So I've decided to abandon my speedy 10km plan in favour of some half-marathon training. I'm registered for two more HMs this season (Aug. 28 and Sept. 18) so I need to focus on my distance rather my speed. I'll save the 10km plan for during the winter or something. Part of the reason for my decision was my disastrous 10km run tonight. 10km is actually a lie because I only got through 7.4km of it. My legs were feeling a little weak after my speedy run yesterday, so I shouldn't have been surprised but it sucked nevertheless. I have ~5 weeks until the Quebec City Half-Marathon and ~8 weeks to the Army Run in Ottawa. I've modified a plan from the Toronto Women's HM (http://www.towomensrun.com/images/2hr-215-17wks.pdf) to account for the shortened time-frame. I think I can get away with only 8 weeks of training because of the base I established for my races in June. I'm also trying to finish in the 2:00-2:15 range, rather than 2:15-2:30 which was my goal for the Saguenay/Lac Brome races. This new plan is scheduled to start on Monday, so tomorrow I'm going to redo the 5km Fartlek from last week, Saturday is Gazelles and Sunday is the Quebec City Triathlon.
Speaking of triathlons, I'm starting to wonder about my future in the sport. I really enjoy biking and running, but swimming - I really don't like swimming. In the pool, it's not so bad, but open water sucks. Part of it is that I'm not a good swimmer, so the workouts are hard and I'm more likely to skip them, which just compounds the problem. It's also difficult trying to find time for workouts because the pool schedules are terrible and it's so far to drive. Unfortunately, during the year, the base only offers 1 hour of lane swimming per week, which is just not enough. So I have to try to piece together pool time from the pools in La Baie and Chicoutimi and that costs money as well. Basically, it's a big pain in the butt and I'm starting to wonder if it's worth it. I haven't made any decisions yet, but if I stick to just biking and running, I can still do duathlons and running races and perhaps venture into bike racing as well. Thoughts?
On another note, I made quinoa for the first time tonight - Lemon Herb Quinoa. It tasted good but when Chris saw it, he said it looked like vomit. It turned out a lot darker than the pictures, so I'm not sure what went wrong. I'm going to research some more recipes, buy some more quinoa and try again next week.
Speaking of next week, we are off to Kingston on Monday. Chris has been experiencing some problems with his knee since the surgery, namely a giant blood blister that exploded then imploded or something. Warning - graphic details to follow. It started off as a bump of blood, exploded (blood everywhere), then looked like a dark-coloured bruise under the skin, then it started to grow again until it protruded about an inch. When Chris saw the physiotherapist on Monday, he did not like what he saw so he sent us over to see the doctor. She took a look at it and decided it needed to be cleaned out, so she removed the dead skin that was covering the bump and scraped out all the coagulated blood. At the end of it, instead of a bump, there was a crater, about the size of a quarter and about 1/2 inch deep. The doctor took some photos to send to the surgeon in Kingston to see what he wanted to do about it. She told us to be on standby, packed the wound with dressing and sent us home. Long story short, we have been at the clinic every day this week, getting the bandages changed and waiting to find out what's going on. At first, the surgeon was apparently on vacation until August, then today we found that he's back and wants to see Chris on Tuesday. It's also possible that we will have to see a plastic surgeon next week; to do what, I don't know but probably something about closing this giant hole. So we leave Monday, appointment on Tuesday, back on Wednesday. However, this does mean that I get the pleasure of driving through the park 3 times in about 24 hours (there and back on Sunday morning for my race in Quebec City, then Monday morning on the way to Kingston).
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