Ran this afternoon – 35 minutes, I’m guessing somewhat over 4 miles. I did the circuit of the Newport Navy base, with a couple of side roads. The take-away is that what used to be challenging hills aren’t any more. This stuff works. Showered before heading back to work, and hit the old balance scale in the locker room – 169. Which isn’t bad, considering I haven’t been watching what I’ve been eating at all for about a month, and have been really, really stressed out about work. Now, all I need to do is drop the work stress, and I should be able to shed pounds.
Silly me had used the socks in my gym bag on Monday to ride. But, I knew I was not going far, so I went ahead and ran without socks. No blisters. I think a lot of that has to do with the work I’ve done on form – again, I haven’t tried any of them fancy-dan schemes, just concentrated on light foot strikes and not driving my heels. But it was nice to know that it’s working. I’m also noticing that my shoes aren’t wearing as fast as they used to. AND the wear pattern’s all under the ball of the foot, instead of the massive wear I used to get on the outside of each heel. Hmmmm….
I headed over to the Y to swim after a thrilling game of “Ants in your Pants” with Jake, baths, and story time (We’re doing “A Light in the Attic” – one of the ones tonight was about a pirate named Claude; I need to remember to send it to a co-worker of the same name). Did 1500m – 250 w/u breast, 2X500m freestyle sets, and 250 c/d breast. The swim didn’t feel great, but it didn’t feel bad considering I don’t think I’ve swam in about a month.
I think I’m skipping the Mystic River Valley Tri this weekend – no wetsuit, and I think the half mile swim might kill me after laying off the nautical stuff lately. But, I’m giving serious consideration to running the Terramuggus Tri series in Marlborough. I’ve got buy-in from the wife, and it doesn’t seem like a killer event – 400 yd lake swim, 12 mile bike, and a 5K run. It’s 6:30 on Thursdays, which means I need to leave work those days at 4 PM sharp, but it’s doable.
Marathon training starts in about two weeks for the Mystic Places Marathon. The NYRR plan builds weekend mileage really, really quickly, but at this point, I’m really pretty confident that I can do this. The Bluff Point race felt GOOD; my guess is that I could knock out a half at this point without too much pain afterwards. I entered the lottery for New York, but at this point, I’m focusing on Niantic, am going to run Niantic, and if my legs don’t fall off, may give New York a try two weeks later. Dumb? Yes, but being smart got me fat.
Which is why the short tri on Thursdays really kind of appeals to me – works out the competition jones, works out the multi-sport jones, but allows me to really focus on marathon which remains my focus for this year. Well, that and shedding another 20 lbs.