One Night in Bangkok

I'll have to ask you to excuse the intermittent posting of the last week -- just as I'll have to ask myself to excuse the odd workouts missed. You see, as I mentioned previously, work took me to Thailand this past week. Amazing, really, as in a span of four days I went from San Diego and back again. Thankfully, my cousin has a condo in Bangkok, so in addition to a "posh" place to stay in a city which, despite all of the wonderful culture, can overwhelm you with its "grit," I also had a beautiful pool in which I was able to complete a good workout. There was a workout room as well that had a stationary bike, but I decided to let my body rest from and for two 24-hour travel stints and just focus on a nice, long, partly recuperative (from the 90+ degree heat anyway) swim.

2000yd Base Swim

Stepping out onto the sixth floor pool deck from my cousin's Bangkok condo was inspirational enough. A very modern city these days (as opposed to 20 years ago), the skyline sat on the horizon. Plus, it was one of those "horizon" pools where you look across water level and it just "falls off" into infinity. A little unnerving, understanding how high I was, but there's no real risk of floating off into the abyss.

What there is in one of those pools, interesting enough, is a bit of a current. You see the pool is fed from a gorgeous fountain on the left side, and the water travels across to the right, where it runs over the edge onto a filter which pumps it (presumably) back to the fountain. The water traveling left to right actually created a bit of a surface current and complementary undercurrent. Nothing a moderate swimmer like me couldn't swim through, but a bit of an added challenge for a long set nonetheless.

I also needed to keep in touch with the outside world during this swim. I had traveled to Bangkok for a US Embassy appointment, but due to extreme heat and a problem with the Embassy's air conditioning, attorneys were told to stay out and only permitted to discuss matters post-interview. So, I had to keep my phone (and internet) close by. This resulted in a 5x400 yard swim, checking my phone quickly after every 200 yards and the phone and internet after every 400. I did get a few messages, and even a text from the Lovely Wife who was home enduring a deposition at the time, but thankfully the client matter didn't need me until after the swim.

All that being taken into account, the swim was fairly uneventful. The pool was only 20 yards long (as opposed to the typical 25yd pool in America), so I had to turn more often, but that was basically immaterial. The short rbreaks every 400 yards left me feeling refreshed as I started every new set, and the current forced me to pull hard through the pool while at the same time focusing on technique so that I could keep my pace for two kilometers. One solid sunburn and a soak in the air conditioned internet room next door for a few hours and my mission of getting a workout in before my 24hour flight back home was accomplished.

90min Foundation Bike

Despite every intention of working out the day after I returned home, life got in the way. Not fatigue or jet lag so much -- in fact, I was blessed with what amounted to basically no jet lag on my return -- but more crap that needed to be done that had been put off for two weeks of travel to Asia and Europe.

On Saturday, however, an opening appeared for me to get in the "long ride" of this, week four. Thankfully, every fourth week is a recovery week, so that ride was only 90 minutes long. An easy ride to accomplish on the bike at the gym -- when done on a Saturday afternoon, there's also plenty on the attached television to take your mind off of the slogging.

And slog I did. Finishing the ride fairly strong, averaging approximately 16mph (23+ miles completed) and 155 watts (not great, but not bad considering I was off of the bike for a week), I was happy to have completed the ride. At least a dozen times my mind tried to convince me to go less than the full 90 but, frankly, knowing I'd have to admit my transgression to the poor souls who read my blog kept me plugging. Plus, the USA/Canada baseball game was a pretty good one, even though Justin Morneau stranded the winning run on second base to essentially end the game for Canada. As the USA celebrated its victory, the clock struck 90 and I headed home feeling as if I was ready to get back on the horse for week five.

1800yd Base Swim

Having accomplished the long ride of recovery week four, now I needed to focus and try and accomplish the 1800 yard weekend base swim. The Lovely Wife provided good motivation on that front as she wanted to swim as well. The kids seemed to be over their colds, which had ravaged the whole two weeks I was traveling, so the gym day care would suffice.

For a little over 40 minutes, I reintroduced myself to the gym pool, the sun of San Diego (as intense, but significantly less hot than that in Bangkok), and the muscles which had been beaten up first by a 24-hour flight, and then by a 90 minute plod on the bike the day before. To be honest, the damage was minimal. I had a little wrist pain partway through (the result of my vigorous 90 minute muscle massage in Thailand?), but all in all, the 1800 yards felt significant but hardly insurmountable. In fact, I commented to my wife that I think I could comfortably swim it again, closing in on the 2.4 miles needed in August for the race. Now riding a bike 112 miles afterwards? That's presently a different matter, but God knows there's plenty of time.

See you next week for a new twist on the baseline work, now that the recovery week is concluded. The bikes will incorporate more hills and the swims more sprint work. Both have the effect of making me gulp for air, but then that's a good thing, right? See you soon... ;-)