my week in review

The in-laws are gone, I have my computer again.

I've saved up way too many things to post now. I'll try and stick to one topic: I've had a hard week. I'll try and summarize...

Monday - had a swim on the schedule. It was kinda sorta a day off, but I'd been deprived of swims last week so I wanted to get this in. I managed half of my 2000m planned swim before I was booted out of the pool by lightning.

Come to think of it, lightning figures large in the rest of my week.

Tuesday - had a 40mi bike ride and 5mi run with hills on the schedule. Uh, that training plus in laws = unfeasible. So I split it up: I did a spin class at lunch, then I met the inlaws and beloved for a run. I sent them kids and inlaws up the mountain for a nature hike while I ran from the County Line down the road up toward La Luz with beloved. Gotta get those hills in, La Luz is really coming up fast! After a family dinner, I went home and got on the trainer for my second hour of cycling whilst watching le Tour.

That second hour was really hard. All I really wanted was my bed.

Wednesday - said Brick session with the group. We did 800's and bricks. I borrowed a bottle of Blue flavor Accelerade from Geekgirl to test-drive. On first taste, it tastes quite pleasant. It has a strong flavour, but not overwhelming. I like to take in a lot of protein personally, I do find that it helps me sustain my energy levels for longer, I don't feel gnawing hunger if my protein intake is good. I notice that my activity sustainability is not as good when I get straight carbs as opposed to a carb/protein mix.

Also, I tend to have a blood sugar crash within 1/2 hour of a hard training session, and getting protein in my system quickly helps me to not have that crash. I'm one of those people that if I don't get a protein bar within 1/2 hr of a workout, I might chew your arm off.

I got through the Wednesday brick with no issues, so I have no real bombshells to report on the relative wonderfulness of Accelerade. I did notice that it tasted really dry - like it dried my mouth out, so I thought I would store it in the fridge for later - to see if the taste would be improved by cold. I had no protein bar after bricks, I didn't seem to need one - so I think it did its job.

Thursday - I said goodbye to the Inlaws at the crack of Reallyfreakinearly in the morning, thus setting my day up to be more or less ready for sleep for the entire day. I was supposed to swim at lunch, but we had our usual Albuquerque summer monsoon. Lightning meant the pool was closed, and I was shut out of my swim again.

Thursday's La Luz training session called for a 2hr run - which meant 1hr 10 up the mountain, and the remainder down. My goal was to make it up to the Overlook before I had to turnaround - about 4.5 miles up. I haven't seen the Overlook this year.

Because of the rain, the base of the trail was cloudy and overcast. I started out feeling a bit underdressed, and then headed up anyway. It took 1:13 for me to get to the Overlook - which may be a PR for me. I seem to recall the last time I went up it took 1:15.

It's such an inspiring view up there, I took a picture with cameraphone. Trust me when I say this picture does not do it justice - there is nothing like viewing it in person.

I turned around to head down and ran into Sluggo (a fellow Outlaw)* and Beloved, who challenged me with a "5 minute head start".

I'm a terrible descender. I usually end up taking nearly as long coming down as I do going up. But this challenge would not go unanswered: I would pick it up if for no other reason than to work on my fear of descending. I'm still not willing to risk a limb to get down faster, but I did go down as fast as I could manage.

And I was doing really well until the hail started.

Then the rain. Then the lightning.

And it was really really close. I'd see flash, I'd start counting:

One one thousand...
Two one thousand...
KAKRAAACK!!!!

Oh. Shit.

That's about the time my descent stopped being just a run and became a run for my life.
That's also about the time that Sluggo* and Beloved ran into me - about a mile from the bottom.

Of course we made it - soaking wet, muddy, and shaking. Cold, but alive. My feet hurt. My knees hurt. Pretty much everything hurt.

I had nothing to eat in the car - I cleaned it all out before the run. So I went home and started eating as soon as I could - ate whatever I could stuff into my mouth, and still the blood sugar dive kept coming. Clearly I was on my way to bonk-ville, and I could not stop the train.

I suddenly remember that half bottle of Accelerade in the fridge and went for it. While I can say with certainty that the cold did not improve the chalky taste, it did stop my blood sugar dive instantly. Hallelujah, I love this stuff! I suspect that the protein in liquid form is absorbed in my bloodstream a bit faster than solid food.

So yeah - if you're like me and work yourself a leetle bit too hard sometimes, you might want to try this stuff, I recommend it. I hope they start selling it at convenience stores as easily as Gatorade - it would be nice to get my hands on this stuff all the time.

Garmin says that run was worth over 1200 calories.

*ahem* - back to my horrible week...

Friday - I could barely believe what was on the schedule: a 40mi ride and a 6mi run. I'd been chewing on this all week wondering how I'd get it down, and after the previous night's Debacle on Terror Mountain, I decided I would probably not get all that in, and instead aimed a little lower. My feet were still swollen, my knees did not like me. My quads were not my friends. Instead, I settled for a 27-ish mile evening ride and followed it with a 4.8mi run in the dark with the bats.

Both of these sucked. It was the longest most horrible 4.8mi run in memory - though the bats were pretty cool and I did see a toad on the trail. Garmin says the whole evening was worth 1785 calories.

Saturday - told me an easy 35 mi ride and 1500m swim was on the schedule. Oh yeah, I can do that. Owing to my lack of bike miles the previous night, I decided to overcompensate with a 44mi ride to Bernalillo first thing in the morning with Dave.

It was a horrible ride, my butt may never forgive me. My legs said "FORK YOU!!!" the whole way. This easy ride I could normally do in my sleep was very challenging, and worth ~1800 calories, according to Garmin. Dave towed me in to Bernalillo through a horrible headwind (the ride back was far funner).

I elected not to overcompensate with my swim. I don't know what it cost, but it was probably 400-600.

Sunday - was an easy 13 mile run.

Are you kidding me? Easy 13 mile run? There's nothing 'easy' about 13 miles.

Seriously. Are you kidding?

No. Schedule was not kidding, so I dutifully headed out for my 13 mile plod this morning. Ah, what a beautiful morning.

(Only ~1700 calories.)

I came home feeling like a zombie. Though I treated myself well on the run (2 e-caps an hour, a gel every 4-5 miles, HEED, water, etc.) I was feeling completely depleted when I walked through the door.

Really? I wonder why...

I scrambled through my Drawer Of Stuff in a desperate attempt to find something to help me avoid that horrible crash. I think all triathletes must have a Drawer Of Stuff in their kitchen - it contains all the protein bars, gels, funny white powders, blocks and shots, packets of free samples from races, etc.. Dang, no more Accelerade in the house. I found the next best thing, a packet of Recoverite. I think I purchased it in my frenzy to have access to all types of nutrition at Buffalo Springs. You never know when you'll use these things.

It only has 10 grams of protein per serving, but tastes predictably like all other Hammer products. This one's flavor is named, appropriately, "subtle citrus." I think all of Hammer's product flavours could be called Subtle Citrus. Recoverite tastes exactly to me like the "orange vanilla" of Perpetuem and the "mandarin orange" of HEED (which I find identical to the "lemon lime"). It also claims to be chock full of Glutamine.

While I am not qualified to argue the relative importance of getting large doses of basic amino acids in a workout diet (I'm only a Chemical Engineer and not a Biologist), I'll be danged - that stuff really works, and works well. Was it the protein? I suppose it could have been, I know through personal trial and error that readily absorbed doses of protein help me a lot. Was it the maltodextrin? Not likely - I'd already had plenty to no avail. I've tried to get off the bonk-ride many times using simple and complex sugars, and it does not work for me.

Not only did Recoverite stop me from feeling like the walking dead, it kept me vertical for the rest of the day. I think I will order some of that to have around for these occasions - which I think will keep coming. I tend to think about nutrition in terms of keeping myself going during a workout, but I guess the moral of the story is that my nutritional needs don't stop after I quit working out. If you're like me and feel yourself falling into a coma after a hard workout, you'll understand what I describe, and it's tricky to get out of.

I think Accelerade is wonderful, and I think Recoverite is also wonderful - it's important to note that while I used both of them to get me out of the Death Spiral to Bonkville, the two are designed to do different things. Accelerade is meant to be use while you're working out, and Recoverite is a post-workout recovery aid. Both of them have earned places in my nutritional Drawer Of Stuff.

So now I think I'll fall asleep watching the Tour. Again. I never seem to get to watch more than about 1/2 an hour before I pass out every night...Sigh.

*I am such a dork. I had Mighty as my outlaw co-runner and it was Sluggo chasing me down the mountain. Sorry guys - I get you confused far too often. You're like twins.