Thursday Updates

It's Thursday night and I am just now getting to type something in my blog.

It has been a crazy week. Starting with last Friday when I had to shut down one of our businesses and put 6 people out of work. So this week I have had to work in Little Rock cleaning up loose ends and manning the shop. None of which is very fun.

Sunday afternoon Annette and I got a good bike ride in with some of the Cruisers. Ended up with 17+ miles. Wasn't bad for Annette's first ride on her new bike. I think she liked it!

Monday night I was too stressed from work to do much of anything so I called it a rest night. Then Tuesday night I got home late so I missed the clinic. I felt like such a loser by that time. I was able to go upstairs and do a hard 45 minute full body workout on weights and core. That made me feel much better but I still missed running.

Wednesday I had to run and I was determined to get Tuesday nights speed workout done. This was a pretty tough workout and I decided I would attempt the advanced workout. Coach Dennis had us doing 6 x 200's with a 200 slow jog rest between each one followed by 2 x 400's with a 400 slow jog rest in between. Both done at interval pace.

So off to the track I went. Starting out with about a 1.7 mile warm up including strides. It was very humid Wednesday evening with temperatures in the mid 70's. The 200's seemed much harder than they had the last time I did them. But I got through them. Actually I was probably 10 seconds too fast on most of them but thats pretty close to where I needed to be. By the time I got to the 400's I was slowing down and I nailed them, about 3 seconds fast on each of those. I finished up with about a 1.8 mile cool down run which gave me a total of 6 miles for the night. I was pretty beat up afterwards, my feet were hurting and my knees were sore. Thats speed work for ya. I felt it all day today too.

After work tonight, Annette and I headed for the hills of Greystone to ride bikes. Last summer a few of us did hill repeats here and there was a group of Cruisers running tonight there too. We were late getting there since I was working in Little Rock, but we soon ran into Cindy and Jane on their bikes. They had already been riding maybe 30 minutes. Let me tell you, there are some mean hills in Greystone. Annette did really well for only her second time on a road bike. I tried to coach her on the gears which is what she seems to be having the most trouble with. After dealing with some of these big hills you learn pretty quick which lever does what because if you don't, your in for some serious pain or you will be walking up the hill. I was very proud of Annette, I think she only walked up two of the hills. The last hill going back to the club house is one that will get you. There is a fast downhill just before it so your rolling pretty fast as you start up it. But as soon as you go maybe 50 feet up, you come to almost a complete stop. It's just one of those short and very steep hills that is deceiving to look at. I had to stand up in the lowest gear I had to make it up. There are several in Greystone like that, but they will make you stronger for sure.

I can already tell I am much stronger this year on the bike. Sunday morning we are meeting early for a brick workout. I am looking forward to hammering down on the bike and just see how much improvement I have made on that course. Saturday we are heading to Fort Smith for a 5K Grand Prix race. It's a long way to drive for a 5k but we will have fun and we should get lots of points. Hopefully we will have a full mens team.