Triathlon Training Day 59 & 60: Rest + ARX and Strength Training

The last couple of days have been very frustrating. I had a filling that cracked (tooth #3) and I have been in some pretty bad pain. My mouth has swelled up and any liquid that touches it is really painful. Yesterday I was not able to go to the gym. I was taking pain killers and was tired and groggy from the pills. Also, I weighed myself today because I haven't been able to eat solid food and was down to 155 lbs! Today I was able to get to a dentist and he fixed my filling. My mouth is still pretty tender and I might still need a root canal but we are going to see how this works out before I go that route!

Today I decided I wanted to go get a swim in and work on my Total Immersion form. When I got to the pool lessons were still going on so I did an Ab Ripper X set and then did a bunch of lat pull downs and dumbbell presses on the bench. Real nice chest and back workout! Also, during ARX I used a 10 lb medicine ball for the Mason's twists -- awesome!

After the strength workout I went to the pool and began to realize something almost immediately -- Do not go swimming after receiving dental work! I did one lap and the upper right side of my mouth was killing me. I don't know if it was the pressure from the water or just the water hitting my teeth but it was painful. I am talking made me woozy type of pain. So, I had to stop swimming. I took my time getting dressed and am now at home. I feel better now but have decided to let this sucker heal up until I swim again!

I'd really like to try and get a bike ride in tomorrow evening. The temperature has been close to 100 degrees here the last few days and it looks like tomorrow is supposed to be the same. I have rode the spinning bike at the gym but it just isn't even close to actually riding. If it is still unbearably hot again tomorrow evening then I will probably just run on the treadmill. We have rented a few bikes for our upcoming vacation so I'll at least be able ride a little next week!

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff

Triathlon training Day 24: Run + C/S/T

Okay so last night after watching Jack Bauer save the world - again - I read a post over at Boomer's site about how he just did Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps. Well, it motivated me to jump up to the home gym and do the same! Man, that is a great workout. Probably my favorite of all the P90X strength training DVDs.

Well, the downside of doing Swimming, ARX, and C/S/T all on one day is that the next day you are a little sore. And this morning was no exception! Still I wanted to see how fast I could do a 5K and pay no attention to my Heart Rate. It was about 84 degrees and humid when I started my run today but that did not deter me. What did deter me was the huge cramp I got in my left calf about 1.5 miles into the run. I was jugging right along and "BOOM" my calf cramped big time. I had to drop down in someones front yard and stretch it out. It was one of those painful calf cramps too! I ended up walking about a mile until it started to feel a little better and then I slowly jogged the last half mile home. Lessons Learned: Hydrate on hot days, Stretch and Stretch some more, and Give myself more than 9 hours of recovery time!

My first mile was done in 7:34 seconds. My heart rate was up to 176 BPM at about the 1.2 mile mark according to the data I downloaded from my Garmin! The funny thing was that I still felt pretty good and wasn't really winded even though I was running fairly fast. Oh well, I will have to try and do a timed run again in a couple of weeks but until then it will be back to the aerobic running. On Saturday I am going to try and do 5 miles!

Tomorrow is supposed to be an off day but I am going to go swimming again. The freestyle "total immersion" stroke is coming along and I want to keep working on it.

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff

Triathlon Training Day 22: 13.1 Miles Cycle

Well back on the horse today! After sleeping and feeling re-energized I got in a 13.1 Mile Bike ride.

The fun part was that I walked out to grab my bike and the back tire was flat. So, I had to patch my tire. The hole was found rather easily and the patch kit I had was simple to use. It took me about 5 minutes from start to finish to patch the tube and then I was on my way! Good practice in case this happens during the triathlon.

It was 87 degrees when I began riding today and once again the darn wind was blowing hard but at least it helped to keep my a little cool! I used my Garmin 305 for the ride again to track all of my vitals and statistics. I got home and downloaded the info and the funny thing was that when I was going 13-15 mph my heart rate was significantly higher then when I was going 18-21 mph. When I was going 13-15 mph it was because the wind was blowing right in my face and I had to work harder to keep even that pathetic speed up! According to my Garmin I burned 694 calories on today's ride and my Average Heart Rate was 140 bpm. Very good workout. Next time out I am going to try for a 20 mile ride. Hopefully the darn wind will go away!

Another positive event to report - I am back on my BSN Supplements (CellMass, Nitrix, & N.O.-Xplode). I used these for 12 weeks while doing P90X and they were great. The manufacture recommends taking 4 weeks off once you finish the 12 week cycle so I did. Yesterday was the end of the 4 weeks. I noticed a big difference energy and strength-wise once the supplements were out of my system. It takes about 10 days for the Cell Mass and Nitrix to start making a noticeable difference. I am very curious to see if these supps will work as well as they did for this training compared to when I was doing P90x!

Tomorrow is a swimming day and then Tuesday will be a running day. This is supposed to be a rest week but since I took 3 days off I am going to try and add a few strength and yoga days in this week as well!

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff