austin trip!

A little recap of my Austin trip...

Wed: travel day

Thu: Mark, Brian and I tried to go to Barton Springs but it was closed for cleaning.  Instead we swam at Deep Eddy.  Deep Eddy is freshly-filled with spring water each day and during the slower, non-summer months there isn't any chlorine.  The lap lanes are 33 yards long.  Mark and I wore wetsuits just b/c we hadn't used them in a quite awhile.  Brian went sans-wetsuit and laughed at us.  We got in about 3000 yards including 2x4x200 descending.  Mark is significantly faster than me in the water... grrr...  after the swim we went for a 5-6 mile run on the Town Lake trail.  I was feeling a little bit frisky so we picked up the pace for a few stretches... we probably averaged closer to 7-minute miles...  after the run, Mark and I got set up on bikes at Austin Tri-Cyclist and we went out for a 45-mile ride.  I quickly learned that Mark doesn't do casual rides.

Richard Freer saw us riding by and met up with us at ATC afterwards.  It was great to see the big Aussie again, although his Sunday race plans meant that he wouldn't be able to train with us very much.

Friday night we went to a cookout at the Ruthvens' new place.  They have an awesome house across the street from the Shady Grove restuarant, where they feature live bands on Thursday nights during the warmer months.  A good time was had by all.  After dinner Don started talking smack about a 2.5k-ish run course around the Town Lake trail (Lamar footbrdige & S 1st St bridge) where apparently I still hold the record (8:49).  Back then, you had to do ~20 mles hard on the computrainer before the run... but Adam (new guy at the shop) and I accepted Don's challenge to go out and try to break my old record.  Given that I'd only get more tired as the week goes on I decided to make my attempt the next morning, after our swim.. 

Fri: we all got up way too early on a vacation day in order to swim with the UT masters.  The workout was at 6:30 so we were up at like 5:30.  Grrr... but it was an awesome workout.  Whitney had us work down from a 2:00 send-off to a 1:00 send-off in 2 second increments, picking a "challenging distance" for each interval.  Brandon Marsh was leading my lane, so we started with a few 175s, then did 150s thru 1:40, 125s thru 1:24 and 100s to 1:06.  The last 3 75s were easy!  All in all, a tough workout.

We grabbed a quick breakfast (tacos at Austin Java) and then I got dropped off at ATC.  I took about 15 minutes to let my breakfast settle a little and then Don and I headed out to warm up.  I felt like my breakfast was gonna come up at any moment, but I warmed up, stretched, did some strides and went for it.  I ran a steady, solid, fast attempt and clocked an 8:11.8.  I reckon that mark should stand for a while - maybe until I go for it again next year.

After the run, I grabbed a quick recovery drink and then Mark & I went out for a 100 mile ride.  We met up with Brian for the first 40 miles... I was feeling pretty shelled so I tried to just draft off the other guys most of the time.  Eventually we got into some 15-minute TT intervals but I found that once I lost "metnal contact" with Mark that my effort level & HR dropped considerably...  We had fluid/food stops in San Marcos and somewhere near Bastrop... We each consumed over 2000 calories on this 5-hour death march.  My tally was 2 clif bars, 2 bags of clif bloks, 3 packages of nature valley granola bars, two bottles of gatorade, a brownie, and banana, a cookie and a king-size snickers bar.  Awesome...

That night I was probably about as tired as I've ever been... and Mark wasn't too far off... good times...

Sat: Neither of us set an alarm on Friday night but "luckily" I woke up around 7:30 on Saturday and we got tot he shop in time for the famous Saturday Morning Taco Ride.  Both of us were surprised to have legs that morning, bt we felt fit/strong once we got rolling.  Mark A-packed it, I got stuck behind a gap and was unable to bridge.  I was single-handedly pulling the train of chasers for awhile... so I shouldn't have had a problem sitting in if only I'd gotten myself into a more aggressive position within the pack... grrr...

After the ride I was unable to convince anybody to join me on an "easy 5-mile" brick run.  Since I was solo I picked it up a bit more and spent most of the run in the 6:15-6:30 range.  Fun times.

After the run I hung out at the shop for awhile and eventually made my way to Barton Springs for a soak.

Saturday night I met up with my friends 57 Steve and Sarah and we had a very nice dinner at the Eastside Cafe.  Then Steve and I went down to Sixth St for a few beers.  Just a few, though, as I am now an Elite Athlete.

Sun: "recovery day." our fabulous plans of swimming downriver from the 360 bridge to the Hula Hut were derailed by friends' predictions of heavy, drunken boat traffic on a Sunday.  So instead we just did a run.  The first 7 miles were with Mark & Brian, allegedly shooting for 7:00-7:30 pace but actually averaging more like 6:45... until I gave up on sitting in and went to the front... 6:30... 6:15... oh well... I then did another 4 miles by mself at a 7:15-ish pace...

After the run, Mark and I went out to Hamilton Pool to hike around a bit and take some pictures.

Mon: Went to the UT masters swim in the morning.  Felt somewhat shelled.  Was hanging on for dear life most of the time...  then Mark and I went on a 50-mile ride (south MoPac, Nutty Brown, Old Fitzhugh, Hamilton Pool Rd, Bee Caves) and had a swell time.  We learned that the surface on the farm road that goes out to the Salt Lick is terrible (as is the traffic) and that Nutty Brown has a fresh layer of fantastically smooth pavement.  It was magnificent.

We capped off the day with some Tex Mex at Chuy's with James Supak and then some Amy's Ice Cream.. What good is a vacation if you don't eat a little junk food, eh?

Tue: got up mad early in order to hit Barton Springs on the way to the airport.  We were in the water around 6am.  The sun hadn't come up yet and there were at least a dozen people in the water.  What a terrific place...

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Keeping the old-style daily training log going.... after my return to Seattle

Wed: run with Tom's group including 2.5 miles of easy tempo (~6min pace) flowing into a "faster but not overly hard" mile at 5:29

Thu: solo AM run in bridle trails; PM pro club masters

Fri: pool swim with Ben Collins at Green Lake Pool; ran a lap around Green Lake; did some pull-ups and stretched and BS'ed a bit...

Sat: Green Valley Time Trail - should be a separate post; easy riding afterwards to get cinnamon rolls... easy 4-5 mile jog with Ben

Sun: Easy 5-mile jog in Bridle Trails; open-water swim in Lake Washington with Ben