WEEK 23 – May 30, 2016 – June 5, 2016
A couple of noteworthy things happened this week. First, for the second week in a row I missed my swim workouts. I’m not all too concerned about it, but it made me think about why I didn’t have a contingency plan in place for when the school would be closed. Well, I sort of did have one, and that was to have my own pool open and swim at home. But I am still waiting to hear from the pool guys as to when they can put in my new liner. I have looked into swimming at a local YMCA, but at $14 per swim that may be a little stiff.
One of my Gunner teammates Jeff, has definitely been utilizing his contingency plan as he rehabs from a back issue. I should be taking lessons from the new guy!
The other big news is that after having consistently passing on a triathlon watch, I decided that I would take the plunge and join the cool tri kids. What did I buy? A brand new, in the box Garmin 910XT. Don’t laugh. Even though this watch hit the market in 2011, and Garmin has since released the 920 and the 735, I got a deal that I just couldn’t pass up. A local sporting goods store in Chicagoland, Sports Authority is going out of business and was having an everything must go sale. I walked into the store and found that they had several new, never opened 910XT’s. Normally they list for about $400. Over a couple of weeks, I watched the price plunge until there was only one of about a half dozen left on the shelf, and it rang up at $159. I made the decision to get the thing. The receipt said all sales were final, and at the bottom said I had saved $240! I think I got a good deal.
Since I already owned a Garmin Edge 500 bike computer, I found my new watch to be somewhat familiar, and the learning curve was not much of a challenge for this sometimes technology challenged geezer. I have all the screens set up the way I want, and transferring data from my workouts to Garmin Connect is a snap when I get into range of the computer, transferring everything wirelessly!
The last thing of note is that I seem to have entered a stage of training that I totally forgot about the last time I did the Ironman – the “I’m always angry, sad, moody” stage. Lately I have been so down and moody, and it is compounded by the fact that two of my kids graduated junior high and high school, and my son is entering his last year of college. It also didn’t help that I asked my wife to buzz my hair with the smallest clipper, effectively making me look like an older geezer than I actually am. I guess to combat this I guess is to let my hair grow out some, get some good rest and keep eating. They say that when you are sad or angry during the race you need to eat. I have no trouble eating.
WEEK 23 TOTALS:
Swims: No swimming this week😦
Bikes: 3 total, 7.33 hours, 124.5 miles
Runs: 7 total, 6 hours, 42 miles
an amazing run 