A Deep Exhale

I know I said last Monday that track was over, but now track is REALLY over. On Wednesday, we had the boys track banquet and then Thursday and Friday was the Hershey Youth Track Meet that we host. I remember doing that as a youngster. In fact, the one year I even qualified to move on to Somerset in the standing long jump (see, that must be why I'm such a qualified jumping coach).

Big Exhale to now have 3 extra hours each day and my Saturdays back. Ahhhhhhhh...

So what do I do with all of this extra time? First of all, I spent a lot of the week catching up on some of the grading that got pushed aside over the final few weeks of track.

Then, this weekend, I got my first solid weekend of 'triathlon' training with Beth. I'm beat!!!

Here's what we did:

We got up Saturday morning and went to the pool. She had a 100-200-300-400 then with pool buoy 400-300-200-100. Knowing my lack of speed in the pool I decided to do about half of that on the same intervals (50-100-150-250-250-200-100-50). I then did some laps while Beth was doing some other stuff other than her main set.

Next, to the bike. Beth had a 3 hour ride. I've ridden my new bike (see below) a total of three times so far since I got it about a month ago. I hope to ride it a lot more now that track's over and school's just about done. The problem with being new to the bike is that:

1) I am still adjusting to the whole being "clipped in" thing and have taken a few tumbles when I come to stops--fortunately these aren't at high speeds since I'm about to stop. But, the poor bike already has a few scratches on the handlebars and shifter lever.

2) I'm not that fast at biking yet. In the times I've gone so far, I've gotten dropped fairly quickly.

This ride was a little different. Beth was doing 3 hours, so we rode the first hour together and then I went a *shorter* way home to end up around 1:50 while she finished her 3 hour loop. I was able to hang a little closer this time, so I'm making progress. But, perhaps more importantly, I didn't tip over at all this time! This is progress.

Off the bike (when Beth got home) we did a 30 min run.

Sunday we went out to the trail and did a 10 mile run at 7:50 pace today. I think I'm going to be sore tomorrow. But, it's a good sore as I'm finally getting back into training. It's not like I was in *that* bad of shape (ran an 18:08 hilly 5k last weekend), but it felt good to get back to swimming (and no congestion due to using the nose clip) and riding and a good number of hours of training.

As far as the summer, I'll probably do a triathlon, but not sure which one yet. My "A" race is going to be the Philadelphia Marathon in November. So, lots of good time to get in some training between now and then. Coach Beth is going to help me devise a training plan when school is finished.

Other than that, Beth's going to Colorado next weekend for a Mark Allen training camp, so me and Roxy the Dog will be hanging out. I anticipate a trip to an Altoona Curve game (weather permitting) to pass the time next weekend. I'm hoping to catch either Daniel Moskos (#1 pick in 2007) or Brad Lincoln (#1 pick in 2006) if possible. Speaking of draft picks, the baseball draft is a week from Tuesday. I'm confident the new management will make another solid pick this year and get another building block to (slowly) get the Pirates back to respectability.

That's all for now. Have a great week and we'll see if the blogging picks up again now that track's over. I've got a million thoughts about the Pirates' season thus far....