-early, and get to the pool with barely enough time to do the laps.   There were 40 minutes left before lap swimming was over.  I skipped the warm up, or rather, counted it in my laps, and continued swimming.  Once again I had my watch, and I diligently hit the lap button (not the stop button!) as I hit the wall every 4 laps (50 meter pool - woot!)  The watch would randomly vibrate when I got the the middle of the pool every lap, but because I had so little time to complete my mile, I decided to deal with that later.  Going with Friday's theme, I decided to swim 1800 meters instead of the 1650 that would make up the mile.

Now as much as I love a long course pool, swimming at Riverbank makes me appreciate my usual pool all the more.  On a typical Friday morning, I either get the entire lane to myself, or at worst, split it in half with one other person.  At Riverbank, lanes are marked according to speed - Slow, Medium, Fast, and Very Fast.  After observing for a minute or two, I chose the Fast lane.  It seemed like there was a trio in it training together more or less.  So when there was a nice gap, I hopped in.  After a few laps, this one guy from the group, who was taking a rest, jumped in front of me - literally - I was approaching the wall and he jumped in.  Um hello?  Has no one ever taught him swim etiquette?  It wouldn't have been so bad, except he was S L O W.  Now, no one should model their swimming after mine, but this guy was a wreck - legs apart and super-bent, and doing practically nothing with his upper body.  So after tagging his feet a few times, he's supposed to let me pass when we get to the next wall.  Does he? NO.  Of course not.  After a few laps of this annoyance, I switched over to the Very Fast lane.  Things seemed to be better here - I was going with the flow - not passing and not being passed, until a bunch of people put on their flippers, and pretty soon they were flying past me!  Ok, back into the Fast lane.  Managed several laps while slow guy rested at the wall, then started getting caught behind him.  But at that point I took a page from the flipper swimmers, and just passed him mid-lane a bunch of times.  Pretty soon, the life-guard blew the whistle, and our swim time was over.

Despite a bit of annoyance, I really do love the Riverbank pool, and I think I'll be making it part of my every other Saturday routine.

At home, it was time to upload my workout onto the computer, and I got to see why:

That means that the GPS went haywire and didn't properly track my mileage.  Note to self: next time you visit RSP, disable the GPS function on the Garmin.

So I decided to use my elapsed time- 32:18, which interestingly enough turned out to be the same as my elapsed time minus the last 250 yards that I did on Friday.  I would have expected to be slower, as meters are longer than yards, and as I was switching lanes, and behind Mr. Slowpoke.  But maybe the frenzy to complete the workout counteracted that.

Lastly, the bike.  Fortunately we did not have to do a time trial of any sort on that leg.  Performing well in Mont-Tremblant really hinges on a strong bike leg for me, and with the painful climbs they have planned for it, I really will have to make it to every practice, and maybe even add some in.  I've also been doing something else to help prepare, but more on that in another post.