As in the napping article, I find that I don’t need to fall all the way asleep to get the benefit of the nap. I do get in bed and completely horizontal, but usually I just doze lightly. Sometimes it feels like my alarm wakes me up after 20 minutes, but other times I don’t feel like I slept. I still feel better afterwards. I do make it a point to not lie down thinking about something. I consciously go with whatever images my brain brings up, which is usually a confusing jumble like in a music video.

When napping, I always wear a Lights Out sleep mask, just as an extra way of blocking out the world. It’s comfy and just works really well. Once we get some heavy curtains over the outside door, I might stop using it. Probably not though.

On our trip, we’re planning to work out at least once every 3 days. I’ll be mentioning our workouts in various blogs, to keep us honest and you motivated to work out yourself. So far we’ve done:

7/3
Tim did: 15-12-9 reps of
run around the tree and back, wearing a pack
push up, wearing a pack
8:36
Danielle did: 15-12-9 reps of
front squat a pack
push up

7/6
As many rounds as possible of 20 minutes of:
50m bear crawl
50m lunge
50m burpee broad double jump
Tim completed 4.5 rounds. Danielle did 15 minutes, and completed 2.5 rounds.

7/9
Death by Pullup
Tim got 9.5 rounds (couldn’t really kip due to a low bar).
Danielle got 10.5 rounds doing negatives.

I planned a route using gmap-pedometer, and then revised it a little based on somebody else’s route I found on the web. Turns out to be right about 50 miles. The rest of the week I spent getting increasingly worried about what I’d gotten myself into. So far this year I’ve been biking about 24-36 miles per week, with a longest ride of 15 miles. My longest ride ever is only 25 miles. Nathan has recently done a 30 mile ride, but hasn’t been riding as consistently as I have. We figured we were both equally unprepared. To make things worse, I injured my left knee just a little on Wednesday, and my back seemed to just be tightening up on Thursday/Friday.

Saturday morning I woke up to an achy back, but after a hot shower and stretching it seemed to be merely a bit tight. Nathan arrived just after 1, and I was ready with some printed maps, directions, water, gatorade, and some snacks. We headed out the door after putting air in our tires. Half a mile later we were stopped at a traffic light when my rear tire went flat. I didn’t really want to use the only spare tube I had with me so early on, but luckily we were close by a bike store. We walked over there, where I purchased a new tube and used their pump to replace my flat one. After this delay, we finally started our long bike ride.

After a short while we had to get on freeway 101. Neither of us had ridden on it before. I was a bit concerned how it would go. It wasn’t a problem. The shoulder is large, with a dedicated bike path painted in. There was one dicey part where a car was stopped on the bike path, forcing us onto an actual freeway lane, but it worked out alright. The stretch was only 4 miles long, after which we got off onto a regular road. What we had noticed on the freeway was a 15-20mph tailwind, which allowed us to ride much faster than we had planned. This tailwind would be with us for most of the day.

In Ventura we hit a multi-use path that led us along the beach. It was pretty crowded with pedestrians and other cyclists, but slowing down just let us enjoy the scenery more. It was really nice to see this part of Ventura that I hadn’t known about. A bit later we turned onto Harbor Blvd which was less scenic, but still enjoyable to ride on. Near the end of Harbor we reached the half way point of our trip, and turned into a park to take a break. There were several people flying kites in the park, including a few with huge tails. The kites provided a nice visual reminder of how strong our tailwind actually was. While stretching I noticed my back was fairly tight, but it didn’t bother me while on my bike. My knee had been holding up well. I’d only felt it once or twice. About 20 minutes after we stopped, we resumed our journey.

We said goodbye to the ocean, and headed more inland along a road that was marked as a scenic drive. I suppose the person who did that considered strip malls to be scenery. A few turns (and quite a few miles) later we were biking through farmland, which could be considered scenic. We saw fields with a variety of produce, and even some filled with flowers. After passing route 1, the scenery became more wild. Not much later we reached mile 40, which meant the bottom of the only climb on the route. So far the road had been as flat as you could wish for, but no more. The elevation profile of our route promised a climb of 1000 feet in 4 miles.

Nathan and I were both feeling remarkably good, but going up it was evident that our muscles weren’t rested. The climb started out fairly shallow, but that just meant it would be steeper in the end. It was in fact steeper in the end. Once it got steep I stuck to my lowest gear, heading up the hill at 5mph. Nathan had a harder time than I did, because his lowest gear is nowhere near as low as my lowest gear, but we both made it up. After a short rest at the top, we enjoyed our downhill reward. A few short rollers later, we turned off the main road. After a short sprint up the last hill, we arrived at our destination. I was very pleased to discover I could do a sprint up that last hill, and that I really didn’t feel that bad. I was tired, and my back ached the rest of the night, but that was all to be expected. We spent a 3:06 hours biking 50 miles. Add to that our 20 minute rest stop, and some other random stoppages, and we finished the journey in bout 3:30 which is half an hour than I expected to go with my optimistic estimate. Thank you tailwind!

Today my back aches, but not much more than I expected it to, given the way it’s been the last few days. My muscles are barely sore at all. I haven’t done anything active today, but right now I feel like I could do another 50 miles.

While I’m happy and proud to have completed the 50 miles, it is sobering to think that my ride is barely a blip on the Race Across America route, which 29 hardy individuals started today.

I’m not sure. After my initial somewhat negative feelings about Sunday’s experience, I seem to be changing my mind a bit. I’m still reading tri blogs. Still thinking about different training strategies, and I’m curious how much better I could do on my next tri. And there’s still the question about how I might do in an open water swim. I also mostly enjoyed my run and bike training. I’m not ruling out the possibility that some day I may actually enjoy doing laps in a pool.

On the other hand, right now I don’t enjoy swimming and I haven’t been hiking in quite a hile. I’d like to start doing that again and take more weekend trips as well. I’m planning to learn to surf this year (or at least get to the point where I can stand up fairly consistently). I’m not sure if I can manage all that and still train for a triathlon. I may just settle for doing a longer bike ride. I’ve been wanting to do a century for a while now. Perhaps this can be the year.

It’s all moot for the next month, because April will be a month to focus on my back. The only exercise I’m doing is yoga twice a week (because I think it’s good for my back) and bike twice a week (because I love to do it). I had X rays this morning, and got a referral for a different physical therapist. Let’s hope he fixes me right up.

We decided to swim to a buoy and back to shore. Getting in the water, it was really cold. We both had long wetsuits and hoods (although my hood is more like a cap). Soon our hands and feet got kind of numb, which helped, but the water was too cold for me to put my head in the water for more than 6 strokes or so. And then I would have to keep it up for quite a while until the headache went away. This was especially frustrating because freestyle was so obviously faster than the breaststroke I was doing. Luckily there was very little surf, and almost no swell. It was windy though, which made for a reasonable current and some chop. Finally at the shore I had the strength to run out of the water, but was feeling pretty off-balance.

After a bit of a rest we did it again. The way there felt better. I was more focused, and a bit more used to the cold. On the way back the wind picked up and with it the chop. I ended up with water in my mouth more often than I’m really comfortable with, and felt like throwing up at one point. I really don’t like the taste of seawater. This time I actually timed myself. It took 4 minutes to get to the buoy, and about the same to get back. I think the distance from the shore to the buoy was probably 100 yards, so that would put my 440 yard time at about 18 minutes. Coming out of the water I ran to where our clothes were, pulling off my wetsuit along the way. That’s also really hard. My heart was racing as I came out of the water, and running through the sand wasn’t helping anything. I’m really going to need the time spent changing clothes in T1 to get my body back under control. Once we got home I looked up the water temp for the local surf spot, which is reported as 51-55F. I sure hope it’s warmer next week.

I also timed how long it took to put on my shoes once on the bike while circling around in the parking lot. It took 1:12, during which I travelled .14 miles. If I already had my shoes it would take less than 30 seconds to travel that distance. It would take about 10 seconds to put my shoes on off the bike, and I would lose at least 10 seconds because I can’t run in those shoes. That leaves a 22 second time difference. In the race I should be able to go faster while putting on my shoes because the course will be straight, unlike the loop in our parking lot. I also really don’t like walking in my bike shoes, so I’ll put the shoes on, on the bike. At the other end of the trip, it took about 25 seconds to take my shoes off while on the bike. I don’t think it’ll cause me to go much slower since I’ll be starting to slow down anyway.

Overall, tonight’s exercise felt pretty good. I think it was probably more work overall than the tri will be. I didn’t swim 440 yards but I did bike an extra 2.5 miles, climbed some decent hills, and ran an extra .6 miles. I also carried around my work clothes on my bike rack. None of that is coming to the tri. It’s comforting that I was able to just do it, and hopefully knowing this will let me push a little bit harder at the triathlon itself. Just 10 days left…

Every morning after I shower I do about 10 minutes of stretching and some token ab exercises. These were prescribed for my back, and I’m sticking with them. It’s certainly helped my hamstrings a whole lot.

Twice a week I swim for 30 minutes. When I started I managed maybe 850 yards in that time. I’m now up to 1200 yards (up from 1100 yards before I reinjured my back). I’m still kind of nervous about the tri swim because it’ll be in the ocean. I’m planning to do an ocean swim next weekend.

Twice a week I run about 3.4 miles. It takes a little over 30 minutes. I’m not doing any speed work here. Just getting the miles in. I figure with such a low weekly volume I’m just helping my body stay in running shape.

On the bike I’m currently doing 2 rides per week. Long term I’d like to do a century some time, my back permitting, so I am slowly building my weekly bike mileage. Having said that, this week was just 24 miles. I rode to work on Tuesday (1 flat). Then I tried to ride home on Thursday but I flatted again less than a mile from work. Looking at the tire more closely, it’s totally dead, so I gave up. Then on Friday I got new Bontrager Race Lite Hardcase tires, which Dave recommended because I’m mostly a commuter. They’re supposed to perform reasonably well, and have extra flat protection. Some digging online reveals quite a few people who report having ridden in excess of 1000 miles on these tires without a flat. I’m looking forward to that.

Finally, I do yoga twice a week. I either do a DVD, or a session with Jennifer Green which is a lot more of a workout. Not only does yoga work the muscles that otherwise don’t get any exercise, it’s also teaching me better habits in daily life. The most obvious one is that I place my shoulders and scapula in a more relaxed position now.

So there you have it. It sure is keeping me busy, but I’m not convinced it’s the best use of my time. I’ll think about that some more once the triathlon is over. Less than 3 weeks to go…