Monday, March 30, 2009

My Recovery Week

I am now on day 5 of not exercising and day 8 of my sickness. Last Monday I felt a little nasty, but nothing too serious. I just had a little scratch in my throat. It got a little worse on Tuesday and even worse on Wednesday. I tried to swim on Wednesday but it was ugly. I took Thursday off and my sickness just got worse. I went to Corbin so I could just rest over the weekend and hopefully get better. Saturday was the worst day. I woke up with a migrane and I could barely do anything. It hurt to open my eyes. I just layed on the floor all day with my eyes barely opened, just enough to watch some NCAA basketball. Now it's Monday and my headache is still lingering (just barely) but my throat hasn't got much better. I'm still coughing up all kinds of nastiness and I can't take deep breathes without hearing a wheezing sound.

I really hope that it gets better. I have had the best off season training of my life, and now I am just laying around and eating food without many signs of improvement.

On a positive note, I have passed 2 of the 3 comprehensive written exams for my Master's degree. I still haven't heard from my third teacher so hopefully I'll hear from him pretty soon and it'll be 3 out of 3.

Tony

Sunday, March 22, 2009

More PB's

After a weekend of swimming, I now have 2 new PB's in the water. One in the 1650y (18:15) and one in the 500y (5:13). I did not feel good at all in the water on Saturday morning so I was pleased with the effort. I was hoping to go under 18 minutes in the mile, but I know that I'm capable of it on a good day. The 500 was this morning, and I did feel better today than yesterday. I'm now sitting at the aptartment watching the NCAA tourney on TV. Nothing too exciting has happened today, but the UofL game is about to start so maybe they'll lose. That would be exciting.

I am officially finished with the heaviest work load week of my life. I hit just over 24 hours for the week. It was a little easier than the 23 hr week I hit a few weeks ago because the weather has been amazing. It's not hard to get a lot of time on the bike when the weather is nice. I had just over 10 hours of cycling and only 1.5 hr of it was on the trainer. All of my cycling was on the trainer during the 23 hr. week. And that swim meet this weekend bumped up my swimming a little bit. My running was a little below average.

Run: 4:53 hr
Bike: 10:08 hr
Swim: 9 hrs
Weights: 15 minutes

Giving me a grand total of: 24:15 hrs.

I was really tired early in the week because I had three very full days of training in a row. Thursday was kind of a recovery day, and I have felt decent of the past few days. Wednesday night was the worst part of the week. I could barely walk around I was so tired.

And the March eating challenge that I have been doing was broken on Friday. I ate a cookie with lunch. There were some homemade cookies from a local bakery at the pool. They stared me down for 3 hrs. until I broke down and ate one. This was the first time that I broke the challenge rules. And then later in the day, I consumed another cookie (for Tyson's birthday on Friday). But I intend to keep the rules going until the end of March. So I have cheated twice, but the main goal of the challenge was to eat fewer sweets which has definitely happened.

Now time to get back to some bball action.

Tony

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Worst Nightmare Ever!!!!

So I wake up this morning to find myself completely upset at one of my closest friends and I can't remember exactly why. Until it hits me, I let her borrow my Oakley Radar's while we were at a get together of some sort, and she broke them. I was furious. I remember her handing them to me like it was no big deal and that just made the situation even worse. Then she got upset at me for being mad at her. One of our mutual friends came and talked to me and said that I was being stupid about the whole situation but I was still furious. THEN I WOKE UP.

Whew. That was close. I don't know what I would do if I were to lose the most important piece of cycling/racing gear that I own, haha.

I am now sitting here with my legs just throbbing. I feel like I have have been killing myself on the bike. I have in almost 9.5 hours of cycling in the past 4 days. Tuesday I had some threshold efforts on the bike which doesn't really make my legs feel better either. But I'm glad to finally get some nicer weather. I would not have ridden yesterday but since it was 70 degrees and sunny, I was forced to by mother nature. Today I'm thinking that I'll get in a quality swim and then I might just goof around on the trainer while I watch some NCAA basketball. And then maybe go to bed around 7 pm to catch up on a little sleep.

My roommate Kerry showed me an awesome "pick'em" challenge at ESPN.com. It is called "Streak for Cash" and you make selections about who will win a certain game, or what player will score more points, etc. I just started 2 days ago and I have a streak of a two game winning streak. I am 2 - 0. He said the longest streak that he's ever had is 4, and he's been playing for a few months. According to the rules, if you get a streak of around 25 or 26, you win 1 million dollars. So here in a few weeks when I get paid, I'll blog about it, ha.

Tony

Monday, March 16, 2009

Twitter Time

So I have heard a ton of stuff about twitter and I have been asked to create an account, so I broke down and started one. It is much more involved than this blog and as you guys know, I'm not the best at updating my blog regularly. But I guess I'll give it a shot. Go to..

http://twitter.com/tonywhitetri

And all I do is text from my phone or update my status from my computer. And everyone can go to that site and see what I'm up to. And if you sign up for an account, you can have my updates sent directly to your phone via text message (you would have to register your phone with your account). For instance, Matt Reed's (pro triathlete) twitter this morning says, "Up early... Real early for me 5.30 have Crocs/ Fuji TV commercial shoot all day here in Miami. Home tonight!"

So that is about it. I'll see if I can keep up with it, and I'm probably not interesting enough to have people follow, haha.

And this past week in training was a little on the short side. My comprehensive exams took a toll on my training time because of the amount of studying I was doing, a swim meet shut down the pool for 3 days which took a toll on my swimming, and this weekend was completely horrible weather in Corbin (I didn't take my trainer with me) so I cancelled my bike ride on Saturday, and managed to get in a decent ride on Sunday but didn't have the energy for my run after the bike.

Swim: 5:50
Bike: 6:06
Run: 5:12

Total: 17:08 hours

On the bright side, this was a normal/high week for me last year so that is good that I'm considering this a down week. That's about it for now. Remember, check out twitter.

Tony

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Exams

So I have now completed the first portion of my "comprehensive" exams to receive my Master's degree. I took two exams on Thursday and one yesterday. I felt really good about one, ok about another, and not so ok about the last one. I'm hoping that I am just worrying too much and that I did ok on all of them. Assuming that I pass all of those exams, I will take an oral exam on the 10th of April, and if that goes well, then I will have my Master's Degree (assuming that I pass the one class that I'm taking right now, which I've never had trouble passing a class in the past so...).

I am now sitting in Corbin watching the temperature hover around 40 degrees, watching the snow melt under the cold rain that is falling from the sky. The radar was completely green this morning when I woke up so my 3 hour ride is looking highly doubtful. And my 14 mile run which was scheduled for tomorrow may end up happening today on the treadmill just so I may be able to ride tomorrow. If that happens, then that may be a PR for distance on a treadmill in one run, haha. Not really a PR that I am proud to be attempting to break. I was hoping the temperature might jump up a little bit, or that the rain may stop for a little, but I doubt that happens thanks to the updates from the weather channel.

I may end up making up some of these workouts next week. This week hasn't been as bad as past weeks because of my exams. I have studied a little more, and exercised a little less than I have in recent weeks. But next week the weather is supposed to be amazing, so I may try to ride almost every day. I have a Master's swim meet next weekend that I'm looking forward to. I'm swimming in several events, so hopefully I'll be able to get in a lot of yardage over the weekend. I'm signed up for: the mile, 500 free, 200 free, 100 free, 200 IM, 100 IM, and 100 fly. And I know that our Master's coach will throw me on a few relays. So that will be around 3,000 yards of racing. Who knows how much I'll warm up, and cooldown between the races. And hopefully I'll be able to throw in a run or bike in those days as well.

Well, back to laundry duty. I'm working on load 6 of 8. I kind of got behind with my dirty clothes in the past few weeks, ha.

Tony

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Happy Birthday

I just got back from a windy bike ride, and I wanted wish wish Cathy Otis a happy birthday. Thanks for all of the "gift baskets" you treat me to when I've got a test/race/etc. coming up.

Back to learning how to enable people to increase control over factors and determinants of health. And I didn't have to look off a piece of paper to ramble off that definition of health promotion. ha

Tony

Monday, March 9, 2009

Just Another Week

During the month of January, I remember posting about hitting 19 hours in a week and how tired I was after that week. But it seems like these weeks are getting a little easier now that I've been putting in a lot of hours. Especially after hitting 23+ hrs that one week. I hit around 20.5 hrs last week and it really wasn't that bad.

Swim: 7:20 hours
Bike: 7:10 hours
Run: 5:20 hours
Weights: 30 minutes
Total: 20:20 hours

I've got another hard week, but it's nothing super special. The pool is going to be closed over the weekend for a big high school swim meet, so my hours in the water will be a little down. And my exams on Thursday and Friday will have a little effect on my training between those two days. The worst part about my exams is that my 2nd exam on Thursday is scheduled at exactly the same time as the first round game of the SEC Tournament. UK is playing Ole Miss and I will be sitting in a computer lab talking about how knowledge affects Health Promotion, the steps in Program Planning, and Health Risk Assessments. Maybe I'll sneek a radio it, haha.

Dub-C

Sunday, March 8, 2009

New 5k PR. Woot Woot

Yesterday was my second 5k of the year and it was a much bigger race than the first one. Last year the top 5 guys at this race were all under 15 minutes so I knew it was going to be a fast race. I went into the race hoping to be in the low 16's and maybe even under 16 if I had a great race. I did my usual warmup and got everything ready. I lined up towards the front and the gun went off. I was about a .5 mile into the race and noticed that there was a pack of guys that were running just a tad faster than I, and I was only about 5 - 10 seconds behind that pack. Usually I am the "inbetweener" that gets stuck between the packs and I run by myself for the whole race. But I decided I would surge and sit in that front pack. Now I was not with the leaders because they were ahead of this pack but this was the first pack. I hit the first mile in 4:52, which is by far the fastest I've ever gone through the mile for a 5 k race. It didn't feel like I was killing myself to do it, so I just tried to stay relaxed and pass a few other guys. I kept my pace, passed a few guys, and made my way through that first pack. I looked at the 2nd mile and got really scared. It said 9:35, haha. I looked at the guy beside me and he told me the obvious, that the 2nd mile mark was WAY short. I just kept rolling and worked with one guy to keep our pace up. It really started to hurt with about a 1/2 mile to go. I looked at my watch at 14:45 and could see the finish line about 1/4 mile away. I picked up the pace as much as I could and crossed the finish line to see 15:50. I was really happy with this considering I have not done any speed work and I really didn't expect to be under 16. This was a 5 second PR and I haven't ran this fast for a 5k in almost 3 yrs. I guess all of that hard work this winter is already paying off. And after the race I got to come back to Lexington to go for an "easy" 2 hr ride, but that's hard to do with gusts of up to 35 mph, and a steady wind at 26 mph. Needless to say, it wasn't as easy as I wanted. And all of that work yesterday made for a not so fun long run this morning. But all I have left is an easy swim in about an hour. Then I get to study more, YAY.

Tony

Friday, March 6, 2009

STRESS!!!!!!

I have less than a week before I take 3 exams, all of which will determine if I get my Master's degree or not. I have been studying on and off for about 2 - 3 weeks now, and I'm starting to really get worried. I sat down for 2+ hours of studying last night and realized how much material that I need to know for next week. I have 2 exams next Thursday and 1 next Friday. Me and 2 - 3 of the other graduate students are having a "study party" tomorrow night and hopefully that will help me.

This week has been awesome but tough. I did the 2,000 yard swim test on Monday which didn't go as well as I wanted. I took it out in the pace that I wanted, but I blew up miserably with about 600 to go. I went through the 1st 1,000 yards in 11:30, and then came back in 11:55, ha. I just didn't feel great that day. I know I can do a lot better than that. I have had some great workouts in the pool lately so I might give it another shot pretty soon. Tuesday night was my bike test. I hopped on the Computrainer over at Beth's house and she told me what all she was going to do. Beth and Casey administered the test, and I have reason to believe they both enjoyed watching me suffer, ha. Beth especially since she got to poke me with needles. I ended up riding almost an hour on the computrainer which included 10 minutes warmup, and a 5 minute cooldown. We found that my Lactate threshold is somewhere in the 300 - 325 range and that I should focus on Ironman events according to Beth (which is not what I wanted to hear). My highest reading was 4.8 (which is very low). My first few readings weren't even above 1.

And I have ridden outside for the past 2 days straight. The last time I did that was before Clearwater, which was either early November, or late October. I got a 2.5 hr ride outside on Wednesday, and just an easy 30 miles yesterday. Yesterday's ride was pretty windy, but I rode with 4 of my buddies, so we shared the workload. It wouldn't have been a fun ride by myself.
I'm headed to Louisville this afternoon to stay with my aunt, Francie, and then running a 5k tomorrow morning. We'll see how it goes. I have been doing all long and slow stuff so this 5k is going to HURT.

T-Bird

Monday, March 2, 2009

My March Challenge

I know it seems like I do something different every month, but the racing season begins in less than 2 months and I really need to work on my nutrition, so this is going to be a nutrition challenge. I am cutting out a lot of sweets. I have a detailed list of the "no-no's" to clarify what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. I drink a lot of chocolate milk after workouts for a recovery drink so I am not putting that on the "no-no" list. But here is the list:

THE NO-NO LIST:
Chocolate Candy (candy bars of any kind, little easter chocolates, etc.)
Cookies
Brownies
Cake
Pie
Ice Cream
Deep Fried Foods

This challenge begins today, March 2nd because Casey, Beth, Eric, Tyson, and I all had a big dinner last night and the girls had already planned to have a big dessert cooked for us. And of course I ate too much of it, and that inspired me more to start this nutrition challenge.
And since Easter isn't until April, I'll still be able to enjoy some Cadbury eggs after the challenge is over.

This past week was a recovery week so there isn't much to report from it. I took yesterday off which was my first rest day in about a month. I hit around 12 hours with only about 2.5 - 3 hrs of running, about the same for biking, and around 23,000 yards for swimming.
For the February Fitness challenge, I ended up swimming 121,100 yards for the month. This is 700 more yards than last year, and a new PR for the amount of yardage I've ever swam in a month. I could have swam more, but it was my recovery week and Beth really wanted me to take it easy this past week. She wanted me rested for the upcoming weeks.

T-Bird