Friday, July 14, 2006

Riding and raining

Today was just a normal everyday old workout day.

Morning lap swim at 7:30AM. I finished off 42 laps (which makes 1920m in metric units), working on my stroke mechanics with some hand-paddle work and isolating my arms using the pull buoy, also a couple of straight 500-yard sets. Pretty straightforward.

Then I checked the radar before going out on my bike. All clear, no blobs at all. That's funny, the sky is looking kind of dark to the south - just where I'm headed.

So naturally the skies opened up on me not once, but twice. (No, that's not me in the photo, I just liked it for the cycling in the rain theme.) I thought to myself, "Thank you, Madame Pele, for bringing me rain to strengthen my resolve and to prepare me to ride through anything that may happen at Panama City in November." It didn't last long each shower, didn't rain hard enough to hurt, I didn't have to do any maneuvering on slick places, and didn't have any effect one way or the other on the humidity, actually. It's all good.

I put my watch on 10-minute beeping intervals and did 6 or 7 repetitions of 4 minutes of higher cadence (90-94 rpm), 5 minutes of lower cadence (80-84 rpm), and 1 minute of stretching and drinking water and eating my apricots and cashews.

As I approached home at about 11AM, two of the Presidential helicopters flew directly over my head. That means that Cheney or Rumsfeld (or both) knocked off early for the weekend and headed out to the Secret Undisclosed Location, which happens to be on the other side of town from my house. (So I told my workout buddy David, who is also a gummint employee, that it was okay for him to knock off too, since the Boss was already gone).

This felt like a pretty routine workout day, although I was pushing myself for a lot of it. Funny how one's perspective changes, isn't it? Not too long ago this kind of three-hour workout would have had me sleeping away half the afternoon just to recover. Instead I feel fine and I'm ready with plenty of energy for getting up tomorrow for a nice long run (10 or 11 miles?) with my workout buddy David. I guess that's one reason we train, eh?

The humidity is forecast to plummet to a mere 91% when we're going to start tomorrow morning. That's going to feel absolutely desert-like, I expect.

5 comments:

Ellie Hamilton said...

You mean you don't wear that kind of hat when you ride? Some kind of new aero-design helmet?

tri-mama said...

I'm trying to find a hat to wear on the run in Florida, I think we have a candidate right there! Nice workout. We are having the same arid like conditions here, I think the humidity is only 80% how lovely. We have gov helicopters too, but they've been dispatched to uniformly spray the city with water to keep the citizens cool as we are officially in "Operation Stay Cool" because it's never been like this in MN before...the constant spray kind of makes heck of trying to eat ice cream outside though :)

Fe-lady said...

You know it's humid when the backs of your hands and forearms are sweating! (It's 30% here....and I feel like I am swimming thru the air when I run!)
Yeah-cutting it a little short is allowed when it's so hot and humid!! :=)

Nancy Toby said...

Every sweat pore I have was working overtime today!!!!

Iron Pol said...

Hmmm, am I spinning just a bit too fast? I tend to run at 95-100 rpm as a matter of course.

Perhaps some additional research into the issue is needed.

I'm glad you owned up to the picture NOT being you. I've lived in Virginia, and am pretty confident that picture wasn't taken there.