35 again (8 weeks until NOLA 70.3)

OK, I actually turned 45 this week but 35 sounds so much better.  I figure if I live to 80, I can start counting down, right?  Kind of like Benjamin Button.  When I hit zero, it's game over.

Anyway, this week has been busy.  Life just feels busy.  Busy at work, busy at home, busy training, busy at church, busy, busy, busy.  All good things, just busy.  I managed to get 6 of my 9 workouts in this week despite the busyness and a minor surgery.  I'll take it.  Plus the weather has been good, double bonus!

Monday was supposed to be a swim, but Josh had a science fair project due at the end of the week.  I gladly skipped the swim to help him out.  He worked hard and did a really good job on it.  The prior week he had the victim mentality and said he couldn't work on it because he didn't have a science fair packet.  I told him this was his project and not having a packet was his problem to solve.  I offered to help by picking up a the packet from his teammate and copying it.  He or his teammate asked for another packet at school the next day and the kids solved their own problem! 

Tuesday I actually managed a run before work.  First time in about three weeks and it was pretty decent.  I really struggle with morning runs, specially when it's pitch black and chilly out.  Tuesday afternoon, I had a squamous cell carcinoma taken off my arm.  It's a good cancer in that if it is caught early, you just cut it out and no other treatment is necessary.  It's my second good skin cancer, but I'm only 45 35.  Hopefully I can keep dodging bullets for another 35 years.  After they removed the skin (on my fore arm) they put a bandage on and said not to remove it for 24 hours and no shower for 24 hours.  Crap, I planned to ride after the procedure.  I'm not gonna do a bike workout, do a sponge bath then go to work the next day. Missed workout number 2 for the week.  Tri gear does come in handy though.  I woke up at 3 am that night and the dressing that wasn't to be removed had fallen off while I slept :-).  So, I cleaned it up, put a new dressing on it, then used an arm warmer to hold my dressing in place.

The straggler stitches look like bug antennae to me

Wednesday I usually swim at night.  I managed to get to the pool and do most of the workout.  I had a very odd thing happen.  I switched to a new deodorant (Gillette clear gel) and it seemed to react with the chlorine.  Weird, it was like it clumped my pit hair and it felt like they were being tugged on with every stroke.  Anyone else had this?  Maybe I should do a little trimming :-).

Thursday was my actually birthday.  I can say I don't look forward to them anymore and I'm glad it is over.  Between getting older, having another skin cancer, and managing my aches and pains from training, I can say getting older can be depressing.  On the bright side, I'm in the best shape of my life and I love passing people in triathlons with 20 something and 30 something on their calves and knowing that most people my age aren't in good enough shape to do them.  My cake wasn't perfect visually, but the taste was perfect.  My favorite cake is angle food cake with marshmallow frosting. 

Mal formed cake :-)

Friday is my day off.  I took it even though I didn't really need it.

Saturday I did my longest run so far for this race.  It was pretty slow, but I felt good for most of it.  Even my calf wasn't too bad for most of it.  The last two miles were interesting.  I had lots of twinges, aches, pains, etc in many areas of my legs, feet, calf, hip, hammie, etc but none got severe.  I think I should add a couple short easy run days to my training, but it is tough to do when I'm so busy.  Today, for instance, I ran 11 miles, had a lunch date with Cheryl, took down Christmas lights (1st weekend there wasn't snow or ice on the roof), ran sound at church, then had dinner and a movie with Cheryl.

Old grain silo on my running route.

Covered bridge on the same route.

Sunday I did my longest ride yet.  65.7 miles in 4 hours.  I'm pretty happy with that given I had to slow down a couple dozen times due to people walking, running, biking, etc plus it was extremely windy.  Like 20-30 mph winds and on one stretch I was going straight into it and slightly uphill (at 8 mph).  My goal was to keep my hr in zone 2 (under 155) like I plan to do at NOLA.  I went over 155 a few times and thought about an analogy I read somewhere.  When doing a half or a full, every time you go over your target zone, it's like burning a match from your match book and once they are gone, they are gone which means a miserable run.  At one point about. 40 miles in to my ride, I happened to be thinking about the analogy and right then a couple big dogs jumped out of a field right next to me, growled and took off after me.  Well, I lit the whole match book on fire because it was on like Donkeykong :-) (and I didn't want to get eaten).  Seriously, big dogs that want to eat me?  I have no idea what speed I accelerated to (whatever it was is top speed for me), but after looking over my shoulder and seeing they stopped gaining on me I glanced at my hr and it was 176.  I'm sure it peaked above 180.  I did run out of gas the last 20 minutes.  I wonder if it would have been better if I didn't have the dog chase.  I took in about 1200 calories on the ride.  That's about what I plan for NOLA but need to adjust the mix.  I was a little bloated and gassy at the end.

Saturday on my run, I did a sweat test on my run and came out with 35.8 ounces per hour sweat rate on a 45 degree breezy day running at a slow 10 min/mile pace.  Sunday on my ride, I did another sweat test and came out with 25 ounces per hour on a 70 degree very windy day.