the sky attempted to make up for two months without rain by dumping a virtual niagara falls on us this morning right during rush hour. thunder and lightning too. when i left my apartment to get debbie and take her to physical therapy, it wasn’t raining. in the time it took her to gather her things, it started to pour, and didn’t stop even while i sat in the car for 10 minutes in the parking lot waiting for a break. finally i just sucked it up and walked in through the downpour. i’m now soaked from my knees down. lovely.
but i guess it’s about time for a storm. my power even flickered off for a moment this morning as i was getting ready. in any case, it’s definitely summer. yesterday it felt like a furnace outside, and today a huge thunderstorm. definitely houston.
anyway. last night i didn’t feel very good but wanted to get in a last big workout before the triathlon on sunday. since exercise usually makes me feel better, i decided to try what’s called a “brick” workout. that means you do two different things, like swimming and biking, one right after the other. so last night i came home, rode my bike over to the lap pool, and got underway. i swam half a mile, then immediately jumped out of the pool, threw on clothes and shoes, and headed out on a bike ride. i was only planning on riding a little way, just to get the feeling of it, but i started to feel good so i ended up going a full 12 miles, coming home, jumping off the bike and immediately jogging a half mile around my apartment complex. so the whole workout–everything but the last 2.5 miles of the jogging portion of the triathlon–took me about an hour and 25 minutes. not bad. i think i’ll finish the triathlon right around the two hour mark.
the swimming and biking felt normal. swimming uses mostly arms, and biking is all legs, so the two are fairly exclusive in terms of how much and/or what part of my body they exhaust. but going from biking to jogging was rough. my legs felt like lead during the half mile i jogged last night. there’s no way i’ll be able to run the triathlon’s 5k portion at the pace i usually run a 5k, because i think i’ll have to take a few brief walking breaks. maybe a minute to a minute and a half slower per mile than i would otherwise do. but still.
so i’m pretty excited about the whole thing. i think i’ll do pretty dang well for a slightly out-of-shape first-timer.
