Udderly Delicious: It Works!

Hello from Ogden, Utah!

I meant to make a couple of blog deposits last week but ran into a whole slew of excuses for why I should've (and did) do something else at that time. Here's a quick recap from last week to get me all caught up with my workout log, etc.

1. Udder Butter, or whatever the hell that udder cream is called - IT WORKS. Call me a cheap sell for hopping on the bandwagon so quickly, but I smeared a glob of that weird-smelling stuff all over my "shammy" (le chamois) and knocked out the longest trainer-ride OF MY LIFE. My Tuesday Trainer workout looked like this...

10 min. warm-up
10 min. hard effort (155-160 bpm)
10 min. recovery (130-140 bpm)
09 min. hard
09 min. recovery
08 min. hard
08 min. recovery
etc...
.....
...
05 min. hard
but then!,...
01 min. recovery
04 min. standing hill-climb (OUCH)
01 min. recovery
03 min. hill-climb
01 min. recovery
02 min. hill-climb
01 min. recovery
01 min. hill-climb
10-15 min. cool-down

I felt like an f-ing rockstar on the trainer and everything was burning/throbbing by the end... but not THERE!... (thank you udder butter!)

2. Swims

On Monday I threw together a 3,000m effort that was the traditional 300x8 repeat workout I've been doing for the last couple of months. The times were around 5:12 for each 300m, which is slower than usual, but I wasn't too disappointed. I made a serious effort at counting strokes on the last 3 intervals of 300m and it felt really good. My form, suddenly, gelled into something I dare-say felt almost rhythmic. I will definitely be incorporating more stroke-counting in an effort to make myself glide more and punch water less.

On Wednesday, I felt like crap. The trainer ride (Tuesday night) left me feeling a bit hot in the nose and that's usually the precursor for getting sick. Well, I got sick on Wednesday. I refused to think it would be lasting so I decided to play a game of chicken with my health by dragging my body to the pool. I got about 1500m into a workout consisting of various drills and had to pull the plug. It was ROUGH. I'm glad I gave a GO though. The reasoning, to be honest, was that I'd either force the sickness to hit me quicker than if I had gone home and rested, or I would have conquered the sickness right then. I had a feeling the first option was going to happen and, given that I had a ski trip to Utah lined up for Friday, I wanted to get that crap outta my system ASAP.

As we speak, I have a runny nose and find myself hawking colorful globs of spit onto random parts of the mountains. Not ideal, but definitely manageable. 

3. Cars

What kind of car does a triathlete drive? Elaine and I are about to buy a car (or two?) and are working on the master plan for what would be the best car scenario for us. Leading the list of appealing scenarios is the Volvo V50 because of THIS sweet little deal. NOT BAD. We're also madly interested in the new Ford Fiesta that comes out this summer. If you haven't caught the Top-Gear clip online where they review this car, well you should go and Google it right now.

But anyway, what kind of cars do you all drive and what do you think a great car would be to support the outdoor sports lifestyle without breaking the bank?