Dobovedo's Journal of Journeys

Forgot to mention yesterday that I reached a new best distance for my underwater swim at the beginning of my workouts. I felt like I was out of air as I was approaching the wall, but I decided to turn around and at least push off. To my surprise, I was actually able to put two good pulls in before coming up, and made it about 1/3 of the way back before I finally came up (gasping). That says a lot about the mental aspect of the practice, and the need to relax. For what it’s worth, 1/3 of the way back is as far as I ever got as a teen. Not bad for a not-quite-middle-aged guy. Anything I get beyond this really will be a personal best. Will I ever get 2 lengths? Hard to say, but there’s a huge difference between taking strokes on that return length and merely getting good distance by pushing off the wall. I’ll settle for halfway back.

Read more on Uphill & Underwater…

I think I spent more time deciding which Spinervals DVD to do this evening than I spent riding to one. I eventually landed on 2.0: Time Trial Special. It has some nice one-legged drills and that’s something I really need. I loaded up the left leg more than the right, since that’s the one that’s weaker. I swear.. my left hamstring is utterly worthless when it comes to riding a bike. The whole time I was doing the sets, my heart rate was running 15-20 beats above whatever Coach Troy was reading off the participants HR monitors. And it was much higher at the same output than it normally would be. And my cadences in the various gear ratios were lower. And I hit a max of 190 on the final sprint. Granted, I really really really put everything I had into that sprint, which I rarely do, but I’ve never seen my HR go over 188 and rarely over 186. I assume it’s fatigue from yesterday’s 3 hours of Tough Love and probably a bit of dehydration.

Read more on Time Trial By Fire…

Quite some time ago, I was listening to a friend tell me how they were going to start going to the gym, and how they were going to get in shape, lose weight, take up a sport, etc. This was the nth time the same person had said pretty much the same thing to me. Each time they had gone and done some workouts a couple times, but then never followed up. I tried to be encouraging and supportive. I always try to be encouraging and supportive. Heck.. part of the reason I write this blog the way I do is that I secretly hope that occasionally some random anonymous person reads it and is at least a little bit inspired. I don’t really go out of my way to structure it like that, but… if just one person gets something out of it, it’s far better than what it already does for me personally. Back to the friend though, I had heard the same thing too many times. I didn’t get annoyed or say anything negative, but I did try a different response.

“Don’t tell me what you’re going to do. Just go do it. Afterward, you can tell me what you did!”

Read more on Don’t Just Do It, Just DID It…

This is why I find the Internet such a wonderful and fascinating “place”. I found the following in my inbox this morning after posting my running shoe story:

Just to keep things really boring and minutia-filled, I’ll outline my running shoe shopping trip on Saturday morning. I went into a little place in south Asheville called Foot RX Running. The first thing they do is put you in a neutral pair of running shoes, fire up the treadmill, and record some video so the stride and gait can be evaluated. I was quite shocked to see just how much my left foot pronates in a shoe with little or no stability control. I shouldn’t be shocked, since it took years and many failed attempts back in high school to find shoes that I wouldn’t destroy in a matter of weeks.

But I was shocked just the same. I’ve never seen it on video before.

Read more on Shoe Fetish…

Not a lot to post this week. For someone who had no intentions of doing traditional holiday celebrations this year, I sure did manage to find a lot of non-traditional distractions. This is NOT a bad thing.. and in fact was a very good thing. I’m just looking back and noticing quite a few days went by with little or no training. Only one swim, two cores, and two trainer rides. However.. they were solid trainer rides. Not only that…

the week ain’t over yet.

Read more on Buildup To Blue Moon…

The cold symptoms are still lingering just a bit, but for the most part has past. Which is good, because it’s been 14 days. Most of what I’m still feeling is due to the fact that I’ve rediscovered my love/hate relationship with Coach Troy.

Love? Did I say love? yeah.. I lied. I hate Coach Troy.

Read more on Winter Weight Workouts Week One Wrapup…

I know the average cold lasts about two weeks, and I’ve only had this one for 11 days, but I’m getting damned tired of it. If I were really sick, it would be one thing, but I don’t FEEL sick. Right up until I try to get some exercise, that is. Despite the ongoing stuffy head and chest congestion, I have finally started into a structured winter training and nutrition plan.

Because I got on the scale and it said 177… that’s why.

Read more on Stubborn Cold Or No, I’m Back On Plan…

Gonna do a show ‘n tell on a little something I got in the mail today. It’s not going to be all that interesting to anybody but me, but there’s nothing new there. I do that all the time. It’s about a jersey. An Ironman Florida “Finisher” jersey.

And nobody else has one like this one.

Read more on Jersey Snore…

At about 4 pm on Sunday, I went out on the front porch to cough up some gunk and breathe some fresh, if wet and drizzly, air. I was surprised to find it felt pretty warm out, and when I checked the gauge, sure enough, it was 52. All right, I’ve had of enough this bein’ sick crap, I’m goin’ for a bike ride. It was barely an hour until sunset, so I threw on some extra warm clothes, aired up the tires in the Bianchi for the first time since I bought the Roubaix, and headed out for a quick (time, not speed) loop.

And not even a mile down the road I thought I was gonna die.

Read more on Is That All You Got?!? …

So I got myself back to NC and got myself onto the start of a winter training routine. Light but at least doing something every day. Three days later I get myself a cold and haven’t done anything in the meantime. I was feeling quite a bit better by Friday afternoon and even headed out for a brief bit of socializing on Friday evening. But Saturday seemed to be the “cough it all up” day. Yuck. Sorry, but that’s a good thing. The end is near. Regardless, I was dead set on going for at least a light swim Saturday afternoon, only to remember that the pool was going to be closed for a Franklin HS swim meet. So there’s nothing about this post to relate to training whatsoever.

Read more on Complete Lack of Training Training Update…

On Tuesday I woke up with the dreaded scratchy throat. It wasn’t all that dreaded at first, because I’ve been waking up with a scratchy throat on and off for weeks now. It’s a winter thing. Dry indoor air. Sinuses. Whatever. Only this time it didn’t go away after I’d been up for awhile. It stuck around all morning, in the same annoying barely-there condition. As the afternoon progressed though, I became convinced hat this was definitely the beginnings of a real cold.

Well it’s about damned time!

Read more on Squeezin’ One In Before The Sneezin’ Begin…