Bike Trainer, Sans Laundry This Time

Wednesday's swimming excitement (fueled by increasing my average 100m time across 2400 meters by a WHOPPING 00:00:33 seconds) has completely overshadowed another efforting on the bike trainer (Tuesday).

Countdown Workout - 74 Minutes
10 mins. warm-up
10 mins. medium effort (~140 bpm)
10 mins. hard effort (160+ bpm)
09 mins. medium effort
09 mins. hard effort
08 mins. medium effort
08 mins. hard effort
10 mins. cool-down

It was harder to hit the HR ranges than it normally is, but I still managed to get there. I think I'm attributing the tiredness to the 45-60 minutes spent at the gym before coming home to hop on the saddle. This is now becoming quite a regular thing until I've got some more daylight and then can split the gym workout off to the morning and have enough time to bike outside at night.

Thursday, I followed up with another trainer workout, but this time going for "distance" (indoors, that means "time") over effort.

Plant Your Ass in the Saddle - 90 Minutes
90 minutes - just pedal (~135 bpm)

I helped pass the time with watching some winter olympics and then part of the movie Hurt Locker. There was a lot of hype leading up to this movie and how it was nominated for some key awards. Frankly, the movie wasn't all THAT great. I enjoyed it for what it attempted to do w.r.t. modern warfare psychology/life, and it did have some fresh acting faces, but it wasn't ground-breaking by any means. For my money, I'm looking forward to The Messenger much more. Hurt Locker is still definitely worth the watch, especially if you had previously planned on seeing it.

While I'm giving movie reviews, I should mention that I saw Shutter Island last weekend and was just "meh" about that one as well. [SPOILER ALERT] You could kind of predict the ending along the way, but it left me wanting SO BADLY for there to be some minor detail purposefully off so at leave you with a feeling of doubt.  In other words, I wish I'd have seen something at the very end of the movie that made me think he might actually NOT be crazy... but oh well. Again, if you were planning on see it, go see it. If not, it's definitely a "wait for netflix" type of movie.

I'm out of town Friday - Sunday in SNOWY Michigan which means no organized athletics until the pool on Monday. Stay tuned b/c I'll be sure to present you with reviews of the AMAZING beer I am sure to drink Friday night.

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BACK WHERE I WANT TO BE!

Ok, for starters, I'm THREE bottles of Mexican beer deep right now. (I KNOW!) THAT aside, I met up with (3) friends at the pool tonight for a spirited effort in the pool. And, it ended up being just that - very spirited. Now, before I get too far ahead of myself, I felt good in the pool tonight for the first time in just over two weeks. I was sharp, I held my form (or at least what I consider 'form') and I was very strict on all intervals.

Swim Workout - 300 Repeats
500m - warm-up
300m - 5:07 (1:42min/100m avg.) (0:45 sec rest after each)
300m - 5:10 (1:43min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:13 (1:44min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:08 (1:43min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:10 (1:43min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:08 (1:43min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:08 (1:43min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:07 (1:42min/100m avg.)
100m - cool-down

No individual records today, but I did make GOOD progress today for the first time in a while. You see, my last two solid swim workouts clocked in at 2,487 and 2,480 seconds (respectively). For you math whiz kids, that's a 01:43:625 and 01:43:33 average time per 100m for the 2400m of timed swimming (yeah... i'm reaching here, i know). TODAY, I brought down the house with 2,471 seconds of total swim time, which puts me in the books for a 01:42:96 min/100m avg.).

BAM! Solid!

Oh yeah, the beer... three of us guys decided to catch up over a few Pacificos at Guapos just across the street from the pool. One turned into two, which then turned into three. Three beers and three baskets of chips + salsa later and it was time to head home. See you all after tomorrow's trip to the gym and subsequent ride on the trainer.

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New Duds!.. and a Swim

Instead of re-crafting the lost post, I've decided to screw around with the look of the blog instead. Fun, huh? What do you think? The last one was definitely not easy on the eyes so I'm hoping this one is at least a step in the right direction.

Perhaps this is all for the best since the lost post was completely about restaurants and food from this past weekend... although I might take a stab at recreating it soon... THOSE DAMN RESTAURANTS WERE SO GOOD!!!

Monday Swim Workout - 3300m (400m repeats)
500m - warm-up
400m - untimed
400m - untimed
400m - untimed
400m - untimed
400m - untimed
400m - untimed
400m - untimed
No cool-down
Hot-tub

My friend Bryan  was in town from Boston this past Friday through Monday which meant I had a GREAT excuse for not going to the gym, sitting on the bike trainer or going swimming. Since he was scheduled to leave midday Monday, he and I ended up staying up until around 3am on Sunday night. While fun, this left me with only about 4 hours of sleep leading into Monday. Considering my overwhelming tiredness, I considered it a major victory that I even made it to the pool at all. I then chose to remove my watch before hopping in so that frustration would not drive me to quit early. I swam at a moderate pace and only rested 0:15 between each 400 (thanks wall-clock).

If tonight is any indication, it's almost 1:30am already so I'll get more sleep than I did before Monday's swim, but I'm not anticipating any huge accomplishments. Talk about the wrrroonnnng attitude, huh?

Warm weather = morning person. Cold weather = poor sleep habits.

I got this to use for my swims from now on...

It's silicone... is that good?

I'm sick of my hair feeling like dried-out hay, even if I don't have that much of it. Hopefully I'll be able to overcome the awkwardness of wearing one of these things.

Ok, well I'm noticing myself typing more and more whiny things the more I draw this post out so i think I'll just call it a night and get to bed.

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BLOGGER FAIL

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang it!

I had a whole new post written out full of witty banter and unparalleled examples of photoshop-assisted photography. BUT, blogger took a dump and erased it all so I just spewed a few curse words and quickly wrote this instead.

Bah!

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Lazy Laps, Laundry Intervals and Local Legends

Awww crap! I forgot to make a couple of deposits on the blog here as of late - my bad! Lots of cool stuff going on here though so lets get the stats out of the way...

 More chilly, orphaned bicycles.

Wednesday Swim - 3000m Ladder
500m - warm-up
300m - 5:09 (1:43 min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:08 (1:43 min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:14 (1:44 min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:10 (1:43 min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:19 (1:46 min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:17 (1:45 min/100m avg.)
300m - X:XX (un-timed)
300m - X:XX (un-timed)
100m - cool-down

Summary:  I felt good starting up the workout (physically), but started to HIT THE WALL (mentally and physically) about halfway through. Boo hoo... Instead of giving in to the grumblings inside my head while I watched the lap times steadily increase, I just turned off the watch and put in a solid effort the rest of the way through.

The Torture/Laundry Chamber!

Thursday Bike Trainer - Laundry Intervals
add laundry
25 minutes on trainer
change laundry load
35 minutes on trainer
remove laundry load

Summary: Definitely not my proudest trainer-workout. I had a friend coming into town on Friday mid-day and had to get my laundry... well, wait a second... I'm making excuses for not sitting on the trainer for another 20-30 minutes. I could definitely have made the time. Bad Sean! Bad! But wait, I went to the gym first for 45 minutes so maybe that redeems me? Maybe just a little??

This is after LOTS of melting/shoveling.

Friday Swim - 3000m Ladder
500m - warm-up
300m - 5:01 (1:40 min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:16 (1:45 min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:16 (1:45 min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:20 (1:47 min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:09 (1:43 min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:12 (1:44 min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:13 (1:44 min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:10 (1:43 min/100m avg.)
100m - cool-down 

Summary: I felt better today than I did on Wednesday. Plus, I had a friend with me which always makes things 1 million times easier. This is what we call bad progress, though - I improved on a bad workout (monday) but not back to where I was two weeks ago before that f-ing blizzard. No matter though, b/c I have a small token of satisfaction to take with me from this workout. I managed to go balls-out waaaaay too early in my workout and accidentally PR on the first 300m, clocking in at 5:01 (1:40 min/100m avg!).  Sweet!... I guess... right? 

 Attempt 1: Fail.

Attempt 2: Oww... sun in my eyes!

Attempt 3: Ah well, at least I'm smiling this time, right?

I also happened to have a very unexpected surprise at the pool on Friday. There was this dude in the lane next to me who looked suspiciously familiar. No wait, more than that... his WORKOUT looked suspiciously familiar. There was not only all sorts of swim-enhancing equipment, but the creativity he expressed via the breakdown of his swim-sets would've made Picasso blush. There were 50s, 100s, 150s, 375s, 437s... you name it, he swam it!

But in all honesty, I got really suspicious when I saw his "flip-turns"...

That's about when I realized I was drinking the same chlorinated water as the one and only Dirk De Heer. A giant among men, Dirk finished 11th at the ITU Duathlon World Championships last Fall (!!!!).

It seems as though Dirk and I both started "getting serious" about swimming (i.e. started sucking less) at around the same time last fall. It has been a blast following his progress and I can't wait to see him in action in some TRIs this summer. Nice to finally meet you Dirk!

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Some Pictures of the DC Snow Storm of 2010

When it's July and I'm thinking "why the hell aren't I swimming any faster?!," hopefully I'll remember to look back on this post and see pictures of what shut down the city (and my pool) for about 11 days. Enjoy!

 

The National Cathedral.

Downtown.

The Red Cross building.

R.I.P lonely bike.

No, he's not squatting down - it's THAT deep.

The Washington Monument.

At the National Mall near all the monuments.

 

Abe's House.

In the neighborhood.

My Vespa is hiding from me.

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Playing Catch-Up and Eating Ketchup

I was out of town this past weekend in Michigan and had a FANTASTIC time. Per usual, there was lots of great food and great beer involved!

Seared big-eye tuna w/ginger-miso sauce, wasabi oil, julienned jicama salad and crispy sushi rice.

In between meals, Elaine and I rocked our wedding registry at a number of different stores - Macy's, Williams & Sonoma, Crate & Barrel, REI and Home Depot (yes!). After hearing horror stories about nearly failed engagements thanks to disputes over registry items, we made it a point to add anything we thought we might be interested in.This planned turned out GREAT. We FLEW through the stores without having to stop and conduct a small game of mind-chess over each little item.

Let me tell you though, that process is exhausting! The only big hurdle which we have yet to conquer were the infamous steak-knives. It seemed as though our options were either plastic/bendy crap or $100/knife Wusthof magnificence. While I'd love to have the Wusthof knives (regardless of the price, they were reeaaaallllly nice knives), that price is just insane.

Ok, well that's enough wedding planning jargon for now. Onto the workouts...

On Monday I got into the pool for the first time in roughly 11 days (mid-afternoon two Fridays ago was the last visit). Between house-guests, travel and snow this ended up being quite a departure from the regular 3x/week (@ roughly 10,000 meters). I just jumped in and just did a quick 2,000m with a few sets of 300m to see where my speed was at with all of the time off. I was sore, uncoordinated and slower, but only by a few seconds.

On Tuesday I put in an hour at the gym and then 1:20 on the bike while watching the movie Inside Man (no, it's not a porno). I was distracted by Jodie Foster's amazing calves for most of the movie, but from what I can remember it was a pretty good watch. I made up this workout that I'm going to use to progressively tack on more time/distance into my trainer workouts. It's basically a backwards ladder where, after your warm-up, you do something like the following...

10 mins. medium effort (135-150 bpm)
10 mins. hard effort (160+ bpm)
09 mins. medium
09 mins. hard
08....
07...
etc... (down to 1 minute)
10 mins. cool down

I only made it to about an hour and twenty minutes of riding which is the most I've done since last November. While the time in the saddle isn't that impressive, it still represents progress and that's exactly what I'm looking for right now. I relish the day in the near future when I complete the 2 hour 10 minute workout.

It'd also be cool to pick up some spinnerval DVDs and give those a shot, but frankly I'm just not willing to dish out the $$ for them. AND, hopefully the weather will start to get nice here in the next month or so thus making their purchase completely unnecessary. I also just discovered the massive stash of TdF DVDs that netflix has and plan on receiving those in the mail in the very near future.

Oh yeah, and I've been dipping my ham sandwiches in ketchup here at work for the last two days. I don't know why, but I love it.

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Snow Days hindering Swim Days

Did I mention that I've already had more snow-days for this work week than I did throughout my entire undergraduate and graduate careers combined (in Michigan, mind you)(Go Blue!). At first it's hilarious to see the city react to this weather. It's like watching a clown trying to juggle more balls than he is capable of doing. Sadly, the humor eventually dies and you find yourself stuck in a city running at 20%. Part of the sadness is due to the fact that the pool was closed quite frequently. Even if/when it was open, the buses that would take me there weren't working and the hours were something ridiculous like 2-5pm! C'mon!

So with that, I was forced into my local gym for every day this past week. Lots of light-weights for practically every muscle group in the body. A TON of jump-rope and a slightly smaller ton of ab-work seemed to be the highlights.

I'm particularly proud of yesterday's "hour in the gym, hour on the trainer" workout. I put in some hard-time at the gym and then came home and immediately hopped on the bike and cranked out a very solid hour. I felt really fatigued in the beginning, but I think that's just because I came from the gym. I was then able to pull myself together and crank out some solid intervals.

Oh, and on Tuesday I went hiking through the downtown near the monuments where there are NO paths made in the snow. I wanted to get out and try to capture some cool photos (upcoming in next post) and ended up posting just over 8 miles of hiking in 2+ feet of snow. I was tired, but it was some GREAT exercise for joint stability. My knees and ankles are going to thank me later for this. 

In the worst blogger etiquette move ever, I'm going to remind myself here at the bottom of the post to put up some pics from the big snow-storm we've had out here and from the hike I took. I'm out of town for the weekend so it most likely won't be until Monday or Tuesday. See ya!

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Almond Butter and Shaved Body Parts

I've been reading a lot of buzz lately about almond butter. I've never tried it before, but it's hard to say that my curiosity is not growing daily. Frankly, I don't know what I'm missing.

With that in mind, I went in search of what others had to say about it so that I could hopefully enlighten myself and see if that's yet another bandwagon I want to jump on way after-the-fact (like I did with the Dave Matthews Band, for example).

THIS was the main article I checked out. Here's the most important excerpt from the article...

Comparing the nutritional information of some off-the-shelf peanut butter in our pantry against the crunchy “no-stir” almond butter, they stack up quite similarly, with both having 190-calories in 2-tablespoons.  Surprisingly enough, the peanut butter has slightly more protein than the almond butter (8 grams vs. 6 grams), and less fiber (2 grams vs. 3 grams).  A review of the fat content shows the peanut butter to marginally more saturated and polyunsaturated fat.  However, the almond butter comes in at almost 50% more monounsaturated fat.  Neither contains trans fats.  From the standpoint of nutrient content, peanut butter provides about 20% of your daily niacin needs, while almond butter give 40% of vitamin E and 20% of magnesium.

With that in mind, almond butter seems to be a better option than your typical can of skippy, but perhaps that is because almond butter has not become the commodity that peanut butter is and has thus avoided the pitfalls of a mass-produced product (as illustrated by the quality/price gap). The difference between a can of quality peanut butter and almond butter seems to be marginal and perhaps a decision best governed by personal taste alone.

If anyone else has some good words for almond butter, I'd love to hear them. I'll buy a can of it sometime soon, but I can't say that I'm terribly excited one way or another.

* * * * *

Shaving.

Dudes Shaving.

This definitely weirds me out, but I can't say that I'm not intrigued. I mean, I was weirded out when I switched from swim-trunks to a skin-tight jammer last summer, so perhaps this is just the next step in my natural, yet ungodly slow, transformation into a minimally respectable swimmer.

There is a GREAT article that covers pretty much all reasons a male triathlete would ever consider before shaving his legs. Read it HERE.

For the record, I've never shaved anything on my body except for my face. I've buzzed my hair pretty short, but never introduced a razor. Lately I've been experimenting with... ::awkward pause::... cleaning up the area between my chest and my belt-line. No hair there anymore. Yeahh...

Anyway, I've tossed the idea around of shaving my chest but cannot honestly see myself committing to doing so and then maintaining it so my chest doesn't turn into a large piece of sand-paper. I read a bit about Nair and that seems to be plausible, but again... I'm weirded out. I'd shave my legs this summer after I've been on the bike for a couple of solid months and can hold my own again, but definitely not now while I'm indoors sitting on my trainer.

All in all, I think the psychological effects would be strongest on me and I would enjoy the vainness that comes along with looking in the mirror at a body which represents a level of fitness I've never been able to achieve until recently.

Blogger, you are the first one to hear these thoughts. Sean will probably shave his legs and his chest at some point this summer... and his arms too... and maybe more...

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Weekend Recap - Swim, Friends, Food, Trainer

Unless you don't believe in the internet, you are undoubtedly aware of the fact that DC was completely dumped on with snow this past weekend (~36 inches in most places). For a city that sees one big snow-storm a year (6-8 inches... c'mon, really?) this was quite a shocker. The pool was effectively closed since Friday afternoon at 2pm until the present. Sure, they were open today from like 12pm until 6pm, but c'mon, that doesn't help me at all.

My friend Bryan was in town this weekend for a conference he was going to attend in Baltimore on Monday. I was able to squeeze an easy 3,000m in on Friday before he was scheduled to land. Much to my chagrin, who other than f-ing Mayor Fenty was discovered to be swimming in the very same lane as me!! Hot damn! I passed him once and I that quickly became the new highlight of my triathlon career. SWEET! In all honesty though, he didn't know we were racing so that will just have to remain as an unofficial result.

I think I might have also spotted local pro Lindsey Jerdonek in the same lane at the very end of my swim, but I can't be sure. Similar to a month or so ago, I got very convincingly passed more often than one would care to admit. I did, however, choose to remain anonymous and not hassle either her or The Mayor.

Bryan showed up that afternoon. I won't go in the details, but will instead sum up the weekend with bullet-points:

• Ray's Hell Burger
• Sweet Water Tavern
• Mountain Dew
• Doritos
• Double-Stuf Oreos
• Paul Prudhomme Jambalaya
• More Mountain Dew
• A Poptart

My one saving grace was the batch of Quinoa I made. It's ridiculously healthy and amazingly simple/tasty.

In the spirit of this stream-of-consciousness post, here is a self-summary of workouts from Friday through today...

Friday - Swim 3,000m, then GOT FAT.
Saturday - GOT FAT
Sunday - GOT FAT
Monday - 1 hr. at gym
Tuesday - 45mins @ gym for weights, 45mins on bike trainer with 5x60sec intervals

I plan to hop on the trainer again tomorrow since I only put a little bit of time in today. There's also a trip to the gym to jump rope until I've got calves like White Hot's.

Oh, and I saw THE vein in both biceps for the FIRST TIME EVER today. I'm not talking about little veins that go every which way... I'm talking about THE vein - the one that runs north to south that every man secretly strives for. I see it, and I'm going after it.

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Getting the Work Done (In the Pool)

It always gets tough for me right around 5:00pm on days that I know I'm going to swim. Energy levels start to dip, the mind starts to wander, but as long as I can actually get myself on the bus then chances are I'll get to the pool and get the work done.

The absolute WORST part about swimming isn't the hard-breathing and prolonged efforts, but it's getting in the f-ing water. GODDDDDDDDD, I HATE IT! Call me a wuss - I'm fine with that. But damn, it just sucks standing there in spandex staring at the water knowing no matter what you tell yourself it's going to be cold and it's going to SUCK.

That felt good to get that out. Whew.

So after I stumbled again through my 500m warm-up where everything feels sore and crampy, I finally got to the meat of the workout - stats below.

300 Workout - 3300m
500m - warm-up
300m - 5:21 (1:47min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:13 (1:44min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:06 (1:42min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:07 (1:42min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:10 (1:43min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:11 (1:44min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:08 (1:43min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:04 (1:41min/100m avg.)
300m - easy
100m - cool-down

Damnit! I really tried to haul ass on that last one (obviously unlike the first 300m) but was only able to tie my previous record. As per usual, I ran the numbers to see if I managed to improve on anything from Monday's swim. As it turns out, I did! Similar to how Monday was a new record, today was a new record as well. Monday's swimming time took 2,487 seconds (1:43:63min/100m avg.), whereas today's swim only took 2,480 seconds (1:43:33min/100m avg.)! That means I improved by just under 1 second per 300m, or 0.30 seconds per 100m!

It ain't much, but it's SOMETHING.

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The 300 Workout

No, not the 300 workout everyone and their mother searched for on the internet after that movie came out a few years ago. This is myyy 300 workout where I find myself in a pool trying to talk myself into swimming just one more set of 300m. JUST ONE MORE YOU BIG KITTY!!... but I didn't call myself a kitty. HTFU!

Anyway, despite my arms and back still being heavy and sore from the weights on Saturday morning, I was able to overcome.. myself.. and complete the workout.

300 Workout - 3200m
500m - warm-up
300m - 5:13 (1:44min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:16 (1:45min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:11 (1:44min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:04 (1:41min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:10 (1:43min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:17 (1:46min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:12 (1:44min/100m avg.)
300m - 5:04 (1:41min/100m avg.)
300m - cool-down

Today felt a bit harder than usual, but I am attributing that completely to the weight training over the weekend. Everything just felt generally heavier. No matter though, because it seemed as though I was still able to record some pretty decent times.

As a motivational tool, I seem to strive to break at least one record on each of my swim workouts... or at least "run the numbers" in as many ways as possible until I find some improvement over previous workouts. Today's numbers suggest that my total average time bests that of all of my previous 300-workout numbers. It took me a total of 2,504 seconds of swim-time to complete my last 8 x 300m workout, whereas this time it only required 2,487 seconds. This leaves a difference of 17 seconds, or roughly 2 seconds per 300m. Sweet!

In other news, my fiancee is in possession of my smaller, travel-sized camera so I will not be able to post any redundant photos of the Wilson Aquatic Center anytime soon (unless I brought my DSLR with me, which is highly unlikely). ::insert sad trombone sound::

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