January 27/13

   So another week in the can and another week that did not go quite as planned. I'm starting to catch on to the notion that no matter how rigorous my planning, training will never go as planned. Also this winter is dragging me down. I guess we're pretty much in the middle of it now and it feel like I live in darkness, plus the recent cold snap has really sucked my will to train nearly dry. Either way lets get to the details.

Fully Assembled

I miss my heavy bags

   Monday was my usual core and weight training night. I'll tell you purchasing all the components to my home gym over the last 15 years was one of the smartest things I could have done. I'm motivated to workout at home so I have never stopped using it. It has morphed over the years due to space and place. Even though Chris and my cabin in the city only has enough room for the bare essentials  it still works for me. Here are a few pics of how it has looked at different stages. I still have all the components, just some are safely stored away.

My last place

The gym in the cabin in the city

   





   Tuesdays are now my night off. When spring hits they will be skateboarding nights again, I miss a good session at an outdoor park with my friends. Hell I just miss warm sunshine.

   Wednesday the boss called in sick, so day off. I used it for a double session of training. I hadn't run a 5km in a while since I have been working on distance for Around the Bay and I felt like a had a PR in me. I felt like I was going to die breathing in the icy air so rapidly, but I pushed hard anyway.

Old PR - 22:49

New PR - 21:52
   Dropped almost 1 minute off my best time, but still nowhere near where I want to be.

    I also went for a nice recovery swim after with the elderly lunch swimmers. Was going ok, until a strange popping sensation in my shoulder began around 900m. I stopped for a few minutes and did another 100m. Still there. Taking a cue from my past mistakes I decided to call it a day and went home to ice.

   Thursday night I  relaxed with Chris as she was going away to Slipstream for the week. It's basically an all diabetic weekend play date in the snow. Due to my normally functioning pancreas I was not invited. It was a good thing that I had a night off because my work day was absolutely brutal. Ten hours of baseboard and shoe moldings to install. I was bent over all day or down on one knee. By the time I got home I looked like a question mark and had a pulled groin.

   Friday I had my own play date to attend at the Ward Skatepark. My buddies Ben and Dave were there and skating hard! It was my first time back on my skateboard in over a month and even though my groin was still killing me I needed to skate again.  After about 30 minutes it all started coming back. By the end of the session the old Ryan made a cameo and I was pulling out some of my favorite tricks.

   Saturday I woke up pretty sore. My legs were dead and my groin no better. (gee I wonder why?) So I made the intelligent choice and went running anyway. I set out for 26km again, but this times with short walking breaks every 5km. This would cut out about 3 breaks. I need I was going to have a rough day from step one. By 15km I was destroyed, but I knew I would spend the rest of the night beating myself up if I quite there. I pushed on to make a half marathon, 21.1km and actually ended up with another PR of 2:06. I had shaved off 5 minutes from my previous attempt 2 weeks earlier. I paid dearly for it though. The stress of the week on my body was too much and I spent the night laid up in bed with chills and a bit of a fever.

   Sunday I awoke from more than 10 hours sleep feeling much better. Off to the master swim workout. My shoulder was still sore, but I made 2300m. I came home and straight onto my bike trainer for another 15km until I got a flat. Yep a flat on a trainer. I think there was still an issue with my rim from my previous flat a few weeks ago road riding on the spell of nice weather we had.  At that I called it a week, had some lunch and went back to bed.