That's a mighty fine box you have there... (Or, Blow Me)

Wednesday workout:
Morning: Off

Evening: 25 mile ride
Evening result: 1:35 hours / average heart rate 138 bpm

Whichever you prefer.

Having the heart rate monitor raises the ante quite a bit on the bike. While the ride was slower (I did have the warm-up and cool-down averaged in) and I had a lower heart rate than Monday's 20-mile ride, this was far harder. I haven't had a long workout that had me dumping sweat like that in ages. Possibly even since rowing. For the dumping sweat part, I think that I need to get better airflow by the trainer. Right now it's underneath an AC vent, but that can be quite chilly when you are already soaked. I'll be bringing a fan into the basement for my next trainer ride. Hopefully it will help me stay somewhat cooler.

On a side note, does anybody have recommendations for good action movies? I watch movies while I ride and I'm running out of those I want to see on Netflix. I've already taken down the whole Avengers universe, GI Joe, Dredd, and I'm watching Star Trek currently. And no, Brett, I do not need to watch Ronin again.

As for fine boxes, I arrived home to find a bike box in the living room. The tri bike showed up and I got it put together. It still needs to be fit and I'm not cutting the post until I have been fitted appropriately. Hopefully I can do it soon, as it would be nice to have it for next weekend's race. We are quite busy with Haley's birthday this weekend. While my parent's and Sarah's mom will be in town, I doubt I'd be able to steal away for 3 hours mid-day. Soon though. Soon.

I have started to notice I am in a constant state of hunger. I am eating more, but it's notably healthier than previously. I'm not sure why I want to eat substantially more, but the heart rate monitor has a nice little setting that tells you calories burned. Obviously it will be a bit off, but it gives a good gauge. And that gauge is telling me 1000+ calories per workout, so 2000+ calories per day being burned. Today's workout is showing as 1400 calories, so the burn rate is high. Even still, it does seem wild to me that I can eat a large serving of Sarah's lemongrass chicken stir-fry and then be properly hungry two hours later.

Can I get a J-U-R-Y? What's that spell? Jury Duty!

Tuesday workout:
Morning: 1250 yard swim with 8 x 100 sw-15" rest between

Evening : 45 minute run
Evening result: 4.8 miles / average heart rate 152 bpm

Also known as 'how I wasted my day'. This guy kept me in the judicial building from 7:45am until 6pm. There were 135 people called for this case, the DA and assistant DA were there. Apparently it's a really high profile case, so they called in a ton of people for the juror pool. While the experience is a pain in general there was a never ending stack to stupidity that kept making it worse. For starters, the cafeteria was closed and there were no vending machines, so no way to get food. We had one old lady just about pass out when she finally stood up in court at 1pm and asked when we were going to have a lunch break. Then the never ending run of people who could not answer a simple question, "Can you be impartial in this case?". Apparently, they were afraid that their true colors would be disclosed in public... If those people had just said their damn opinions, we would have been out hours earlier.

Nothing new with Haley. Still working on getting her to say 'please' in addition to what she wants. She's talking much clearer as of late.

Wait... you trimmed off the tuft?

Monday workout:
Morning: 1000 yard swim with 10 x 50's sw-15" rest between

Evening: 20 mile ride
Evening result:  1:08 hours / avg heart rate 146 bpm

Weight: 236lbs

No real change in my weight over the week, which is a bit frustrating. Given how well I am eating, I am putting the flat weight on muscle development. I am starting to get some definition through the fat and today's workouts went quicker than last week's, so there's something going on in there.

Got my haircut this evening. Julie took is upon herself to crop 'the tuft' to well below shirt collar line. I'm not complaining, as I appreciate it being done. However, we are either getting way to comfortable with each other or It was getting out of control enough that It had to be beaten back.

Otherwise nothing eventful in the Stone household.

Training Race #1 is on the calendar..

With Austin being such a long race, I figure it a good idea to get in a Sprint and an Olympic race beforehand. With the Olympic being half the length of the half-Ironman and the Sprint half of that again. It provides me with two intervals to gauge my training and to practice my transitions.

The Sprint is two weeks out on Saturday, June 21st. It's the Lookout Mountain Sprint Triathlon. It's a 525yd swim, 10 mile ride, and 5k run. The course is hilly, so it should be interesting to see where my training is taking me, as I have been doing most of my riding on the trainer due to time (and light) constraints. It will be at the end of week 4 of training.

The Olympic, which is tentatively on the calendar, is August 17th. It is the (arguably dumbest name ever) YOLO Olympic Triathlon. It's a .8 mile swim, 25 mile ride, and 6.2 mile run. This one looks to be mostly flat, so I should be able to really focus on my ride. That will be undoubtedly my strongest leg, so I want to get a gauge of how much I can push myself to not blow up on the run. It will also likely be my first (and possibly only) open water swim before Austin. I will be able to work on my drafting and landmarking (aiming). It will be at the end of week 10 of training.

We'll see how this all shakes out.

Rainy Sunday

Sunday workout: 25 mile ride
Result: 1183 ft elevation gain, 1:35hrs

Today has mostly been a chore day. Since my schedule changed to 8-5, my ability to do things in the afternoon before Haley needs to be picked up has evaporated. That means that we have to be far more efficient with our shopping and errands on the weekends. While it has been nice to have the mornings free for training, it does make my evening workouts occur after 7:30pm. Getting home at 9pm post-workout does tend to crunch my evening relaxation time, as I do need to get sleep still.

While we were out, we grabbed hotdog's for lunch at Bernie's, which is always nice. Haley surprised me with two things:

1. She didn't want to eat a cut hotdog anymore. Just the whole dog.
2. She can comfortably drink out of a open top container. Mind, a small opening, but she can do it in a mostly controlled manner.

We have a decent storm coming through this afternoon. The phone has been blowing up with severe thunderstorm warnings since about noon.  We also had a tornado warning come through for about 30 minutes. That however was focused about 20 miles South of us and heading East.

Hills are not meant for running

Saturday workout: 50 minute run
Result: 5.14 miles, 280ft elevation gain

I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and run outside. Also to start running on some hills. The Austin race has a couple of long rolling hills on which I need to be prepared to run. There are quite a few running trails around our house so I went on a long semi-random, exploratory loop, which was unexpectedly hilly. I had to walk a couple of the steeper hills, as my heart rate was going ballistic.The program wants me to stay in the 135-150 bpm range. It did make for what is painfully slow pace at 9:45 per mile. I need to get this down into the 8:45 range for 13.1 miles.

I have been short on sleep for the last week, so hopefully getting more over the weekend and next week will help. I should get my Polar working this weekend, which will help with maintaining heart rate over my workouts.

I'm looking forward to the bike getting here on the 11th.

National Donut Day

Today is my rest day. I decided to celebrate by participating in National Donut day. I brought two dozen into work this morning.

The rest day is much needed though. I focused on my running form last night, and my calves are definitely feeling it. I was able to keep a better pace than my previous runs and at what felt like lower energy output.

I received my FedEx tracking number for the bike as well. It should be here on the 11th.