Why "three to five"?

july plans
8-19...running in wheat

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3 July. More swim.
4 July. Howie hurries and a little more run.
5 July. Rough run and ride rythem.
6 July. Swim like a slug and ride like butta.
7 July. Great run and boxing: round 6.
8 July. Rough run...literally.
9 July. Swimming in a sauna.
10 July. Too hot and too high.
19 July. Back on the track and a fast fence.
20 July. Two second swim.
24 July. Warm running, warmer fencing.
25 July. Slow ride, fast swim.
26 July. That Greenlake groove, finally and fast fencing
27 July. Fast swim and a perfect Pet.
31 July. Good run, better fencing and a new junior.

Monday, July 31. Good run, better fencing and a new junior.
I didn't do my long run on Friday because my knees were still a little tweaked from my ride on Thursday...being the first full ride since I was back from Nebraska and all. So, today was my first run in a while. It was a hot day, but I felt pretty good and had a good time, taking about a minute off my last Portage Bay run time (but my last time was REALLY slow). I did my sit-ups before hand too so didn't have any weird stomach cramping this time either. Went home, took a quick nap, then it was off to fencing.

The nap left me more sluggish than I expected, but I did make it to fencing. I think it was the afternoon heat more than anything that made me move a little slower. At fencing, I was debating on whether to fence at all right up until I tied my last shoelace. But once my shoes were on I was all ready to go. Fenced a new fencer and did really well against some others, so I was pleased. It was really hot, so under all my fencing uniform I once again was soaked, but it actually felt good, like I had a realy workout.

Had another chat with Laszlo Beres of the US Modern Pentathlon today as well. No San Antonio pentathlon this weekend as the team is pretty much set to go. We talked a little about Sydney arrangements and pistols as well.

Over the weekend I went down to watch Laura teach some of her Pony Club students on a cross country course. Got a chance to meet Josh, one of the juniors intersted in starting the pentathlon. He's been doing tetrathlon's for a while and is pretty interested in adding the fencing to make it a full pentathlon. With Sam, we now have two juniors interested in pentathlon. NW pentathletes are on their way.

Thursday, July 27. Fast swim and a perfect Pet.
Had my best swim time yet today, 2'58", still without kickturns and at about 75%. I'm aiming for under 2'30" so still have a long way to go, but should be able to shave the time down at full presssure, turns and coaching...lots of it.

It was back to Pet Step at riding tonight. Its been a long time since I've ridden Pet so I was anxious to see how I would do, I've learned a lot since I last rode him. It went REALLY well. Pets a little more in tune since he's been doing shows, but I think my riding and balance have improved a lot as well. Pet was much more responsive to aids than I remember. We worked a lot on balance, rein shifting and transitions from trot to canter. Pet did a great job and I felt great.

Wednesday, July 26. That Greenlake groove, finally and fast fencing.
Finally had a great Greenlake run. My feet and legs didn't get tired and my cardio felt really good as well. Even took two minutes of my time!

I started by going over the the Greenlake shellhouse to do a warm up on the ergometer (rowing machine). I happened to run into Matt Marshall, a rowing buddy who has started rowing at Greenlake recently. Looks like I may be able row a couple times week. Rowing will be great cross training and it will feel really good to get back on the water, even if Greenlake is only 1000m wide at its longest point.

The Greenlake group always has a little pre-workout meeting where they talk about upcoming races and any results from recent races. Mike Jones, one of my pentathlon mentors, just placed 5th in a duathlon (swimming and running) down in San Francisco. Great job! For running, I did my usual interval workout...2 minutes off, 1 minute on. As I already mentioned, it felt great. This was the first time that my feet and/or legs didn't fatigue and my cardio felt great the whole time.

At fencing tonight, I had some my ups and my downs, but one thing for sure...the fencing seems to be getting a lot faster, which means I need to get faster. There is one fencer that I just can't seem to get any points on, but I seem to be improving agains most others. I scored 8 touches on a fencer that ranked 32 at Nationals, and 6 on one of our coaches (who was one of the fastest fencers that night). All in all, a great night fencing.

Tuesday, July 25. Slow ride, fast swim.
Went to the barn today to start getting back into riding. With my trip to Nebraska, its been over two weeks since I last rode. Howie was his usual tropper self. Laura had just sprayed down the arena, so I didn't do any cantering since it was still pretty wet. The trot work felt really good though. More importantly, it felt good to be back in the saddle. Found out that Meyou, the horse I was thinking about buying, had some problems while I was away. He fell while stretching (slipped), hurt his back and then fell again while recovering when trying to get out of way of another horse. Laura is doing her therapeutic magic touch, so we're all waiting to see how it turns out.

The swim went really well. I took seven seconds off my time, still without flip turns and at about 75% pressure.

Monday, July 24. Warm running, warmer fencing.
Its was a hot day for running today, especially since I did my run at 3:00pm. The run felt good even though my time was a little slower than last time. I must have sweat a gallon though as my shirt was drenched when I got back. I'm going to add some ab workouts before my run since my mid section fatigues on me and could be a bit stronger overall.

Had a great night of fencing tonight, although I think I sweated two gallons under the layers of my uniform. Fenced a couple new fencers, did pretty well against both of them. One of them was taller than me and I had to use some 'short person' strategies for the first time as my long arms weren't doing any good. Also spent some time watching a video of national that was held earlier this month. Discovery...I'm not spreading my feet wide enough and not crouching enough. Something more to work on.

Thursday, July 20. Two second swim.
Did my first swim after my vacation today. It felt OK, actually felt really good to be in the water since it was so warm, but wasn't be best swim ever. I did take two seconds off my 200m time, but the rest of the workout felt like I was swimming in molasses. I definitely have a cold bug setting in, I can feel a little bit of a soar throat. Bummer. I'll just try to get over it as soon as possible.

Wednesday, July 19. Back on the track and a fast fence.
After over a week of lounging in steamy Nebraska, I got back in to training today. I went to the Greenlake running group and made my first steps towards working out with the group...I did a warm up quarter mile with them. After, their planned workout was still a little above me so I did my interval run around Greenlake again. My legs didn't fatigue like they had previous Greenlake run, but I didn't feel my best either. The last 10 minutes or so felt pretty good, but it will take a few runs to get back into things. Mike Jones, a former pentathlete and current Greenlake runner, pointed out that Mary Beth Larsen was on the cover of Esquire this month as one of the "Girls of Summer". Pentathlon goes mainstream...I love it.

Went to fencing afterwards. I was pretty tired going into it, so I wasn't sure how things would go since I was hot and sweaty before I even put on my fencing gear. I fenced one bought with George, did pretty well at the start, but faded fast...my shoulder tired out pretty quickly. By now I felt pretty drained. I packed up and went home and went to sleep. Perhaps I'm coming down with something...in Nebraska there was a summer bug going around that my aunt had and my Dad picked up. Hmm.

Wednesday, July 10. Too hot and too high
I've decided, the the temperature at 98, the humidity at 91, the dewpoint at 78 and the heat index at 104, that I won't be attempting my workout while here in Nebraska. Just too darn hot. I'll take the next few days off and look forward to athletic life back at sea-level and at acceptable temperatures. At least I've learned that I'll have to include a lot of acclimatization time when preparing for Athens.

Tuesday, July 9. Swimming in a sauna.
I found out that the outdoor pool in Syracuse, NE (about 10 miles to the north) had an open lap swim from 5-6pm every night...so I thought I would try it out since I didn't see running as a long term solution to keeping fit while on vaction. Got to to the pool, which did have lane markers painted on the cement on the floor of the pool (but no floating markers), jumped in and quickly discovered that the shallow end was only about 2'6"...not far above my knees. Hmm. They did have kickboards, but no kneeboard for working out my arms. Hmm. The feel didn't feel to hot or anything...until I finished my first lap and realized that the only reason it didn't feel hot was that it was 98 degrees outside the pool...the pool was around 75 degrees or so. Yuck and hmm. I also discovered that swimming mid-continent is different than swimming at sea-level, I could barely finish the first four laps of my warmup. Well, the rest of my workout had to be reduced as well, I just ran out of gas too quickly...high elevation, high temperatures - both in and out of the water - didn't make for the best workout conditions. But at least I did get about a half an hour of workout time. Better than nothing.

Monday, July 8. Rough run...literally.
Well, I'm in Nebraska now for a week and a half visiting my grandparents and aunt and uncle. Its 95 degrees outside and the humidity is at 91%. Not the best running conditions, especially for a sea-level athlete like myself. I decided I would try it anyway and waited until evening, around 8:00pm, when it cooled down enough that I could actually leave the house. I was sweating before I even started the run...but that's OK. Unfortunately, the highway just down from my aunt's house doesn't have a shoulder so I had to run on the dirt road directly west. This would have been fine if it were actually dirt. The county had just recently put down fresh rock on the road which made for really poor running conditions. I did an interval set, 2 minutes off 1 minute on for 10 minutes out and 10 minutes back, about the same time frame I've been doing back in Seattle. This went well enough, I survived and all, but it took me almost an hour after stopping to stop sweating and my poor legs were all wacked out from the fresh rock. Next time, I'll take my chances on the highway.

Friday, July 7. Great run and boxing: round 6.
The run this afternoon felt the best yet. It was my endurance run and today I added 10 more minutes so was out for 50 minutes. My feet/legs didn't fatigue at all and my cardio felt awesome as well...I'll be running half marathon's in no time!

Had my last "Box Fit" workout tonight as well. Considering last week, when I was really tired after my endurance run and the whole boxing session was a little 'tired' to say the least, this workout felt awesome. I had plenty of energy and was really pleased with my form as well. I'm off to Nebraska for a couple weeks, but will sign up for the next class as soon as I return.

Thursday, July 6. Swim like a slug and ride like butta.
The swim started very sluggish today. Well...sluggish until I got into the water any way. Once I was in it felt really good to stretch out in the cool water and get going. I added a 200m after my warm up to start keeping track of my times. I swam it at about 75% and didn't do flip turns which gave me a 3'14" time. I'm shooting for under a 2'30" time so I have a ways to go. I'm up to about 44 laps now which is over a mile and is about 1100m. I need to get this up to over 2000m though which would be another 4 laps...very doable.

Went for a solo ride tonight. I had my lesson last night since Laura and much of the barn was off to a competition in Whidbey Island but Laura suggested that I still put in a ride tonight. Howie and I worked onthe same things we did on Wednesday, mainly rythem. I spent most of the time at two-point trying to feel and control his rythem. It felt really good and Howie was responding very well to the aids to slow down..."it felt like butta".

Ricky, the horse that was having GI problems last night is up and doing fine after a long uncomfortable night...for Ricky and people observing him.

Wednesday, July 5. Rough run and ride rythem.
The run at Greenlake wasn't the best I've had...my shins fatigued pretty quickly and stayed that way the whole time. I mush have had bad form or something. But I did finish and did take a minute off my time. I did the 2-off/1-on workout and was able to stay pretty close to one of the running groups ahead of me...pretty happy about that.

Tonight at riding we worked a lot on rythem. I spent a lot of time at two-point, both at the trot and the canter, counting measures. Then Laura placed three poles on the ground for us to ride over at the canter. Had to work hard to keep Howie at a consistent speed and going straight, but we did pretty well over all. He's gettting much better at keeping his head down.

On a side note, one of the other horses in the barn was having some GI problems, possibly colic. Its been a while since I've been a round a horse in this situation...pretty serious stuff. Laura and all at the barn did a good job of keeping up and about until the vet came as I was leaving. The horse should be OK, but it makes me wonder if I'm ready for horse ownership...now as much emotionally than financially. Its a great thing owning a horse, but its also a lot of responsiblity. I could see myself getting really into it, especially with a horse like Meyou - a jumping and polo horse - the question is how would it affect my overall training. Would the responsibilities of owning and training a horse eclipse my training in other events. Hmm...

Tuesday, July 4. Howie hurries and a little more run.
Started my Tuesday afternoon sessions with Howie this week. The objective is simply to get more time riding in hopes of starting jumping competitions this spring.

Howie was very strong today and, as usual, in a big hurry right from the start. Howie's walk was almost as fast as Duke's trot (Laura was riding Duke at the same time) and Howie's trot was as fast as Duke's canter. So I had to work really hard to keep Howie at the pace and rythem that I wanted. Howie did eventually slow down a bit, but even at the walk at the end of the lesson he was a little speedster.

Laura and I talked a little about the possible impending purchase of Meyou, the horse Evan brought to the Tacoma Polo Club for Laura to consider for herself of one of her students. Meyou is exactly the horse I would be looking for...a jumper and a bit of a polo player, but I wasn't expecting to buy a horse until next spring. Meyou's even a chestnut, which makes him even more appealing...to me anyway. I'll be talking to the parents and looking at my budget very closely to see if "Me and You Forever" (Meyou's full name) will come to pass.

For the run in the evening I changed my workout to two minutes off, one minute on. Wow...how an 30 additional seconds can seem to drag on forever. But in the end, I was able to do it and actually felt pretty good during and after the workout. I'll continue this interval set for a couple weeks and then bump up again by 30 seconds.

Monday, July 3. More swim.
Did my basic swim workout again but added another lap of kicking at the end. Going forward, once a week I am going to do a 200m to start noting my progress. The swims are feeling pretty good, so its time to bump things up a notch.