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Discovering a new place to run is always a highlight for a runner or triathlete. Today's find was the America Tobacco Trail (ATT), a rails-to-trails program that now boasts 22 miles of soft and shaded cinder trails. Why didn't I explore these earlier??
A few factors make a running venue great for training: good footing, soft surface, shade, mile markers, absence of cars, and depending on the workout, pancake flat, or hilly terrain. The ATT offers all of these option in the flat variety, and for today's long run that's exactly what I wanted. I've found that long hilly runs are too much for triathlon training. Downhills pound the legs too much, especially legs that have been pre-stressed with a whopping bike workout the day before.
Today's run was a 15-miler. 20' warm-up, 4 strides, and then 1,2,2,1-miles with 1 rest per mile at an upbeat pace. I'm a crappy runner now and could only muster 5'45" to 6'10" mile pace. This needs work.
An added bonus is that the ATT trailhead is just a few miles from Jordan Lake's prime swim spot, so getting the recovery started with a cool-down swim is that much easier.
Sunday Morning
Hopped on my bike very excited this morning and cruised through my neighborhood, across Ephesus Church Road, and through The Oaks to the Chapel Hill Country Club. The North Carolina Aquatic Master's are hosting practice here while UNC's pool is closed for yearly renovations. My excitement centered around swimming in a pool that's close enough to bike to. Morning swim + easy bike ride there = double-awesomeness.
My mood deflated quickly. No coach at the pool and no other swimmers, except two similiarly confused fishes-on-land. We took a pool tour of Chapel Hill in Sarah's Prius, but none were open so the swim was out. I'll have to swim open-water in Jordan Lake tomorrow.
Friday, August 29th
The drive from Madison to Chapel Hill was a 930-miles, Wisconsin to North Carolina is a looong day in the car but worth the effort. Yesterday I finished the first rotation of my 3rd year of med school, which means today I am a free man--and I'm spending that freedom via a month-long training camp in Carolina to prepare for Ironman Hawaii. The timing, which couldn't be better, is due to random luck, not careful planning, it's simply the schedule the med-school-rotation-lottery dealt me. One full month to go crazy, train myself into a happy and exhausted oblivion, and I couldn't be happier! Then back to Madison to start pediatrics just in time to taper for Hawaii. Not bad!
The drive was smooth. Erin burned me 12 hours of This American Life and David Sedaris' Dress Dress Your Family in Corduory and Denim, it's intensitya nd comedy kept my ears and mind entertained during what would otherwise be a mind-numbing drive. Only one traffic jam in Chicago, no speeding tickets (though the cops were out in force), and no accidents. Despite driving more conservatively than my usual "That depends on what the definition of 'Speeding' is," I still made good time. I was worried about getting pulled over because my registration is expired. The NC car registration couldn't be renewed from Wisconsin over the web because I haven't paid my car tax. You must be thinking "How did this irresponsible bum get into med school?!" My point exactly. I'm not an irresponsible bum, at least I wasn't 2 years ago when school started. But med school is all-consuming. It distorts a student's perspective the same way a massive star bends light rays coming from a distant galaxy. In the days leading up to an anatomy and histology exam normal daily activities like sleeping and showering just aren't as important as memorizing what structures traverse the pterygopalatine fossa. It's just memorization that will be immediately forgotten when a new wave of facts crashes onto the shore of our minds. And behind it another wave, and then another--an infinite ocean of facts and details. We'd be better served by learning where to find the information and to focus on why it's clinically important. Some of my thoughts during the drive that I was happy to put behind me, as my focus shifted to a month free from memorization. For the next four weeks, my thoughts will be simple: go faster! Let's begin...
