Bill and Cathy McArthur Spring/Summer/Fall 2011: 7
Monday, July 11, Bill had an off day on his weekly training schedule:
Tuesday, 7/12 - kayak day, up to 2 or 2 1/2 hours, keep your heart rate below 130
Wednesday, 7/13 - evening run, hopefully it will be cool, this is a fartlek run (Swedish for intervals or so I've been told), you will do this run out on the road while alternating your pace. 10 comfortable warmup, 5 minutes hard, 2 minute easy, 4 min hard, 2 min easy, 3 min hard, 1 min easy, 2 min hard, 1 min easy, 1 min hard, 1 min easy, 5 min cool down at comfortable pace. The hard efforts are not all out sprints, they are slightly faster than target 5k time. The easy minutes are very restrained (could feel like you could walk faster at some points) to allow your heart rate to drop. The idea is to train your heart rate to recover more quickly after the hard efforts in order to allow your better to perform more efficiently at race pace.
Thursday, 7/14 - this would be a good morning workout if you can get it in, 18 min run/20 min bike/18 min run, nothing too hard effort wide, heart rate no higher than 125, if there is a recovery du workout, this could be it
Friday, 7/15 - off day
Saturday, 7/16 - RAIN. Focus on your heart rate during the ride. If you see it starting to climb above 120 back off the pace until you have less than 20 miles to go. The biking heart rate is always lower since there is no impact, but if it starts to climb higher without dropping, then that is a warning sign of fatigue and the body working inefficiently.
Bill drove to Dover to meet with Dave Moses. Bill bought a spare tire and tube for his bike. Then, Bill drove to Jiffy Lube and got the car ready for the trip to Indiana. Bill ate a salad for lunch at TGI Fridays while he waited. Bill also went to AAA to get some maps of the midwest. On his way back, Bill stopped at the Lewes Fish House to pick up shrimp. They made a mistake and cooked the shrimp although Bill had asked for it "uncooked" and "raw." We had John and Diane Hartnett over for shrimp kebabs. Bill put the shrimp on the upper rack of the grill to keep from over cooking them.
Tuesday, Bill went out for a kayak paddle. The rest of the day was spent getting gear and XTerra ready for the trip to Indiana. We had pasta for dinner.
Wednesday, we awoke at 5:00 AM and got organized to leave. We ate breakfast at Cracker Barrel in Rehoboth Beach. Bill had decided to drive to Shippensburg via the Bay Bridge and I70 and the plan worked perfectly. It took about 3:45 to get to Shippensburg's campus. We were a bit confused about the new buildings and traffic patterns, but we found the Mathematics office and visited with young Winston Crawley, Pam, and Doug Ensley with a quick hello to Lenny Jones. We went to Knutes sports bar for a salad bar lunch. Then we checked into Shippen Place, changed into exercise gear and walked to our old neighborhood to visit with the Crawleys. Bill went out on his Fartlek workout. Afterward, we chilled out for a while and then met with Howie Bell and the Crawleys at the University Grille in the hotel. After dinner, we and Howie joined Bill and Lee Hynes and Jim Hanlon out on the patio of the restaurant. Bill got a flashback to pre-1989 with the hard drinking and slurred words of Bill Hynes and Jim. We got to bed much later than Bill had hoped.
Thursday, Bill was up at 5:00 AM for another workout. It was a pain in the butt to take the bike off the rack and put it back on for a short ride, but the ride was perfect for some skills that Bill would need in the RAIN ride. When Bill got back, we ate breakfast, loaded Howie's gear in the car and left for Columbus, OH. We stopped at Panera Bread for lunch. We arrived at La Quinta during mid-afternoon and took a dip in the pool. We ate dinner at Olive Garden and slept with the bike in our room. This was the night that Bill needed a really good night's rest and he got it.
Friday, Bill was up early to put a plastic box with the dirty clothes bag and bike cover on top of the XTerra. He also mounted his old helmet on top of the box as a decoration for RAIN. We ate breakfast in the motel and headed for Richmond, IN at 8:30 AM. We met Son Bill at a Tim Hortons. We had some coffee and then moved Bill's bike and gear to our car. We had to use some clever Physics to prevent the two bikes from banging into each other. We parked Son Bill's car near the finish line and then drove the RAIN route on U.S. 40 to Indianapolis. We ate at a Red Robin, the favorite restaurant of many obese people. Then, we drove U.S. 40 to Terre Haute, where we picked up our packets at the Drury Inn. We drove to Saint Mary-of-the-Woods and checked-in to our very primitive dorm rooms. We headed out for a sushi dinner at a Japanese restaurant and then went to Krogers for supplies. We all managed to turn-in early in preparation for a big day ahead.
Saturday, was a big day for all of us. It was a very successful day with Son Bill doing an awesome non-stop ride at 21 mph, Bill making it through the day in 12 hours with a 15.4 mph moving average, and Howie and Cathy performing magnificently as a SAG team. Bill was thrilled that Son Bill hung around for his finish. Bill gave Howie his finisher's keychain as a symbol of his essential role in Bill's finishing. We parted ways with Son Bill and motored on to the La Quinta in Columbus, where we shared a pizza for dinner. We all slept well.
Sunday, Bill got up for a 30 minute walk. We met for breakfast at 6:30 AM and were on the road at 7:17 AM. We were all very tired, so the driving was tough. We dropped Howie at Bill Hyne's house in Shippensburg and went to Knutes for lunch (after waiting in vain for service for 10 minutes at Biscotti's) of salad bar. We were back on the road shortly and had to stop for coffee around Frederick, MD because Bill was falling asleep at the wheel. We finally got home at 6:00 PM and put away all of our gear before picking up a pizza at Grotto. We viewed the really lousy "No Strings Attached" - a waste of a good cast. Bed never felt so good.
Bill and Cathy