Week 5 of my 20 week Ironman training plan finds me away from home and in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Being out of town always changes my training schedule. Last year at this time I was in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. I got plenty of training in during that trip. That was a longer trip though. My trip to Atlantic City was only for five days.
Since I was travelling on Monday, I spent time with Susan on Sunday. No training on Sunday. Since I had a late flight, Susan and I rode our bikes together on Monday morning. I put in a few more miles on my own too. Monday's total was 22 miles on the bike. Eleven miles with Susan and 11 miles solo. The route I rode is the same on my long run days. The distance in perfect for me to test my fitness for the upcoming Southern Crescent Cycling 12 mile time trial on August 6th. I'd like to average around 22 mph but, from the look of thing, 20 mph might be more reasonable.
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| My Dodge Caliber rental car |
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| Fairfield Inn in Absecon, NJ |
The Fairfield Inn would be my home for the next few days.
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| The front of the hotel |
From my room window I could see the casinos (over the Staples and Home Depot) across the bay.
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| There's the Staples! |
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| Windmills off in the distance |
If you look closely at the image above (click to enlarge) you'll see five towering three bladed windmills.
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| An excellent view of the Home Depot parking lot |
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| My hotel room |
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| Another view of my room |
On a scale from 1 to 5 with 1 being the least desirable and 5 being the most desirable, I'd give this hotel a 3.5. The location was right off of the expressway so, while it was not noisy it wasn't very scenic and it was a terrible location to start a run.
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| The hotel gym (first image using my new camera's timer) |
Tuesday seemed to foretell the rest of my training for the week. I left the lobby of the hotel just as it started to drizzle. Within a quarter mile I was plodding along in a full downpour of rain and dodging puddles. I turned around after running only about a mile. So, I ran 2 miles and was soaking wet. I ran 2 more miles on the hotel gym treadmill. My thoughts of a long run were crushed. All my motivation was lost.
Wednesday was a better day. The weather was better so I checked out possible running areas. The Edwin B Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge looked like it might fit the bill on the map. I drove there after work. I'm sure the refuge is very nice if you are wildlife, but the gravel road was not what I was looking for. I resolved myself to the treadmill back at the hotel. The hotel gym is meager to say the least. It has two nice treadmills, an elliptical machine, a bench, and some dumbbells. The treadmills have built-in TV's and there is another TV on the wall. Both TV's are more of a nuisance than a welcome distraction. I found that my channel changing finger was getting quite a workout. At least I didn't miss Tosh.0. I need a workout redemption.
I ran for 7 miles - 60 minutes on the treadmill before it automatically went to cool down mode. What the heck is that! I was working on negative splits, every mile I'd increase the speed by .2 mph. At mile 7 I'm ready to start to kick it but the machine had another idea. I restarted the treadmill and ran another 1.3 miles. That's 8.3 miles at a 8:15 pace totalling 1:08:30 running.
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| That was my shirt! |
On Thursday I decided not to get fancy and just hit the treadmill again. That's when I noticed that the shirt I wore on Tuesday had been snagged on my Polar watch/HRM clasp. That sucks! I ran about 2.2 miles on the treadmill. Once again, I just couldn't get into it.
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| One of about fifty seagulls hanging out at the Micky D's where I bought a salad |
On Friday I traveled back to Atlanta. I had a super early flight which, as expected, makes it very difficult to sleep the night before. I had the opportunity to get a full pat down at the airport. Luckily for me the Grizwolds were also leaving Atlantic City that morning and I was right behind them. What a cluster!
Back at home now I got situated most of the day then it was time to swim. I swam 1.85 miles in 1 hour and 11 minutes. I ran a short 0.7 miles after that.
On Saturday I ran 8.5 miles in 1 hour and 6 minutes around the lake. That's when I noticed that someone had
stolen a plant from a neighboring subdivision entrance on my normal running route. What kind of person does that?
Anyway, that's my training for the week. I ran 23.7 miles in 3 hours and 12 minutes. I swam 1.85 miles and biked 22 miles. All told I worked out just less than 6 hours. That's less that half of my goal. I'm gonna have to suffer this coming week.
Thanks for reading.
