4th of July Weekend

I had a pretty bad case of the DOMS a few days after the race. I think most of it was due to that hard 10k at the end. I only put in about 8 miles worth of running two weeks prior to that race to try and nip my calf strain. So pounding out a 10k on concrete with a bum calf tore me up pretty good last week. I took Monday and Wednesday off completely to try and shake the soreness/fatigue. After a few swims and some light spinning I was ready to go come Saturday morning. I set off on a 60 mile solo ride on the Slice. I was out the door at 7:30am and you could already tell it was going to be a hot day. After a quick pit stop at the fire station to refuel, I starting making my way down Sage road for what was going to be a scary decent. For those of you that are familiar with Temecula this is a pretty steep/technical decent and it's also pretty shaded so you have to be careful with the pot holes. Instead of hugging the white line I rode about 3-4 ft to the left of it so that cars would a. see me better (shade) and b. not drive me off the shoulder. Well this truck with an empty trailer comes out of nowhere screaming by probably around 55 mph (in a 35mph zone) and just misses me. At this point he is in the other lane with a blind corner coming up and sure enough a car from the other side is coming. He swerves sharply, barely avoiding a head on collision and his trailer somehow follows his sharp swerve and comes within inches of hitting that car. Then he has to correct himself and the trailer then fishtails onto the right shoulder and somehow he pulls out of it. It was one of the scariest most ridiculous thing I'd ever seen. I'm already super cautious and sketched out about riding on the road. I feel so venerable because your life really isn't in your hands, it's in the hands of the drivers around you and that's a scary thing! I didn't as much get shaken up as I was just so dumbfounded about this driver that was in such a hurry that he put my life, his life and the lives of whoever were in that car in danger just to get somewhere quicker.

Besides that, the ride was pretty uneventful. I just wanted to cruise a long ride, limit my stops and get back before it got too hot. With about 15 miles to go, the heat was on and I was feeling it! After having a few heat exhaustion episodes in my running days--I've become pretty sensitive to extreme heat. My HR starting rising way up, I started getting a little dizzy and had shortness of breath---all signs leading to heat exhaustion. I pulled over for about 15 mins, filled my water bottles back up, doused myself and rolled out. Within about 20 minutes my bottles felt like hot tea. It was definitely in the 100's by the time I was getting back home. Glad that was done! Here's the data from the ride:

On Sunday morning, Matt (from the race last week) and I did a brick workout. I told him I was pretty beat from my ride the day before, so we just did 35 on a flat course followed by a 5 mile run at 7 min pace. It was the first time I had run since the race and my calf felt slightly better so I'm excited that I didn't do too much damage from the race. Data from that ride:

I was stoked to see that even on a chill ride we almost averaged 20mph. My legs definitely started to feel it towards the end of the run. On the 4th I woke up, put in 3k yards in the pool and then Amy and I rode down with the kids on our bikes to the 4th of July parade they have down in Old Town. We had a lot of fun riding down as a family and it was really nice to just spin the legs out a bit as they were pretty beat. So even after taking two days off last week on a recovery week I was still able to get in 9.5 hours of training.

The weekend wasn't just full of training either. I think we BBQ'd Friday-Monday every single night with family, friends and neighbors. Good company, good food, good beers - Amy and I even snuck in some mojito's one day when the kids were down for a nap! The 4th has become quite a fun holiday weekend for our family and it seems to kick off the summer. Oh yea, I obviously didn't race the Scripps Ranch 4th of July 10k which I was bummed about. I was looking forward to racing that all year but I know my calf wouldn't have been happy about that...so I just put in a solid weekend of training, probably better on all fronts. Check out my tentative schedule for the rest of the year here.

Few more pics from the weekend:

Future triathletes!

At the parade

I also made a really good tofu recipe. For those of you that don't dig tofu, try this, I think you'll change your mind:

I pack extra-firm tofu, (drain water, cut into cubes) put on non stick pan (no oil) and brown.

While that’s cooking, in a small bowl combine 2 tomatoes (chopped), 1 shallot (onion diced), 2 cloves of garlic (diced), few tablespoons of lemon juice and olive oil. Add salt, pepper and generous amounts of diced fresh basil and stir it up. After tofu is done browning, pour in bowl and mix, cook for about 3-5 mins on medium heat.

Serve with couscous and hummus