The Mid May Blues

It's that time of the year when the spring season should be coming to an end....but here in Pittsburgh all it's been lately is cold and rainy. Every now and then we'll get a 70 degree day, but then it'll drop right back down into the low 50's (upper 40's in the morning). Needless to say the week started off slow. Work has really been stressful trying to learn the new job in addition to trying to transition out of my old job. I was so worn down this week that I decided to take off Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Geez, lately I haven't taken any days off let alone 3 days in one week. I think mentally I needed the break, and it showed this weekend.

Friday night was supposed to be a long workout, but yep you guessed it, it was raining. I opted out of my longer workout and locked myself in the basement in front of the TV set spinning my little legs as fast as I could for two hours on the trainer. Usually by now, the trainer is tucked away in the garage, and retired for the summer, but not this year.

Saturday was my bounce back "Get your butt back in the zone" day. With Triple T only a week away, Eagleman two weeks away, and IM Placid only two months away, it was time to start getting serious.

Our plan was to ride a solid 5 hours on the bike, followed by a 20 minute off the bike run. My friends Doug and Paul showed up around 8:15, and we were off. The first two hours were fast and furious. Averaging over 19mph (on a hilly course) I started to wonder how long we could hold this pace. Three hours in....yep still holding. Four....still holding. The fifth hour we began to cool down but our final average was still just under 19mph. And best news yet, I felt like I could have hung in there at that pace for at least another two hours. My legs felt great (probably because of the light training week), and the run directly afterwards went off without a hitch.

As the afternoon came and went, my eyes became really heavy. I retired to bed around 8PM, and was up for another installment of "Chad's training diaries" bright and early Sunday morning. I met up with some of my running buddies, and ran just under 16 miles with them. Again, my legs have never felt this fresh after a long weekend. Maybe all this training is paying off. We shall see come July!!!

PS: I wanted to say good luck to Beth S., and Eric L. in Columbia today. Also good luck to my friend Patrick whose running his second ever marathon today in Cleveland. I'm sure you'll all do awesome. Run fast and go hard!

posted by Chad Holderbaum @ 11:01 AM Comments: 0