Triathletes do it in the kitchen

Time got away from me yesterday. My daily training log called for a broken half ironman swim consisting of a warm up of upto 1km followed by 2 times 1km swims with 30 seconds rest between (800m at endurance pace plus 200m easy swim). I would normally try and get the swim in at lunch allowing me to do the second workout of the day (endurance bike ride of 1.5 hours) when I got home.

I ran out of time and could not get my swim in at lunch therefore I had to do the swim late afternoon. When I got back to the house at around 5pm I had to finish an assignment for my distance learning course which was due today. Before I knew it it was 7pm and I needed to do my ride.

I have never been a great fan of the cold and I do not take any pleasure in cycling in the dark therefore my evening bike rides are restricted to an indoor trainer. If you have read my earlier Blog you will know that we moved house last week. The old house had a big family room where I had room to set up my trainer in front of the big telly downstairs. The new house has a smaller family room and I do not have the room to set up the trainer in front of the telly. Static bike riding is very, very, boring and I need to have something to watch to take my mind off the tedium.

The solution was to set up the trainer in the kitchen so that I could watch the little portable telly. The next stage will be to eat my dinner on the trainer. Last night we had a stew and you can see the slow cooker on the counter in the picture below. It was 8.45pm before I finished on the bike and by then I was really hungry, the smell of that stew drove me crazy.

There is of course another solution to the time issue and that is to do a workout before work. Long before this competition my local triathlon team head coach and founder, Ed Zerkle, had been trying to get me to go to the team swim meets. The problem with these swim sessions was that they started at 5.30am. The idea of getting up at 4.30am fills me with dread it probably has something to do with all the morning watches I stood when I was serving at sea. A 'shake' at 3.30am to get up and go and stand on a cold bridge for 4 hours is not one of life's high points.