Sunny with a chance of bonk.

Although there was some horrible weather in Mississippi over the weekend, the southern part of the state was spared tragedy. I flip flopped on what to do with the inclement weather. I wanted to do a group bike ride but that was not going to happen. I then decided that I had better get a run before the rains set in – I changed into my running clothes and walked out side. I was met with dark skies and drizzle. The hard rains soon followed.

I jumped on the trainer. I had confidence from Friday's trainer ride. I had accomplished a particularly hard workout. A break though on the trainer if you will. I had recovered from the ½ ironman and my body was in super compensation mode. Maybe I should remember this for next time – maybe I need an over-the-top workout to taper off of for peak performance.

Anyway, back on the trainer I had another great workout. This time it was a tempo workout above and beyond anything I had done before (on the trainer). I was feeling strong. A little later in the day I caught word of a group ride for the afternoon.

I jumped on this ride and it was all hard intervals. It was impromptu but we started doing ½ miles ON (ALL OUT) and then ½ miles recovery (VERY EASY RIDING). I am not sure how many repetitions we did but we were spent by the time we completed the 25 mile ride. We decided to meet up again the following morning at 6:30AM.

On the morning ride, moderation was the name of the game. However, that was buried immediately. We started out fast and everyone could feel the prior day’s ride in their legs but that did not stop us. The previous day we noted that the recovery was lasting longer than the working set. It simply takes less time to ride a ½ mile fast then it does slow. So we upped the ante and did a mismatch of 2 on / 2 off and 1 on / 1 off. These were grueling. Two minutes was a little too long of recovery and one minute was not quite long enough. At the turn around point we formed a pace line and did one minute pulls each. This was just about right with the workload / recovery. You killed it for your one minute and had to hang on for the two or three minutes of hard recovery. We finished the 25 mile ride and slipped our running shoes on for fast hard brick.

We all started out quick – maybe a little too quick. Even though we were running on the trace there is a slight elevation change. We picked “down hill” first. I clicked off the first mile in 6:32 and held on for a 3 mile average of 6:41. Not a bad effort considering the hard riding. It will be interesting what I can do in a sprint / Olympic race this year.

I was home by 8:30 AM and took care of my weekend chores. But the day was just too nice and I joined the afternoon group ride.

This ride is generally an easy to moderate pace outing on the trace. At a minimum it is 30 miles of conversation but it can turn into much more. That is what happened on this day. I always try to prepare for all situations by packing enough nutrition. I threw 2 gels in my back pockets and topped off the sports drink from the morning ride (with water).

I was still feeling strong and time trialed the 5.5 miles to the trail head. I was riding strong. The group ride started slow but quickly gained speed. We (almost everyone in the group) were holding on for dear life by the time we reached Sumrall. This is where the riding got tough. I decided to add a “couple” of more miles. This ended up being 20 miles of high winds and hard hills at a fast pace.  In addition, these just happen to be the hottest days of the year.

I took the two gels during the ride but it was simply not enough to sustain the effort that I was putting out. I was bonking. I started to struggle on this ride. Soon there were only three of us riding in the country side of Mississippi. I started to lose pace at about 35 miles into the ride (mile 30 of the group ride since I rode 5 miles to get to the trail head). I was running on fumes. The two strong riders did wait for me a water stops, etc but I was losing steam fast. I was day dreaming of pizza and ice cream for the last hour of the ride. Once we got back on the trace the two other riders dialed up the pace again and I thanked them for the ride. I drifted back to my pace which happened to be a slow crawl.

I rode the last 6 miles home at about 15 miles per hour. My cardio was in check and my legs were not aching. I just did not have any fuel. I was glad to see my street come into view.

Once I arrived at home, all was better. I made a post exercise shake and grilled some chicken on the patio. I would have normally eaten this on a bed of salad greens and spinach but I selected whole wheat buns this time. I wanted some carbs! It was delicious and I ate too much (2 sandwiches). I also had some cookies a little bit later. I started to drift off to sleep while relaxing on the cough and turned in for the night around 8:30.

I was spent. I say this every spring – “These are the best days of the year”.

For the good ol' American life -- for the money, for the glory, and for the fun. Mostly for the money.

I worked a short day on Friday. I has some pressing things that needed to be attended to and, in addition, I just was in need of some time away from the office. I never got any exercise in even though I had the time.

I felt I was spinning my wheels. I had a lot to do but was not sure of the best way to get it done. I am trying to prioritize the things that are important to me. I had a job that was all about responsibility and accountability at one time. It was hard and people always looked to you for the right answers. Decisions were a part of the job. I never had any problem making decisions at work. It was by the book - very little grey area (unless you really looked. And you never had to look - that was also part of the job).

At home it was different; it was personal. Decisions are harder when they are full of grey and have a seemingly permanent impact. but I digress, the reason that I brought up work was the lessons that I learned. In priorities there are two attributes to consider - urgency and importance. Sometimes they seem like they are the same but there not.

urgency - the state of being urgent; an earnest and insistent necessity

importance - Strongly affecting the course of events or the nature of things; significant

"What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important." - Eisenhower

Only if it meets both of those criteria then it has to be done now. However, what one person thinks is important (The water in the break room is getting low) and someone else thinks is urgent (There is a huge sale at the dirty-mart that only lasts to 3PM we have to go now - or virtually any phone call I get at work) may not be either to you. (Not good examples I know, sorry.)

Anyway, I have been trying to prioritize my objectives for the coming year. Going over these I first had to look at importance and rank everything. Then I had to look at what steps were necessary to achieve these goals. And finally look at what was important and was also urgent and needed immediate attention. These objectives were taken care of today.

These are grown up ways of looking at things and the decisions can be hard and not immediately gratifying. Being a grown up is tough work sometimes.

I slept late on Saturday and really did not know exactly what kind of run I wanted to do - the day off of exercise did my body good so I decided to run a hard 10 miles. I had wanted to do 12.9+ (or 13) miles but I was not sure if I would be successful considering the pace that I was planning.

I took the first mile out at a medium effort at my comfort level (a little less than 7:45 pace) then picked up the pace to LT. I cruised the next mile and felt pretty good. Not Green-Goblin-god-like good but doing okay. (By the way, I love the Green-Goblin-god-like feeling!) That second mile was at 7:17. This mile included some acceleration and I knew more speed was to be had if I wanted it. My slowest mile was the third mile simply because I saw a few comrades and stopped to speak with them for a minute or so (8:42 pace). The next 8 miles were all less than 7:15 with the fastest mile clocking in at 7:01.

The total time of the run was 1:14:09 (74 minutes and 9 seconds for a 7:24 minute / miles pace). If I deduct 3 minutes for the warm up and talking I get a much closer to my goal pace. 1:11:00 equals 7:06 minute miles.

To meet my fantasy goal for the 1/2 marathon all of the miles need to be 6:56. Sub seven minute miles for 13.1 miles is such 'a long way to go with a short time to get there'.

As a side note - Big Lots is out of tuna pouches...