Training: July 12, 2007

There's getting to be a lot of posts on my blog, so I just want to remind everyone of what I am doing here.

Yesterday I did a 2-a-day. In the morning I went to the gym, and because my legs are still really sore I did all upper body stuff. This is good for me to help me overcome my issues, but it also reminded me that I am not particularly strong in the bench press. That's okay; I don't think the Urbanathlon requires me to lay on my back and push things up off my chest at any point during the race.

The morning was fine, and that was supposed to be it for the day, but then I remembered that I had to go and take care of Brooke and Kent (friends of mine)'s cat, Annabelle. They live about 25 minutes away by bike and it was a really nice night so I decided to bike up there instead of drive** (plus, it was a greener decision). So suddenly I had my second workout of the day, which I thought would be okay from time to time because that way it gets me used to exerting myself even when I might be a little bit tired (say, at mile 12 of a 13.1 mile race). Anyhow, it was kinda late when I got started and I didn't want to wear sunglasses while biking because biking in the dark with sunglasses on is probably not the smartest idea. It was also not the smartest idea to bike without something covering my eyes, however, because there are swarms of gnats all along the Lakeshore Drive bike path. It's kinda nasty. But even nastier is that some of these little buggers got in my eyes as I was biking. Yeah, gross. But even nastier than that is that this morning I woke up with (I think) pink eye (and crusties in my eyes)! So I think I got pink eye from Lakeshore gnats (question to any doctors reading this: is that even possible, or am I just having an anti-bug reaction in my eye?). So that was kinda a bummer. But I have eyedrops, so it's not getting me too down.

The moral of the story is: don't do your second workout (if you are even going to do one) too late at night. You get bugs in your eyes.

Plus, it's hard to fall asleep after exerting yourself.

**I actually had another, secret reason for wanting to bike. I think that bikers and sprinters have really cool calves, and I would like for mine to be bigger. I know, it's kinda weird but apparently I am not the only person who has this obsession. So that is a side goal of the Urbanathlon, in addition to raising money for GIRF--to have strong legs, and specifically, larger calves, by October 20. Two people I know who have really nice calves are Eileen (hey, don't begrudge a guy for marrying a woman with a nice set of legs) and my awesome friend Melanie, who has an insightful and amusing blog about being an expat in Singapore. Won't you keep her company, too?