Calendar vs. thermometer

Thinking about New Zealand...here's a shot of Auckland from the little ferry we took back and forth to the B&B in Devonport...

Today is the first day of spring...yeah, RIGHT...it's in the 40's and raining. Oh...I guess that is the definition of spring in Seattle. Perhaps I should minimize my griping and use memories of New Zealand to be grateful that I had more than 10 days of summer when it was snowing in Seattle a few weeks ago!

It's spring break at Seattle Univ., so we don't have swim team in the mornings this week...this is a good news/bad news scenerio. The good news is that I can flex my workout schedule and sleep a little more...the bad news is that I swim at 24-Hr Fitness which is a bit dismal and requires that I make up my own sets and workouts...oh, and deal with a little road rage in the lane from time to time. But I just got done with a pretty good lunchtime swim and no one drowned or was dismembered by my steamroller attitude.

This morning I did a workout on the bike trainer as prescribed by Cheryl. It was the hardest one I've done at home on the trainer and it kicked my butt. I also realized by doing the one-legged drills (that I've thought for a long time I should do but haven't) that there is a big 'ol dead spot in my pedal stroke...information I feared, but preferred not to know. Crap. Anyway, other than that, I did some substantial lactic acid production (illustrating not only bad form, but also minimal current cycling fitness...nothing like a double whammy before breakfast) with some interval sets. Anyway, I survived about an hour on the bike and the intervals were dang hard.

10 min warm up including aforementioned 1-leg drills
5 x 1 min hard/1 min. recovery (HR up to 146 - 153)
8ish min. of steady/aerobic
5 x 1 min hard/2 min recovery (HR up to 150-155 this set, needed the 2 min recovery)
more steady and cool down

Now, back to those happy NZ flashbacks, shall we?

Here's a shot of Lake Taupo from our hotel room, where the IM swim course was...this was taken on the evening of the Ironman. Seujan was still finishing up her run at this time and I was going to pick up her bike from T2 area and meet her at the finish line.