Chain Condom???

No, it's not something kinky. It's something bikey! Helps keep bike chain grease from getting all over the place: in your car, in rental cars, in suitcases, in hotel rooms, in your house and even in your bed! (Dave steps on it barefoot, it goes where he goes). Warning: If you ship it to work, you might get questions from nosey co-workers who see the package.

Yippee! I got my invite, based on my finish at the RnR Man Half Iron. But I won't be doing it, unfortunately. I'm doing another half iron the weekend after and that one will be an important test of how I handle the heat at The Great Floridian. Still, nice to have made the cut!

The stock market the last couple days? No, it's my HR during my Tues run. 5 miles, no problemo -- HA! It was evil at 6pm in temps that still felt like 90+ degs and totally obvious I haven't done much hard effort running recently ... UGH.

Mile 1 warm-up (9:09, AHR 146) - Plenty warm after just 10 steps.
Mile 2 hard (6:56, AHR 165, max 182) - ouch, Ouch, OUCH!!
Mile 3 easy (11:43, AHR 149) - Gasp, I'm dying :-(
Mile 4 hard (7:07, AHR 169, max 183) - Oh no, not again!!!
Mile 5 cool-down (9:28, AHR 157) - I'm too old for this stuff.
Lesson learned: Mornings or 7pm would be better for speed work.

My Garmin FR 305 arrives tomorrow! Been using Dave's old Garmin Edge 305 for biking & running but it has no wristband so I've been carrying it in a Fuel Belt pocket, not ideal when needing to monitor pace and HR often (running by feel is unreliable for me in the heat, as you can see from the splits above). Why not the new Garmin 310XT? Too expensive, plus it seems to have bugs that need working out. (Update 7/25: Kevin has figured out how to get the 310 working!)

Drats! And no spare swim cap with me, of course. But I could still wear it so I decided to go ahead with my swim today and fiddle with it as needed (I have a LOT of hair and can't swim without a cap). 6x500, 1 min rest in between, easy-med-fast-med-easy-fast. Swam a new fastest 500yd time of 9:21 (1:52/100yd) -- Whoohoo!!!

Gotta Eat & WIN!

Continuing to improve slowly but I should be wearing this sign when doing bike and run interval workouts.

Because that's when my nose decides to let loose the mucous and cause enormous amounts of coughing and spitting.

Otherwise, I'm fine. Well, except when I do stupid things like forgetting to eat after a late night 9-mile run on my treadmill and then neglecting to bring any food for a 50-mile bike ride the next morning. Doh! By themselves, neither of those workouts should have been a big deal but within 12 hours of each other and not having replenished during or after the run, the second half of the bike ride turned into a bonkfest (thanks also to horrible headwinds nearly the entire way home).



Luckily, we went by a minimart at mile 41 so I could get some sugar into me before I fell over. Managed to make it home safe, ate a quick lunch then crashed for 2 hours. Later for dinner I gobbled down a couple pieces of DiGiorno self-rising crust Spicy Chicken pizza with added spinach on top. Dare I say I'm now a fan of pizza?

Anyway, it wasn't necessarily pretty but week three is in the books:

3 full-body strength workouts (added more variety and resistance to some exercises)
1 swim (2250 yards - a dreadfully slow swim on my own)
2 runs (15.88 mi - one speed/snot workout and one steady pace run)
2 bike rides (73.2 mi - one speed/snot workout and one long, tough, windy ride)



In other news, I am giving WIN Sport Detergent a 5 out of 5 star rating. As some of you may know, laundry is Dave's job and being that he's usually only home on weekends, that's when it usually gets done. It's not at all uncommon that our sweaty workout clothes sit in the washer or in plastic hotel laundry bags for a few days until they get washed. And more than once my poor workout clothes have come out of the wash smelling WORSE than when they went in :-( One red shirt of Dave's, in particular, had been washed many times but stank immediately upon him wearing and sweating in it again, as if the previous sweat and bacteria had just been temporarily masked but not really removed. And for him to notice it must have been quite offensive!

But the WIN sport detergent worked like a charm. Not only did everything come out of the wash smelling fresh, they did NOT stink again as soon as they were worn and worked out in again. This has NEVER happened before with our regular laundry detergent or with samples of Penguin SportWash we'd tried before. And this is the closest that red shirt has gotten to my nose in years.

Each bottle of WIN is good for 14 loads so a 4-pack at $21.99 (plus $8.95 shipping)* will keep us stink-free for a year and for less than the cost of a pair of bike shorts. Great for frugal folks like us who don't like to buy new workout clothes unless they either fall apart or smell so bad we can't stand to wear them any more.

Thanks WIN!!!

*WIN offers a risk-free guarantee. If you are not happy with the product, they'll refund you the purchase price less shipping charges.