Picking up my bike and substitute swim coach!

Workout: Coached swim practice
I got off of work early today, because Steve over at Open Road Bicycle Shop called me up and said my bike was done. I was quite happy with it, there's a lot of quality components on it and it looks really sexy. There's a giant red racing strip on it. Steve said, "It looks a lot better than it actually is." Haha, good one, Steve!

Steve posing with my Biachi Via Nirone 7

Today was also swim practice and we had a substitute swim coach. Joy is fantastic. I think she's worked with so many people on their swimming that she knew a lot of great tips that really helped directly with common problem areas. Her best advice for me was to keep my arm straight ahead and gliding as I pulled my other arm out of the water. If you start your stroke too early, it causes your body to sink. This helps maintain my center of gravity and keep my body streamline. She really pushed us too. She kept the drills lined up one after another and it felt like a great workout.

Resplendent swim coach, Joy

The first time I met her at Señor Fish, I had no idea who she was but she let me share her chicken salad as I waited for my fish platter to come out.

Bowling Night

One of our team members, Kim, organized a bowling night at Pickwick Gardens in Burbank. She got a great deal with free shoes and discount games. We ate bowling alley food, talked about our training, and took in the ambiance of the clubbing music and lights.

Kim, bowling night organizer extraordinaire

I had an amazing bowling game where I got a turkey (three strikes in a row) and ended up with a score of 131. I usually never even break 100. Too bad I don't have photographic proof of that. It must have been because I was using Audrey's lucky pink and white tie-dye ball.

Golf in the pool?!

Workout: Golf drill (trying to get the lowest time + fewest strokes)

A lot of stuff happened at the pool tonight. The other TNT team that's training for the San Diego triathlon was there training in the pool with us. Their even is next weekend. They looked in shape and mentally focused. Sam was there too and took a picture of me in the pool. Hopefully I can post that soon.

I got caught cheating today with my balance drills. I hardly move with my kick and by the time I get done with my drills my legs are soo tired. So I was paddling with my arms to move faster and Gabe, a mentor caught me. He told me to keep my arms at my side and just to kick. Busted! Later on he told me, the only person I was cheating was myself. Makes a lot of sense. Who am I competing with in training but myself. Stay honest and work through it, things will get easier.

The golf drills really had my heart pumping and somewhere between the two drills, I started feeling the rush of the water as I was understanding how to properly glide. I cut the number of strokes I needed to do 50 yds. in the pool from 46 to 38. Victor, the asst. coach, noticed that my stroke was a little lopsided and suggested I practiced bilateral breathing (breathing on both sides every third stroke, instead of the same side every other.) I'll need to work on it. I can't get my face up high enough when I breath on the left side and end up drinking a lot of water. It's also another thing to remember along with body rotation and arm motion. Oh multi-tasking...

Trying out my new cycling shoes

Workout: Bike 60 min.

Today I took my new cycling shoes and my running shoes equipped with lock laces to LA fitness where I spun for 50 mins. I practiced clipping in and out of the stationary bike pedals every 5 minutes. I worked on keeping my cadence up and then immediately afterwards I went and ran 15 minutes for a Tuesday BRICK workout to make up for Saturday. I was expecting my legs to be wobbly or feel strange as I transitioned from one exercise to the next, but I didn't. I guess making sure the bicycle resistance is really lower right before the transition really helps to get the running muscles warmed up and ready to go.

Resting Heart Rate

Right before I got out of bed this morning, I checked my resting heart rate and it was 66 beats per minute which is above average for my age range. See the chart.

First BRICK workout

Workout: Bicycling + Running = ICK

Once I arrived I gave all my fund-raising letters to Nadia to mail out. No pressure if you receive a letter.

Over at Griffith Park we got our bikes ready and rode between the Los Angeles River and the 5 Freeway for about 50 minutes. Then we got back to the parking lot and transitioned to a run, but unfortunately, I left my shoes in one of the mentor's car and I waited for them to get back from the bike ride, I didn't really get to feel what quick transition was like to switch from bicycling muscles to running muscles. I do remember doing my own impromptu BRICK and my legs felt kinda jello-y and not really steady until after a minute.

Bike Night

Scheduled: Run 35 min.

Last night was Bike Night at Bicycle John's in Burbank. It's not too big of a shop but they sure use every square foot of the place. I had a hard time squeezing between some of the bikes on the first floor. They gave us an informational talk and that was very interesting. They went over the different types of frames and the pros and cons of each: Aluminum, steel, carbon fiber and titanium frames with prices that increased logarithmically. I think for my budget I'm aiming for an aluminum frame with a carbon fiber fork, I really want to splurge a little on the gears and shifter though. The mid-range Shimano 105's was just so much smoother than the budget Sora or Tiagra.

In addition, I need to pick up some cycling shoes and maybe a cycling jersey or the ever popular Sugoi that I see assistant coach Victor wearing. I'm losing a lot by not being able to pull up on my upstrokes.

Adam telling us about different frame types ( I believe that one is steel)

End of the night, they went over bicycle maintenance, like changing a flat and cleaning the chain. Even more things I need to buy. Like a spare inner tube, tire levers and CO₂ cartridges.

I was pooped from the long day, by the time I got home, I just crashed and missed my scheduled 35 minute run.

Teasing James

Workout: Coached swim practice

After our swimming practices, we usually go to Señor Fish for some really good seafood burritos and tacos, but I don't know, I'm not a foodie. Which is also good because after swim practice, we're usually starving. We usually try and stack as many tables as we can, which isn't easy because the restaurant is busy Wednesday nights.

This particular night, Lynn talking about how she was following this technique for swimming called Total Immersion which was pretty much what all our drills are working toward, except in the book, it explains scientifically why are the different steps are done. Then I hear James say, "Ya, you look great in the water," and I couldn't help but tease him a little. I said, "You won't mind if I steal that line from you."

Coached Bike Practice

When we arrived at the LA Zoo parking lot, it was really interesting to see all the different types of bikes that people had. Waymond, my doppelganger and I both had mountain bikes. Some people loaned bikes that had large packs on them, some had vintage road bikes and some has actual triathlon bikes. Coach Scott went over different bike etiquette things like hand signals and pass lanes. He discuss the benefits of clip-less pedals and the need to maintain a high cadence of pedaling.

Coach Scott and Assistant to the Coach, Victor

We road along a bike trail sandwiched between the freeway and the Los Angeles River. I stayed along side Quinton most of the ride, us fellow mountain bikers and out of nowhere, we both got passed by Waymond, another mountain biker. He's just got a ton of stamina.

After the ride, Scott showed us how to change a bicycle tire. James made a comment that if you tire popped in the middle of your triathlon, you wouldn't be changing it and you'd probably drop out. It did seem really time consuming and having never done it before, it probably wouldn't be very pretty.

Running around Rose Bowl

Workout: Run 50 min

I went running around the Rose Bowl. It's always nice to be working out with so many people who are working out also. It's a little like we cheering and encouraging each other. I thought I was going to run two Rose Bowl loops (3.14 miles/loop hmmm weird coincidence on the number of the mileage), but my legs felt so heavy that I could only run and walk one loop.

I ran into Julie there. She's in the team that's training for the San Diego triathlon in June. I ran into her at the pool at LA fitness a few weeks ago. She's really working hard. She didn't know how to swim before her training. She looked really in shape cycling at the Rose Bowl. She rode by me and I was completely oblivious, but she yelled my name as she was riding by and I recognized her but not in time to say hi back. She was training with her teammates. I think it would be so awesome if I could arrange some of the training sessions with other people in the team.

Roll Swim Drills

Workout: Roll drills (to work on arm extension for body rotation)

I heard after the last workout that chocolate milk was the best recovery drink. I didn't realize there was a difference between recovery drink and workout drink. So I bought my chocolate milk to the pool and one after another the mentors and coaches kept asking me if I had some other fluids to drink because the milk would upset my stomach and milk in pool would be very disgusting. That's me listening to somethings and ignoring others.

I shared a lane with Marisol. She faster than me so when I go off the wall first she keeps running into me. After a few laps I let her go first. Her swim cap kept sliding off her head because of her ponytail. She looked like a Santa elf with her cap halfway off her head.

Run over by the peleton

Workout: Bike 20 miles

I rode 19 miles today and it took me to places like the Rose Bowl and Caltech. As I was riding around the Rose Bowl on my mountain bike, out of the corner of my left eye I saw one person pass me and right behind him was another and another and than two after that and some it was a whole swarm of people. As they road by they were yelling, "Right side! right side! right side!" warning those people behind them of the slow mountain biker.