A Watched Pot Never Boils

There were a few things that got in they way of my planned track workout yesterday and, unfortunately, none of them were a trip to the beer distributor. School has started here on Long Island, or at least some districts have started school - others are keeping their children stuck in a state of school-less limbo while their teachers are forced to go back to work for meetings. The ridiculous part of it all is that all public schools will be closed Thursday and Friday for the Rosh Hashanah holiday (Happy New Year to all of my Jewish readers!), which essentially means that children (and teachers) were rudely forced out of their summer revelry and back into school after a three day weekend and will then proceed to be given a four day weekend.

Actually, the more I am thinking about it, the more I think EVERY work week should be like this. Why do we only have a two day weekend but a five day work week? Everyone knows that only two days of productivity gets done during the work week it would make for happier employees. Or at least let's consider a three or four day work week - perhaps a rotating schedule?

Anyway, I don't know where I was going with this but back to the track. So due to the start of the school year, I realized after leaving work that I would not be able to get on the track until at least after 6. Because I am so busy and important and so many people rely on my awesomeness*, that just wouldn't work for my schedule. In reality, I had a Hose Company meeting last night at 7:30, which would have been cutting it a bit close for the planned workout if I wanted to shower and not offend the noses of those around me.

But then I remembered that my new triathlon shoes would be arriving so I sped home, hoping that they would be waiting for me on my doorstep, eagerly anticipating my first workout in them. However, mostly because I am unlucky, my doorstep was empty of any packages and I was bummed. No track workout. No bike ride in my new shoes. I guess I might as well just sit here on the couch watching mindless television for a few hours and wallow in self-pity while doing no training and telling myself that it's all because "I'm in a taper".

And I did just that - for 45 minutes. Then I realized that waiting around to see when my shoes would be delivered would do me no good, so I dragged my lazy ass up off the couch, got changed into running shoes and went out for a run.

It was fantastic. The heat wave from Monday had disappeared over the course of the day, and by the time I ran that evening it was absolutely beautiful. I ended up banging out five miles at a 7:30 clip and then ran an easy mile cool down. And whaddya think was waiting for me on my doorstep when I arrived home? Yep, my brand-spanking-new cycling shoes.

Now I just have to break those puppies in before Sunday, which means an easy spin today or tomorrow to get the feel for them and see if they are set-up properly and then another one this weekend before the race just to make sure everything is good to go.

I still would like to get my track workout done but it's getting close to race time - and I am in a taper, ya know. It's either today or tomorrow for that one, and since school is out tomorrow, I am leaning more towards tomorrow. I'm not doing 1600 repeats, but rather 800s and 400s, so the intensity will be high but the duration will be shorter. I'm also only running a 10k as part of the tri on Sunday, so I don't need to put in the longer repeats like I need to do for my marathon training. And you should totally trust everything I say because I am a highly respected and famous coach.

*Read: not important, but I stand by busy and awesome!