70 days and $3185 to go!

Because I have agreed to be an assistant coach for the TNT Greater Cleveland Triathlon Team, several weeks ago, I was given the opportunity to learn triathlon coaching from the master, Dave Scott. It took a little creativity, however, to get to the venue because I had already scheduled a trip to Florida on the preceeding week. So, after spending the week in Florida, I returned to Hopkins Airport in Cleveland at around 2:30PM on friday, 3/19. With no time to get home, I waited in the airport for about 5 hours to catch a 7:15PM flight to Washington, D.C. I was travelling light with my customary one "carry-on" so I managed to stuff bathing suit and exercise chords in with my running shoes and shorts.

The flight to Washington, D.C. was uneventful and the plane landed around 8:30PM. My plan was to take the Metro to "Foggy Bottom" (I love that name) which would leave a 10 minute walk to the hotel. After puzzling over the fare machine for several minutes, I finally solved the riddle with a little help from another rider and managed to purchase a one-way ticket. The ride from the airport was a straight shot on the blue line. But, I accidentally got on the yellow line. My error wasn't apparent for several stops since the trains parallel each other for several miles. After seeing 2 or 3 stops that I didn't recognize, I decided to get off and take a closer look at my map. Backtracking for several stops on the yellow line and heading in the opposite direction on the blue line eventually got me to "Foggy Bottom".

The weekend with Dave Scott was a great experience and I spent time with a number of great TNT coaches, including Dea, of whose courage I spoke last week. It was a very busy and exhausting weekend, but I learned a lot about triathlon coaching.

I returned home on Sunday and crashed! My training this week was back on schedule, with three mile runs on tuesday and thursday and a 6 mile run on wednesday. After a day of on friday, I tackled my longest distance so far, 13 miles, on saturday. The weather was perfect and I covered the distance in about 2 hours, 15 minutes. I'm still walking 1 minute out of every 10. That seems to keep my calf cramps at bay. However, I have had to work on them with "The Stick", massaging every hour, to loosen them up again. Yesterday, I took my first bike-ride of 2010, covering about 12-13 miles. It felt very good to get back on the bike. And after the long run on saturday, it was a good change of pace.