REBORN

Today was one of those days we all wish happened everyday. If there is some way that I can make this be my every day, well then I would be the happiest man in the world.

I was up and awake bright and early ready to tackle the world. Since I had a nice big day of training planned I made sure I woke up around 4:30ish to get a good breakfast of a bagel, scoop of protein, and a banana. After I ate Breakfast #1 I went back to bed until about 6:30AM. When I awoke for the second time (well actually probably like the 5th time..drinking a lot of water makes you make numerous trips the bathroom..nuff said). Anywho, I literally threw a sweatshirt on along with the pajama pants I was wearing, put on my sneaks, and headed out. On the way to MASTERS swim class, yes Master's! I am back in action with the RAMS swim team. Work had kept me away from the practices due to timing conflicts for the past couple of months, but no more! I am back and ready to get some work done! I need to improve my swim and its just the place to do it...but more about that later. On my way to swim practice I hit up starbucks for a nice little morning energy boost..loved it! then I headed into the office, but not for work. Instead I as picking up a couple packages that had arrived that included new swim goggles, a swim cap that has a smiley face on it, with the words "Have a Nice Day"..haha, and some fuel belt stuff. So after the quick pit stop at the office I was back on route to RIT for Master's Swim practice. I absolutely cannot tell you all how excited I was to be able to make it to the practice. It makes a world of difference to swim with a group of people, all who are awesome people, and all who want to be there...wanting to make themselves better swimmers. The Y has been a great tool for me, allowing me to stay in the water during these past couple of months, however I honestly can say that I have not been improving, swimming alone (usually on a lack of sleep) just isn't a good recipe. When swimming by yourself, and I saw by myself even though their are always people swimming around me...but its just not the same. At the Y everyone is doing there own thing and thus I am left alone to do a practice that I has been created for me. I will always do my drills and prescribed swims but it just takes a lot to do it. Whereas when at master's their is just a great vibe that really fosters development. Its just great..I guess that's the bottom line. As for the actual swim, that was great as well. As soon as I walked into the pool I knew it was going to be a good day. I walked in all smiles and immediately saw the living legend...BRUCE G! Yes, Bruce is quite the man. He is basically a fish that has the ability to walk and breath out of water, but I would have to say that he is much more at home below sea level. Prior to entering the pool Bruce and I squared off at our respective lanes and tried to loop or goggles on the banner that hangs across the pool from side to side. However we both failed to hook them, and thus missed out on our chance to get a free pass from practice (not that I would have taken it anyway). The rest of the workout was a great. All in all I spent an hour and a half in the pool and wouldn't have wanted to be any other place.

As for the rest of the day, I made the drive back home to get ready for a 4 hr bike that I had planned. Since it was so nice out I decided to do at least part of the ride outside on the Road. After a nice phone call with Towpath bike owner Scott Likly (who was on his way to Maine to watch his son compete in the Nordic Nationals Competition) I mounted up and headed to his shop where his friendly staff got me hooked up with a new tube in case of a flat (luckily I encountered no such flat). So about the bike ride, well for 2 hrs I made my way around Pittsford. Down main street, around SJFC, out to Mendon Ponds and back...basically just tooled around. After two hours of being outdoors I was beginning to get a little cold so I headed back inside to finish the rest of the workout on the trainer. The 3rd hour went good as I was able to keep my cadence above 90 in a good power zone, however during the 4th hour I tried to ramp up the intensity but just couldn't. None the less I gritted my teeth and put out as much power as I could even though it wasn't where I wanted it at. Still I got some good suffering in. I think my lack of power in hour four came from a variety of things but no excuses, no one wants to hear about those. After the four hours was complete I immediately jumped outside for a 30 min run of varying intensities. 10 min easy, 10 min med, 10 min hard. I was definitely feeling tired but it was still a successful run and I was very pleased.

Then after the workout for the first time I took and ice, or rather, a SNOW BATH. I filled the tub with cold water, added ice cubes from the fridge along with a pile of snow I took from outside. The cheap way to instead of buying those big ice bags at the gas station. The Northeast has to be good for something! I am writing this on Sunday after another great training day that ended with an ice bath and I can honestly say that they are a great training tool and really not bad at all. The worst part is the first 2 minutes, after that the next 13 (protocol, or at least from what I was told, is 15 minutes for an ice bath) aren't bad at all. So my suggestion is to just jump in and grit your teeth for a couple minutes, grab a magazine, or your phone, start twittering, or call someone and talk to them as your going through it. The benefits are supposedly worth every second of the ice bath. Now I have only taken 2 but from my experience after over 6 hours of training on Saturday I was still able to get up on Sunday at 5am and hit the roads at 6 for a 1:45 run that included some high intensity work. And I felt pretty good to boot. But more on Sunday to come.

Last little piece I wanted to mention about getting outside to ride yesterday was that it was COOL! I am sure that any person who has spent even a few minutes on a trainer indoors will say the same thing. But I have a couple examples of things that happened to me yesterday that illustrate just how cool it really is.
Example #1 - As I was riding in Mendon Ponds I happened upon a fellow cyclist who was up in the horizon. As I approached the cyclist (who I had never met or seen before) I decided that it would be nice to strike up a conversation. As I came along side we began to chat. 10 minutes later we parted ways both on a first name basis. That kind of great stuff just does not happen when you are cooped up in your house/apartment on your trainer. I love times like this, just chillin on the road talking about whatever...it doesn't get any better.
Example #2 - As I was making the turn back into Pittsford, low and behold who do I see driving the other way as she was leaving Yoga. None other than Team Train This Coach Mary Eggers. Pretty cool to just randomly see the person who made the workout for you as you are completing it, so great.

There are many more things i could say about getting to ride outdoors but it would just take to long and I need to get stuff done before I get myself to sleep early. (BTW, just so you know, writing this on my mac is really not cool now since as I just learned my computer has been insanely slow because Snow Leapord, the newest Mac Operating System takes up basically all my Memory while using a single application. i.e I can basically only be typing this without issue if there are no other programs running. Meaning no iTunes,no Hulu, no nothing. However, the nice dude at the Mac store told me where I could snag some extra Ram online. He showed me a great site which sells a gig of ram for about 30 bucks, and he even showed me how to install it..its really simple! So, if the shipping goes as planned I should have a much faster computer by Tuesday night. Can't wait. On the plus side he said that my 4 year old computer looked great and that it was just because my computer had the bare minimum ram, which was fine on the old OS but the new one was made for the newer computers. But its all good since my laptop even has an open slot where I can install the Ram to make it zippy quick. Gotta love Mac, any other PC would have been trashed about 3 years ago, but this Macbook Pro is going STRONG after about 4 years. Wooohooo.. I also had the chance to talk to the coolest Apple store Manager in the world (Frank at Eastview Mall) if by some crazy chance Steve Jobs scans every post that talks about apple, I say to you Mr Jobs, Frank deserves a raise because he is the man. Frank and I go way back, like seriously. I think he has been outfitting me with everything Mac since about 2006, he knows I'm a loyal customer and I really appreciate that. I will always be loyal to his store and the apple brand if for no other reason than for that fact that he has always hooked me up if things were broken or not working right, and he always remembers me. Anywho, we chatted about the new iPad that is coming out and both thought it was awesome (well he is kind of inclined to say so) but still he gives me his honest opinion, like when the 2nd gen iPhone came out, he was like don't get it, its not that much better and a new one will come out next year most likely. He was right, I listened and got the 3g when it came out the next summer and it was by far the best move. So I have confidence in what he says. Soooo on March 12th I will be pre-ordering the wifi version of the iPad, no 3g for me, I don't need another subscription to pay for. And by April 2nd or 3rd, I can't remember...the first Saturday in April...I will have a shiny new iPad that will allow me to among other things read books, magazines, and everything else during my travels that triathlon will take me this year, beginning with a trip to Texas on April 25th..its going to be awesome!

Out for now,

Matt