Recovery and such

(Monday, 2 February)
Today I was going to run 25-40 minutes easy to recover from yesterday, but I actually only ended up doing about 2.5 miles total. Here I can introduce the only real "injury" I experience periodically (I know, I know, I am so lucky). Basically, after long runs on pavement I sometimes get pain in the area between the 1st and 2nd metatarsals on the top of my left foot. Usually, taking stretchy tape and wrapping the foot right around the middle of the foot provides enough support that the "spreading" of my feet when I strike the ground doesn't irritate the spot anymore. But today that didn't help, so I just threw in the towel and decided not to press the issue. I'm going to tape it tomorrow for walking around, though. I did the ice cup, and rolled my sore hips. This is the most sore part from Sunday, it's right at the attachment point of IT band or maybe it's my g. medius, I'm not sure. My thighs are a little tired too but not in any specific place.

(Tuesday, 2 February)
Took it easy today. Foot still a little off, so I rode the stationary bike until I was a puddle of sweat. Yeesh. Tomorrow will be... interesting. (I'm signed up to be a test subject for one of John Doyle's experiments where I get to ride a stationary bike.) The best part of the day though was getting a legit sports massage from Kim, the new high jump coach. She was great! I'm now working on drinking LOTS of water....

(Wednesday, 3 February)
So, the experiment was really interesting. I didn't do anything really hard; basically I spent 10 minutes warming up, then 10 minutes getting up to a speed that was hard but sustainable for ~3 hours, held that for 30 minutes, and then did some intervals with lots of rest (like 2 minute intervals with equal rest) for another 40 minutes or so, and then a cooldown. My warmup wattage was about 150 watts, which I found may have been a little optimistic. Here's what I learned:

90 watts = really easy, HR ~ 134-136, this was recovery spinning
130 watts = still easy, but more in the warmup zone
150 watts = medium, HR 156 - 160
160 watts = a little harder, but definitely sustainable for at least an hour, HR ~ 165-167
170 watts = hard but kind of like maybe hard mile pace, like equivalent effort to maybe 6.45 mile pace on the track. I could do several longer (5+ minute) intervals at this pace. HR ~ 170
180 watts = HR a little higher, maybe 172-175. This felt more like an 800 rep pace running. I could do this for several minutes too.

for 1 - 2 minute intervals, 200 - 210 watts seemed reasonable if I was going to do several. I could probably hold that for 5 minutes. But I also know this is like a puny wattage compared to the guys I know that use power meters. WTF? Here's a table I found with watts/kg estimates. Do y'all agree with this who have used a power meter? (Kangway). I am about 54 kilos.


So this is all preliminary so we'll know more after the next experiment. They basically are looking at my HR response to various things, and the watt info is kind of more just to check out my fitness (I think). But before I get all sad at not being able to put out any watts, I should point out that Doyle said I was on par with the other folks in the experiment in terms of watts per body weight, and they're all guys.

In other news, I worked on the Waterford today and it is so freaking sweet an example of a bike, I love it. Even more importantly, I made plane tickets today for my month o' global travels. Here's the plan:


Fiji : March 5 - March 10 (I lose 2 days due to time change)
Before y'all get excited, it's the rainy season there so there's a good chance I will be stuck inside reading a book. But, if not there's good snorkeling and mountain bike rentals I can do.

Australia: (with Dave for the second week) March 10-23
I have no idea what I'm going to do here but I'm going to run and rock out.

Dubai: chillin' with my homeslice Vibha, March 23 - March 31

So that's it! Let the planning begin! I'm going to look right now to see if there are any destination road races I can do on the trip, I figure Dubai and Fiji are probably no-gos, but maybe Australia might have something for me?

Oh, one more running-related thing. I have been working on my flexibility for about a year now. In particular, I've been working on my lower back and hamstrings. About a year/year and a half ago I could reach down to about mid-shin. Yesterday, after being on the bike and kinda warmed up, Erin showed me a couple of new really good lower back stretches, and I could actually get all 5 fingers on the ground (barely) and hold them there for a few seconds. It was AWESOME!

(Thursday, 5 February)
My foot is feeling much better today. I finished up the Waterford and took the car in to get serviced. I am such a good girl. I decided to make plans to visit Peter in Denver, so I'm going to do that either the weekend of February 21st or the following weekend. We're going to go XC skiiing.

It was raining pretty hard when I headed out this afternoon, so I didn't have high hopes. But, I thought it would be good to do a run and maybe do something a little fast but not high volume to get my legs ready for the alumni meet. I decided to tape the foot just to be careful, then to run down to the gym and run some 400s on the track in my spikes (for to prep los calves and not shock them too much on the 14th.)

Everything went great. There was like 1.5" of standing water on the track, and it was raining ridiculously hard, but it didn't seem to bother me. I ran 3 400s with plenty of rest (a lap jog around the track) and I wore my spikes for all three; the times were 82, 82, 79. It felt easy and I just worked on my form and turnover. I felt like I was swimming; I took off my shirt because it was so drenched, and I was soaked, and when I cooled down barefoot in the grass it was in ankle deep water. Sweet. I felt determined. I resisted the urge to do more than 3 because of what Ian said about taking it slow on the upswing. Word.

(Friday, 6 February)
Okay, this may have something to do with last night, but today I woke up not feeling so great. I decided that after so many years of blowing off illness and then getting really sick after it would bite me in the ass, I could afford to lay on the couch and watch TV all day long. So, I did that. It was nice! Feeling much better by the end of the day.

(Saturday, 7 February)
Spent another morning lazing around trying not to get sick. Felt much better. Jogged about 3.5 down and around to get the Waterford from the Parkwood garage. Tentatively decided to go ahead with the SD ride plan for tomorrow, weather permitting.

(Sunday, 8 February)
Wowza.

I was surprised and pleased with myself when I mapped it after I got home, because this was farther than I thought it was. And yes, I know I know I was supposed to take it easy this week, and I did... by not running very much... and yes I was getting sick, but I feel fine now.

I left Pasadena at about 8am, which was early enough since it was raining. It rained for about the first hour after I left, and I just tried to roll slow and stay chill. The river trail was uneventful other than having to hop the fence headed into the Rio Hondo. My first goal was to make it to Seal Beach by 11am - I figured since it was about 1/3 of the way there, and I'd budgeted 9 hours ride time, if I didn't make that cutoff I'd think about turning it around.

I got to Seal Beach at 10.55 so I pressed on (after having to detour around a closed gate at the end of the river trail - not cool guys). Past Huntington Beach I was in unknown territory, which it turned out was WAY longer than I thought it was. When 1 goes inland at Newport I was convinced I was going to end up in Irvine or some shit, but thankfully that was not the case.

Somewhere in here I stopped for a snack and bathroom and thought to myself... this seems longer than I thought it would be (I had budgeted 120 to the crit course the Bearclaw guys were at, and 105-110 to Solana Beach.) But I had no choice but to just keep trucking through. Thankfully, the scenery was great and the terrain rolling to keep me interested.

Once I hit Doheny it couldn't have been more beautiful. It was mostly sunny, and the clouds were perfect and the water was pretty and there weren't too many cars. There's a nice stretch with a good bike path separated from the highway, which I really appreciated. I stopped for coffee and pastry in San Clemente, having told myself that this was the last benchmark that I needed to get to before the beginning of the end. My mission was to get myself to the old 101 bike path that goes by the power plant and the San Onofre State beach, because this was the most-northerly point I had biked to from Solana Beach when I lived there. I figured once I was back in familiar territory, I would be fine (and I knew it would be only about 2.5 hours back to SB).

After wandering around San Clemente I found the bike path and was on my way. I waved at Gustavo when I passed the power plant and rocked out on my ipod. Before I knew it I was cruising through Pendleton (best place to ride ever) and I had started getting nervous about losing my light. Knowing the Bearclaw team would leave the crit course around 6pm, I decided that, legs permitting, my time cutoff for trying to make it all the way there from SB would be 5pm. If I made it to SB after 5, I would just stay there and wait for them.

Of course I rolled through SB about 4.55, and my legs were feeling pretty good so I decided to make a go for it. It was rapidly getting dark so I decided it was time to start hammering it. (I had been holding back the whole ride, unsure of how I would hold up, but at this point I figured no matter where I was I could just call for a pickup as long as I didn't pass out or get hit by a car). Pretty soon it was dark (yes I had brought blinkies just in case) and raining again (my rain jacket is black). It was probably 30 minutes of the most dangerous riding of my life, because of the being invisible to cars and being super tired. The last few miles I was convinced my directions were bad because I was going up this huge hill on the opposite side of a ravine from the course. But, it worked out okay and I got there just as the folks I was meeting were rolling out. So that was lucky.

Dry clothes and sitting in the car felt pretty good. I stuffed myself with pizza and had a beer and then enjoyed the drive back (which felt pretty short!) After I got home I was chilling with Dave and had some dessert and all of a sudden totally crashed - I think it might have been a bonk after having so many endorphins all day long.

The only other thing I'll say that I noticed during the ride was that it was a long time to be inside my own head. If there's no stimulation (like on the river trail) I feel like I get kind of zen/zoned out where it's like meditation or something. If there's a ton of stimulation (like, riding through town, or riding with a lot of other riders) you are distracted and preoccupied. But most of this ride was like a weird, mid level where there's enough going on to keep you from getting in the zone, but not so much going on that it takes all the brain CPU time. So I definitely noticed how weird it was inside my head.