Gearing up for a Try-A-Du

Well I took another 8 days off between runs for numerous reasons.  Yes, they are excuses and most are valid.  Last Sunday I met up with Jeff and Chelsey at her mom's and spent the day in the pool as well as had a tasty BBQ.  Also spent the evening at Leigh Anne's condo down near Osborn Village for some pre Canada Day celebrations.  Monday was Canada Day and went out to Danelle's, again in the Village to do some partying.  Met a lot of cool people that day.

Happy Canada Day!

Tuesday I felt lazy, so no excuses that day.  Wednesday I spared for soccer.  It was gearing up to be a hot one, so didn't want to run before hand.  Thursday and Friday, I worked 12 hour night shifts.  Saturday after about 5 hours sleep, went swimming again at Chelsey's mom's pool as she hosted her Pirate Themed Birthday Party.  I was pretty much the only one who dressed up, but nonetheless it was a fun afternoon/evening.  A few of us discussed the possibility of making our own duathlon with a twist.  I have dubbed it the First Annual Duathlon, Xk Run-Yk Bike-Zoz Rum.  Yep, we would start off with a shot at someone's house, bike to the next location for the second shot, then run to the last location and proceed to party.  Costumes was also discussed.  We think it would be funny for bystanders to see a group running/biking in costume in the middle of the day.  Details would need to be hashed out, as we'd have to do distances/have check stops that is manageable by everyone.  We'd also likely pick a date towards the end of summer or in September where the weather isn't crazy hot. 

Arr Matey!

Sunday my plan was to go for a short run in the morning and possibly a bike ride in the afternoon.  That didn't happen.  I finally went for an 8k run at around 9pm.  Wasn't a bad run, but felt good that I finally got out there again.  It was a fairly warm night and the sun was going down.  It was fairly dark by the time I finished and I was drenched. 

Today my phone alerted me that my friend Joanne from Calgary had just completed a workout (both a run and a bike rid).  I caught her on Facebook chat and told her that I was planning on doing a Try-A-Du on Sunday.  She then informed me that she was training to do her first Tri in August.  An Olympic distance of 1500m swim - 40km Bike - 10Km run.  Quite the feat for a first Tri.  I'm only going to attempt a modest 3k run - 10k bike - 3k run.  I asked her for advice and she said  "to start doing some brick workouts ... a bike followed by a run and a run followed by a bike just to get your legs used to transition ... that is probably the weirdest part because you will get off your bike and try to run but your legs are still in bike mode".  She also said she is going with her sister to support her in  the Death Race in Grand Cache.  This is apparently 100k run through the wilderness with 3 mountain peaks to scale in which her sister hopes to finish in under 24 hours.  Not my idea of fun, but sounds impressive nonetheless. 

Anyways, I got motivated to actually go out and do something today.  I started off with a 10k bike ride.  I made my way around to the service road near the perimeter.  It was a mix of gravel and dry, bumpy mud full of massive tire tracks.  Wasn't an easy ride, but wasn't hard either.  I finally got back to the road and it was a much smoother and faster ride.  My speed wasn't stellar, but I'm not much of a cyclist to begin with.  Not planning to impress as I just want to finish.  I reached home again, stored my bike in the garage, grabbed a quick drink of water and exchanged my bandana and helmet for a head band.  So as I proceeded to run, I found I really didn't have any running legs.  I thought it might be hard, but not this difficult.  Having biked 10k with no stops and now went into my run, my breathing was more difficult more quickly.  I chose a loop which I thought might be about 3k, but was short about 0.4k, so I continued on past my house and went down some side streets to loop around again.  Man it was a hot day.  I should have probably did this run much earlier in the day.  In the bigger picture, I probably should have started training for this duathlon a few weeks ago when we decided we would take this on.  It's a small enough duathlon that it won't kill me, but I could have made things much easier on myself.

Well I have neglected my squats for long enough.  I'm on Day 15 of the 30 Day Squat Challenge, which means I still have 140 squats to do tonight.  I shall leave you with this video.  It is Rick Mercer going Flyboarding.  He seriously has one of the best jobs on earth.