Sunday treadmill

1.0hr. slow treadmill run. Should have done 2+, but in this season of low morale am having to live with a policy of some is better than none.

Short gym workout

I wanted to do 40 minutes of treadmill intervals, but my chest was feeling very tight and asthmatic all afternoon, and the inhaler seemed to have absolutely no effect (not sure if that one's kicked or if it was just lungs impervious to assistance today), so I called it after 15 halfhearted minutes and did 30 minutes of strength training instead. Meager, but better than nothing...

Thursday core/legs

Didn't get up early enough to swim beforehand, but had a good start to the day with the Thursday core class, which has more of a legs component too - I prefer the Tuesday class, on the whole, but this is very good too.

Wednesday run

1hr. treadmill, very slow. No excuse for not doing the second hour except that I didn't feel like it. Having a very hard time motivating right now - I think I can straggle through the November marathon regardless, but if I'm still feeling like this in February, I'm probably going to have to pull the plug on next year's Ironman. No point worrying about it now, anyway - wait and see what happens...

Tuesday core/spin

Hit the gym for the excellent core strength class (it was on hiatus over August and early September) and the spin class to follow.

45 mins. strength, 45 mins. spin

Short Monday run [ED. Head was clearly elsewhere - TUESDAY run!]

A nice easy short run with Max and Jasdip. I heard Jas's origin story: Max and his other dog Sharka were going in the early morning to check a fire alarm at the Grandview, and Sharka veered off into a bush where Jas (a small puppy with collar but no tags) was cowering. They sent out and put up pictures everywhere to try and find his original owner, but nobody claimed him, and by some weeks later Jas had settled in to the family for good. Bonus fact: Jasdip = Just Another Spectacular Day In Paradise! (Actually the S might be Stunning or some other such word, I cannot quite remember...)

(I'm not sure if this Facebook album is public or not, but here are Sharka and Jasdip frolicking in the Grandview Lagoon!)

33 mins. (zone 1)

Monday swim

Really I should have gone over there earlier, as I was lying awake in bed for several hours - but alas, there is a huge difference between being awake and being ready to get up...

(And I have also slightly disappointed myself by not going straight on to a trainer ride, but I set everything up and got started and realized that COFFEE was more urgently needed than spinning. Might have to go back to bed in a bit - not as bad as yesterday, when I canceled my projected morning bike ride because after sleeping from 11:30pm to 2:30am, I woke up and could not go back to sleep at all, so that at 6 when I should have been going out the door I was instead grumpily and Goldilocksily trying another bed and seeing if that would do anything for me. But I will spin later, it is fine.)

Just a short swim. I refreshed my memory on the swim camp drills, which really do make a very good difference to my stroke (the effect was very noticeable as we watched the videos of all the swimmers), and did some other bits to start to get back in the swing of it.

100 free, 100 IM (fly drill)
3 x 100 on swim camp drills: (1) push off in deep streamline, turn onto back underwater with arms by side, kick on back with hands sculling at side; (2) push off, turn onto side and kick on side with 1 arm extended; (3) 6-3-6 (swim camp version) - kick hard on side, relax and kick easy when swimming face down

4 x 50 fly-free as first 1 full fly stroke and rest free, then 2, etc. (stroke = 2 strokes, 1 breath)
2 x 50 breast
2 x 50 back as drill-swim (double-arm back)
2 x 50 free as drill-swim (catch-up)

100 free (2:05)
100 IM

Then I called it - beautiful morning, though the smell of trash was very strong in the air!

1200m total

Sunday run

50 overwhelmingly warm but highly worthwhile minutes - would have been better for running fitness to do it on the treadmill, but couldn't abide the notion suddenly, and thought I would rather have overheated run-walk in the great outdoors!

Out: 4 x (5 min. jog, 1 min. walk)
Back: 2 x (4 min. jog, 2 min. walk), then 2 mins. jog, 2 mins. walk for the rest of the way home

50 mins. total (zones 2-4)

Short swim

Just a small one, in the condo swimming pool of irregular shape - c. 1000 yards, mostly kick. I was doing a lot of kick in the spring, partly on the recommendation of the Chelsea Piers triathlon coach and partly because I always find that just as I am losing steam on regular swim workout stuff, I usually can muster vim and vigor for another 500 or so yards with head above water for a kick set. It dawned on me at swim camp last week how much fitness I'd lost when just doing a couple lengths of hard kick felt muscularly fatiguing...

Saturday run

Hmmmm, Brent did 1:45, but I called it at 1:00 - I was actually enjoying myself more than I expected, from which I deduce that Ottawa running improved my run fitness, but I could not face the second treadmill hour, I went to Cafe del Sol for a cappuccino and read the Economist while waiting for Brent to finish his!

1hr., mostly zone 2 - alternating every fifth minute as either +3 or -3 @ 1.5mph faster than base speed. Very enjoyable - I have never used the negative grade on the treadmill before, but it gives you a chance to have faster leg turnover without undue strain on the huffing and puffing systems.

I think I'll swim for half an hour in the SEA later on today, and I must have a long bike ride tomorrow morning...

Last Ottawa run

Back to Cayman tomorrow, and somewhat more penitential running conditions - it is a most beautiful morning here, absolutely perfect running weather (brisk and cool and sunny, just warming up by the end to a balmier level but really almost chilly at the outset!). We were aiming for an hour, but at the 30-minute mark I had the romantically named Dows Lake Pavilion in my sights and couldn't resist adding on a few extra minutes to reach it - it is more mentally compelling to run to a landmark than to time. Anyway, a real treat, what a nice run...

6.96 miles, 1:11:20, avg pace 10:14, avg HR 149, max HR 157

Long run

In my head I had set a hard minimum of 2 hours - I ended up stopping at 1:53:41 (10.45 miles, avg pace 10:52, avg HR 151), but I'm still pretty happy with it. There were a few factors I hadn't really accounted for: for one thing, the natural turnaround on the canal path out-and-back from the hotel falls around 4.5 miles, so everything after 9 was me overshooting or trying to run around a few extra blocks or what have you. Also, I had finished my water by the 1:20 mark - I did see one fountain about 20 minutes after that, but by that point it hardly seemed worth stopping, I had the scent of home in my nose!

(It is also true that it is purely desire rather than accomplishment that would have had me running 16 miles this weekend - I'm not at all caught up with that schedule, I had one two-hour treadmill run about three weeks ago but other than that I haven't run for more than an hour, and certainly not on pavement either - so we will call it the better part of valor to have run short today.)

I was actually following a "run 10 minutes, walk 1" strategy to mitigate the effects of pavement - this was a tip brought to mind by some materials at the Running Room yesterday, and it worked very well.

At the store I bought a new pair of shoes - it was fiscally irrational, they are so much more expensive in Canada than in the U.S. and I will be in New York at the end of the month, but I have really worn the hell out of the old pair and have been uneasily aware this week (i.e. pavement rather than treadmill) of the near-complete lack of cushioning. And at least notionally I would be running 70-80 miles between yesterday and New York anyway - so I took the plunge and purchased them anyway.

(They are very good shoes, I tried another model just to be sure I should stick with these but there was no need to switch - they are the Mizuno Wave Inspire 6.)

The weather here is perfect Triaspirational running weather - overcast, a light drizzle (heavier at times), upper 50s. It was beautiful out there - hardly anybody else to be seen, but lots of ducks. Felt very asthmatic and overweight for first half hour, but it was smoother going after that - I do not really understand why the asthma gets better in the second hour than in the first, but it is fairly noticeable. I fear my November marathon will be discouragingly slow, but I don't think I should write it off altogether - I should be able to run a 4:40 or so even if I don't run as many training miles as I would like, and I think it is worthwhile, it gets me out of bed when I otherwise might be absolutely languishing...

Short run

I was thinking all day it would be a pity if I didn't get out at least for a short run, and so I did - only had vim for half an hour, and it's almost too warm in the sun, but truly beautiful weather, and running along the canal like that - very, very nice...

29:25, 3 miles, avg HR 150

Swim camp #3

Built up to actual full freestyle stroke by way of what I know as the 6-3-6 drill, then video analysis - definitely useful, but I had a terrible pang as I was walking back to the hotel, it was a most beautiful morning for a run, I wish I had been out there...

Swim camp

Two sessions thus far, one yesterday morning and one this evening - a bit of a respite in a rather taxing week!

Tuesday run

Bit of a battle to get up, but it was a good run once I was actually out there (first we walked over to scope out the location of the university swimming pool): 1 hr., zone 2 (avg HR 144), c. 5.8 miles.

Monday run

There are several unintended athletic consequences a.k.a. lovely side benefits of this trip to Ottawa, which is really not so much a vacation otherwise (though we did also have a truly decadent dinner last night at the Keg - we are staying in a highly convenient part of town, right near the Byward Market and the university - lots of bookstores in the immediate vicinity!) - the weather here is perfect right now for running, and I will also be able to go to Technosport swim camp later this week (that latter is a bittersweet pleasure, as I always thought I would come to Ottawa for swim camp sometime, but of course it should have been to see Wendy!)...

Anyway Brent and I had a truly delightful run this morning on the path along the river - there were ducks - there was a malevolent corvid or two - there were various dogs, one of them a collie whose herding instincts had clearly been triggered by someone or something just passed - and a sausage dog very bent on getting somewhere - beautiful gardens - anyway, very good for the running morale to be trotting along comfortably with a breeze and low humidity!

c. 56 mins., c. 5.5 miles, avg HR 149 (zone 2/3)

Wednesday night running club

I have yet to learn to pace myself on this one - the combination of fast other runners, heat/humidity and a route that makes me edgy is deadly. (Plus, of course, insufficient training on my part.) I peeled off from the group after a couple miles and ran home on my own feeling very hot and demoralized.

c. 43 mins., too much in zone 4 tipping into 5

UGH!