Hair of the Dog

In theory when your hung over you're supposed to revisit what caused all your problems the next morning to stave off the possibility of a gnarly hang over. Well I applied the same idea to my workout today. Despite spending entirely too much time on a bike yesterday I decided to take an extended ride today to keep my muscles moving. I added a few miles to my route to the gym and swam a little bit while I was there.

My workout wasn't very high in intensity, it was more about stretching out my back and spending a little time in the water this weekend.

Warm Up
200 free
100 kick

400 free
100 kick
400 free
100 kick

200 cool down

1500 yards plus 13 miles on the bike

I'm working on picking out some events tonight for Santa Clarita on the 8th of November. I've learned my lesson about picking events too close to each other so I'm going to be a little more strategic in my set up this time!

Candy Corn Classic Wrap Up

This morning I participated in the Candy Corn Classic in the 35 mile ride from San Luis Obispo to Morro Bay and back. It was a lot of fun and everyone we ran into on the road was really nice... well I think one lady growled at my friend but besides that it was cool.

The route took us through a whole bunch of places I've never been before. All kinds of rolling country roads, farms and other stuff like that. I really liked riding up Turri Road. It doesn't have a bike lane but it also doesn't seem to have any car traffic either. Both sides of the road were full of bikers which was cool.

We didn't ride super fast but we did keep a pretty decent pace through the whole thing. Once we got to about Cuesta College my legs starting thinking this wasn't such a great idea and a little while later my back was thinking the same thing. But we finished just fine and I'm feeling good now that I'm done!

When we finished there were some folks eating and cheering, and once we de-helmeted we joined in. We got some free tri-tip sandwiches from Downtown Brew who was grilling on site, and there was some free beer in the mix too. I'm not much of a drinker, especially after a 35 mile bike ride, so I passed on the free beer. There was also live music, a bounce house for the kids, and they even handed out free sunscreen which was cool and highly necessary in my case. I think San Luis Sports Therapy put on a really good event and hopefully I can come out again next year!



See the course on Google Maps

Riding, Lifting & Remedial Billiards

No aquatic adventures tonight kids. I went to dinner down in Pismo and played a few games of pool down at Hot Shots. Turns out I have become awful at shooting pool.

I got home kinda late but I still had enough time to ride out to the gym and lift some weights. I was in the gym by about 9PM and out at 9:30PM. As an added bonus, the ride was semi-exciting though. On Hwy 1 between Grand and DT Pismo it smelled like the aftermath of a hardboiled egg eating contest that was held in a very small room. Not sexy. It was reminiscent of the hot springs in Avila, except there aren't any that I know of in Pismo so I'm guessing a septic tank exploded or something really gross like that. uck.

Anyways... I worked on my upper shoulder-y region, if you want to get technical about it. I focused on my traps, lats and triceps. I think this was the first time in over a month that I did any lifting. I've had so many swim meets in a row recently that I haven't really wanted to do any lifting in fear of upsetting my shoulder. I'm in week 1 of a 3 week break before the next meet I might want to do so I'm ok with doing a little lifting right now.

Today I set up my plans for Saturday morning for the Candy Corn Classic bike ride. Me and my friend are going to toss our bikes in the truck and be up there in SLO around 8:15 - 8:30. Beyond that we are going to go not too fast up to Morro Bay and back down to SLO town. If you want to sign up I think you still can... I recommend you check it out.

Helmets, Bike Shorts and Burger King...

Sunday night I got about 3 hours of sleep so when I got home from the pool I pretty much fell asleep on the spot. Hence a blog post in the morning as opposed to my usually late night blogging...

Over the weekend I pretty much just took it easy and gave my body a chance to recover a little bit. I've been really busy and just needed to take a little time to chill out, plus I'm racing at UCLA this weekend again already! I did a little bit of shopping to get ready for my bike thing coming up this month. I picked up a new pair of mountain bike shorts (I don't find it particularly necessary or aesthetically pleasing to wear skintight clothing on my bike) and a helmet. Despite being disturbingly expensive I've found bike specific shorts to be entirely worth it. If you ride a lot and have never tried them, do it. Your balls will thank you. (there's a sentence I never thought I would write...) I was also required to buy a helmet for this event... I've seriously never owned one, they kind of bug me. Plus I have a big melon and it's kind of hard to find hats that fit me so I figured a helmet would be worse. The kid at the bike shop helped me pick something out and amazingly with enough adjustment it fit right on my dome. Later I went to the Bell website to read up on my purchase and the first line of their sales copy is: "Finally a good looking helmet for the extra large of head!" I'm pretty sure that they're making fun of me now... jerks :)

Anyways, despite being tired out of my mind and having a belly full of Burger Kingly goodness I made my way out to the pool right after the sun went down. I would go earlier but a big piece of my ride is straight west towards the beach and into the sun... it's a good way to get run over by people that can't see out of their windshields. Once I got to the pool I got down to business with a short workout. Normally I'd breakout my workout but I can't remember the whole thing. I made it up on the spot. Basically the important part was I made sure to mix in some butterfly action. I have to make my way through a 100 meters of it on Saturday!

So ultimately there were 10 miles on the bike and an undetermined number of yards in the pool.

So I Might Mix in a Bike Event

**Update: I rode in the Candy Corn Classic this weekend and you can see some pictures and read my wrap up here

There's a bike event here in SLO coming up called the Candy Corn Classic that I heard about today and I'm thinking about signing up to do it. It's more fun than racing oriented and I kind of get an open-water-esque kinda vibe from the whole thing. They have a 15, 35, 62, and 100 mile rides available. I'm not quite ready to tackle a century, even though I'd like to complete one some day, but I think the 35 mile ride might be cool to do. I have a few friends that might be interested in participating but I'm not sure what distances they'd want to do so I'm waiting to see if anybody is going to sign up for real before I pick a distance.

The Candy Corn Classic is going on Saturday the 25th of October when the UCLA meet was originally scheduled to happen. It gets started at 7AM for everything except the century. It's $40 to sign up and the proceeds go to charity.

Getting back to my aquatic interests... tonight I rode out to the pool and went through a decent workout. Plus I got to demoralize someone who got into the pool looking really confident about his aqua powers. After I casually lapped him a few times he wasn't looking so confident and retreated to the hot tub. As it turns out young muscle-y people hate getting passed repeatedly by bald fat dudes :)

Warm Up
200 free
100 kick
100 breast

10 x 100 free (the last 100 was all out, I went about 1:10... kinda lame really. I can't wait to do one for real soon)

150 cool down

1550 yards plus 10 miles on the bike

Tomorrow is a big day at the office... end of month report time, boo. So I might not make it to the pool, but I'm planning on swimming Thursday and having a short workout Friday. Then Saturday I have to drive up to Davis and Sunday I'm doing the pentathlon, yay!

An Unexpected Training Partner

So today on my ride home from the pool I had the added motivation of a big ass pit bull chasing my bike to make sure I kept going fast. At about 8th street as I made my way east up Grand Ave this big dog comes bounding across the street at me. I jammed on the brakes so he wouldn't knock me off the bike. He nudged his head against my front tire and then came around on my right side and jumped up on me. Luckily he was friendly. I pet him on his head while I used my other hand to check his neck for a collar. Unfortunately he didn't have anything on him so I couldn't try and get him home. I tried to get him off the street and onto the sidewalk but he decided to run back across the street again into the darkness. I thought we were done here so I started riding towards home again. Once I got moving again my new canine friend decided to follow me all the way down to about 16th street! That guy was fast, I was going about 14-15 mph and he was right behind me the whole way. Eventually he got bored and made his way off to more exciting things.

Anyways... back to the swimming... I focused on turns and did some sprinting.

Warm Up
200 free
100 kick

10 x 25 sprints from mid pool w/ focus on turns
(2 free, 1 fly, 1 fly to back, 1 back, 1 back to breast, 1 breast, 1 breast to free, 2 free)

4 x 50 sprint IM order

100 IM Fast

50 kick
100 easy with focus on form
50 kick

200 cool down

1250 yards total plus 10 miles on the bike

I like dogs and I don't mind a little company when I work out but I'm hoping that I don't have another pit bull training partner the next time I ride my bike!

27 Miles and a Trip to the Pool

I got my money's worth out of today man. I hopped on my bike this morning and rode out through Oceano, up Hwy 1 in to Pismo, up the coast through Shell Beach, and then took the Bob Jones Trail out to Avila Beach. I sat by the ocean for a little bit, refueled with a hot dog and a bottle of water from a street vendor and then made my way home. All told I rode about 27 miles today. I'd like to go further but that kind of seems like the longest I can tolerate a bike seat.

the view through the fog from my rest stop in Avila

After resting a little bit I made my way to the pool to get in a little yardage and mainly stretch out. I think I was the only person in the pool under 80 years old this afternoon. Most of the folks in the pool were walking and noodling but nobody bothered me churning along out in the far lane.

My swim was basically 10 x 100 whatever I felt like. It was a mix of freestyle, kicking, breast stroke and an IM for good measure. It wasn't a real serious workout I just wanted to swim a little today. This coming week I need be a little more structured to get ready for the Davis Pentathlon. I need to focus some effort on turns and if no one else is around some starts from the pool deck (the pool has no blocks to start from). I'm still figuring out the details for my 300 mile trek, but I know I want to at least be moderately fast!

Need to Find Some More Lights...

I rode my bike out to the gym again tonight, I think I want to make this a regular part of my routine. 4 trips a week to the gym plus my regular commuting would mean that I get in at least 60 miles a week which is about where I'd like to be. The last couple months I've bounced between as little as 30 and as much as 70 in a week. I do however need to do some research into bike lights. There a few sections of my ride that are too dark and I need one light to see the road and one light to see in front of me. I almost ran down a pedestrian dressed all in black on a stretch of Hwy 1 with no street lights!

I brought a swimplan.com workout with me but forgot it in my locker. I had committed most of it to memory though and already knew what I was going to change. Here's my workout:

Warm Up
200 free
100 kick
100 breast

Main Set
3 x 400 free (paced at about 1:30 per 100)

Cool Down
100 kick
100 breast
200 free

2000 yards total plus 10 miles on the bike

My left shoulder is still crunching and aching in a way that I'm concerned about but it seems to be fading a little bit every day. I've got about a week left before the Davis Pentathlon and I want to be as close to 100% as possible when I go.

Rob D's Pitch Black Biathalon

Even though I'm not a big fan of riding at night from a safety perspective I decided to bike out to the gym tonight. I usually ride to the office to get my truck and then drive to the gym, but I think I'm going to try riding for a little while to see how death defying it really is. It was actually really nice out tonight, the fog kept me nice and cool both ways. It was kinda refreshing...

Anyways I did a short swim once I got to the pool.

500 warm up

4 x 50 sprint IM order

200 free

100 kick

1000 yards total bookended by 10 miles on my bike

My shoulder is still feeling crunchy but I'll survive. I'm stretching a lot more before I hop in the pool just in case.

Snap, Crackle, Pop... in my Shoulder

So after a few days of dryland excitement I was back in the pool tonight, but honestly I felt like crap in the water. My left shoulder has been fighting me a little bit recently. It's kinda crunchy which isn't really the best thing a swimmer's shoulder could be doing. I need to work on stretching more before I just hop in and start swimming. I forget that I'm kinda old sometimes...

I promised my special lady friend that I would be home in time to take a walk down to this frozen yogurt place by our apartment tonight so I had a slightly condensed workout.

Warm up
400 freestyle

Main set
10 x 100 choice (mixed freestyle, backstroke, breast stroke, IM and some kicking)

200 cool down

1600 yards total

I need to start working in more time on my bike to supplement the fact that my shoulder seems to only be able handle so much yardage a week right now. I ride about 6 miles everyday but I'd like to add a little more. I like riding out to the gym because it's a 10 mile roundtrip but I'm not a big fan of doing it in the dark... and generally I hit the pool at about 8PM so it would be dark both ways, not cool. Maybe I'll stock up on more lights and some extra reflective gear. If I look like a Christmas tree people would have to see me right?

Pedaling and Rescheduling

This weekend didn't really afford me much of a chance to hit the pool. I did get in a really good ride on my bike up the coast through Pismo and Shell Beach. I don't know what it is about the super spandexed up people that ride bikes. They don't smile or acknowledge your general presence. I had a small group of roadies behind me and I let them pass, no hellos or thanks yous. Turns out I didn't need to move anyways. I stayed right on them till they turned a few miles later even though I wasn't wearing $200 of cycling gear and I was rocking Vans instead of clip in bike shoes.


View Larger Map The view from my ride

A little extra excitement for the day... I got a notice that the UCLA meet was moved to the 18th from the 25th which is actually pretty awesome for me because I was going to have to be in LA anyways on the 19th. You can check out the meet info here.

I'll be back to my aquatic grind tomorrow.

Dryland Excitement

I go out of my way to stay out of the truck and do most of my getting around by bike. So every work day I ride around 4-6 miles a day as just incidental movement going about my business. Today I went on a nice long ride up highway 1 today instead of hitting the pool.

I think it's a good thing to mix it up a little bit so you don't burn yourself out on just swimming. I ride, swim and do some weight lifting in the course of my week. I'd like to be able to run every once and a while but a back injury pretty much shuts that down. I had some really bad lower back problems in the Army that aren't necessarily better, I just know now what not to do, and swimming is probably the best workout I can get without hurting myself.

I might do a little lifting later today, but I don't think I'm going to hit the pool again until tomorrow.