Dispatches From The Field 12-25-10

Last night I got out of work late to begin with and then came home to help Melissa get everything together for Lucia and Christmas Day. I have to admit that I lost the feeling for the holidays a long time ago. I was definitely in the camp with those who believe that Christmas is overly commercial, I would grumble when I would see a retailer putting out Christmas decorations at Halloween. Then I had a child...

Let's just say that is how I find myself wrapping presents with Melissa at 4:00am (and secretly enjoying it).

The Handiwork

Shamelessly, teetering on exhaustion, I have consumed the goods left for Santa. This includes not only the customary cookies and milk, but also fruit, carrots and salad (as I continue to work on the "Santa diet"). Melissa writes a note from Santa in crayon and I leave the dirty plate as evidence for our daughter to discover. Melissa keeps "hearing" Lulu waking up. Terrified of being discovered, we hurry to bed.

The Ruse

Christmas morning arrives with my daughter screaming that Santa has been to our house. She has a detailed inventory prepared; informing me that Santa did not eat three carrots and two tomatoes. Melissa grabs the camera and we head downstairs to watch the renewal of my faith in the holidays open presents.

Christmas is a success and I make breakfast for everyone. The afternoon finds all three of us laying down for "nap time". I close my eyes for a little bit, before getting up to get in my Brick (Coach Cyndee does not recognize holidays).

Today was a 25 mile bike followed by a 3 mile run. I used the garage as my transition area and took off. The bike ride was relatively trouble free with the holiday there was not much traffic. Arriving back at the house, I made my transition. I don't normally push the transitions really hard on these rides, with my goal to be under 3 minutes.

I have reasonable endurance, but have always lacked speed. In short, I am slower than a turtle. Coach has let that go until now. Lately, I have been seeing more speed work in all three disciplines. I conjunction with that, a lot of my running has either been on a treadmill or a high school track.

As a result, while the run course today is one that I have done a lot in training, I haven't been on it in awhile. The run starts out immediately for me at a quicker pace than normal and the transition doesn't seem to affect me much. At each of the first two miles, I peak at my splits, I am moving at a sub-10 pace. I think my heart rate jumps 3 bpm at that news. At this perceived rate of effort, I should be 1:00 - 1:15 slower per mile.

For me, this is the current glass ceiling shall we say. My race 5K pace is between 9:30-9:45, but I am killing myself to make that effort. Today, I was hitting that pace, but my perceived effort was nowhere near that. I was really excited, the speed work is definitely helping. I need to start working a little on run strategy and I really need to get my nutrition figured out. Really a rewarding session today before enjoying the rest of the day with my girls.

Goal = 2:00:00 / 25 mile bike, 3 mile run
Actual = 2:04:54 / 28.96 miles
Bike - 1:35:31 / 25.94 miles
T2 - 2:29
Run - 26:52 / 3.02 miles