This has turned into the summer of outdoor home repair.
So while it is summer and I should be free to gallivant around town….swimming, biking, and running to my hearts desire, I’m bound to the schedule of those helping us get our exterior in order.
So I sit and wait…
For the painters, for the guys repairing our failing bulkhead (a seawall keeping out land OUT of the bayou), the gutter man, the pool leak detector, the pool REPAIRMAN (because the guy who FINDS the leak can’t actually REPAIR it…WTF???!!), and the landscapers….
There’s a story here….
So I walked out back, early one morning, and said hello to our wonderful painters. I looked at our pool/hot tub and noticed the hot tub was totally empty and leaking into the yard.
GREAT!
So I filled it up and went to run my 6 miles, rationalizing I’d “test” how quickly it emptied…
Yea well, it was empty 52 minutes and 49 seconds later.
Also why I called the leak detector guy….who then told me there was a leak (no??!!), but he doesn’t fix them!
I then got to perform my Crossfit routine for the week by digging out the yard to FIND it…
Oh, and I found it alright….
And my wonderful pool guy came out on Saturday and fixed it. 
And my wonderful husband got to backfill the yard.
I’d like to say this is a rare occurrence around here, but it’s not. We’re starting to believe we built this house on ancient burial grounds or something because this has pretty much been how our life has gone since we built the place 4 years ago.
If all else fails, laugh!
Often!
I’ve gotten my training in, but it has been a chore.
- Swimming: I’m averaging right at 9000 yrds a week divided up over 3 swims. I tried like hell, this week, to drop down to a 2 beat kick and finally gave it up. I’ve used a 4-6 beat for so long that it was not only slowing me down, but also ruining my roll to the point my back started to hurt. I have added in a few more kick sets though to help boost the overall strength of my kick. I know a lot of triathletes don’t utilize a lot of kicking, but I was a swimmer first and I kick quite a bit.
- Cycling: I hit right around 6 hours in the saddle, also split over 3 sessions; 2 shorter/1 longer. The big development was my Quarq started misbehaving and you’d like to think I could no longer pedal without it. I LOVE that thing! I’m hoping it was due to some residual dirt and grime on the magnets, but I won’t know for sure until after todays ride. I spent yesterday de-greasing everything, giving it all a good cleaning, and then a fresh application of Rock and Roll Dry Lube. That is some good stuff!!! If that doesn’t do the trick then it’s off to the LBS for some adjustments with the torque wrench. I’ll keep ya’ posted!!
- Running: It’s hot and humid, but I’m doing alright. For the first time in ages I’ve got a really good grip on the heat and how to manage my longer runs in the current conditions. My longest so far (post Gulf Coast) is 1:10 and building. It’s the shorter ones that tend to cause me more problems because they usually involve drills, hills, or pick-ups…no speed work per-say, but enough “work” to make me a little more uncomfortable in the heat. The goal, during those workouts, has been to not only complete the session, but to keep the negative chatter away. So far, I’ve been able to do so.
Next week is a step back week and my coach was nice enough to sneak a run test onto the schedule as well…
It’s been a while since that was evaluated so it should certainly be interesting.
I hope everyone is having a great summer training and racing.
Best of Luck to everyone tackling Ironman Kansas and Ironman Boise this weekend as well!
Race Happy, My Friends!
