Training - Or How Not To Train

So the house is listed.

It took some pretty hard work to get the upstairs presentable and the future missus and I spent all of Saturday and Monday working on it. Sunday, of course, was the Hartford race, followed by a visit to the future mother-in-law's house.

I downloaded the helmet cam tape of Hartford as well as the Cat 4 "regular" clips of Hartford but have yet to assimilate them. Actually, I'm still working on the Plainville helmet cam clip.

Shows you where my priorities lay right now.

The house work explains the lateness of the Hartford post. Although I wrote a little bit of it on Monday (I wrote the title that night), I wrote the majority of it in a hotel room on Tuesday night, bleary eyed, and doing all sorts of random commands using the abhorred touchpad (I much prefer the Bobbitt stick or, as what I just learned it's really called, the "track point"). Actually I think a trackball would be cool (think Missle Command).

Whatever.

I'd gone on a very tough trip for work - waking up at 4 AM Tuesday, flying out, working till about 9 PM (in the Windy City), then working for another eight or so hours the next day. No surfing the web or anything. I spent all that time standing, kneeling, or sitting on a floor in a data center and doing data center things.

I had a few drinks after the first night of work. It seems this is the year for drinking - a few in Florida, a few in Las Vegas, and now a few in Chicago. At the race in Hartford a guy who did well said he figures his good form is due to cutting out drinking. Since I can't cut it out (I don't really drink - I have perhaps a dozen drinks a year) I figured I should start. This way when I quit I'll get really good.

Actually, that's not the case. I'm just joking.

I had a few drinks because I just wanted to have a few drinks. Nevertheless I figure I'll be working on doubling my annual drinking levels with the wedding and whatnot coming up (12 more drinks this year isn't too much of a stretch).

On the way back from Chitown we had an aborted take off. We had an interesting (read "terrible") taxiing experience. First we pulled out of the gate on time. As soon as we backed up about 50 feet the pilot came on to state that due to congestion in LaGuardia, we'd have to wait for 30 minutes.

We'd actually chosen the airline because of its online performance. Now I know - you pull out of the gate, that's when you've departed. Doesn't matter when you take off.

So we sit in the stifling plane for a half hour then start taxiing. We're trucking along for a plane, bouncing down the taxiways, and the pilot guns it to cross a runway. I mean he really gunned it - I thought we were going to take off. I figure there was a plane about to go across that intersection and the pilot didn't want to be there when it happened.

We took a turn, still going pretty fast for being on the ground, and then slowed. Then we started trucking along again and the pilot guns it for about 10 seconds. Then gets off the gas. The second bit sounded like a tire deflating.

Like "wwwwwhhhhrrrrrrrrrr-ssssssssssssssss".

We coasted down. I thought the pilot was scurrying across another live runway, but when we started taxiing back to the gate, everyone realized something was wrong. Apparently some alarm went off when they gunned it to take off. It was a false positive alarm, they replaced a microswitch, and we were on the way. Late.

I got home at 1 AM.

All this bent leg with no movement (at the data center and then on the plane and then driving home) meant my legs were unusually confined. I didn't get that "sitting in a plane and get a blood clot and die" thing but my muscles were twitchy and not feeling great when I "de-planed". After a couple hours of fitful sleep my calf cramped so badly that I thought I was going to pass out. I'm still hobbling along so this was an unusually hard cramp.

Today I worked from home, kept things neat (important for a listed house), and kept an eye on the plumber (he fixed something he should have done a while ago). Working from home is good in that there isn't an unlimited supply of chocolate, nuts, chips, soda, and coffee like there is at work. At home I have garden burgers, English muffins, and 100 calorie snack packs. So I haven't eaten too much junk today.

My next race is the Nutmeg State Games - June 9th. Hopefully I'll be able to get some proper training before then. I might be able to start today, after work and some decluttering in the house. I'd take a tandem ride. Or a short spin. I'll even take a basement spin.

And some crunches to kill the Rising Belly.