Wordled!

Seriously, how cool is this?! I'd love to make it a t-shirt. Better yet, maybe I'll wait until after the 70.3 to do it. I'd love to see how the words change.

This was on another blogger's site. What you do is go to the link on http://www.wordle.net/ and then copy in your blog link. It'll look at all the words you use on your blog and orders them by how often they appear. Beautiful, isn't it? You can change up the colors, fonts and even the way they're all layered.

1 week until the half in Vegas. I'm so not ready! LOL! Plow through it!

I need help: How to break the food cycles?

I'm so frustrated with my weight. But I have nobody to blame but the person in the mirror.

Yesterday I was in the doctor's office for a regular checkup and while waiting, noticed a book on a shelf nearby, "You on a Diet: The Guide to Waist Management" or something like that. I thumbed through it as time ticked by.

One page about two-thirds of the way caught my eye. It had to do with particular types of snacks and what eating them blindly meant. It struck me hard. Soft sweets, like ice cream, which are the bane of my existance supposedly mean that you're depressed. Salty filler snacks, like Cheez-It's or pita chips, mean you're sexually frustrated. Damn! I guess I need to get happy and get a date, huh? LOL!

Workouts have been haphazard the past month. I've been having issues with waking up at night for about an hour, which causes me to set the alarm back to normal wake up time (5:45) instead of workout time (4:45). I've been frequenting lunch and happy hours with friends in the few times of being social. And to top it off, school is kicking my butt and I tend to munch while sitting at the computer.

I try to eat a good meal at lunch, preferably making this the largest of the day. The problems come when I get home and get into the habit of eating just to eat. How do you break that cycle? And how do you break the cycle of wanting something sweet after a meal. It's not big, sometimes just a bite of a piece of chocolate or even a cookie, but how do you get past that?

Many times at the end of the evening, I feel full and still not satisfied. It's frustrating. And I see it showing in my weight and how the clothes are fitting worse these days. You'd think someone who is good at planning and organizing might be good at doing the same things in her own life, but it's just not happening.

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions? I'd love to hear from you all either in the comments or even off line. adventurechick3@yahoo.com You rock!

200 days

Tomorrow marks the 200 day countdown to the Kansas Half IM. 200 days to prep. 200 days to agonize. 200 days to train.

I'm just thinking out loud here. Okay, the keyboard clatter is about as loud as it gets over the crackle of the fire.

I'm wondering if trying to do a 70.3 next summer is feasible?

I'm wondering if it's too much to tackle that and continue with my current school schedule?

I'm wondering if it all makes sense?

I'm wondering what has to give? Most likely it'll be what little social life I have. "But it's only temporary", I tell myself.

I'm struggling to find time to train for just a half marathon, so I'm wondering how I'll fit it all in.

I'm wondering where this doubt is coming from because I KNOW once I put my mind to it and commit, I can do it.

I'm wondering how many people I'll pass? How many whose ass I'll kick? Will it be just one or several?

I'm wondering...

10.5 miles

I've resigned myself to just finishing the half marathon in a few weeks. I'd hoped for about a 2:15 finish, but after today's long run, I'll just settle to finish. It's been a busy few months and I just haven't put in the time necessary to do well. That said, I'm okay with it. :)

Today I did a 10.5 miler, much to my own surprise. I'd mapped out a run at 10.3, but somehow got turned around a bit, so I rerouted on my own. I thought I might have only done about 9-9.5, but when I remapped the route I actually took, I was surprised to see 10.5. Yay! Here's what it looks like.
http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/united-states/tx/highland-village/588125830713335446

Starting temperature - 68. Breezy south wind. Above average humidity. New shoes (1/2 size larger because of rubbing with the old ones).

I always hate the first mile or so of my long runs. It takes a while for stuff to stretch out and settlle into a good pattern. But by mile 2-3, it feels great. This is a new route I've been wanting to do to really change up the scenery. It's perfect for at least the first 5 miles or so. There are rolling hills through the Highland Village area, miles 3 through 6. Some of these hills kick my butt. I store this info so that I use routes through here in training for the half IM next year. Kansas is hilly.

For the most part, I feel pretty good through mile 5. I take a couple of Clif Blox at the 1/2 hour point and they kick in about 10 minutes later, thankfully. The wheels started coming off around 5.5 miles. I was getting tired from the hills and running straight into the wind. There was construction, so no sidewalk, but luckily, a good portion of the road was closed and hard-packed dirt. I stayed there. Downed a vanilla Gu at the 1 hour mark. I thought I'd missed a turn so I thought my route was cut about a mile short at this point. Dangit.

Miles 5.5 to 6.5 were the busiest for traffic around the mall and because of a narrow, busy road with no shoulder. I'm going to have to work around that area again, unless I do it early in the morning. I walked a lot through this time, partly due to the traffic, partly just being exhausted. My Gatorade was nearly out and I couldn't find anything open to just refill with water. Ugh.

When I hit the light at Morris/Valley Ridge, I considered going straight home, but then turned right to adjust the course a bit to make up what I thought were lost miles. At this point, I figured I'd finish at about 9 miles. I forced myself to pass up another shortcut and continued on to College Rd which would give me 2 options on mileage and getting home.

At about mile 9 (which I thought was less at this point) I started to feel a little light headed, probably from the humidity, climbing temps, and not enough water. I decided to cut the run a bit and turn onto Kirkpatrick to come home, rather than go all the way to Garden Ridge. It was a good decision as it turns out. Had I continued on like I thought about doing, it would've added about another mile to the route. I was hot and light headed. It was good to be almost home.

Finally I turned onto my street and made it home. I was disappointed with the time (right at 2 hours) for 10.5 miles. I did walk several times for about a minute at a time. I think the gel and blox were done at the right times, but I wish I'd had more water/gatorade. I kept thinking I needed to just fill up with someone's hose. Next time I probably will.

Next week is 11+, then "taper" for the race. Whew! I can't wait to call the Lufkins to see how theirs went.

The agony and ecstacy

Sunday I had to get in a long run. I theory, it was supposed to be 7 miles according to the training log. I was supposed to meet with my prospective trainer that afternoon in Coppell, where my gym is, and thought about just doing my mileage there after we were finished. I mapped out a run and thought it would be fine.

I met with Alma, the trainer, and had a great time. We talked and I was able to pick her brain on training and tri tips (not the beef, but the race). She even printed out elevation and maps for my Kansas race to discuss. I like her!

Anyway, after we met, I headed out to chase sunset, thinking I'd get my 7-ish miles and/or 7 minutes in before the sun went down. As I started out on the route I'd mapped out, I realized that the Andy Brown park which I was running near, had just over a 6 mile loop beckoning me to run to keep it from getting boring. Sure enough, I succumbed to the whole thing, and added with the mileage to get from the YMCA to the park entrance, it ended up coming to 8.5 miles! WTF!!??

The legs (and side stitches) balked at me at first, like they always do the first mile or two, but then I got into a groove. I kept going, but told myself that I'd do a 1 minute walk once I got to the far duck pond or 35 minutes, whichever came first. Fortunately, I didn't have to choose, as they came at about the same time. I decided to suck down a gel, walk for a minute, then keep going.

It was a great move looking back. The gel kicked in about 10 minutes later and carried me through to the end. I thought I'd end up walking maybe the last 1/2 mile or so, but kept carrying on until I made it back to the car 85 minutes later! Holy crap! For someone not training well this was awesome!

But I paid for it on Monday.

Damn I'm sore. To top it off, I did my first upper body workout with Alma on Tuesday and she pushed me to do weights I certainly wouldn't have done on my own. I'm learning from her and think she'll be great to develop the core muscles I'll need to help set the base for when I start really training in January.

Oh and I'm cussing her name today. I'm so sore, typing hurts right now. Everything from the waist up hurts. It's a good hurt though. It's the agony and the ecstasy all rolled into one.

6.3 mile run

The past week or two has been chaos. I interviewed for, then got a new job so my life has been turned upside down. Of course, I have to admit to a few happy hours to celebrate the change, which lead to less sleep and not wanting to get up in the morning to work out. It's an ugly cycle. The nights I didn't go out, I stewed about what the change would bring and all the worrying. Suffice to say, I have a week under my belt now at the new job and it's time to get back on the road. The half is coming up really soon!

So it's been a while since I've posted. Or run.

I'm sort of wierd about the time to run. I do best first thing in the morning before I've had a diet Coke and much to eat. If I get a shower, likely I won't run either. I will occasionally run in the afternoon after I get off work, but that's only if lunch wasn't too big. You've gotta get through the hangups, right? LOL!

Saturday I didn't run. We had a trail cleanup for our trail running club I organized, then I had a ton of homework to get done. So I did what I had to do. Procrastinated it until Sunday afternoon.

Long story short, I ended up prying myself away from my Accounting studying to go for a run. Damn, it felt great! The last run I'd done was 2 weeks before (but I rode 145 miles on my bike in between), but it wasn't bad. I needed to up the mileage and did by a mile.

The weather was a perfect 73-ish degrees and I planned the route to mostly be a crosswind and the headwind at only the beginning. I'm no dummy. I went to mapmyrun.com and plotted out a 6-ish miler, extending one of my regular 5-mile runs to include a new area.

I purposely left and headed toward the newer part of the route first, so that I would be forced to finish the whole route. I couldn't get to a crossroads and opt out. I had to do the whole thing. I was a little worried that I wouldn't be able to make it.

This time of year is just gorgeous. The leaves are starting to change here and lawns are sprinkled with fun Halloween decorations. Some even play music. Most decorations make me laugh at the creativity or ostentatiousness of it all. It passes the time, and I like that.

It was tough to get in the groove at first; side stitches take over at about a mile or so. But they sort themselves out by the time I hit a major intersection at nearly 3 miles in. I turned the corner and walked for the time it took to get to the next sign, maybe 30-ish seconds. The legs started finally feeling stronger as I pushed up a small incline (I can't even call it a hill). The next thing I knew, I saw the power lines that go down the middle of the final turnoff street and I was thrilled. I hung on with exactly a 10mph pace, which for as little as I've trained, I'll take.

By Monday evening, everything was tightening up and I'm sore. It will get better. Now if I could only catch those Lufkins!

10/6 speedwork

Good workout this morning. The plan told me I needed to do 3.5 and that's what I did.

1 m warmup at about 9.5 - 10.0mph.

Alternating 1 min at 7.5 with 1 min recovery. I'd planned to get in 10 reps of this, but only made it to 7. I actually took a 2 min recovery when I finished 5. At least I know where to improve.

Finished the last half-ish mile just recovering at about 6.1mph.

The heart rate definitely got up there. I was probably at about an 8.5-9(in the last few reps) on a 10 point exertion scale. The last two reps, I could feel the breath getting more labored and was more tired.

The next run is Thursday; another 3.5. I might try going back on the trails if it hasn't rained too much. Happy day all.

Five Things Sunday

To heck with alliteration. I hereby deem Five Things Friday, changed to Sunday. Sundays are my play days. The relaxing ones. So for now, we're switching days, m'kay?

It was a great week!
1. Interview. Despite sweating all the way down to my hips (and thankfully not wearing something that showed it), the interview felt pretty darn good. I was receiving good visual feedback from nearly everyone. My former director, Jeffery, was in there too. She has a serious poker face and I had trouble reading her.

2. Success. So it turns out, I didn't need to read her after all. I found out on Tuesday afternoon that I got the job AND a 7% raise to boot! I was happy taking a lateral and would've even taken a small cut, but a freakin' raise?! Yeah baby! I start at the beginning of the next pay period and it can't come soon enough.

3. Happy hour. So it turned into several happy hours. A friend is going through a pretty rough time so a small group of my favorite work chicks went out for a few beers. We laughed all night and even survived a huge thunderstorm that poured overhead. The best part of the night though, was a spontaneous toilet papering event! We hit one of our other co-workers house with three rolls. Turns out, he saw us thorugh his front door and walked away. Yes, alcohol might have been involved. LOL!

4. Another finished class. With finishing a class and passing an opt-out test, I'm now 33.3% through. Still on target to finish next summer.

5. Wonderful friends. I got to spend some quality time with my friend Christi. She's so sweet and smart! My old TWA friends were at a BBQ on Saturday and it was great catching up with them. My closest friend posted a fantastic blog about her inspirations and it made me cry. Good tears though. She's beautiful.

I hope you have a wonderful upcoming week. Look for the good things.

We Will, We Will Rock You!

What a great run today!

I'm in the 3rd week of training for the Rock-n-Roll Half in Las Vegas in December. Today was my first five miler in a long, long time. I remember when five was an easy run; now it was my "long" run for the week.

I was a tad worried this week wouldn't be as good. I hadn't gotten in any of my regular training runs for this week since I was a little distracted finding out I got a new job (starting soon). My long run from last week was delayed until Monday, so I figured I was way behind.

I plotted out a course on www.mapmyrun.com to make sure what I was planning to do was about 5 miles. Thankfully, it turns out it's 5.25! I'll take it! I grabbed my new iPod stacked with a running playlist and headed out the door.

I've done this route several times before, but always counterclockwise and usually in the dark, early morning hours. I decided to run it the other way to shake things up. About 1/4 mile into it, I got a sharp side stitch and walked for a minute or so before going again. I decided that I'd make it to Morris Blvd before taking a walk break, roughly 2 miles or so away.

Mist and drizzle mixed with sweat as I warmed up. I made it to Morris for the turn and still felt great so I spotted a traffic light and aimed for it, thinking I'd take a quick break then. And after passing that mark without walking, I aimed for the Valley Ridge turn. I swear this route is uphill the whole way. I was going at a nice even pace; the temps were good; and stil felt like I could run forever.

I continued without stopping, then looked up to see the final turn to the house just up ahead. Holy cow, where did the miles go and how the heck did it feel so good still? As I rounded the corner and neared the house, Queen came on with We Are the Champions and I rocked it to the house! What an awesome run.

Five things Friday (okay it's Saturday)

1. Finally, I ran outside again! The other night I was down at the neighbors, barefoot. Occasionally, I like to trot home up the street. It hit me as I was trotting this time, that there wasn't any pain. None at all! So Friday I decided I'd do my 3 miler around the 'hood. Other than a couple of very minor twangs with a misstep, I think I'm back to being able to run normally again. Thankfully, fall temperatures are here which makes the accomplishment even more exciting.

2. I've applied for another job over in the maintenance department and this time, it feels pretty good. I had two good conversations with the hiring manager, who I've worked with before on projects with Ground Ops a few years back. I'm also excited to know that the director over him is my former director. I get her and like the way she works, even if she is tough. I need the change and this opportunity should be a good one for future career advancement. Interview is Monday morning. Fingers crossed.

3. I got a sweet card from a friend of mine who I look up to. It was a welcome surprise on a day that wasn't bad, but not great either. It's amazing how someone taking the time to do a handwritten note can make your day. Thanks, J!

4. Badminton. Who would've thought that such a genteel sport could be so ruthless? I learned to play last Sunday in order to get ready for the Corporate Challenge. My partner, Jade, was patient and really a great teacher. We ended up taking silver for women's doubles! I'm sore. LOL!

5. Swimming. I love swimming. Love it! Well one nice thing is that the sweat doesn't show when you're working hard. LOL! This week we did the Corporate Challenge and did a swim meet. The team didn't do badly at all; in fact, we took gold in the 4x50 mixed relay! I could've done a bit better in my 50 free, but missed the wall. Missed it! But I damn near caught up to the girl who passed me by the time we got to the wall.

Have a wonderful week, y'all!

Swim meet

So it's been 20 (cough, cough) plus years since my last swim meet. Needless to say I was a nervous wreck, but still excited. I was slated to do three events: 50 free, 50 back, and the 4x50 free relay.

SWA is making its debut in the Richardson Corporate Challenge and one of the events was swimming. We had a team of about 10 of us ranging from our early 30's to our early 50's. Making the master's requirement was no issue this year since most of us are over 40.

I've been working out fairly regularly, putting in 2-3 workouts a week in the pool, but doing mostly distance. I found a good website for creating swim workouts that have helped out a ton in not getting bored while still having strong workouts. I've been using them for triathlon training, but they have worked out just as well for the meet training.

The first race I had was the 50 free. I was pumped and only up against 3 other women in my bracket and age group. The gun went off and I could see that I was battling one other woman, but pulling ahead of her quickly on the first lap. I reached the end, did my turn and realized, "Oh shit!". I'd turned about 2 feet too early and missed the wall. (I was worried about this in practice 2 weeks before. That pool has a strange illusion to it that you think you're closer than you are.) I had to do sort of a dogpaddle back to touch the wall to make it legal. I was pissed!!! But that anger turned into energy. I had about a full body length to make up for in 25 meters and I nearly caught the girl. We touched the wall within a 1/2 second of each other at around 37 seconds. I wonder if I hadn't missed the wall how I would've done. Maybe around 33-34 seconds?

The backstroke went a bit better. I still was just a bit too far from the wall on this one as well, but was able to touch it and get a bit of a pushoff from it. I think I ended up at about :42 seconds. For me, I was content with this time because I'm not much of a backstroker.

The relay was the best event all the way around. We'd stacked our team with our fastest four, two of which were a couple who met and swam in college, Danee and Jason. Danee had won silver in the overall 50 free for women. The gun went off. Jim started us off well and got us about 2 body lengths ahead of the competition. I was behind him and kept the lead going with about the same distance. Danee smoked it and moved us further ahead. Finally Jason's anchor leg made us by far the leaders. We ended up taking home overall gold for the relay, a full 6+ seconds ahead of the nearest competition. Whee!

Fun stuff. Now I would love to get involved with Master's level swimming to see if I could compete more. Like I need another excuse for competition, right?

Five things Friday

I'll admit I've stolen this from another friend who blogs. I love how she takes five (sometimes more) good things that happened throughout the week and shares them. I'll try to keep it going.

1. Packages in the mail. Love 'em. This week I got 5 in the mail, though 3 were books for school ordered off Amazon. The best was a surprise care package of goodies from St Croix from Greg and Deeann. Now I have stuff to make me think of my old home away from home. Sigh.

2. Finally a 3 mile run without stopping. See the previous blog.

3. Got an "A" in Marketing. I wasn't sure I'd end up with one, but made it, no problem.

4. An opportunity at a job change. A manager who used to be one of my customers is leading a team over in the maintenance department. He called me last Friday to tell me a job on his team was opening up and he wanted to give me a heads up. I talked to him for about an hour this week about it. I'm brushing off the resume again.

5. Survivor started. Dang show. I love it. I'm not hot on anyone in the cast just yet, but who cares, the game is still a blast. To top it off, all the other new shows are starting up so it's going to be tough to keep up with them all, work, workout, and still fit school in. Whew!

Week 1 - 79 days to go

To some of you, this may sound silly, but today I ran 3 miles. Granted it was still on the treadmill but the milage is done. No walking. It's a small accomplisment, but for me right now, it's huge! I'm excited.

This week, I officially started my half marathon training for the Las Vegas Rock-n-Roll Half in December which I will be running with my fabulous friends, Greg and Deeann. It's just what I needed to keep me going since I deferred my Toyota Triathlon entry until next year.

I did about 2 minutes of walking, then kicked the belt up to about 5.8 for the first 1/2 mile. After that, I'd increase by .1 each 1/4 mile up to 1.5 miles. Then I upped the speed by .1 every 1/2 mile so I ended the last 1/2 mile at a 6.3 (9:21-ish pace). I like these workouts as it leaves the speed for the end. I think I'll start doing more speedwork on the treadmill in a few weeks, but don't want to risk more damage for now.

This weekend, I need to get in 4 miles. I don't think it will be a problem. Yay!

Looking forward

So a while back I decided that next year I would do my first half Ironman. I chatted it up with a few of my girlfriends (many of whom did a wet, muddy, crazy 50k in the rain this weekend) and started digging for a good one to do.

I had a few requirements to look at. I didn't want it too difficult or too crowded (I hate big crowds). I didn't want a mass start in the water and I really didn't want a double loop of either the bike or run. One loop is enough, thank you. I initially wanted to make a trip of it and enjoy some scenery and make a vacation out of it, but moved that down on the priority list because I'd like to do RAGBRAI again next year. So, then I wanted it to make it within a day's drive.

So we narrowed it down to the Gulf Coast Triathlon in May next year or the Kansas Half IM in June. Fresh water and rolling hills won out over salt water, beaches and flats. We're on for Kansas on June 10, 2010.

So here we are and this blog will start to become more devoted to the ups and downs of the training. Along the way, I have a half marathon in December, a bum knee to contend with, and who knows what else to hurdle. I hope you stay with me and throw in good advice or tell me to suck it up when you think it's needed (and it will be needed for sure).

Now it's time to start planning and training and worrying. Gah!

Decision and deferral

It's been a while since I've posted and for the few who are reading, I apologise. I know I should be using this blog as a source to vent frustrations, but I prefer to use it for happier times.

As you guys know, I've been trying to nurse a torn ligament in my knee and hoping that I could get it healed in time to do a the Toyota Olympic Triathlon here in Dallas next month. I've been continuing to ride and swim; hoping that I could be in enough shape to gut out the 6 mile run at the end. I've even been able to so some running on the treadmill. But today I decided to let this one go.

The knee really started bugging me again this week, almost as if I'd reinjured it again. I did a few miles on the treadmill last weekend and it wasn't bad at all. Sure, it twanged in the beginning, but it loosened up well after about 1/2 mile. It still hurts mostly after I wake up in the morning. Maybe it's the way I sleep, but this week, it's gotten worse again.

Knowing that I don't want to screw up a 1/2 marathon I have planned in December with Deeann and Greg, I decided that today, I'd look to see if there was a way to defer my tri entry until next year or even get a partial refund. Thankfully, I'm able to defer it and did. I'm really disappointed because I was really looking forward to this, but it's the right thing to do.

Live to run another day. Now I can start to think about the half marathon in Vegas in December and if that goes well, I'm looking at doing a half Ironman triathlon in May or June next year. Keep your fingers crossed that things will be better by then.

Therapy - back in the saddle again

Ahh...I'm surprised to say it, but it was fantastic to be on my bike again.

You see, last week I missed it. I took the week off to recover from RAGBRAI and be ready for the triathon on Sunday (yeah, poor planning on my part), but as many of you know, I took a hearty tumble from a tube behind a friend's boat last week and tore a ligament in my knee. Thankfully, it wasn't a bad tear and the ortho doc recommended biking as my therapy.

Damn the luck!

Fridays I get off work at lunchtime, which leaves wide open trails (or pools) without much traffic. Today, I opted for a lap around White Rock Lake to test out the knee and see how it would hold up. A lap is about 9 miles, depending on which offshoots you take.

I took it really easy the first lap, avoiding the hills (okay, truthfully, I missed a turn) for the most part and just enjoying the ride. Suprisingly enough, I must've gained a lot of strength on RAGBRAI, as my average speed ended up at 15.8mph...again, I wasn't pushing it at all! The few hills that used to bog me down a bit were mere speed bumps now. It's amazing how perspective changes, isn't it?

So it felt really good that first lap so I decided to try a second round. This time I went ahead and tried a few of the "stronger" climbs and didn't feel a thing. Nice! This lap was a bit slower, but still, it wasn't bad considering.

The therapy was for my knee, in theory, but also for my soul. Nearly 2 weeks with little to no exercise left me edgy and craving more.

This ride helped, and thankfully, it didn't hurt.

Highlights from RAGBRAI

I completely meant to journal at the end of each day, but just was too wiped out most days, especially after getting the tent set up, having dinner and a beer after the rides. In lieu of this, I'll give you some of the higlights that still make me smile.

1. Iowans are probably the nicest people in the country. I don't think there is such a thing as a mean one. They were always over the top willing to open up their town to 10,000+ crazy riders and help them out. They were on the sides of the roads watching the chaos from their lawns. It was priceless.

2. The roads are fan-freakin'-tastic, especially when compared to the chip-seal hell in Texas.

3. Pie. Homemade pie just rocks. We ate it nearly every day at one of our morning stops. I had rhubarb, strawberry-rhubarb, peanut butter, cherry (twice) and one other. Kelly's pies, which are usually located alongside the Porkchop Guy, are the best, though a lot of credit has to go to the church ladies who take the time to bake all week.

4. Taking the time to walk through all the towns. Each had their own little character.

5. Skillet tossing is a great way to vent some frustration and have a few laughs! One town charged a buck for two chances to throw a skillet at a dummy with a basketball head. Fortunately there was a large wire cage to separate the iron skillets from the spectators, though Deeann nearly got it over the fence on one toss.

6. Crazy cyclists in outfits. It's a cacophany of color and sights. There was one guy riding in a banana costume, a team of guys in kilts (worn like true Scotsmen), a group of guys in the worst dresses ever, a team of superheros, and supposedly a guy in a diaper. Just a diaper.

7. Iowa is just gorgeous. The cornfields swayed in the breezes and brought the best sweet corn for dinner.

8. Bringing together people from all over the country is a delight. Small "licence plates" on the back of each rider's bikes showed their names, where they were from, and even how many RAGBRAIs they'd done in the past. Surprisingly enough many were first year riders.

9. Riding with one of my closest friends made the whole ride better. We laughed, talked about life, sang to anyone within earshot about mullets and made up a few songs about the damn hills. Coming back to a super camp to a specially prepared dinner each night was the highlight of the day.

10. Speaking of damn hills, Iowa is not flat, contrary to popular belief. We did about 25,000+ feet of climb over the course of the week. To top it off, we never got off and walked the bikes!

11. Finding a swimming hole on a hot afternoon is a treat. We spied the cold pond with a dock on it and jumped in...along with about 200 other people. At that point, we didn't care about the cow shit or chemicals in it, it felt great!

12. Accomplishing a 100 miler for the first time is an adventure in itself. Thankfully, the route had a lot of flats that day.

13. Friends push you to go. Luckily on one rainy morning, Deeann pushed me to not give up on the first part of the morning, while Dianna and Maribel were in my head to get going as well. I'm glad they all did, as this turned out to be one of the most fun mornings of the trip.

14. Rain, fog, thunderstorms, heat, cool, and even hail were a part of the trip. At least we didn't get snowed on.

15. The Iowan version of "thank you" is "you bet". It cracks me up.

16. Spotting the Mississippi River after riding towards it for seven days is the most heart-wrenching sight ever. I was overcome with a sense of accomplishment and disappointment that it was over.

17. After 490 miles, I'm going to invest stock in Chamois Butt'r and Boudreaux's Butt Patste. 'Nuf said.

Worrying about parents

An e-mail showed up in my inbox the other day with the title "Topsy Turvey Pop". In it Flo, my step-mom, told the 3 of us kids not to worry (which makes you start worrying immediately) but that Pop had broken his arm in a fall off the neighbor's boat. My dad is a very healthy, active 66-year old. You'd think he was in his early 50's easily.

He has been talking about selling everything, buying a sailboat, and cruising the oceans for many years. Flo likes sailing, but hadn't quite gotten to the point that she embraced the same ideas. She's picked up sailing over the years and recently took a captain's class, but her claustrophobia has gotten the best of her for long trips. That is, until last year.

In April, they chartered a bare sailboat for a month and sailed the Caribbean. After they came back, the house was on the market, the power boat they had in the canal behind the house was sold and they are ready to go. If they get the right price on the house, they're gone.

But all of this scares the crap out of me. I love so much that they're enthusiastic about their sailing adventures and that they're so full of life (still sickeningly like newlyweds after 26+ years of marriage). But I worry that he's starting to get to the point that there may only be 2 or 3 years left where he'll be spry enough to do this sort of adventure.

So while he was helping his neighbor on their boat, he went to step off the boat onto the dock. The boat moved back just a bit and he missed the dock. Only a few weeks before, he lost a cell phone and wallet to water damage (there's probably a good bar story there) so he was worried about it again. He wrenched around to catch the boat and ended up bashing his shoulder into the dock. He heard a lot of crackling. As it turns out, he crushed the top part of his humerus and tore some tendons. He'll be down for about 8 weeks.

It's these sort of things that are scaring me when he talks about running away on a boat like that. Surely he'll probably do fine, but will something like this happen while they're at some obscure island? Or worse, when they're at sea and in a squall? I worry that it takes so much time to heal once he gets older.

Is it wrong to worry so much or should we just encourage the dream? Or secretly hope the house doesn't sell?

Friday swims

Today was supposed to be a rest day, but I decided to check out the pool at the Y at lunchtime since I'm off early on Fridays. This turned out to be perfect!

My crack-o' morning swims have been tough. I have to be there at or shortly after 5am in order to get in enough of a workout before the kids start in on their team training at 6 and take all but one lane. It's been tough getting in anything more than about 1600-2000yds.

It hit me last night that I should check the Friday pool schedules and sure enough, it's pretty much open swim from about 10am on through the late afternoon. I think I've discovered my prime long swim time finally. So now I'll find a way to get my Friday swims in right after I get off work at 11/12pm and get the distance swims in. Whee!

I found a bunch of workouts online for people training for half and full Ironman triathlons. I tried a part of on on Tuesday and had to quit part way through it because of time. Today, I managed to do a 2600yd decent workout in about 1:15!

That was exciting, but the most exciting part of the day was when not one, but two people commented on my swimming telling me I should swim on the Master's team based on what they saw! Wow! That made my day. One was an older man and another a college kid practicing over the summer. Yippee!!!

Running haiku

Distant lightning glows
Footbeats keep the rhythmic pulse
Summer morning steam

There's always a conversation or song in my head. It can be exhausting. Many times I can't get it out and it just replays itself over and over, much like the movie Groundhog Day. Sometimes this happens when I'm running so I try to rechannel the noise into a creative outlet. I've written papers for school or blog entries as I run or ride many times.

Today, it was just a simple haiku that kept my mind running. It's not necessarily a good one, but it fell into the footstep patterns. Enjoy.

The plan this week

Holy crap! The RAGBRAI start is less than 18 days away and I'm both excited and nervous. To top it off, there's a triathlon 2 weeks after that. It's down to crunch time again.

This week, the goal is to mostly get time on saddle more than anything. I figure doing 3 days of riding in a row, though a couple of them just easy days riding to/from the gym to swim, will help out with getting the butt used to it. I'm hoping this strategy will pay off.

The rest of the week will have easy runs interspersed with 2-3 days of swim time. I'd like to start having 2 workouts each of swim/bike/run, but am not sure how this all will work.

Overextended again? Yup. Love it? Yup!

Pride

There are few things that bring me greater happiness than watching friends accomplish things they didn't think were once possible. I get tears in my eyes as friends come across finish lines for the first time or accomplish goal times or even goal distances. I love watching them win the battles in their minds.

I love watching their eyes when they "get" something new. When something clicks. When they realize they just went further than they thought they could. I love it when a concept they read or asked about comes to fruition.

Is it a bit selfish to want to see these accomplishments come alive? They energize me in new ways.

Congratulations Deeann, Greg, Tonya, Janna! Kick some ass this fall, April! You all are working hard and deserve all the grins you get. You're doing great things! I'm proud of you all!

78 miles!

Earlier this afternoon I got done riding 78 miles in the 100 degree Dallas heat. I can't believe it! It's my longest ride to date and it makes me feel like I can do RAGBRAI here in a few weeks, no problem. Or at least a few days of it. Here's the rundown.

Good - Starting out the ride at 7:30 at 80 degrees and little wind. And heading west out of the glare of the sun coming up. Decided right then to do the 75 and not the 100 miler because of the heat. Good choice, as it turns out.

Bad - The wind kicked up just a bit and gave us a headwind for a good chunk of the ride.

Good - Not even 5 miles into the ride, meeting not one, but two people who are also doing RAGBRAI this year - Dick and...aw crap, what was his name? Anyway, the guy not Dick did it last year and gave us a lot of tips, including bringing only a few changes of clothes, eating anything from Pork Man (that sounds so bad) and bringing about $30 cash each day in small bills.

Good- No pain in either foot after having those warts dealt with last week.

Good - Great aid stations with super nice volunteers at every one. Lots of pickle juice.

Good - Mostly ate the right foods/drank at the right time. Did better than a lot of people who were sagging and cramping in the heat.

Bad - Around mile 30, a man passes me. His shorts are a little thin in back. Too thin, in fact. I can see his hairy butt crack. If it were a nice butt, that would be one thing, but it's one of those flat butts guys tend to get. I try not to make eye contact with it, but it stares at me. Thankfully, he moves ahead.

Good - Left the mile 37 aid station feeling really great.

Bad - Realizing that the reason my hooha is hurting so much is that my bike seat is canted at a very slight angle to the left. Need to remember to fix that at an aid station.

Good - Felt fantastic and rode well and fast through miles 40-45, even passing a few people.

Bad - Bonked at mile 45.5 as the heat kicked in and we had a long, slow mostly uphill to mile 50. Felt my head start to tingle and my body get a few chills. I know enough to know that this isn't a good sign. Rode at an agonizing 7-8 mph up this hill I thought would never end.

Good - Finding the aid station at the top of this hill wasn't an illlusion.

Good - Mile 50 aid station avoiding the very serious temptation of sagging in. The truck was there and I stared at it intently. One volunteer saved my ride by spraying me down with a pump sprayer full of cold water. He was my hero and told me to sit for a while, then go on. I need to write a note to the ride organizers.

Bad - Forgot to get the seat fixed. Ouch!

Good - Using my new thermal bottle and adding ice at every aid station. It kept the water at a cooler temperature than using the regular bottles - especially in this heat. Need to get one more smaller one for the front cage.

Good - Finally turned north where a tailwind could kick in to help. Miles 50-65 flew! The road was flat and fast. I rode the white line for most of the ride, smoothing out the path.

Bad - Tailwinds don't help keep you cool.

Good - Met and chatted with a guy named Ryan for these last 5 miles about trail running. Turns out he's the RD for El Scorcho and has done a bunch of long races.

Good - Felt pretty good going out of the 66 mile aid station knowing the end was very near. Turned into an old barnsour horse and scooted home quickly.

Bad - Bonked again near mile 70. The heat was bad and I couldn't make as good of time. Got queasy. Wanted to either cry or puke, but could do neither. At least the finish line would be in 5 miles.

Bad - Mile 75 and we're not at the end. Dropped a few f-bombs as I passed through the cute downtown area of Waxahachie. I didn't want cute, though, I wanted the f'ing finish line. Still wanted to cry!

Good - Another poor, beat up soul rode with me the last 3 miles. Not much chatter, but it was good to have another soul to share the misery with us.

Bad - A bank thermometer showed 101 degrees at 1:15pm.

Good - Finally finished at mile 78. Debbie and Rick had finished recently and were in each car waiting. Deb did 46 and Rick had all kinds of issues with tires. Need to remember to ask him if he overinflated for the heat (likely). Just glad to be finished.

Great - Huge burger, shake and diet coke went down in seconds. Didn't think I was that hungry. The shake rocked the hot belly.

Good - Home. Shower. Nap. All is good with the world.

Needles and feet don't mix

So I won't gross you out too much but can I just tell you that having a needle stuck into your foot, or both feet even, numerous times isn't fun?

For those of you who are a little queasy about pain, I suggest you move onto another post, or better yet, another blog. If not, here are the gory details.

I had 2 plantar's warts, one on the ball of each foot, that were ugly, but didn't really bother me until recently. One got tender after a few rides this year so I decided that I needed to do something about it before RAGBRAI, otherwise it would be a long week.

So I was able to get in with my family doctor pretty quickly last Tuesday once the decision was made, which worked out perfect with timing. My aunt was coming to town for the weekend so I'd be healed enough to enjoy the weekend and because she was here, I would've missed out on workouts anyway.

I went in Tuesday afternoon with a fresh pedicure and flip flops, because of course, it'll be another week or two before I can get my toes looking good again. I talked to my doc who is an old, former flight surgeon about doing at least one, but preferably both feet. He warned me that it would hurt to have both feet down for a few days, but I told him that it was like pulling wisdom teeth; I might as well get them done at the same time and only endure the pain once. He tried to tell me.

He left for a few minutes, leaving me with the nurse and a good footsoak to soften things up a bit. Sadly, it wasn't as nice at some footsoaks I've had at the spa; this one had iodine or betadine (something freakishly orange) in the water and it didn't smell like lavender.

He came back in and asked again if I really wanted to do both. With no change in the answer, he grabbed a needle and filled it up with a numbing agent very much like the novocane you get at the dentist. And much like the novocane needle you get in your gums before getting a filling, this needle hurt like hell! He's a smart man and started with the foot that I was least concerned about, probably to make sure I went through with both of them.

I about came unglued on the table as he pierced the area around the ball of my foot over and over. Holy mother of God, I can't even describe the sharp pain, but it's enough to make your hair stand up on end, your palms to sweat, and even let a little tear go. Okay so I did more than let a tear go, I called him a few choice words that probably shouldn't be repeated. His nurse laughed. In his deadpan tone, he just said he'd been called these things before and started in on the other foot, not missing a beat.

For those of you with contacts, have you ever come back from one of those evenings after eating a bunch of hot wings and taken your contacts out? The first one is bad as your chili finger hits your eye, but the second one coming out is generally worse because you know what's coming. Well this second foot piercing was just like that. The nurse held my leg down as I hollered into a pillow to muffle the bellowing.

And with that, in a matter of a few minutes, I couldn't feel anything around the area. And I sighed. And asked for some paper towels for my sweat-soaked hands.

Thankfully, the lancing of the warts only took about 10 minutes and he was done with both. They were bandaged up with great purple gauze and dressings, but this was so big I couldn't get my shoes back on. Do you know how hard it is to just walk on the sides of your foot or on your heels? Not easy. And I have to tell you, you get some strange looks in Walgreen's as you hobble through the store because you missed a tactical error in getting large band-aids and antibiotic gels to clean it up later.

So a week later, I'm nearly healed, just in time to start riding again. The spots that were operated on are still tender and running isn't fun, but they'll be ready to go once RAGBRAI starts in a few weeks. I think and hope it was the right move at the right time.

9/11 heartache all over again

I just put down a 45+ page document on the 9/11 commission's record of events for the morning of 9/11. It's part of one of my Psychology class assignments for the week and to be honest, I don't remember what we were supposed to do with this after we read it. The rest of the assignment will have to wait until tomorrow.

My heart is just aching all over again and I've been fighting back tears reading through it. I failed several times and had to walk away for a few minutes before picking it up to finish it.

I remember that day like it was yesterday. It's amazing how raw it can still be, even after nearly 8 years. I was a dispatcher for TWA, which had been taken over by American not 6 months before. I was working the international desk watching and taking care of our flights coming back from Europe and the Middle East. It was the peak of storm season so I knew my "guys" in the squadron were down in the Caribbean doing who knows what.

I remember hearing about the first plane hitting the World Trade Center so someone flipped on the TV in our office. Aviation junkies do that sort of thing, always hoping that it wasn't your flight; speculating on what could've gone wrong. We kept doing our jobs, but listening to the commentary from the Today Show out the corner of our ears. Our ATC guy was listening in to the daily shift conference call with ATC.

The second plane hit and collectively, our hackles went up. It didn't take long before either someone in the office told us or we all started reacting to calling our flights to land wherever they could. It was pure chaos. As we watched the towers smoldering, the Pentagon was hit.

Most of my crews were past the 40' longitude line which meant I had to start getting them into Canadian stations wherever we could land them. Canadian controllers were difficult to reach to have them radio the word to land asap. I struggled with trying to figure out how much to tell the crews. Too much and they might be focused more on the potential than flying; not enough and they could have just as many issues.

One of the guys in the back office, navigation I believe, started calling some of the cities in Canada and securing rooms for our crews with his own credit card. We didnt' know how we were going to get the crews to the hotels, we just knew we had rooms possible for them and we'd work out the details later.

The ASD screen, which shows the position of all aircraft at any given time, was slowly going blank as all the planes in the country quickly landed wherever they could. In St Louis, we had planes from companies we hadn't seen there before and even a few planes we hadn't seen in ages. A 747 sat outside our operations office parked quietly for the next week until it could leave.

Over the ATC conference call, I overheard NORAD on the call telling controllers on the west coast to tell flights that if they didn't turn around, they'd be shot down. One was a Korean Air flight off of LA somewhere; another was somewhere either on the way to Alaska or near Alaska. It sunk in that we were in some serious shit. Thankfully, both aircraft complied.

We were stunned and tried to figure out what to do next. Our planes had all landed. Now what?

With the relief that our planes were on the ground, the head turned off and raw emotion kicked in. The enormity of the situation was terrifying and suddenly, nothing felt safe.

It took several years to not get weepy at the thought of the events that day. Reading this commission report for an assignment really brought back the events of the day and many of the emotions.

Thank God there wasn't more.

Random musings 6/14

I love, love, love the new Adiorondak chairs my dear friends Greg and Deeann made for me! I sat out front this morning in one of them, reading the newspaper and enjoying the quiet calm of the neighborhood before it woke up. Kitty even sat on one of the giant arms for a while mooching neck scratches.

Last week, I'd started mulling the thought of doing a half Ironman triathlon sometime next year. Saturday, I rode 55 miles in some nasty heat and humidity and at the end couldn't imagine running a half marathon after that. I swore, "No way!". Later that evening I was driving home from a friend's party and thought again, "Well hell, I've already got the mileage for the swim and the bike down, now all I have to do is work on the run." Hmmm...sounds like more thinking is in order.

I'm excited to start my latest class, Marketing. I was reading the first chapter this morning and all of a sudden got some new ideas about an issue at work. I forgot how much I loved school.

How many white shirts can one girl have? I bought 4 new tops today, but at least they were on sale. I go through them pretty quickly though as I'm not very graceful.

My neighbors rock! How many of your neighbors can you call good friends and tell 'em you love 'em as you walk out the door?

And then I looked at the calendar...

I had a big "oh shit" moment yesterday.

Now that the Danskin tri is behind me, I knew it was time to hit the roads and just work on cycling for RAGBRAI which is coming up in less than 6 weeks now.

Then I looked at my activity calendar!

2 weeks after I get back from RAGBRAI is my next triathlon! Oh shit! I was hoping to be able to just do minimal training with the swim/run, but now I see I need to keep it up and probably, judging from my run time at Danskin, need to step up the running a bit.

Sigh... No biggie, but it sure takes away from the pure cycling focus.

Hit the pool today and enjoyed it. 2000yds.

100 warmup
5x100 at 2 mins
250 kickboard
2x500 at 10 mins (did 'em right at 8 mins)
150 cooldown

Danskin Triathlon - Austin race report

What a perfect day! The early morning temps hovered around 70, the water temp was perfect and the winds stayed down until after we were all finished. You can't ask for a better day.

This year, I was excited, but not nearly as nervous as last year. I felt like an old pro and even Deeann seemed to be much more serene than last year at this time. We got to the race site, saw the line for the shuttles and decided that hoofing it just over a mile would be a lot less stressful than waiting amongst the squirming, squealing masses. It turned out to be a good decision. The moon and early morning sunrise kept the road light and calmed our souls.

After setting up our transitions, we wandered back to our favorite base of operations under a huge oak tree near the swim start. Just before 7am, we could hear the guys over the loudspeaker getting everyone ampped up and ready to go. The waves, spaced 3 minutes apart, started right on time and kept moving. I was in the 7th wave, one of two for the 40-44 year olds. Last year at this time, I hadn't done an open water swim before and was a nervous wreck, almost to the point of crying. This year, serious focus mode kicked in and I tried to weasel my way up towards the front of the wave. The gun went off and game on! No panic. No fear!

The swim felt fantastic, other than trying to quickly work around the slower people in my wave. The first bouy was nearly impossible to see, but kept following the wave in front of me and staying away from the kayaks. That didn't work, though as I ran into a kayak while trying to pass another swimmer. Damn! I found myself quickly into the wave in front of us, dodging women who were chatting with their friends. Seriously! Chat later and race, dammit! I rounded the first bouy and found myself with only a few light blue caps in front of me, which were other girls in my wave. Sweet! That made me want to push just a bit more. I saw one girl in my wave and tried to get in her wake but soon found myself passing her and moved on. As I neared the second bouy, I was then well into the group 2 waves ahead of me and passing many of them. It was very exciting! I could see the exit, found a chunk of unused water and powered through it. Sure enough, I checked my watch as I got out of the water and I was right on schedule with right at 17 minutes! Woo hoo! It gave me a new boost of energy to run up a small hill to the transition zone.

I was very lucky that my TA spot was right on the main aisle for all the events. It was quick, easy in and out. I'd forgotten a towel to dry my feet off, but it wasn't a big deal. I grabbed my bike sandals, threw them on and ran to the exit. As I ran, I ate 3 Clif Blox to get prepped and put the rest of the sleeve in a pocket. As a side note, the design of the Clif Blox packaging is great! They now come in a long sleeve of blocks so it makes it so much easier to open and put a few in your mouth with one hand. Love 'em.

My heart was racing after the swim and transition. It took a good 5 minutes on the bike for the heart to settle down and get into a better range. I had to keep telling myself to settle because I was so excited. Oh, I saw Doc and Hunter (Dusty's family) as they were walking into the race site. Yay! The bike ride was better than last year. I had hoped to average about 16.0 to improve over last year (15.5), but a few of the hills kicked my butt. On the flats and downhills, I was in the fastest gear I could go, so that helped the average. At the 6 mile point, I grabbed the last 3 Blox to start prepping for the run. As I rode, I didn't see many in my age group either passing me or me passing them. I thought I had a pretty good speed going. Though my bike calculator said I'd averaged 16.2, the official times showed it at 16.9. Nice! I'd taken some time off of last year as well. Yay!

I rounded the corner to head back into the transition area and was feeling really good. I downshifted to start getting weight back on my legs, then ran to my rack. The shoe transition wasn't as smooth as it could be, but as it turns out, the TA time was better than I thought. Though I was feeling good, I decided to grab another sleeve of the Blox in case I thought it might be good to get some last calories in during the early part of the run. I think it was a smart decision.

The run was what I'd expected, and maybe a bit better feeling. I hadn't focused on running hardly at all this year, so I figured I'd just muddle through it again. Last year was miserable and I walked a lot. This year, I told myself that I'd run to the big hill at the end for sure. Though it was tempting to slow down and walk, I kept to that promise. I felt much better than last year and was plugging right along. Several ladies in my age group passed me on this leg and I lost a lot of ground. That damn hill got me again this time, though not quite as bad as last year. This hill is one of those slow rollers that just seems to go on forever, though really it's probably less than 1/2 mile. It's at the end of the race, so you really have to dig deep to get up it. I admit to walking about 1/2 of it, but in spurts. I'd jog to a point, then pick a point to start running again. Finally once I hit the top of this bastard, I knew we were less than 1/4 mile to the finish. I looked at my watch and saw that my goal time of 1:36 was very do-able and kicked it in gear.

I crossed the finish line with a huge grin on my face! I could hear Greg on the sidelines and he greeted me at the end! Yay! I looked at my time and had nailed it! What a great finish! 11 minutes faster than last year and felt so much better! It was short lived though because both of us wanted to make sure we saw Deeann on the run. As it turned out, we missed her on the run, but barely caught her finishing thanks to Kait finding us and yelling at us that she was finishing. She had taken nearly 45 minutes off her time and we were thrilled!

Good:
Food and fluid management worked out really well. I ate a full sleeve of the Blox during the bike, then took another half early in the run. I drank early and often on the bike (and half the of the lake, I think) mainly on the downhills and flats, which helped keep me hydrated on the run. During the run, I only grabbed a sip of water at about the 2 mile point which was perfect.

Running without socks for 3 miles was fine. No blisters or hot spots. Any more mileage than that, I'd use socks.

Improvements:
The swim went really well, though I need to remember to spot an object on the horizon rather than looking for the bouy early on. I've read that and completely forgotten it.

I think I could push just a bit harder on the swim and the bike. Still new to the sport, I was holding back just a little worried about the run. I think I can go out a bit more next time.

I need to figure out a better way of changing into my running shoes. It felt slower than I'd hoped.


Overall, it was a good race. You can see in the post below this the times and placings. Next year, I'd like to shoot for top 10 in my age group, not just top 10%. That's a long ways away, but you never know, right?

Quick Danskin Tri update

I don't have time for a full race report today, but wanted to just grin a bit. Check this out...

About a month ago, I threw out the times I thought I'd do on this race: http://www.blogger.com/posts.g?blogID=4264519818016288018

Swim 17 T1 2:30 (different/faster to put on shoes this year)
Bike 43 T2 2:00
Run 31:30 Final 1:36:00

And here's how it turned out:
Swim 17:52
T1 2:37
Bike 42:26
T2 1:40
Run 32:12
Final 1:36:49

Finished 191 out of 1976 in the field and 27th out of 281 ladies in my age group.

Holy crap, that's pretty spot on, huh? Needless to say I'm pretty exstatic. The rest of the girls in our group did well also. Deeann smoked the race and knocked 43 (YES 43!) minutes off her time from last year and probably is still grinning!

More updates to come.

Another good swim

Wow, it's so much fun to see improvment!

This morning I changed up the swim routine just a bit, doing sprints first.

100 easy warmup
5x50 at 1 min
5x200 at 4 min
5x50 at 1 min
100 cooldown
(Total 1700)

The first set of 50's I worked on arm turnover more than form. Felt fast and it got the early morning blood pumping. I did most of these at about :40-:42.

The 200's are what really suprised me. The past few weeks, I've been getting them done regularly at 3:13 (for about a 47 second rest between sets). This morning, I consistently did them in 3:03-3:05. Wow! I don't know where I lost that 10 seconds, but they felt so much stronger.

Last week, I worked with a couple of girls on swim strokes and maybe it was a bit of a mind-refresher to me too. I also follow a good triathlon blog and last week she had some interesting video showing Michael Phelps' stroke. http://www.triathlontrainingblog.com/?p=1342 I concentrated more on the stroke, mainly with reaching more in a breath stroke. Wow, I did feel a bit more power. Something must be clicking.

One week to go before the triathlon. Whee!

I feel the need for speed

Since I found the average speed function on the bike computer, I've become a bit obsessed. This morning's ride in, I managed to average 16.1mph overall. The first 13 miles I averaged 16.8, but admittedly, it's the considerably smoother and less trafficked half of the ride. I got to work 15 minutes earlier than I used to last summer. Whee!!

Amazing sights this morning -
- Incredible sunrise over the storm clouds leftover from last night's rain.
- A parade of mallards crossing the street; 12 babies in tow.
- A huge, bouffant hairdo on a teenager. It was reminiscent of the early 60's, but on a goth girl.
- Bright green lawns still heavy with rain.

Enjoy the day, all!

Olympic lenght triathlon

So I'm debating doing my first olympic length triathlon (1500m swim, 40k bike, 10k run).

One of the guys in my circle of former Adventure Team friends has gotten into triathlons the past few years and said that he was planning to do this one this year. http://www.toyotausopentriathlon.com/site7.aspx

So I'm looking at my event calendar for the year and think it actually might fit in well with what is going on this fall. I have 2 major bike events, RAGBAI and Hotter n Hell, in July and August, then the next major event is a half in Las Vegas in December. I'm thinking that by the time I'm ready to start training for the half, this will be the mid-point.

Whaddya think?

Pre-triathlon

Well this workout was in the plan for yesterday, but after a big breakfast with the neighbors, the belly decided that this would wait until Monday morning. We had another big meal last night and man, I was still full this morning.

Anyhoo, I got up this morning, checked the YMCA website to see what time they opened and was thrilled to see they opened at 7am. Game on! I grabbed the necessary gear and headed out. The plan was a bike-run-swim-bike. Technically, I was doing all the disciplines in order (sort of) and working them at about 80%.

The bike to the Y was fantastic. I did 8.7 miles right at :30 with an average of 16.8! Of course, there's one really good downhill on the way, but hey, I'll take it! There are a lot of great downhills on the course too (followed by uphills, dangit!)

Once at the Y, I went upstairs, changed shoes and jumped on the treadmill for 3.1. Kept the speed at 5.7 for the first .25 miles, up to 6.1 through mile 1, then 6.5 through 2.5 miles. At 2.5, I put the angle up to 2.0 and dropped the speed to 6.0 to simulate a slow, gradual, brutal hill at the end of the race in Austin. Then the final .25 miles, I cranked it up to 6.9 to finish it out. Bleh! Tiring! Finished in about :29, I think. I can't remember.

I did run without socks, which is something I'm considering for these sprint tris. It worked out well without any hot spots so I'll probably do it in Austin.

Waddled back downstairs to the pool to finish off the min-tri. After a quick, cooling shower I jumped in the pool and cranked out 800. I was excited about the time on that 800 until I realized I was doing yards instead of meters. Still, it's going to be pretty close. I got that 800 yards done in :14! Holy crap! Despite being really tired from the bike/run, this went pretty well. The open water with a bunch of other swimmers will slow me down a bunch, but I'm happy with this time, for sure.

Last year my times looked like this for my very first triathlon (same course as this year):
Swim 21:50 T1 03:26 (panicked on the first bit of the swim, then figured it out)
Bike 46:19 T2 02:09
Run 33:58 (choked completely on the run!)
Final 1:47:44

So now I'm going to throw this out there for my goal times:
Swim 17 T1 2:30 (different/faster to put on shoes this year)
Bike 43 T2 2:00
Run 31:30
Final 1:36:00

That's a big difference (and my high level goal), but I don't think it's that far out of reach. I'm in much better shape for the swim/bike than last year, but the run probably will be my downfall again this year.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Great ride!

So yesterday was a perfect day for a ride into work again. Almost no wind, relatively dry air and cool temps. You can't ask for anything better than that.

I've been using a bike computer for a while now; normally it's set to the mileage screen so I can see how far I've gone. It's just where I like it. But for some reason yesterday I had it placed on the average mph screen and didn't realize it until about halfway to work. I didn't play with it much on the way there, but was excited to see I was holding steady near 15.0 mph average for most of the way, though there were several times on nice long straightaways I had a good 18-20mph pace going.

The morning part of the commute was a new record. Normally each leg of the commute averages about 13-13.5 mph, mainly because of traffic. Yesterday morning, I averaged 15.1! Whee!

My friend, Dianna, is regularly telling me I need to keep my foot positioned more flat, so that the downstroke is almost like scraping mud off my foot. All this time, I'd been lazy and made it more of a toe-down sort of stroke. I think keeping the foot flat really helped in using the entire leg to pedal rather than just the quads.

The same sort of technique was used on the way home, this time I was very concious of the average mph screen. I kept wanting to pump it up a bit more just to see if I could do 15.5 on the way home. Sure enough, I was able to average the 15.5 for the whole trip home. I knocked nearly 10 minutes off my normal commute each way! Whee!

Take that, bad traffic!!

5/13 workout

Skipped yesterday because of too many other things to get done (and it was too damn windy to ride), but made up for it this morning. I did a brick workout in the gym, meaning I did a session on the bike and immediately went over to the treadmill to run. It's funny how wobbly the legs are between the two. It takes a good 1/4-1/2 mile to really get steady again.

Spin (25 mins) -
Warmup 5 mins, increasing tension. Then I just used the music on my MP3 to determine if I was doing speed, hills or jumps. I love when (old) U2 comes on because it just energizes me.

Dreadmill (28 mins)-
Since no warmup was really needed, I jumped on and started out at 5.8mph. Then increased by .2 every 2 mins up to 6.6, then 2 mins each down again to 6.0. Then I just stayed at 6.4 through a song and took a quick slowdown after each one before ramping back up again. At 2.3 miles, I did 1/2 mile on a 2.5 incline to simulate that damn hill at the end of the run at our Austin tri. It was tiring, so I dropped to 5.8 again. Cooled down.

Good workout. Tired, achy, but worth it.

5/11 workout

Tired. Man, now I'm worried about the tri. Then again, maybe I'm still tired from the ride on Saturday. Maybe it's because I woke up long before the crack-ass of dawn (4-ish) and couldn't get back to sleep. Today's workout wasn't good.

Actually, I guess the run wasn't too bad. I did a 3 mile ladder in about 30 minutes, which included a 5 minute walk to start. I cooled off a bit before changing into my suit and swimming.

The plan was to do another 2000, but the arms were really tired. To top that off I was sharing the only lap lane open with another lady (normally not bad), but then a kid (young teen?) got in with a waist belt on and was jogging. To top it off, there was another young girl sitting on the steps at one end of the pool, invariably getting in the way. Dodging all three was frustrating. Top that off with being tired and I just gave up and left at 800yds. I could've probaby finished 1500, but there wasn't anything going on conduicive to a good workout.

I guess tomorow will be a weight/core day instead. Sigh..maybe I can get in a ride.

Miscellaney

I love to socialize with a few people so when they make a call about a "status meeting at Stratos" at 3:30 late in the week, I'm usually in. Dangit if it wasn't my run/swim day. Did I do the right thing and go run? Nope. Sabotage.

I've been eating badly as well. I do well at work during the day for the most part, but now that I'm home quite a bit in the evenings doing schoolwork, I end up chowing down a lot. It's not pretty. I keep sabotaging my weight. Frustrating.

The past week or so has been really wet and windy. While the wet is great for my new lawn, it's not so good for the bike riding.

Fortunately today was a perfect day for riding. A few neighbor friends and I went down to Cedar Hill (south Dallas) for the organized ride down there. We did 42 miles and it was perfect. A few hills, perfect cool weather, lots of energy, and a big burger at the end. I love these organized rides. Thousands show up and it's such a great sense of camraderie. The legs are tired. I probably could've forced my way through the 60 miler, but it wouldn't have been fun. Next month.

Oh, I got a new pair of cycling shorts at REI yesterday. http://www.rei.com/product/765087 They were on sale and man, they were exactly what I needed. Lots of padding and very comfortable. They'll be great for RAGBRAI in July!

Update -
Friday bit the bullet and swam 2000yds strong.
100 warmup
5x200 x 4mins (these all went faster than usual...3:05-:08 most times!)
1x500 x 10 mins
6x50 x 1 min
100 cool down

Hey T if you're reading this, I hear the water at the lake is just about warm enough to swim now. If you're home Memorial Day weekend we should get you out there...

The war is over!

"Get up! Get up!" General Katz yowled as she sat on my chest. "It's time to finish off the war!"

It was only 6:30 on a Saturday morning and it surely wasn't time to start the day. Unfortunately, the little general wasn't backing off. Reluctantly, I waddled out of bed to get her breakfast and get her off my back. Or rather, my chest.

But it was time. She was right. I looked outside to get my bearings on the day ahead. The ground was soft from a nice rain the night before. Clouds filled the day. Yes, this was the day to end the war that had been waging in my own backyard.

The war on crabgrass.

For years, I was resigned to the war. Hated the backyard because it was just so dull. I'd neglected it and paid for it heavily as the years took their toll. As the years passed, I was mowing less Bermuda and more of the crabgrass. It hit my knees at times it got so tall. Finally this spring I decided to attack.

In early March, after what was supposed to be the last freeze, I hit the backyard with roundup. Hit it hard. There was a bit of St Augustine grass that had been trying to move its allied forces in from neighboring lands, but it could never take hold of much but the edges. Where it stood, it stood firm. I allowed it to continue. But the nasty crabgrass got a full napalm-like explosion to kill it all. It worked. In a matter of weeks, it was crippled and dying.

But even in death, the crabgrass held onto its territory. Never letting go or relenting. I needed to get new reinforcements in to help the fringe army from next door. But to do this, I had to remove the decaying army still holding ground.

It took me 3 days of battle to finally pull the last of the dead crabgrass from the ground, all by hand and most of it holding tight in its roots. I took away 10, 30-gallon sized bags from the yard and sent it along to the trash. All the while General Katz was watching from a distance. It was exhausting but the war is over.

As the final hours of the battle were waged and the reinforcements brought in in waves (the transporters only held about 60 sheets of sod at a time), Katz patrolled the new territory, surveying the land, and sniffing it all out to make sure it was just right. She sighed, then as any good general, laid down in the sun, blissfully snoring in the sun.

All is good in the backyard lands these days. The new troops are standing tall and holding steady. As time goes on, these troops should propagate and take over the rest of the land.

Freedom reigns in St Augustine!