salvaged smithereens (training notes 10/26/07)

training this week was almost shot to smithereens. and that may be putting it kindly.

it wasn't laziness.

as the previous posts this week indicate, the wildfires pretty knocked all the build workouts i had planned this week. not because i'm living in a fire area--South Pasadena and Los Angeles are not the same places as Malibu, Lake Arrowhead, Orange County, San Diego, etc. but more because the smoke and ash produced from the wildfires made the almost unbreathable.

and if it wasn't unbreathable, it was still dangerous. using the U.S. government air quality website for L.A. (reference: AirNow.gov: Los Angeles Metro & Inland Orange County) the air quality forecast most of this week has been rated "unhealthy."

i did manage to get in a long swim Monday morning (before the fires erupted). and i got so frustrated Friday that i went ahead and put in a 140 minute ride on a stationary bike in the school gym. probably not a good idea, since the air didn't feel any better inside than it did outside. but at least i assuaged my paranoia...hopefully not at the expense of too much danger to my health.

you can see my workouts this week on my Google calendar (click on the "Google Training" button to the right, or reference: http://www.google.com/calendar/render).

the bigger concern is the coming weeks. the news says the smoke and ash is so fine that it is likely to linger for weeks. rains may help to filter it down, and there was a little rain this morning, but it's going to take some time. which means that this puts my build workouts for the foreseeable future into jeopardy...serious jeopardy.

we'll see. i'm going to cross my fingers and keep an eye on the air quality forecast. and hope.