be fit run

Just a thought

2012-01-18T11:41:00.001-08:00

So, you know how I know I'm turning into a BFL? (big fat loser?) My boobs fit in my bra. Yep, that's right - it's a bad sign. When I'm training and lean, well, that's where fat disappears first.... and when I'm not - Boom!!! Boobs! Oh, some people are pretty happy about it I'm sure, but it's a sign to me, and not a good one!

And you know what else? I'm worried I'm going to get addicted to this whole "sitting around on my ass trying to not get any more blood clots" thing.

Be fit - for me!

Two weeks post surgery

2012-01-18T07:57:00.000-08:00

Well, here I am on the couch. Still. Two weeks later. I got over the puking and the major back pain. I'm getting around fairly well. Last Friday (which was a week and a half post-surgery) I decided that I was going to go into the gym and lift weights...just upper body of course. The doctor had told me that I could do that as soon as I felt up to it. And it's been driving me crazy not being able to do anything. So, I make it into the rec center, and put all pride aside and head straight to the elevator. No way do I feel like hopping up all those stairs and THEN trying to lift.

I've never been much of a fan of using machines to lift weights, but in the situation I'm in, this is the ONLY way and I'm happy to be able to do something. So I hit most of the shoulder and back machines, with some water breaks in between. It was a challenge to get on some of the seats without putting any weight on my bad foot and then finding a place for my crutches to sit. Twice I nearly took out a fellow exerciser by my crutches suddenly crashing to the floor and I had no less than three funny guys offer to race me around the track!

Well, the lifting felt pretty good. So good in fact that I decided i should probably do a little bit of leg exercises. With my good leg of course. So I did a few rounds on the extension and curl machines. That felt pretty good so I figured I could maybe try one round with my surgery leg. I know, I know, I'm not supposed to, but hey, it was my ankle that was operated on. Leg extensions work the quads, curls work the hamstrings, i have my boot on - if it hurts I will quit. So I went through one round each on my "bad" leg. It felt ok, but still maybe like it pulled just a hair in my ankle, so I figured that was enough.

Finished off my workout with some bicep curls and triceps extensions. Note to self....scoot the weight bench closer to the weight rack next time, because it's nearly impossible to carry a 20# weight when you're non-weight bearing... Then down to the mat for some ab work.

About the time I hopped back up I realized another problem. Basically I'm a one-legged person and I rely heavily on the leg and my arms to get me around. Well, I have just trashed every muscle in those three appendages by my enthusiastic workout! And I still have to crutch back outside to my car. Genius I say! Well, obviously I made it. I didn't fall - only had to stop a couple of times to rest.

That night we had plans for dinner at a friends' house and then we were going to the hockey game. Of course there was too much wine to be had (is there such a thing as too much wine??); well, I was careful, because I was not interested in trying to maneuver the stairs at the hockey arena while I was drunk. I did have a couple of near falls trying to get to my seat at the game, but other than that there was a handy elevator to help me get back to the main level.

The next morning I noticed a pain in my lower leg on my surgery side. I sort of ignored it, just figured it was part of the deal. I wasn't sore anywhere else though from my workout. The whole day was completely non-productive. Tom wasn't feeling well and it's a pain in the butt for me to get around, so we were content to sit on our butts and watch football. That night the pain in my calf was worse. I had a hard time finding a comfortable position for my leg, it was more comfortable to lay on the incision side than to lay on that part of my calf.

When I got up the next day, the pain was intense for awhile. It started to dawn on me that this probably wasn't a good thing. I started worrying a little bit about a blood clot. I didn't do anything about it for most of the day, and then finally asked a nurse friend about it. She told me I better get it checked out right away. I couldn't sleep that night, worrying about a blood clot coming loose and shooting up into my lungs. I didn't really want to wake up dead.

So the next morning I called the doctor's office and they got me in right away for an ultrasound. Sure enough, there was a lovely blood clot in my calf. They said it was the "good" kind - huh, didn't realize there was a good kind of blood clot. It wasn't a DVT (deep vein thrombosis) which is the bad kind that they worry about getting to your lungs, or heart or whatever. This was a superficial one, and I was told they probably wouldn't even treat it with anything but aspirin. Great. I think. The pain when I get up from laying down is intense; I guess the blood can't rush through there with that stupid clot in the way....well, it hurts like a son of a b*** for about twenty minutes. Enough that it brings tears to my eyes. It gets better after that; until I lay down again.

And if this isn't all enough - my son comes up with pink eye, so I spend the day hauling him around to the doctor and getting medication for him.

On the good side of things - I have learned how to get around a lot better on crutches. I now have those handy dandy ice picks that I can flip up or down as needed, which have gone a long way toward preventing the wipe outs on the ice (well, only three wipe outs, two on the way into the dr office, and one at Walgreens, but who's counting). I still scoot down the stairs on my butt, unless I have my boot on, and then I feel pretty comfortable putting my heel down, holding onto my crutches and the hand rail and hopping down. I have figured out how to carry my coffee with one finger around my crutch and two in the handle of my cup. There's a few splash marks on the floor, but hey, I'm doing it. I carry my plate to the table by hopping on one leg with no crutches from the kitchen to the table. I can carry other things by gripping the crutch with my armpit and then using my hip to push the crutch forward. I managed to do laundry; I had planned on pushing my laundry basket down the stairs, but instead, I made Jarron carry it down for me. Aww heck, he's ten and it's time he learned how to do his laundry. That was two days ago; my laundry is still down there....

Well, now I'm a little worried about working out again until I see the dr because of this stupid clot. I don't feel like I've gotten very good information from anybody on what I'm supposed to be doing or not doing with this. Other than keeping my leg elevated as much as it's down and taking my aspirin. Tomorrow I get my stitches out and I'm going to hopefully get some more answers. Meanwhile, I've been reading Runner's World and Triathlete and Fitness and thinking I'll be the next contestant on Biggest Loser if I can't start doing something soon!

Be fit

Day 3 post surgery

2012-01-07T11:52:00.000-08:00

Well, I had planned on doing a daily update post-surgery, however, I spent the last two days puking up anything and everything that came anywhere near my stomach! Turns out I would make a terrible druggie. I don't know what these people are made of that get such an "awesome" feeling from these pain meds. The only feeling I get is how it feels to hang over the garbage can puking because I can't get down to the toilet level on my crutches!!

The first day post-surgery was pretty painful - I had a hard time finding any position to lay in, or sit in or stand in. Not only was my ankle of course very sore, but so was my back and I had a headache from hell. They had warned me that a headache was possible with the spinal, but I assumed that would be just after surgery, not two and three days later. They also warned me of some back pain because of the spinal, but this back pain was more consistent with my "usual" back pain, only even more annoying, which started me worrying that maybe they ticked a nerve or something during the spinal... It took me awhile to find a comfortable position to lay in in bed. The only way it worked was to lay on my left side so the outside of my right ankle would be up. Well, that was okay for awhile, until my arm and fingers went to sleep and my back hurt so bad I couldn't stay that way anymore. So I had to flip over very carefully, readjust the pillow that my leg was resting on, try to keep the covers from pressing too heavily on my ankle and find someway else to lay down that didn't my stupid back. And then, after all that shifting around to get comfortable (which took about a half hour and seriously annoyed my sleeping partner) I had to pee.

Well, first off, I have contacts, which I don't sleep in, and I'm blind as damn bat without them. So on a normal night if I have to get up and pee, I have to hang on to the bed and maneuver through any traps that might have been left on the floor and feel my way into the bathroom. Well, now add on non-weight bearing on crutches and it's a certified disaster in the making. I didn't want to wake up Tom by turning on the light, so I slid out of bed, hopped to the end of the bed (quiet as an elephant I'm sure) and grabbed my crutches. Now, I'm still not very stable on the crutches and I can't see AND it's dark, so I get a severe case of vertigo with my first couple of steps. One crutch hooked up on a sweatshirt that hadn't quite hit the laundry basket and I made a foot-saving leap to the bed while one crutch crashed to the floor! (very quietly of course). "What in the hell are you doing?" came a grouchy voice from the bed... "just trying to pee" I said. Well I made it to the bathroom and back to the bed and spent the rest of the night turning and adjusting and hurting and cussing.

Up the next morning to get kids lunches ready and try to get everyone off to school. This is the one time I'm not cussing our small kitchen. I can pull something out of the fridge and set it on the counter all without moving, which is handy, since I can't carry anything that won't fit in the pocket of my robe. Tom takes everyone off to school and I collapse on the couch....and then realize that I'm going to be sick. Well, luckily everyone is gone out of the house and I spend the rest of the morning and half the afternoon puking. My friend Joy came over and hauled my puke bags off (what a true friend!), brought me all sorts of different options of things to drink and hung out and visited with me. She also talked me into calling the doc for a different pain prescription. Then my mom showed up as well to help out. We got the new prescription, which involved some scary driving experiences with my mother behind the wheel!! Oh well, who hasn't run over a curb or two when they were driving??

The kids got home from school and practice and thank goodness for my mom being there. She handled dinner and games and visiting like an old pro and pretty much left me to my couch. Tom was off to Sheridan for the night so I had the whole bed to myself - had a couple new pain meds under my belt, my foot was feeling a little better and I actually got some sleep. Woke up in the middle of the night, turned on the light to go pee this time, then decided to get a fresh icepack and a pain pill and go back to bed. I even ate part of a granola bar to go with my pill. Got a little more sleep in, then time to get up and get everyone up for school. Grandma took Hannah to school, Jarron helped make his own lunch and then Grandma took him to school. And then....well the puking started again. And so I spent the morning and part of the afternoon in the bathroom...again. I give up on these damn pain meds!!! So far I have had zero food or drink that has actually stayed down for the last two days. I do NOT need to be this weak and shaky when I'm trying to hobble around on crutches. I finally stop puking around noon or 1 o'clock. An hour or so later mom bakes a potato and I try half of that. Actually tasted okay and more importantly, it stayed down. So I had the other half a bit later. Woo hoo! I'm on a roll!

Hannah shows up after school and of course has developed a million plans, most of which involve me giving her and friends a ride somewhere. Well, I haven't been down the stairs all day and I haven't attempted to drive yet. I guess there's a first time for everything. So i sit on the floor and scoot down the stairs on my butt and then hobble out to the car. After jamming my crutches into the roof, and the other door and the sun roof and the kids in the back seat, I finally get them settled and pull myself in. And I CAN drive! With my surgery foot even! I just use my boot to push and it doesn't put any pressure on my ankle. It's kind of heavy to hold it up though, but I make it there and back with no issues. Well I did accelerate rather quickly a couple of times, but who's counting? So maybe that pedestrian thought I was playing chicken with him or something? Who knew someone's eyes could get THAT big! Anyway, I made it there and back and even picked up some dinner at McDonalds for Jarron and Tom. (and some fries for me - thought I'd stick with the potato theme since I hadn't puked them up).

That night was much better. I just stuck to ibuprofen for pain. My back was actually more problematic than my ankle for the night. Got up today and fixed breakfast. I put a chair in the middle of the kitchen to sit on and cook from which made it good cause I could reach the stove, sink and refrigerator all from the same spot. While I was cooking I tried to carry a bowl of chips into the living room (with my mouth), well that went crashing to the ground and chips went everywhere (gee, hope no one was trying to sleep). Anyway, I got breakfast fixed for two adults and three kids with out any major issues. And will update later...

Be fit

The surgery - Jan. 4th, 2010

2012-01-05T09:01:00.001-08:00

Well, yesterday I finally got it over with; 8:00 am found me dressed all in purple, which isn't all that unusual except that it's usually purple scrubs, and this time it was a HUGE purple hospital gown and purple socks with sticky paw prints on them (AND my smiley-face drawers!). My friends were all there, except I"m usually visiting with them in the lounge or the hall at work, and not while they are hooking me up to IV's and talking to me about spinals and drugs and other fun stuff!

I had decided on a spinal instead of regular anesthesia because of my history of puking every time I got put under. Even the fact that I was going to be numb from the waist down for a couple hours after the surgery seemed a much better option to me than puking afterward.

So finally they called us back; I got a goodbye kiss from Tom and they wheeled me off. Of course I had to take my contacts out and so all i could see was blurry faces, but I was comforted by the fact that I knew they were all "friendly" faces! They got me set up on the surgery table and i was still with it. I was talking to them a bit and then the Dr. came in and said hi and then got to work. I was like "hello!!!! I can FEEL what you are doing!". And that was the last thing I remember.

I woke up as they wheeled me out and I felt fine, except for being very tired. And I couldn't feel my butt, or my legs or my feet! They told me I couldn't leave until I was all thawed out. My feet and legs woke up first, tingling just as if they'd been asleep. I tried poking myself in the butt a few times to see if it was awake, but it still felt like it was 10-miles wide! Physical therapy came down with some crutches and I decided I felt like I was un-numb enough to go up and down the hall to try them out. I was successful on the crutches, although i can see that I had to learn to slow down a little and not get too far out ahead of myself.

I sat and waited a little bit longer for the rest of my butt to de-thaw, had some fruit and coffee for my breakfast and then decided I was ready to go home. So they helped me up to head back to the locker to get dressed. As I crutched across the room I all of a sudden felt something running down my legs! HELP! Apparently my lower half was still numb because now I'm peein' my damn pants and couldn't even tell. The nurse chased me down with a newspaper and threatened to spank me with it and I hurried into the bathroom! (ok she didn't really chase me down, but Tom thought she should! ).

Well, I finally got dressed without killing myself and made it out to the car. We dropped off my prescription and then to Wendy's to grab some lunch and then home to eat - and my first encounter with stairs! We live in a split level, which never seemed a real problem until today. I made it up okay, had some lunch and then onto the couch for a nap. By the time I woke up, my foot was finally starting to hurt so I figured we better go pick up my drugs. Now for my first "trip" down the stairs. Literally, "trip". The second step did NOT go well, I had my weight too far out over the crutches and ended up throwing one crutch down the stairs and grabbing the handrail to save myself! Tom was so helpful and laughed at me from the bottom of the stairs. The rest of the trip went without issues and I got back home and to the couch safely.

I was trying to decide what we were going to do for dinner when my friend Todd called up and said he was bringing KFC over! What a guy! Thank goodness for all my friends and family. As the evening wore on, the pain started to increase. I was worried about taking too many pain killers so probably didn't help myself any by putting it off. I made it down the stairs to tuck the kids in and tell good night stories and back up with no issues.

Nighttime was a joke.... I might have gotten a couple of hours sleep. It was hard to get comfortable and there was really only one position I could lay in that was comfortable for my foot, so finally my back was sore and my arms were numb from laying there. At one point I was asleep and then all of a sudden my foot just jerked! and I about peed the bed! OMG it hurt like hell and felt like I just ripped open every tendon in my ankle. There was no sleeping after that...I laid there just hoping that the pain would finally subside enough that I could quit cussing to myself.

Then it was time to get up and start the day. Pretty difficult to crutch from the bed to the bathroom, in the dark, with no contacts in - bad vertigo...just about tipped over. But I made it.....

The countdown is on

2012-01-02T18:04:00.000-08:00

Well, miraculous healing has not occurred; at least not in my case anyway. So, surgery is still set for day after tomorrow. I've lain awake many nights in the last week or two worrying about the surgery itself and the outcome of the surgery. Now that I work in a surgery department I sort of know what goes on once you count backwards from 100 or whatever it is - and I must say, that doesn't necessarily ease my mind. I chose to have my surgery in my own department because I know everyone that will be involved in it and I know they will take care of me. However, they're probably gonna see my butt and I'm wondering if they'll look at me the same way again! haha I have no doubt of the professionalism of my crew and in reality, my biggest worry is my recovery, not being buck-naked in the operating room.

And speaking of recovery - I am still maintaining a positive attitude, at least on the outside. The location of the tendon tear is in just about the worst spot it could be in for range of motion in my foot. The tear is somewhere just deep to my ankle bone on the outside. So the incision will be right on that area; length of the incision will depend on the length and exact location of the tear. There is a retinaculum layer over the top of the tendons that hold the tendons in place, so that will have to be cut and re-sewn as well. Best case scenario is less than fifty percent of the tendon being torn, so that it can just be stripped out and sewn up. This will still require some time non-weight bearing but hopefully only 2-3 weeks. Worst case scenario is more than fifty percent of the tendon is torn and then that whole piece will be cut out and the remainder will be sewn to the surrounding tendons basically. This will require 6 weeks non-weight bearing and a much more difficult recovery of range of motion and ability.

I don't know when I will be able to run again, but I WILL run again. I'm a little worried about becoming a big fatty while I'm not able to work out - although hopefully within a few days I will feel well enough to hobble to the gym and at least lift some upper body weights. I imagine I will be doing some physical therapy as well and the therapist I am going to knows me well and knows the level of competition I want to return to.

I'm also a little worried about what I'm going to do while I'm not able to work. Unfortunately my job requires me to be on my feet constantly and to carry lots of heavy items, which I won't be able to do while I'm non-weight bearing. I'm hoping that we can find something "light duty" for me to do once I am ready to return. I have enough time off available for about three weeks of paid time off, after that I'm S.O.L. so I will really, really need to find some way to work.

I'm planning on keeping track of my progress on here, so if anyone is interested keep checking back for updates. I'm also planning on the being the poster child for my surgeon and they can use pictures of me completing my next Ironman as their success story for ankle tendon repair surgery!

Be fit!

Pick the date

2011-12-07T19:21:00.000-08:00

Well, I did it. I finally called the doctor's office and scheduled my surgery. I'm not excited about it - but, since I'm certain that a miraculous recovery will happen prior to the actually surgery I'm not going to get too worried about it! :)

However, just to play devil's advocate I will let you all in on what "would" happen if the surgery actually happened..

It would be a runner's nightmare for sure, so I'm really looking forward to this miraculous recovery that I mentioned earlier. I would start off with six weeks non-weight bearing on crutches (in January, mind you - do they make chains for crutches??). Luckily I wouldn't be in a cast, I would be in my dear 'ol boot that's been my constant companion for the past two months. After I graduate from non-weight bearing, I would remain in my friend, the boot, for another six weeks... (by that time, I will have been in this *&^Q**W*(_(*Q**Q* boot for, oh, let's see, about SIX months! Talk about a WASTE!

So, perhaps someone will learn from MY mistakes. If it hurts, BAD, you might want to stop at some point. Just sayin'. ...

Anyway, so I would say my race endeavors for next year are pretty much out of the question unless I decide to train for something in the fall; something short... i don't know, I guess we'll see how things go. Of course, due to the miraculous recovery and such, I won't have to worry about it and should be race-ready by May!

Be fit

There's a hole in my suitcase

2011-11-30T19:50:00.000-08:00

We were traveling for Thanksgiving, just Tom and I. We started Thanksgiving with the annual Turkey Trot. This year, I helped with registration instead of running; not my most favorite option, but at least I got to visit with all my friends from the running club and the rec center. Tom and his mom walked the course and got their daily exercise in I stayed for the duration of the race, noting that the winning female time was a time that I could've beat... :( Sigh. Oh well, I vowed that next year I will run the Turkey Trot again.

So after the race it was time to pack up and head to Jackson for the weekend. I threw in my jeans and sweatshirts, something to wear to dress up, comfy clothes, and all the shoes required for a girl. But there was still room in my suitcase. What was I missing? Why is it that I'm always having to sit on my suitcase to zip it shut and there's always at least one or two pairs of shoes that won't fit? What am I forgetting?

And then it dawned on me. I usually love to go to Jackson and get some great runs in.... anywhere I go, even if it's just overnight to my mom's in Sheridan, I always pack my running gear. This day I had not one pair of running shorts; not a sports bra, not a tech shirt, no running jacket, hat or gloves. And no running shoes. There's definitely a hole in my suitcase, and a hole in my will, in my resolve, in my determination. I'm trying hard not to let this temporary inability to run define me, to depress me. But it's difficult. Every day with a little bit of sunshine, every beautiful mountain trail or untouched path leaves me longing to run.

There's a hole in my suitcase, and a hole in my life that I am trying to fill with other things. With biking and swimming and lifting. But my heart's not in it. I will prevail, I will continue to work out and get the benefits and enjoyment that I can from it. But a hole will remain until I'm able to hit the streets again with my crew; until I can run.

Be fit!

What would you do if you couldn't......?

2011-11-15T07:24:00.001-08:00

To my running buddies -

What would you do if you couldn't run? We spend hours planning our daily runs, setting up group runs and courses, water drops and mobile aid stations, planning and training for races...running and running and running.

What would you do if you couldn't run? Would you give up on exercise completely? Would you try walking (too slow and boring), would you try biking (not the same high), would you try swimming (too wet) or weight lifting or classes? Would you take to sitting on the couch and eating ice cream and bon-bons until that time came around that you COULD run?

What would you do if you couldn't run - as far as you used to? What if you were used to training for and running marathons and ultra-marathons and ridiculously long ultra-runs? What if you could only run 10 miles or less? Would you give up? Would you settle for becoming a pokey 'ol short distance runner, or worse yet "GASP" a WALKER, with the joy of training gone? Or would you work on becoming a "better" short distance runner? Could you change your perspective enough to be happy with less running? or no running at all?

What would YOU do? Have you thought about it? Have you been lucky enough to NOT have to think about it?

I have been stuck in the rut of thinking that running is the ONLY way for me to stay in shape. Even though I'm a triathlete and I train in multiple sports, I still feel that running is MY thing; it's the one I love the most, it defines me as a person. And now I have to revisit that idea. I had planned on doing another Ironman in a couple of years. CAN'T - is NOT a word in my vocabulary. Someday I want to run a 50-miler and a 100-miler and do some other ridiculous running feats. I guess my perspective will have to be ever-changing, ever-adaptable. Because I'm learning that "fitness" will define me, not just "running".

I've got to get to work!

Be fit

Monday

2011-11-14T10:22:00.000-08:00

I did a good job of not doing a damn thing (exercise-wise) over the weekend. Sat at a basketball tournament all day Saturday and basically hung out on Sunday. We were going to rake leaves on Sunday but luckily it snowed on top of them so we got out that job; unfortunately, it will just make it that much more difficult to get them picked up when it melts. oh well.

Tried to trip down the stairs a few times - stupid boot always sticks at the most inopportune time! And now, with the snow, I'm walking around even more like an idiot, trying not to slip on the ice and wondering how cold my toes are going to be when winter really gets here! Lucky me, i'll probably be on crutches by then or something stupid and I'll have some real wrecks on my hands!

And my boot is now dirtier and wet when I come in from outside, so I have to take it off and then hobble around the house on my toes. Maybe I need two boots, one for outside and one for inside?

This morning I got up at 5 and headed in to swim. Got a 200yd warm up and then a 1200yd straight swim, 100 yd cool down. Then I went upstairs to lift. I've decided to do the Cybex circuits now since that will keep most of the pressure off of my foot, as opposed to free weights (which I prefer).

My ankle is not miraculously cured today. It still has that same pain shooting through it. Maybe tomorrow?? I have to teach spin in the morning; dr. told me I could bike as long as I took it easy. He doesn't know me very well does he? I guess I'll see how it goes and decide from there if I need to cease the biking as well. Really? Take it easy? How the heck do I do that? And why bother at all if I have to "take it easy". Sigh. I need a mental makeover I think!

Okay, back to work.

Be fit everyone. I'm here to show you all that just because you can't work out in the way you always have, that doesn't mean that you can't work out at all. Injury or not, I will find a way to get my workout in - and you can too!

A bigger challenge

2011-11-12T20:24:00.000-08:00

Typically I've been writing here during my training for a specific event. Mainly during my Ironman, with a few posts here and there in between. Now I feel like I need to document, bitch about and just plain "get it out" while I move through this injury phase.

I ran the Big Horn Trail Run 50K in June. A little background if you don't know me - I developed a severe case of plantar fasciitis several years ago, due to overuse. Teaching 11 fitness classes a week, lifeguarding and training for races...anyway, as I usually do, I spent a lot of time denying the issue until it got so bad they threatened to put me on crutches and then I decided I needed to fix it. So I didn't run for a few months and ended up with expensive orthotics (which eventually brought the problem under control). At that point I had researched plantar fasciitis enough that I knew it probably was not ever going to go away completely, given my fitness lifestyle, but I was able to control it with orthotics.

Until this past spring. I decided to sign up for the Big Horn 50K again. About two weeks into my training, my plantar fasciitis felt like it was flaring up. I had been weaned out of my orthotics for the past year. So I made a BIG, HUGE, stupid-ass mistake - one I would never, ever, tell anyone to do... I had brand new shoes to start training in and so, on my first ten-mile training run, I threw on the new shoes AND the orthotics that I hadn't worn in a year! Well, by about mile four, it was hurting bad; by mile 7 I knew I couldn't (and shouldn't) make the whole 10 miles. So I cut it short but could hardly walk by the time I got done. Well, to make a long story short, my plantar fascii was toast. Again. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Well, was already signed up for my race and couldn't back out (well, any sane person could, but, well...you know me). So I kept training and trying to keep it at bay. Luckily it's only in one foot.. I was able to continue my training (although walking in between runs was getting nearly impossible). I knew it was a bad idea, but was unwilling to back down. On my longest training run, a 26-miler, I felt pretty good for the first 20, and the last 6 was so painful I could barely walk through it. Yet I continued.

Race day was a beautiful, sunny, cool day - with lots of mud, snow and water on the course, in addition to the thousands of feet of ascent and descent. The course had been altered due to the snow and mud so we had an additional 7 miles of downhill in the beginning that we wouldn't have normally had. I started strong, trying to maintain control of my pace on the long 7-mile downhill. I gave up immediately on trying to avoid the mud and water and just ran right through them. By the end of the first downhill I know my quads were gonna be trashed. Turned around and back up the same course...

By 15 miles or so my quads were definitely trashed. My foot was hurting but I was able to keep it under control, except for the few times I stepped directly on a rock with my heel. On the long 2-mile downhill my quads had given up. I was barely hobbling, shuffling along, wishing I hadn't run so hard on the first 7. I tripped and face-planted on the trail. Runners were passing me left and right. I was telling myself what a bfl I was (big fat loser) and generally cursing myself and my stupid ideas. I finally reached the last big aid station and hit the five miles of flat, hot, dry dirt road to the finish. Somehow I picked up the pace and kept it up, finishing hard and ending up 1st in my age group and top 10 overall female. And unable to hardly walk. My "award" was unique to this particular race. A river rock from the river that flows along a portion of the course, stamped with the year and reason for award. Well, it was so heavy that it about killed my foot to try and carry it.

I had to quit running after that. I hobbled everywhere, especially when I first got out of bed in the morning. The pain was intense. I tried the stretching and the icing and the night splint. After about a month, the pain was no better but I decided I should run once a week. So I ran Saturday runs with the running club, 5-miles or so per run. Painful, but I did it. And then could barely walk for the rest of the weekend.

My job involves walking and carrying heavy items; all day. By noon every day I am hobbling..in pain. I finally went to see a doc to determine if I had developed a stress fracture. He took a pointless x-ray (which don't typically show stress fractures) and told me to stretch and ice, etc. and come back in three weeks. Well, I had already been doing all that and so I kept doing what I was doing. But it never seemed to get any better. My ankle felt like it was going to break. I had to hop around on my toes just to get around and I was certain my ankle was going to break out from under me.

I decided that I needed a walking boot finally to take some of the pressure off at work so my foot could rest. For three weeks I wore the boot all day long and it did provide a lot of relief at work. But as soon as it was off and I tried to get around it home, it was painful. If I sat down for a minute or two I could barely walk when I stood up. Hopping around on my toes, feeling like my ankle was going to break. I quit running altogether, just swimming and biking. But the pain was still intense.

I finally gave in and decided that I needed an MRI. I'm poor and can't afford it, but at this point I have given up. I haven't run in weeks, biking hurts it, lifting weights hurts it, swimming is better but this is killing me off. I'm trying to plan my races for next season, and I can't even run. So another xray is taken, which again shows nothing (of course). An MRI was ordered, and in I go to see the doc. Well, all mumbo jumbo aside, it turns out I have a partially torn tendon. A longitudinal tear of the peroneus longus tendon to be exact. Okay, so what does this mean? Well, as it turns out, the doc wasn't exactly encouraging. Cortisone shots are out, because of my lifestyle, because they will actually weaken the tendon, making me predisposed to possible rupture. If it doesn't heal on it's own, then surgery is the next option.

He wants to give me three more weeks in the walking boot to see what happens. He says if I have surgery, there is no guarantee that I can get back to my previous level of function. If I've been running marathons or longer, I may only be able to run 10-miles or a half-marathon or so. No guarantees... those words linger in my brain, hang over my head like a cloud. I wanted to do my 2nd Ironman for my 45th birthday. I want to run a marathon in Alaska next fall. I have half-ironmen planned net summer.

I'm researching on the internet. What I'm finding isn't super-encouraging. Tendons don't typically heal themselves because of the lack of blood supply and ya da ya da. I'm keeping a positive outlook. I decided it's time to work on my swimming! I can lift weights on the Cybex circuit, since free weights increase my foot pain. I'm hoping for the best! And so I will use this site as a way to vent my frustrations, my fears, my optimism and pessimism. I will review my exercise program and find the best way to continue to keep myself in shape - even though running is my life.

Keep on keeping on. Relentless forward motion.

I survived week 1

2011-03-07T15:36:00.000-08:00

Well, I made it through week one of my 50K run/sprint tri training program! I logged 2400yds of swimming, 36.5 miles of running, 2 hrs of spinning, 1 hr of plyometrics. I would never advise my personal training clients to start off like this - but I'm pretty good at thinking I'm immune to the need for "smart" training. Somehow all those rules don't apply to me! I'm INVINCIBLE!!

I did skip out on one of the running workouts that was supposed to be intervals. As I'm dealing with this recurring plantar fasciitis injury, I didn't want to push it with speed work. So I settled for a "long" run - for this particular weekend that turned out to be about 11.75 miles on Saturday followed by 5.5 on Sunday. Well....my foot is hanging in there. It's definitely sore, however, I continue to tell myself that this is "manageable" pain. I had ordered a plantars brace/support thing to try out and while I did not wear it running, I have been wearing it around the rest of the time. So far I think it is helping somewhat. I'm also keeping up with the ice/ibuprofen thing to help keep swelling and inflammation down.

The long run did go better than I was expecting. We decided on a later start - 9 a.m. instead of the usual 6:30-7:00 a.m. Saturday runs. The wind had picked up out of the South so we started that direction and then had it at our backs for the majority of the run. Supposed to be a long, slow run so I tried to keep my pace down. We let Todd run on up ahead and Kelly and I hung back. I actually felt good and felt as though I could have picked it up faster - until about 9 miles in. We hit a steep, but short hill and that is where I learned that my legs were really getting tired. I powered up (okay, dragging, hobbit steps, but who's keeping track)?? Then it's downhill from there but back into the wind a bit. It had warmed up quite a bit by then so the wind wasn't too cold, just sort of makes it hard to get a good, deep breath. Todd let me catch up to him and we pushed through the wind til the end. Other than tired legs though I felt okay. My heel was okay; sore, but okay.

I was hungry and tired tho for sure and had a whole day of painting left in front of me. I didn't even shower cause I knew I was going to be painting - so off I went to Starbucks for a bold brew and one mini vanilla bean scone (YUM). Then to the paint store. got a heck of a workout in painting - the big texture on our wall was a lot harder to fill in than I thought. Well I got the first coat done and called it a day with a big ol steak for dinner, a couple bottles (i mean glasses) of wine and early to bed.

Next day 5.5 mile run with Todd and Bud. Definitely knew my body was tired. The legs were not wanting to churn a very fast pace; the belly was feeling the steak and wine from the night before and the heel was pretty sore to start off. I survived and spent the rest of the day feeling sick to my stomach and hobbling around like an invalid but hey - I DID IT! One week down, 14 or so to go til race day...no problem.

Be fit run

I'm baaack

2011-02-28T12:53:00.001-08:00

Hello out there fellow exercise enthusiasts and members of the "let's see what this crazy woman is up to now" club!

Well I've determined that I have a really, really hard time working out without having a planned race in my future that involves a training schedule of some sort. I can't just go work out just for the "health" of it! And so, this either leaves me in a funk because I have no motivation to go work out, or, it leaves me a panic over workouts that I "missed" on my training schedule. I prefer to be in the panic state, in case you were wondering.

So, I did my first half-Ironman last summer! Yes, backwards I know, seeing how I did the full Ironman first. Oh well, it made the half seem a LOT better! ha ha. Sorry I wasn't up on my blog during that training but just got too busy with life to keep it up. Let's just say I did the training, I completed the race and ended up 3rd overall female and I think 11th overall or something like that. It was a challenging (to say the least) bike course - if any of you are familiar with the Bozeman area, the course went from Bozeman and up past Bridger Bowl ski area, over the top of the pass, down the other side about 8 miles or so and then turned around and back to the starting point. Whew. I was in granny gear a LOT!

So as usual after my big race of the season, I fell of the train. No race to plan for, busy, etc. So now I'm back in gear with another race to train for and hopefully I will just keep one on my schedule. My big race for 2011 is one that I've done before but looking for a return to the trail running. I will be doing the Big Horn 50K in June. Two of my Gillette buddies are also signed up so will have training partners.

Last week was supposed to be our "official" start of our training program but my kids chose to be sick all week (never on the same day of course) AND to top it off, I had done something really stupid a couple weeks before that that had left me unable to run because of severe heel pain...so we are starting off this week FRESH? And since training for one race at a time isn't quite enough, I've also thrown in a little sprint tri training so I will be ready for the Gillette triathlon in early May.

So today, nice little 1200 yard straight swim. My goggles are gross and I can barely see out of them so I decided to get a cheapo pair at the desk on my way in to swim. Well, remember the old adage "you get what you pay for"? Yea. I'm not sure if my eyes were too fat, my head to big, the goggles too tight or all of the above, but they leaked. And they fogged up. So I dinked around for 200yds adjusting my goggles every time I turned around and finally gave up, went back to my locker and grabbed my old pair. At least they didn't leak and it doesn't matter if I can see very well because it's not like I can get lost in the pool. Oh hush - I can hear all the little snide comments right now! ha ha

And a side note on my stupid foot. This will be (has been) an ongoing injury for me. I have dealt with it in various stages of severe for the last four to five years I guess. So we'll see how it all pans out. I did run yesterday - nice,easy 5.8 miles with only moderate, tolerable pain. So I was happy about that. Looking forward to being back on here - not that any of you really care what I have to yak about, however, I just like to hear myself type! lol

Later!

How time flies!

2010-06-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

Wow, I can't believe it's been just over a month since I've been on here! I know I haven't been very good about keeping up with it; I'll just use the excuse that I'm too damn busy. And now, to top it off, whoever I was robbing internet service off of in my neighborhood has moved and now I can't connect to the internet at home! Damn! Gonna have to actually BUY my service. Sigh.

My workouts are progressing - as usual, I can't believe I let myself take most of the winter "off" and then have to start all over again. Every year I say I'm not going to do that and then race season gets over and BAM! I'm done training.

So my latest race was the Buffalo Sprint Triathlon on June 5th. This particular race consisted of a 900-yd swim, 14 or 15-mile bike and a 4-mile run. I was still coming back from my "disappointing" race at the Gillette triathlon where I was a full ten minutes off of my best time. Now I know inside that I wasn't trained well at all and shouldn't have expected any better. I still got first in my age group and third overall so not a bad day. But, it was still hard on my ego to get knocked off that podium. So I wasn't sure what to expect in Buffalo. I had another four weeks of training under my belt so I had better be in better shape!

It was a nice, cool morning. Cloudy and looking like maybe the rain would actually hold off til we were done racing. I hopped in the pool for some warm up and started talking to the gal in my lane. I recognized her from past races but didn't remember how she placed. She was in the fast lane of the pool so I figured she must be a good swimmer. I asked her how fast she thought she'd swim this and she casually said "oh about 11:30 or so"! Holy crap! I think that's actually what I said. I told her I was thinking about 15' probably. Well, the good thing was I'd have the lane to myself for awhile. Now the competitiveness was kicking in. There were two other fast swimmers in the lane next to me and I knew I'd be on the chase by the time I got out of the pool.

Sure enough, we started off and my lane partner quickly took the lead, and then passed me, and then passed me again, and again...I think only three times, maybe four, but that's quite a bit of time in the pool. I finally finished and hopped out, running out to my bike. I saw one of the other swimmers already getting on her bike; the other two must have been long gone. It seemed to take forever to transition. I plopped down in my chair to put on my shoes and of course left a puddle of water in the chair. When I got up to put on my helmet and gloves, my sunglasses fell into the chair and the puddle of water. I grabbed them to put them on and they were completely covered with water. I made one feeble attempt to dry them and gave up, throwing them on the ground. The sun wasn't out anyway and I just hoped for no bugs or dirt clods in my eye.

As I rode out of the transition I got down to the business of playing catch up. It only took a 100yards or so to catch the closest gal - it was her first triathlon and she was a little slower at the transition. Down the street I went, heading toward the first big hill about a mile into the race. As I reached the bottom of the hill I could see the other two gals that had beat me out of the water about 3/4 of the way up the hill. This is a long hill by the way - like a mile long. So I dug in and headed up. Got a few drinks of water and gatorade in on the way. I wasn't going to catch them on this hill but I did make up some ground. By the time I crested the top, they had taken advantage of the downhill and were at the bottom of the next climb already. I peddled til I ran out of gears and then tucked in as best I could to take advantage of the down. I was gaining as I climbed the next hill but still hadn't caught them.

Finally, about five miles in, I knew they were toast! The next hill would be my advantage and I would pass them then. Meanwhile, they had changed leaders twice. I caught "miss speedy swimmer" first and hailed her with a "good job" as I went by. One down, one to go. As I got closer I realized she wasn't wearing a helmet. Weird. I thought it was a requirement in any race, but apparently not. It was another full hill before I caught and passed her. I never looked back.

About ten miles into the race I had caught the tail end of the team bikers and knew for sure there weren't any more solo girls in front of me. The solo guys started a half hour behind us so I was free and clear. Then, all of a sudden, I heard the huffing and puffing of a biker coming up behind me. It was a guy! What the hell? I was thinking, this guy must ROCK! He started a full half hour behind me and he's caught me ten miles into the bike? WOW!! He flew by me but then started to slow on the next hill and I actually caught back up to him for a minute. I asked him "are you doing the tri solo?". He said no, he was just doing the bike race. Whew! For a minute there I thought he was some kind of super stud! Turns out he was just a biker dud! lol jk It rhymed so I had to say it!!

Okay, back on track. Back to the transition area with no mishaps and no other girls in sight behind me. Parked my bike, quickly changed into my running shoes, race belt and my hat and grabbed a drink. Off I went with the typical concrete, jello legs that you have right off the bike. THank goodness it was a cool day. I fell into rhythm pretty quickly - I think I'm starting to get used to that crappy feeling finally! Usually takes me about a mile to get the legs loosened up and it was no different this time. I started meeting and passing some of the team runners. About a mile and a half into the run I see a yellow lab barking on the other side of a fence. Not a security fence, a barb wire fence. Well he barked a frenzy but never came through and I kept running. Made it to the turnaround, grabbed a drink and back down the road. All downhill from here! I'm feeling good and running a great pace (well at least it felt like it). About a half mile or so back down the road I met the next two closest girls so I knew unless something major happened that I was home-free. Back around the corner and there's that damn yellow lab again, only this time, he comes through the fence. I yelled my usual "Get back you son of a bitch!" and he did jump back through. Luckily. I heard later that he came out at several of the runners but no one got bit.

So the rest of the run back was uneventful. I was feeling great, probably not pushing as hard as I could have as I wasn't being pushed by anyone or trying to catch anyone. I did meet one gal though and I was glad that she must have been a slow swimmer or biker because she was running fast and I wasn't sure I could have beat her in a one on one run!

Back to the finish line! Woo hoo! Stopped to look at my time - 1:35. Well at least I showed some improvement from the Gillette race which I did in 1:33 and that had a mile shorter run! So I felt good about that! At least the training is still working.

Hung around and chatted with everyone afterwards. Found out that the gal I had passed that wasn't wearing her helmet had wrecked on her bike and still managed to come in 2nd place! Good for her! Turns out she had a flat tire with about four miles left to go in the race and didn't have anything along to change it with so she just kept riding. On one of the last corners into town she couldn't turn too well (because of the flat tire) and hit one of those street drains. Her tire went right into the crack and down she went. Scraped up a little, not too bad. She got back on and kept going. Another gal also wrecked her bike on a corner (maybe the same one). She was banged up quite a bit more (reminded me of my wreck last year) but she also kept going and finished the race!

The grit and determination of athletes is inspirational!

So anyway, I had a good race and a good day and spent the rest of the weekend watching my daughter play in the 3 on 3 basketball tournament in Sheridan. I am still training for the Headwaters 1/2 Ironman in July. Hopefully it's not going to be canceled - they are having construction issues on the bike course and aren't sure if it's going to be completed in time. Meanwhile, I will train on as if it is going to happen. I need to buck up though and quit being a fair-weather biker because we haven't had any "fair" weather yet. I missed a 40-mile bike ride last weekend because of the rain and the wussy factor! Can't miss any more long bike rides or I'll be screwed!

Keep on keeping on!
Be fit!

Knocked off the pedestal

2010-05-11T15:43:00.000-07:00

Well, I knew the day would come and I had a feeling that it would be at the local Splash N Dash triathlon. And I was right. Was it a self-fulfilling prophecy? Or just the fact that I was under-trained? Combination of both?

Our local sprint distance triathlon was last Saturday. I've competed in it as a soloist three times and won overall female each time. Now, to be fair I did get first in my age group this year, I was 3rd overall and had a decent time given the weather (35° and windy)- 1:33. But I knew I wasn't ready; i only had six or seven bike rides under my belt THIS YEAR! Swimming - well I had been swimming consistently (2-3 times/week) for about 5 weeks. Running, as usual that's the one I usually keep up with so no problems there. So I knew going into it that this would be a good year for one of my competitors to come in and kick my butt.

I started out being late Saturday morning. Just couldn't get my shit together and get out the door. I showed up just in time to get marked and head in for the athlete pre-race meeting. By the time that was done it was 30 minutes prior to race start - I hadn't set up my bike or anything in my transition area and I still wanted to swim at least a couple hundred yards for a warm up. So I get all my gear and head to the transition area to get set up. I'm freezing my butt off and not excited about coming out of the pool to this cold wind. But I got it all set and off into the pool for a warm up.

The pool is packed! We had a great turnout despite the cool weather and the lanes are all full. I mean full as in AT LEAST three people per lane. I hop in with two other ladies, one who is a first-timer and obviously scared to death. The other one (Jo) and I start chatting about whether we should circle swim or what and the other gal is freaking out saying "i can't do that; I don't want to get in anybody's way". We try to explain that you just swim up one side of the lane and back down the other but her nerves were too much for her and she couldn't focus on that change. So Jo and I decide we'll start all together then she and I would swim up the middle and back down the lane line on our side. After that's decided I did manage to get in a quick 200 yard warm up. My boyfriend was counting for me and I had supplied him with a notebook and pen so as not to make me swim any extra and let him know that on my last lap he'd have to yell LOUDLY at me to let me know I was on the final lap.

The countdown is on and the gun goes off! I take the lead in my lane about halfway through the first length and Jo and I settle into our rhythm. After just one lap, the nervous first-timer hops out and sits on the edge. I look up briefly on my turn to make sure she's all right and then continue on. I could hear my kids cheering me on from the sidelines. Several more laps into it, she's all of a sudden back, having jumped in from the starting side again. She continues on for one lap and then she's back out again. That was the last we saw of her - I guess race day nerves got to be too much. Hopefully she can come back and try again. Otherwise it worked well for Jo and I. We probably then had the least crowded lane in the pool and were able to swim on our own sides for the remainder of the 900 yard distance.

I drag myself out of the pool with shaky arms and start trotting on the wet, slippery floor toward the exit. "Excuse me, coming thru" I hollered out to avoid running over any well-meaning spectators. I forgot to mention earlier that I am also part of a three person team today and they are using my swim time. So as I go out the door toward the transition area I'm yelling for the bike rider on our team so he is ready and waiting for me to slap his hand and he's off! I'm fairly warm from my swim so at least my teeth aren't chattering uncontrollably. I plop down on my towel and my daughter hands me my long-sleeved shirt. Now, if you've ever tried to put on a shirt over a wet body you know that things can get real twisted, real fast! I was trying to carefully pull the sleeves up and the shirt over my head without getting any of the dreaded "roll up" effect. I managed to get in the shirt without looking like I was having some sort of seizure. then on to the socks and shoes. Throw on a head band, put my helmet on and buckle it, sunglasses and then gloves. Run out to the mounting area and hop on with shaky legs. It takes three or four tries to get my right foot clipped in and I'm off. "17 minutes" someone yells! Yikes, that's a little slower than I wanted.... As I head around the first corner I realize I haven't zipped up the half-zipper on my shirt and that wind is cold. So with one hand I grab the zipper and ease it up! Wow, it worked and I didn't crash! Woo hoo! I'm off on Warlow!

it usually takes me a good half hour into a sprint race to get my breath back on the bike. This race is no exception. I get two or three big drinks in from my Gatorade and try a couple pieces of my orange. Going West on Warlow isn't too bad as the wind is from the South. Turn North on 14/16 and enjoy the wind at my back all the way out to the airport. Make a few passes and also get passed a few times like I'm standing still. Turning East at the airport turns into a long, gradual uphill. I really don't feel like I can go. at all. I'm pulling as hard as I can but keep having to shift up. I have no idea if my main competitor is in front of or behind me and I'm working as hard as i can to make up ground. Gregg has driven by me a couple times but hasn't told me where anyone is. it seems like forever up this damn hill, but I finally see my "fan club" parked alongside the road and get a burst of energy from all the cheering "go Mommy" "go Wendy"! I finally see the first person coming back on the bike so I know I must be getting closer to the turn around. i still haven't seen any girls.....

Crap, there goes Emily! What? I didn't expect her to be out of the pool before me? Is she on a team? what the hell? I can see the turnaround and I still haven't seen Daisy, the competitor I have been most worried about. Maybe I did beat her out of T1. Damn. There she is! She's ahead of me; not far, maybe 1/2 a mile. how the hell did she get out of the pool that much faster than me? I push it to the turn around, make the cut...and hit the South wind. Well, we all have to deal with it but it was sort of like trying to ride in sand. Even on the downhills I had to shift up. I can see Daisy's red jacket ahead of me and I keep that in my sights as I push on.

I make it to Hannum and keep pushing. I'm gaining on a couple more bikers and I seem to be gaining on Daisy too. As I move up the line, thinking I might have a chance to catch her, it slowly starts to dawn on me that that is NOT Daisy's red jacket that I have been eyeing all this time. It's an ORANGE jacket! Damn, damn, damn - I look farther forward and see her disappearing over the crest of the short, steep climb up ahead. I start to think there's no way I'll catch her; I can outrun her, but on a short run like a 3-miler I don't know if I'm going to be able to make up that much. I hit the bottom of the steep climb ready to stand up and push through and BAM! my goddamn chain comes off! SON OF A BITCH I yell out! Slide off the seat, reach over and with frozen fingers finally get the chain back on. All momentum gone, I push through as best I can. As I crest the top Gregg is waiting and hollers out "she's 2 minutes and 15" ahead". Crap, I don't think I can make that up on a run.

I see her heading out on the run as I come in the last block to turn into the Aquatics center and T2. I jump off my bike and run unsteadily to the transition area, rack my bike and collapse on my towel. My fingers are frozen and I'm struggling with my laces. Damn, damn, damn. I finally get them tied, throw on my hat and head out - urging my legs of concrete and jello to MOVE!

I'm getting in the rhythm, I'm passing a few people. Every corner I turn I look for her; I don't see her. Even with a long stretch she's not there. I'm pretty sure now there's no way to make up this difference. About a mile and a half in I turn the corner and...there she is! Just turning the next corner, but it's a long stretch. I pick up the pace a bit more and I'm heading down hill. I turn the next corner, she's gone. And the next and the next. The next one I turn, there she is again. i've gained a lot but I just don't think I can do it. I push up the pace but now I know there's no way. As I turn the final corner I see her making the curve into the finish line. No way. I keep the pace and run in to the finish line with my kiddos beside me. I end up 40 seconds back. Sigh.

I check my time - 1:33. Wow! A full ten minutes slower than my best time last year. That's a tough pill to swallow; but realistically, I know I am NOT in the shape I've been in the last couple of years. And last year I was training for Ironman so obviously in MUCH better shape. I find Daisy and give her a hug! Great job Daisy, you deserve it!

You see, Daisy and I have been competing against each other for the past five years or so and up until today, I have been the one in first. I told her how I could just see her disappearing around every corner in front of me! she laughed and said that's exactly what she'd thought for the last five years trying to chase me down! She said she kept seeing my face during the whole race and was running with a fire under her, jsut waiting to hear my footsteps.

Well, she didn't hear them this time, but LOOK OUT next time Daisy!

So anyway, a great race day was had. We had a wonderful turnout and the race was well run and organized as always. Congratulations to all the competitors!! It is so inspiring to see all the first-timers and the old-timers and everyone in between coming out and trying something new and being healthy! You all rock!!

Be Fit!

Why am I a girl??

2010-05-06T11:50:00.000-07:00

It's my lunch hour. "So what" you say? Well, here I am typing, which means...duh, I'm NOT working out!! Can you believe it? Do you know who you are talking to here? Hello, I almost ALWAYS work out at lunch. (I'm supposed to be working on homework, but SHHHH, don't tell anyone, k?)

So what's your point you ask? Well, I didn't work out because I already taught spin this morning and I really, really needed to get some homework done. I almost brought running or swimming clothes with me today because I always try to fit in a workout if I have a spare hour. But occasionally I have to be realistic and responsible and get other things done rather than exercising. So I did get the homework done that I needed to. And I ate a little bit of lunch (too much, my belly is telling me) and now, guess what? Well, I feel like a bfl! (Big Fat Loser for those of you who are new to my blog). Hmmm, maybe I use that term too much. Anyhoo.... As I was saying, I feel like a bfl. Just because I actually ate lunch without first working out.

So hence the title of today's story. Now, deep down inside I know that I'm in pretty dang good shape. I don't have a lot of fat rolls hanging around, (though if you asked my boyfriend he'd probably tell you that I "think" I have them everywhere). I have had plenty of gals that take my classes or do training with me or just know me and what I do that tell me they are inspired by my dedication to fitness, they wish they had my legs, or my butt, or they wished their body looked like mine....so I should be feeling top of the line right? A guy would - he'd be like "ya, I'm all that"!

But NOOOOOOO, I have to be a damn girl! I don't know if it's because I still look in the mirror sometimes and see that person that I was for such a long time, 25 or 30 pounds heavier. Or if it's just the stupid insecurities and the pressures that girls put themselves under. Guys are definitely attracted to looks first - and who can blame them, girls check out the hot guys too. But that's not all girls look at and we can find sexiness right off the bat in so many different things about guys - like their voices, or their eyes, or they way they smile or walk. I'm sure that guys find other sexy things about their girls too, but it takes them a lot more "getting to know you" time I think before they see those things.

So girls put that pressure on themselves too, and it is put upon them by people around them. I'm very lucky to have lots of great girl friends, but it seems like I hang out with all the tiny little people! And I'm not tiny! So my little size 2 and size 4 friends show up and I was feeling pretty good about myself til I stuck my size 8 self next to them and now I look like Amazon Lloyd! Now dammnit, I know I look okay - but comparisons are a bad deal. So girlfriends, I love ya, but stand on a damn chair when you're around me, okay, so I don't feel so HUGE!! lol

I just hate the fact that it's often a battle within my own mind. My body is an incredible force; it has proved to me that it can perform some amazing athletic endeavours (I AM an Ironman after all). I can run and bike and swim and do push ups til the cows come home (or at least 50) and I know that this is all expressed in this body of mine!

But sometimes, and too damn often, I worry too much about how I think I look instead of how amazing it is that I can do what I do physically every day and still find time to raise two kids and work 2 or 3 different jobs and go to school.

So stop beating yourself up girls. Get out there and do what you do and be proud of the person you are! For those of you who know me and think I don't have any insecurities, well here is your proof that you're wrong. I'm just like every other woman out there. The difference is, I believe in the power of positive thinking. Yes, there are many, many times I'm down. But I get right back up and go on. I remind myself what I CAN do. I look at what I want to do and then I just plow ahead and go do it. Obstacles can be overcome. When you become confident in yourself and your abilities, then everyone else becomes confident in you too! Yes there will be set backs and bad days and times you cry and cry (another bane of being a damn girl) but you just get back up and get moving. Don't wallow around in self-pity; only you can improve you. (Besides, if you're gonna wallow it should probably be in a big 'ol mud pit playing volleyball or something crazy - or jello, or somethin'). Anyway, I'm off track again.

Women are a mess for sure, but hey, we're AWESOME messes!

Be fit!

Where does the time go?

2010-04-21T14:10:00.000-07:00

I'm on my third week of my sixteen week program. Already! How does the time go by so fast? I had a good brick workout last weekend, first one of the season. 20-mile bike ride followed by a 2-mile run. I was well pleased with my run - was able to run it in around 14'. It was really odd, like my legs were running themselves with no control from my mind - I kept thinking I should slow down a little 'cause I was working hard but I just couldn't slow 'em down. Hope that happens in the upcoming triathlon! I probably won't be able to talk them into GOING that day!

Also had my first hill repeat workout on the bike yesterday. This is the very first time I've actually done hill repeats not on a spin bike but actually on my own bike, outside. Got about a 15' warm up in and then chose a hill on the Gillette triathlon course to do my 1' repeats on. Kept it in my big chain ring and as high of a cadence as I could, then turn around, coast back down and do it again for a total of six. I definitely made good use of the "coasting" down the hills! I also noticed by butt was a little sore from Sunday's longer ride. Boy it is easy to get out of shape! I can't believe a weenie old 20-mile ride made my butt sore after last year's 50, 60 and 70 mile rides! Anyway, back to the hill repeats... I was able to make it to approximately the same spot on each hill repeat so I guess I kept a steady pace. I'm still not sore, thank goodness, but the legs are definitely fatigued. I did a couple of wall squats with my personal training client last night and it was a struggle to make it through one minute...

My swimming is going well, although I'm trying to do a little bit more than what the scheduled workouts call for. Same thing with running; I'm trying to get at least one more run in per week than the scheduled two or three. But as usual, my schedule makes it tough. Kickboxing three nights a week again and will start teaching spin again two mornings a week beginning next week. School is up and going again too so I have homework every night and on weekends; Hannah is playing vball two nights a week and bball two nights a week and starting up 3 on 3 tournaments next weekend! Thank god Jarron isn't involved in as much yet but we've recently discovered that he likes baseball (hopefully we can put that off til next season) and he's completely psyched about starting football this fall!

So on goes my saga! I'm glad that my boyfriend is busy until later in the evenings just like I am otherwise I'd feel really guilty about not having much time for him. Weekends are life savers and can't wait for summer - no school (hopefully) and no kickboxing class so that will free up my evenings to spend more time on me and my family.

Be fit!

Back in the saddle - so to speak!

2010-04-07T10:13:00.000-07:00

I have had a bunch of people asking me lately about my blog. So...sorry to all of you. I ran out of time and ambition and training after Ironman.

It was a tough, tough time for me after Ironman CDA - mainly with motivation. We had trained so long and with such discipline that when I was done and had nothing to train for it seemed very pointless. Just going for a run for no other reason than to run seemed silly. Not having a structured workout plan was driving me crazy! Go swim just to swim? No 100 repeats? No pulls and drills and intervals? Why bother?

I did sign up for and run the Boulder half-marathon in September - it was HOT! I had a marginally crappy run and that was it for races last year. I swam a few more times and biked a few more times and kept running...a bit.. but seriously lost all my "want to". Gregg was still training for marathons and trying to qualify for Boston, which he did, in February, running to PR's back to back.

Me, well, I got slower, gained a few pounds and kept busy with kickboxing, going back to school on-line to get my Master's degree, chasing my daughter around with traveling basketball. Finally in December I decided I needed a plan. I started lifting weights for something new and to hopefully help build some leg strength which I felt would help me on the bike. I also decided that a half-Ironman, close to home, would be the perfect race for me in 2010; less money involved and much less training time to accommodate my already over-busy schedule. A friend of mine, who was a triathlete back when not many people were triathletes, now is owner of Fleet Feet Sports in Bozeman, MT and he has resurrected a half-Ironman distance in July in connection with the annual Sweetpea Festival. 2010 will be the second year of the half and since I still have friends in the area I will have lodging available and it's only a half day drive or so.

So then I finally found a 16-week training program and that began this week. It is doable with my schedule, only 7 workouts a week - so only one a day, except on Saturdays there will be two, and one day off. So that means I can fit most of them into my lunch hour, plus still be able to teach kickboxing and spinning AND spend time with my kiddos. Perfect.

So I'm back in the saddle again - I realize that for now I need to have a plan, a goal, a race or something in mind and a program to get me there or I wallow around in boredom, motivationless. Follow me along on my latest journey to fitness - there's bound to be both moments of hilarity and despair and everything in between.

Be fit!

Birthday, birthday, bring it on!!

2009-09-10T14:54:00.000-07:00

Well, today was another milestone in my life - my 40th birthday!! I already had a little taste of being 40 when I did Ironman in June. I had to register as a 40-year old as their age groups are based on age as of December 31st! So it's no big deal!

First thing I discovered as part of this is that I am incredibly blessed with friends! My inbox, facebook, tri-site and phone were flooded with messages from friends, locally and around the country, wishing me a happy, happy day! My little boy called me this morning to sing "Happy Birthday" to me on the phone!! It is wonderful to have so many people take a bit of time out of their day to wish me well.

Next thing I discovered is, I don't feel a bit different! lol I don't know what 40 is supposed to feel like, but I like the way I feel. I have wonderful kids, so many good friends that really care about me and a close family. I'm in the best shape of my life and I'm just happy! I think I've finally come out of the funk of my divorce and am ready to get back to enjoying every single minute of my life. So it took almost two years....but I'm good to go now.

It really drives me nuts those people who freak out over their birthdays! My opinion is, number one, that having a birthday is sure better than the alternative 'cause then you're most likely dead! Each year, each day, brings something new, time you never had before and won't ever have again. This is our one shot at this thing called life, why waste it moping around and bitching about this or that? We are in control of our happiness. I understand how people can get down in a funk - I myself struggled for the last two years with redefining who I was. But what does it take to be your wake-up call? At some point you take responsibility for making decisions that make you happy. No one else is going to do it for you. Look at the big picture, what will it take to make you happy and then make your little baby-step goals and move toward that. You might go back some days, you might leap forward on others, but the living is in the journey!

My office is decorated up with black balloons and "over the hill" banners and bouquets of flowers and I'm as happy as I can be! I tell everyone I see that I'm 40 and lovin' it! I feel at the top of my game now and I'm gonna roll with it! No one believes I'm 40? Well, I just look forward to all the adventures around the bend and I can't wait to try them all! I act how I feel, so 12-85 I've got the gamut covered and I, for one, am not going to waste a day!

Happy training! Be fit...run

Inspiring Apologies

2009-08-04T12:05:00.001-07:00

I have to laugh sometimes when I run into people I know and they immediately have an apology or an excuse. This seems to equally apply to people I know well, people I haven’t seen in a long time and/or just basic acquaintances. It also happens with people that I just get introduced to.

Why are they apologizing? Well, for the most part they all know that I am a workout fanatic, I am a personal trainer, I teach fitness classes – basically working out is a big part of my life. And for some reason they feel like they have to apologize because they don’t work out or they haven’t been working out recently. I make them feel bad I guess. I don’t mean to and really there is a lot more to me than working out and I honestly don’t judge people out loud about their workout habits. If they want to talk about it, then I’m happy to give them any help/advice/commentary that I can and, given proper encouragement, could probably wax on and on and eventually end up in some crazed rant about people with never-ending excuses for not working out or, heaven forbid, a political rampage. Yes, I tend to get off track sometimes! Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I don’t go around trying to make people feel bad for not working out.

Herein lies my quandary…. everyone has things they are willing to make time for and others they aren’t. I’m included in that as well. I can move heaven and earth most times to fit in my workouts, but 99% of the time I’m too busy to clean my house. Yes, that dirty sock has laid on my floor, right where I walk, for the past week (okay two weeks) and I still haven’t made the effort to lean over and pick it up, but I DID get in three workouts today even though I had to get up at 4:00am to ride my bike in the garage while the kids slept, cancelled/rescheduled a noon meeting so I could run and had the kids stay a little longer at the babysitters so I could swim after work. That is obviously making time for things we WANT to do instead of making time for things we SHOULD do.

Except in my case, maybe I’m atypical. I WANT to work out and I should do housework; many people I know spend a crap load of time on housework and SHOULD work out but don’t want to. I wish I could have a bit of a trade-out with my clients, and basically with the general population. If I could just compromise a little between housework and working out it would probably be a good thing for me, and if they could do the same, but only in the opposite direction, it would definitely benefit them health wise.

I think a lot of the reasoning behind the “apologies” I get from people is that they don’t do what I do as far as exercise goes. And so they feel like their “measly” little bit of working out doesn’t count or is somehow inferior. I’m a fanatic about working out – not to the excess where it interferes with family life or work (well, okay sometimes it does but hey, I could be out drinking or gambling or doing drugs) but yes, working out is extremely important to me as are the events I train for and compete in. I want other people to realize though that they don’t have to do what I do. I don’t expect people to do what I do; but I just want them to do SOMETHING for their health. A little bit every day, or at least most days of the week. I try to get clients to understand that there IS time in most of their days to fit in some exercise. If I can work full-time and part-time jobs and raise two little kids AND work out one to three hours every day, then surely they can find time to work out for an hour four times a week. They just have to find the WANT to.

I also think the apologies sometimes stem from people thinking that because I am a workout fanatic that I am also that fanatic about my diet, etc. But I’m not. I feel like I’m pretty much an average Jane. I joke that I work out so I don’t have to watch what I eat. To some extent that’s true. I hate diets, don’t believe in them, because typically a diet represents “giving up” something. To me that is somewhat unrealistic unless it is structured so that it takes you through some weight loss and then gradually reintroduces all food groups while incorporating more activity and learning life long “healthier” choices. That’s what it’s all about. Consistency over time. I eat cheeseburgers and fried foods and drink beer. I don’t always eat enough fruits and vegetables. But I have changed my dietary habits over the years, by sheer will. It takes time to form new habits but learning about food and how to make small changes with big dietary effects would be helpful for everyone. My motto is eat what you want, just be sensible. Moderation is key. Make healthier choices “most” of the time and don’t worry about the rest. Exercise. I want you to succeed.

So next time you see me, don’t apologize for not working out as much as me. Ask me how to help you find the time to work out a little bit. Ask me how to find a way to work out even though your (knees are shot, back is shot, kids are too busy, life is too crazy, job is too busy, you have to cook, clean, bathe, feed the dog, do the shopping, do the cleaning, blah blah blah, etc. etc.) I have all of the above issues too (well, I don’t have a dog and try not to clean much lol) yet I make time to work out nearly every day. I also have some physical issues to deal with but I have learned how to work out with them and so can you. There’s nothing I would love more than to get one more person started on a healthier, more active lifestyle. So don’t apologize; just ask me for some help!

Be fit

What makes an Ironman?

2009-07-17T13:02:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about this for awhile, trying to decide if I can answer the question. What DOES make an Ironman? People around my office seems to think there must be some kind of "insanity" gene or something involved in anyone who would attempt an Iron-distance triathlon. :) Well, I suppose that's possible, something that makes someone take more risks than someone else. Would it be the same gene that occupies those who climb or attempt to climb Everest and K2? Or those who want to jump off a perfectly stable piece of land with a giant rubber band attached to their back and trust it to pull them back up to the top?

I don't consider myself a huge risk taker (I'm scared to death of heights so you will NOT catch me doing either of those other things listed above). I think I'm a pretty much "average Jane" in the overall scheme of things. I'm just a mom who works two or three jobs, tries to raise my kids the best I can, tries to make ends meet, have a little fun on the side when I can AND I like to work out. I don't think I'm "special" because I did an Ironman. (I hear all of you out there saying I'm special all right - lol)

So what does it take to be an Ironman? I have learned over the last few years of racing different distances and events that looks are very much deceiving. You get to the start of the race and assess your competition; you might see a small, lean runner dressed in all the right running clothes, stretching out and warming up and think "okay, that gal is gonna blow my doors off - and then you see another runner, maybe mismatched clothes (that's me lol), maybe a little heavier than you might expect and think "okay, nothing to worry about here". Then the starting gun goes off, you leave the skinny little runner in the dust and never see her again and then, with about three miles to go, the mismatched, heavier gal trots right on by you and you're thinking "what the h*(*!" It's happened to me many a time, although I don't prejudge nearly as much as I used to. Sometimes I hope I'm the fatty passing the skinny runner girl! lol

Anyway, last year we volunteered at Ironman Coeur d'Alene and had the opportunity to really see a lot of the participants. I was again amazed at all the different shapes, sizes and ages of the athletes. We volunteered at the sunscreen station and we were later in the afternoon so we were catching the last bikers, the ones that were getting close to missing the cut off time. I was blown away by these people, so impressed, so amazed that they were out there doing this. Some were quite heavy and I had to wonder, did they not train hard enough and so therefore did they not lose weight really, OR had they lost fifty pounds during training and look at them now!!! Either way, wow. And they are out there for a long, long time. These are people that are spending seven plus hours on the bike, or eight hours (heck, I was on the bike for damn close to 7 hours). These people are going A L L day long. Hours past the time when a lot of athletes were already home in bed. Can you imagine the stamina that that takes?

I think training time is probably a big factor in someone making the decision to try an Ironman or not. You definitely want to commit the time to training because it makes for a LONG damn day if you're unprepared. I hurt anyway, but my recovery was much better and faster I think because of how well I was trained. We spent 15-20+ hours every week just training for six or seven months. That's on top of, well for me, a full-time job, two part-time jobs and two kids. I sacrificed a lot to get trained. Sleep was one big thing that got sacrificed - 3:30 or 4:00 in the mornings to ride bike for 2 hours or longer so I could be done, showered and ready to get the kids up and take them to school. Working out after work, during lunch breaks from work, working out practically ALL weekend long. Housework suffered (it isn't hard to get me to take a break from housework anyway). Time with family and friends (unless they worked out with me) was sacrificed. Thank god for understanding employers that allowed me to have longer lunches a couple days a week to fit in the training.

So time is a big issue. Some people don't want to make the sacrifice necessary to fit all that in. It's much easier to train for shorter distances and still keep everyone around you happy and still have something of a life too.

Can anyone go out and train for and DO an Ironman? I don't know. I don't know why I am compelled to try and do these things to myself. I have a competitive issue or brain malfunction or something. I don't think I'm that strong mentally but time and time again I have proven that I can and do work through all sorts of issues during a race. I've raced a 50K trail race (32 miles) with 90% of the race suffering from a badly sprained ankle and a blister covering the entire bottom of my heel and still placed in the top three. I've raced that same race with plantar fasciitis so bad I could hardly walk on it, let alone run and still placed in the top three. And I plotted for ways to end my misery in Ironman CDA but still plodded on. Why? Why can't I give up? Why don't any of the others around me give up? Sure, plenty of people dropped out of these races and I'm sure many of them kicked themselves right after that. For the rest of us though, what is it that keeps us going? I was so certain so many times that I would not be able to finish, but there I am, still going, like that stupid little pink energizer bunny! Well, maybe not as "energetically" but I'm still going.

Back to that brain malfunction - I'm still compelled to find more ways to kill myself off. I still want to race a 50-miler and a 100-miler and more Ironmen and maybe an adventure series (except I'm not sure I can get over this "scared of heights" thing). Why? I don't know for sure. I do know I've found something that compels me, something that drives me, something that makes me feel good. Something that allows me to forget all my troubles - I'm really HAPPY when I'm working out (even though I may not look like it sometimes! dammit, I'm happy lol)I just want to see what I CAN do. I'm amazed sometimes at what this body can do for me. I guess we all have personal reasons as to what drives us, what motivates us to do certain things. I'm sure everyone who does an Ironman has a different reason too. Maybe they're like me, they just have to see what they can do. Maybe they are doing it in "honor" of someone else, or because of a bet gone bad in a bar. Whatever the reason, good for them!

And for those who don't strive to do an Ironman, or climb Everest or bungee jump, or any other crazy things - ok! If you're doing shorter races, working out at the club a few times a week, walking your dog or your friend, or your friend's dog, whatever you're doing to be fit and healthy, keep doing it!!! You don't have to be a crazy and try all these "test your limits" adventures, just be out there and be healthier and fitter and that ROCKS too!

As for me, well I haven't signed up for anything yet, but planning maybe another sprint tri this year, a half-marathon and some shorter races. Nothing big til next year and I'm not even sure yet what that will be. But I'll keep ya posted!

Happy training!

Recovery Sucks!

2009-07-02T08:02:00.001-07:00

Well, this has been an interesting week and a half since my race. I’m going a little bit crazy (more than my usual self anyway). We have been on such a regimented workout plan for the last six to eight months, and now….nothing. No plan, no two or three a day workouts. It’s a huge let down.

This is the place I try to get my personal training clients to. The place where exercise is an absolute habit and you go nuts if it isn’t a part of your day. I don’t ask them to be as hard-core as I am sometimes about it, but just to have regular, daily exercise be a part of their lives.

I did take a whole week off, completely, after the Ironman. I was okay with that, because frankly, my legs had no desire to do more than carry me around through daily activities. Even that became a lot after I had to run up and down my stairs twenty times in a morning because I kept forgetting something. Why didn’t I just buy a flat house??? Also, my feet and ankles were so SWOLLEN that if you just looked at my feet you would have thought I weighed 300 pounds! I could barely bend my foot because they were so fat! All week after the race they were like that. I think it was finally Sunday night, one full week after the race, before the swelling finally went down. I guess from all the stress and pounding on them throughout race day…

I know that it takes a lot longer than a week to fully recover from an effort like the Ironman. I KNOW it. But after a week had passed I started getting antsy. “Arg, I’m going to get fat! I’m going to be completely out of shape! I’m spiraling downhill into laziness and soon I’ll be lying on my couch eating bon-bons and drinking diet Coke!” Okay, a little over the top I know, but if you’ve been in this position then you know what I’m talking about.

So I decided I better start doing something. Anything. I had to move my body to appease myself mentally. So we decided to swim a bit. The city pool has outdoor lap swimming at noon during the summer so I met Gregg there. Swam about 250 before he got there and then we swam a quarter mile, just slowly with a few breaks. I felt pretty lethargic and like I wasn’t moving through the water very efficiently. We hopped out and laid in the sun for ten or fifteen minutes. After I got back to work I noticed my right shoulder was aching. Not real bad but noticeable. Gregg said it was in my head, too much stressing about not working out and over-analyzing every little move. He was probably right but it still bothered me.

That night I had a client at the gym and I hopped on the Arc trainer beside her while she did her warm up. Just ten minutes, easy and then I got off and worked her through the rest of her program. I was still feeling like I HAD to do something else, so after I finished with her I went back into the weight room and did some ab workouts. I like the knee lifts, where you hang from the pull up bar (with your arms in the straps to provide support), hold an 8# weighted ball between your knees and then pull your knees up to your chest. Twenty times forward, fifteen to each side for obliques and then another twenty forward. It’s killer and I hadn’t done it for a few weeks so it was tough. At least I felt like I had finally got a workout in!

The next day I felt pretty good; not as sore as I thought I would be. My shoulder felt fine too so maybe Gregg was right (I would never admit that though lol). Gregg was running with the running group that night, however, I had dinner plans already at that time and so I decided I would do my run at noon. I planned to take it easy, actually walking the majority of it. I planned on our short little 4 mile loop. Took off at a fast walk and maintained that through about the first mile and a half and then moved into a run for the next mile and a half. I felt pretty good, no pain and no aches really. A little sluggish but it was also 90+ degrees. I walked the remainder back to the office. I felt great! I got a workout in! Woo hoo!

Went to dinner that night and it was SO tasty! I’m a real meat and potatoes girl so the New York steak, loaded baked potato and salad hit the spot! Yum! After we got home we played a couple of games of dominos and then off to bed. Well, so much for feeling good about my workout. The first leg cramps hit me about midnight I guess. I rolled over and stretched just a bit and WHAM! From my knees all the way down to my toes went as rigid as a piece of iron! OMG it hurt like hell! I couldn’t move, couldn’t relax, couldn’t stretch, nothing. It lasted for probably fifteen to twenty seconds (felt like forever). And lucky me, it happened three more times that night! Each time it felt like my muscles were going to pop right out of my legs.

I hardly ever get leg cramps. Occasionally I will get a calf cramp but it has been a long, long time since I have. This was unlike any leg cramp I had ever gotten. So much for recovery. I don’t know what caused it. Perhaps dehydration, although I had been really good all week about drinking tons and tons of water all throughout the day so I didn’t think it was that. Lack of potassium and other electrolytes? That’s possible. As soon as the race was over I swore if I saw another bottle of Gatorade or a banana I would puke! Over the last six months I had a daily diet of bananas and Gatorade and then I went completely cold turkey. Or was it just trying to do too much too soon on muscles that weren’t ready for it? I never go for a walk, so was the fast-paced walking too much of something I wasn’t used to? Maybe I should have only gone a mile or two instead of the 4-miles. Who knows. All I know is that I bought some Gatorade the very next day and slammed a couple of bottles. I did NOT want to go through that again.

Wednesday I decided I was ready to try for a swim again. So we met at the rec center and basically goofed. Gregg was happy that I appeared to be struggling with my swim, feeling sluggish, so he wanted to race me. So we raced a couple 25’s – he beat me. Then he was all excited and wanted to race a 50. I said no way; I’m trying to recover here. He was just excited that he was beating me finally at swimming! We kicked some, goofed some, walked some. I actually felt pretty good, except my toes tried to cramp up several times.

That night I had a client again and again I hopped on the Arc trainer beside her. This time I did twenty minutes with her, keeping the resistance low but with a fast pace. Legs were feeling a little crampy but not horrible. We finished out her workout and I decided not to do any abs this time. My shoulders and abs were so sore from Monday night’s attempt that it hurt to cough! Nice. I can’t believe how out of shape I feel.

Well, at least I didn’t have any leg cramps last night. I was very careful to not let myself stretch it out too much and let them get started. Today I am busy at work and have personal errands to run to get ready for the 4th so I won’t get a workout in. This weekend my workout will be riding my dirt bike and playing volleyball. Hopefully by next week I’ll feel like a new woman. I’ve got a plan, a half-marathon in September and trying to figure out what next years schedule will be. I’m toying with the idea of the Big Horn 50-miler. Or I’m going to take it easy and just do smaller races and maybe a half-Ironman next July. I have to have a plan; a goal to work toward. That’s how I function with my workouts anyway.

Well, enjoy your Independence Day and remember what it is all REALLY about! Thank you to all of our troops who are working to keep us safe and free!

Ironman CDA - The run

2009-06-27T14:45:00.000-07:00

I realize I didn’t mention how long I was on the bike. I mean it’s no wonder I was in pain when I got off. I had been sitting on a matchstick-sized seat in a forward leaning position for the past 6 ½ hours!! Yes, 6:39 or something like that was my 112-mile total ride time. So now I have been going for not quite 8 hours.

I’m in the change tent trying to get my bike shoes off and my running shoes on. I’m partially inhibited by my inability to lean forward without pain shooting down my leg. The very sweet volunteer lady put on my socks for me and helped me shove my shoes on. I managed to get them tied, put on my running cap and limped toward the entrance. My cheering squad was outside the fence, hollering and going crazy with support. Later they told me they were pretty concerned about my finishing as they could see the obvious pain I was in. I hobbled out to the run start and just started going. I was hoping my back would loosen up and it did. Took me several hundred yards before I was running all the way upright and then it kept getting better through the first mile until the back/leg pain had receded almost completely! Thank goodness! Little did I know it wouldn’t be long until other issues arrived designed to further test my mettle.

As the afternoon wore on it had definitely started to cool off even more. The wind was getting stronger and rain was heavy in the air. A good portion of the run course is right along Lake Coeur d’Alene, which is obviously beautiful on a good day but can be cold and windy on a less than perfect day. I made the small dogleg of the course out to the turnaround and then back through the first aid station and back past the transition area and the huge crowds. Spectators and volunteers alike had been out there all day, much as we athletes had, and all along the run course were people bundled in coats and jackets, sprawled in lawn chairs and little kids wrapped in blankets, sleeping on the ground while waiting for mommy or daddy or grandma or grandpa to finish racing. The cheering was still as loud and rambunctious as it had been early in the day though. Throughout the run we had to wear our bib numbers on the front of us and our first names were printed on there so spectators would holler out your name and give you a “thumbs up – good job” cheer. It really made it so much more personal and even though I know they didn’t really know me it still gave a good confidence boost to hear my name.

The course went through town just a bit, winding through the downtown streets with spectators lining both sides – volunteers at each corner to make sure pedestrians crossed in a timely fashion. The finish line street was just one block over from where I was and already I could hear the announcer calling out some of the top finishers. Yes the pros were finishing and I was just STARTING my marathon! As the course wound it’s way through town there were plenty of “house party” supporters to pass by, all with loud, upbeat music blaring, calling out in support to all the runner’s, some barbecuing and all swilling their enticing looking cold beverages and generally creating an uplifting diversion to those of us getting beaten down by exhaustion. And though the bbq and cold drinks smelled and looked delicious I had to settle for another pull off my energy gel bottle and wash it down with a cup of water. By this time of day I was sick to death of gels, bananas, water and Gatorade but that is all the stomach can handle.

About the time I exited the “town” portion of the race and turned onto the lakeside road the rain started. The difficult thing about a race of this length is deciding what to wear. We all have a chance to change clothes of course, with the option of different clothing in our transition bags between the swim and the bike and then again between the bike and the run. We also have “special needs” bags that go out on the course – again one on the bike and one on the run. So it’s not like we don’t have the ability to have different gear in there to accommodate possible weather situations. We were aware of the rain showers in the forecast and I had talked to my training partner, Gregg, the day before or that morning before the race about whether I should put a t-shirt or long-sleeved t-shirt in my bike to run bag. I guess we both decided not to or something because I didn’t. So what I was wearing was what I had put on under my wetsuit that morning. A sleeveless tri top and shorts. It was a rookie mistake – I guess I was thinking that even if it rained it would still be fairly warm temperature-wise and I would be fine. I didn’t take into account the time of day (or night) it would be, the cold wind off the lake, and the fact that my body would be in a state of exhaustion and not be completely efficient at heating and cooling itself by that time. Looking back it was probably an error designed at self-preservation! I didn’t WANT to think about how miserable I was going to be! Lol

Anyway, so it rained. And rained. And kept raining. Not just a light, soothing sprinkle that would be perfect to cool off a hot, tired athlete but a steady downpour. The next aid station I came to I got excited because we were near the 6-mile mark. So I figured we would be turning around soon. Six and half-miles would be ¼ of the marathon distance and we had a two loop course; so even though my math skills are suspect sometimes I knew that we should be turning soon. I was almost elated because I thought it hadn’t been THAT bad to get to that point, I could go back and turn around and do it again. I could do it!

Well, we didn’t turn around. I kept looking ahead and could still see athletes disappearing around the next corner. I didn’t recognize any of the one’s I was meeting yet. Aid stations were about a mile apart on the run and another aid station came and went. My elation quickly turned to despair. It was still pouring and the turnaround was still not in sight. I asked an athlete near me where the turnaround was. He didn’t know either and like me, had expected it sooner. We were nearing one of the biggest hills along the lake that we had climbed on our bikes earlier in the day. I thought I would shoot myself if we had to climb that damn hill! I was thinking the race director had lied and this was a “new” Ironman distance with a 30-mile run in it and they just forgot to tell us! Sure enough, we came through yet another aid station and no turnaround. And we turned and started up that damn hill. No gun around so I had to keep going. I looked up and was praying that I would see the turn. Sure enough, finally, halfway up the hill was a pickup parked and the turnaround with the timing mat! Thank God! Of course they have a timing mat at the very furthest point of the run so they can make sure everyone does the full distance and doesn’t try to cut off a few miles.

The way back was looong! It was still pouring rain and the wind was blowing strong off the lake, chilling me to the bone. Water was steadily dripping off the brim of my hat. I was still fighting to overcome the disappointment at how far out the turnaround was, although by this time I had figured why. The finish line was right downtown, so much closer than where we had started so obviously we had to go out farther to make up the extra distance. Well, mental capacity certainly decreases over the course of such a long day but figuring out still did not up my “fun factor”!  The aid stations provided some much needed distraction. So far I had managed to run to each aid station and then allowed myself to walk through them. Eating and drinking properly throughout an event like this is of paramount importance, although I haven’t talked much about it; improper fueling and hydration will stop you in your tracks. I figured I would be burning between 10,000 and 12,000 calories THIS DAY, so you can imagine how not replacing any of that would be a problem.

Anyway, I digress. The aid stations – just as on the bike – they were so helpful, so supportive, so cheerful and so eager to help. Young and old alike; everyone had a kind word, an offer of nutrition, a friendly smile and a single-minded desire to help all of US succeed. It was pouring rain on them, and unlike us, they couldn’t run or walk or keep moving. They had to be cold from the constant wind off the lake and the rain. But they were all happy. Or looked it. Some were dressed in funny costumes or wigs, young kids would love to give high fives (well, low-fives by that time because many of us didn’t feel like raising our arms). Some of the high school cheerleading squads were out, offering us “Ironman” cheers of support. The military helped out at one aid station. Music was blaring at some with a DJ on a microphone calling out your name and encouraging you on. The middle aid station had a huge LCD screen that had personal messages to the athletes. You cross a mat just before it and it reads your number and then if someone typed in a message to you (you could do this prior to race day at the expo) it would appear up on the screen. That was pretty cool and was also another welcome diversion.

At this point I have about four miles to go to get to the turnaround. I am now thoroughly chilled, my teeth are chattering and the fatigue is mounting. Back into the “town part” where the crowds are much denser, back to the loud music house parties. And my emotions are starting to take a toll on me yet again. Fatigue and cold combined to try and break me. My confidence at being able to finish started to fade again; the tears were back, running down my cheeks, lost in the raindrops. I passed a point where a volunteer was directing us – finishers to the left, 2nd lap stay to the right. You will never understand how badly I wanted to go left and wondered if I would make it back to the point so that I COULD go left and finish. I turned down the street that led down to where we started the run. The crowd was cheering loudly for all of us, calling out our names, and encouraging us on. I just couldn’t walk through that and kept putting one foot in front of the other. I heard my support crew and wanted so badly to go to them but they were on the other side of the street so I kept going, knowing I would see them on the way back by.

I couldn’t keep up the running and had to walk as I got closer to the turnaround. I was still frozen and in a state of despair, arguing with myself over and over and trying to keep going. The next aid station had warm chicken broth! YES! I gulped down my small portion and some water and kept going. It helped, but not much. I turned around and headed back through. Silver warming blankets were starting to appear on some of the runners and I was wishing for one of my own but none were in sight. As I approached my family on the sidelines I crumbled. I threw myself sobbing in their arms with the barricades between us. I was so cold, so tired. I feared failure, feared that I would not physically be able to go on. But the hugs and support warmed me some; Larry promised me a warm sweatshirt as soon as I finished. No one enabled me, no one told me it would be okay to quit. Their firm and absolute belief in ME gave me strength and courage and confidence and I pushed myself away from them and forced myself to run up the street. I could hear the announcer at the finish line one street over saying “So and so – YOU ARE AN IRONMAN”. I vowed that I would hear him saying my name. I didn’t care at that point if it was going to take me the whole seventeen hours, I WOULD hear my name at the finish line!

At the very next aid station I got one of those lovely silver warming blankets. They were sort of like a big piece of tin foil, only not quite as harsh. I put it around me poncho style and pulled the ends up in front of me and tied them. What a great relief it was; not perfectly warming but a HUGE help. The ends kept coming untied though and the brisk breeze would blow up under it, regardless of my efforts to hold it down. I finally got one more blanket at another aid station and tied it around my waist and legs. That helped hold the top one down too and further warmed me. All along the run course you could see bobbing silver figures, like rusted robots moving up and down the path. I called myself “super tin-foil woman” ( I know, not very funny, but refer back to decreased mental capacity – lol)

Well, I was warmer but still wondering if it was going to take me seventeen hours to finish. Whereas before I had run between aid stations and then walked through them, now I was walking between aid stations AND walking through them. I don’t know how long I did that, I think it may have only been between one or two stations, I lost track of time. Finally I told myself that this was going to take freakin’ FOREVER if I had to walk the whole rest of the way so I dug down deep, pulled my hat down low and started to run. I know it wasn’t fast and my knees were starting to hurt with every step, but I kept going. I didn’t look up, I didn’t look left or right, I just went forward. When I got to an aid station I drank broth and took in Gatorade or water and gel and then kept moving. Finally getting back into the town part of the course I was beginning to think I was going to make it after all! The rain died down and I actually started to get warm. I ditched the “skirt” of my tin foil outfit and then about two miles before the finish I ditched the top piece. I didn’t want to be “super tin foil woman” in my finisher photos!

Finisher photos!! I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. My mood shifted, the elation started to return. I ran a little taller and the pain and the fatigue started to recede. I finally reached the volunteer who directed us – finishers to the left, 2nd lap to the right and this time I got to go left!!! Yes! I had waited for the last two hours to get to go left!!! I started to smile as I turned onto the last street. A straight, downhill shot to the finish line. I could see it! I could hear the announcer. The crowds were loud here – cheering us on. The emotions returned and I had to choke back tears. But this time, finally, for the first time today, they were tears of joy, tears of success! I must have looked like an idiot grinning down the street to the finish line, smiling like I had just accomplished the biggest feat of my life! Wait a minute – I AM accomplishing the biggest feat of my life! I deserve to smile! My support crew is there, screaming my name, waving and grinning back at me. I see the clock – for the first time that day I know what time it is! Oh crap! 12:59:00! Did I make 13 hours? Oh no, one more final mat to cross to really, really be done. 13:00:04!!! Four seconds over my hoped-for time! Who cares!! I don’t care! I DID it. Over the loudspeaker I hear “Wendy Lloyd, YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!” Relentless Forward Motion! I am an IRONMAN!

Ironman CDA - The Bike

2009-06-25T05:28:00.000-07:00

After they peeled my wetsuit off and handed it back to me I had to run to my “swim to bike” transition bag. I located my row according to my bid number and started down to the end where I had placed it the day before. I managed to locate it fairly quickly among the sea of red, white, blue and green bags. Luckily it hadn’t rained the night before so everything inside was still dry. Not that it mattered that much, after all, I just got out of the lake so I wasn’t too dry myself. I headed into the women’s change tent and plopped down in one of the fifty folding chairs lined up inside. A volunteer was there immediately, opening my bag for me and getting out my helmet, glasses, gloves, socks, cycling shoes – everything I needed. I made a quick stab at drying my feet and trying to get all the grass clippings off but quickly gave up and pulled my socks on – wet feet, grass and all. Put on my shoes, velcroed them shut, put on my helmet and latched it (you MUST have your helmet buckled prior to leaving the bike area or you will be disqualified so I did it right off the bat), then put on my gloves and headed to find my bike. Trying to run across a basketball court in cycling shoes (they have metal clips on the bottom that are not flush with the ground) is a little dangerous, especially when you’re tired so all of us were running gingerly across with little, mincing steps to try and not slip. Now imagine trying to find your bike amongst 2,000 other bikes, all racked closely together in a small area. Luckily I had done a walk-through the day before when I brought my bike in to make sure I knew where it was, what row I had to go down and about how far. Of course, they were all racked in numerical order so that helped too, plus a volunteer was right there to help direct you. Grabbed my bike and loaded my gels in the bento box and ran for the mounting area.

The mounting area was on a sidewalk surface, so again, slippery when you’re in your cycling shoes. Plus there were ten or so of us at the same time with others coming right behind so the pressure is on to kind of hurry. The announcer had made a point of telling us at the pre-race meeting that we should be careful and take our time getting on and getting our feet clipped in the pedals because we “aren’t that good” and frankly it was embarrassing to watch people crashing into each other, falling over and wobbling into the fences just trying to mount their bicycles! Lol If you’ve never worn clip pedals/shoes it’s hard to imagine but your pedal is just a small metal piece with an indented portion that matches the clip on your shoe and you have to put your foot in and give a little twist to get it to lock down. Once you’re locked down you have to think to get it out again and use a twisting motion so people often tip right over because they start to fall or stop and forget to twist their foot and get out. It IS quite embarrassing when it happens and it’s more frequent when you’re hurrying for sure!

Anyhoo – I did make it on my bike safely and so did everyone around me so there were no crashes during MY take-off time. I felt good as I made off on my bike and I was able to hear my “fan club” cheering me from the sidelines as I left. A few minutes into the ride I remembered that NOW was the time to start the hydration process (even though I had swallowed a good portion of the lake earlier). You definitely cannot afford to become dehydrated during an event of this duration – once you get behind it is very, very difficult to catch back up and you will NOT finish the race. So I grabbed my bottle of Gatorade Endurance and got several big drinks in. As I tried to place it back in the bottle cage I missed and there it went, rolling off to the side of the road! Damn. Oh well, an aid station was coming up in a half hour or so and I could get another, plus I still had a water bottle on board. Right off the bat there were some small hills but good downhills too and I was feeling good. The wind was somewhat of a factor but I was still excited to be out there. Made the first turn around and on the way back up went through the first aid station.

Now getting through an aid station on a bike is whole new thing for me. You don’t stop and get off, you keep going, grabbing what you need as you go. This is how it’s set up. Aid stations are about 100 yards long I guess and they start out with Gatorade at the first table, then water bottles, then gels/powerbars, then fruit, then Gatorade, then water and then your last trash drop and you’re through. Now mind you, there is a constant stream of cyclists going through at the same time and it all happens in just a few seconds. You can’t stop, or wobble or you’ll crash everyone. So as you enter the aid station you throw your current empty bottles (I didn’t have mine ‘cause I had lost it on the course) and then you holler ahead what you want. Lots of volunteers are there and their hands are full with whatever you need. The best thing they can do is hold out the requested drink/food and just stand still and you reach out and grab it as you go by. If they try to move with you it makes it very difficult to connect and increases the chance of a wreck. So you grab a Gatorade, put it in the cage, hurry and grab water, put it in the other cage, fruit if you want it, etc. Typically you’re not out of both drinks together (or I wasn’t anyway) so it wasn’t quite as “fast” trying to get your drinks picked up. I did grab a banana at each station, they had them cut in half and then I would just peel the rest with my teeth and get the peel thrown in the “last trash stop” before the end of the aid station. I had no wrecks although one banana mishap – I started to peel it and it shot right out of my hands back toward the volunteer who handed it to me, leaving me with just the peel in my hand! Ooops, sorry.

The course after the first aid station was fairly flat after that for quite a ways. We were in the middle lane of a main thouroughfare, with traffic control at every intersection. Spectators lined the streets, cheering for everyone, holding hand made signs of support for their favorite athlete, some dressed in silly costumes or crazy wigs, some with cowbells to rest their hands from constant clapping. Music blared from houses along the course and the general mood of excitement and support was uplifting. I was passing quite a few cyclists, trying to pass quickly as is the rule; triathlon is typically a “non-drafting” sport so you have rules about how much space has to be between each bike and how long you have to pass someone, etc. I’ve never been in a race this size and although I was trying to remember and obey all the rules I got the surprise of my life when I realized that the motorcycle “cop” (triathlon referee) was right beside me saying something. I don’t know how long he had been there – I was concentrating on what I was doing. Anyway, he hollered to me that I had been given a penalty. “For what?” I asked, surprised. The reply was that I had been “blocking”- riding too long on the passing side. He told me I would have to stop at the penalty tent, which was toward the end of the turnaround. I asked him how long (drafting and other penalties are typically 4 minutes). He told me it would just be a “stop and go”. Well, that faltered my confidence for a bit, I was a little upset and worried – you can only get three penalties and you’re disqualified - but tried to be more careful, especially when I could hear the motorcycle in the vicinity.

The hills snuck up on us. We had driven the course the day before so I knew they were coming but got carried along in the excitement and hit the first one before I knew it. The mid-part of the two loop course is very hilly, both steep up and down hill. The first loop I had some great climbs, passing lots of people on the way up, spinning in a high gear to keep from mashing my quads on the climb. Downhill was another story. I’m still a newbie at the bike racing thing, still a little nervous on speeding down hill on two very thin, very small tires with an inexperienced driver atop them! I probably braked more than many and got passed by a lot of people going down. I used it as a great opportunity to rest my tired legs before the next climb. And there seemed always to be a next climb! The hills went on and on….and on. At the bottom of one of the hills was the penalty tent. I stopped and gave my name and number and asked how long I had to stay. Four minutes was the reply. I told them the ref had said only a stop and go but they insisted on four minutes. I sat and watched a hundred people or more pass by. People I had worked so hard to pass not so long ago. Four minutes was an eternity..

I was still feeling fairly good at the turnaround – only three or four climbs on the way back to the starting point. I did lose my chain on one climb, my own fault being in the wrong chain ring and trying to shift at the wrong time – but it was a real downer. Big climb, quads and lungs burning from the effort, trying to stay relaxed and then BANG! No more go! I yelled “I’m stopping” because lots of people were right behind me and a sudden stop on my part could wreak havoc on those close by. I remembered to unclip my foot, got off and replaced the chain. Then I had to start the hill from scratch, with zero momentum. The rest of the first loop passed by uneventfully and I could feel the fatigue setting in as I hit the 60-mile range. Halfway through…..the bike. Sigh.

The second loop wasn’t nearly as exciting (for me lol) as the first. The crowds were still going – people waving and cheering, playing their music, cheerleading squads shouting out cheers as we went by, the bagpipe band inspiring us up the hill, the tireless volunteers who occupied every aid station, every single intersecting road on the entire 60+ mile course…and of course the colorful groups who were enhancing and enjoying THEIR Ironman cheering with beverages of the alcoholic kind! At one point I was offered jello shots (why didn’t I take one I wonder now, it may have taken my mind off some of the pain lol), beer, something unidentifiable and hot dogs! They were having a great time and always still upbeat and supportive and definitely giving you a chance to focus somewhere other than your painful body.

Painful body – ahhh yes. Well, I guess I couldn’t expect a day of this length to pass by completely pain-free. In training the furthest I had ridden was a little over 80-miles. As I neared and then passed that point into new territory, the race started to take a turn for me mentally and physically. The fear and uncertainty experienced in the swim returned, accompanied by ever-increasing fatigue and pain. It started in my back. I knew it would. I have back issues – three ruptured vertebrae in my mid-back and a cracked disc in my low back. Have had this for years and have never let it be a reason to not be active and in shape. I’ve learned to work with it, through it, just deal with it. On our previous long rides my back had started to bother me around the 4 hour mark and this was no exception. On training rides we had stopped more often and it was obviously a little more relaxing. Race day was not about stopping and relaxing. So the pain started and there was nothing I could do. I would stand in my pedals on the downhills when I could and try to stretch. I would adjust my position as much as I could but it finally stopped helping. The pain started in my mid-back and gradually started working its way down through my rear, down my leg, and finally into my foot.

I’m not sure what happens mentally in endurance races, but there are changes. I imagine it’s a combination of fatigue and nutritional depletion – whatever it is, it comes in spades. I’m a cry baby by nature and so my emotional reaction during extreme exertion/fatigue is crying. I had a bad hill climb – it probably wasn’t much different than when I climbed it on the last loop but I felt like I couldn’t go, I felt like too many people were passing me, I still had so, so far to go and then a full marathon to run when I finally got there. There was no position in which my back didn’t hurt, not enough time on the downhill to ease the burning in my quads. I actually thought about halfway up the hill that I was going to have to get off and PUSH my bike up the hill. I couldn’t imagine the humiliation (in my own mind) and I lost it. I was sobbing, trying to keep going up the endless hill, passing cheering spectators who looked helplessly at me as I struggled by, encouraging me with smiles and words and probably thinking they were looking at the next DNF (did not finish). I actually eyed a tree at one point and wondered how bad it would hurt if I ran into it so I could just get an ambulance ride out ( I laugh now when I think about it, but it was a serious thought for about half a second)! With extreme effort I gathered myself together (it’s really hard to breathe up a huge hill when you’re bawling  ) and continued on. I struggled throughout the next several miles, tried to maintain my composure but at one of the intersections my whole cheer squad that had traveled from Wyoming with us was there and I had a really tough time not pulling over and collapsing in their arms. I kept on though, buoyed by their presence and by the fact that I now had only about ten or eleven miles to go.

The confidence was short-lived. A mile later I lost my chain again. Same stupid mistake as last time and no less frustrating. At the next aid station my back was so bad I knew I needed to stop and try to stretch and use the bathroom. I wobbled to a stop at the port-a-pots and stumbled off my bike, handing it to a volunteer to hold. I couldn’t stand up. My back was completely seized up and the pain was all the way down my leg. I hobbled to the bathroom, fighting back tears and keeping my sunglasses on so the crowd couldn’t see my face. I was able to get back on my bike and continue on; I had given up on trying to stretch and just pushed as best I could.

I was so happy to see the bike finish and rode in to the dismount point where volunteers were ready to take my bike for me and park it back in the bike racks. I didn’t know if I would be able to get off without falling and then didn’t know if I could walk when I did. I did get off and almost fell with the first step but someone grabbed my arm. The pain was such that I could not get out of a ninety degree position. Tears rolling down my face I refused help and hitched my way to get my “bike to run” bag and into the change tent. Only 26.2 miles to go.

The bike was over – thank God! I started out strong but was fighting the strength of Ironman by the second loop. Mentally weakened, physically weakened but still maintaining Relentless Forward Motion. I WILL be an Ironman!

(to be continued)

Ironman Coeur d'Alene - The Swim

2009-06-24T06:55:00.000-07:00

It’s been said that one of the most amazing athletic endeavors to watch is the mass swim start of an Ironman triathlon. I must also add, from recent personal experience that it is also the most frightening athletic endeavor I’ve ever participated in.

An Ironman is an extreme test of endurance involving three individual sports – a 2.4-mile open water swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile run. I am a recent convert to the sport of triathlon, competing in my first local sprint distance tri three years ago. Since then I have done a few sprint distances and two Olympic distance tri’s. The two Olympic distances also involved open water swims but with “wave” starts – age groups of 5-10 years – so about 60-100 people at a time. Nothing to compare to the 2300 athletes at Ironman – all starting at the same time and all going to the same place.

The setting is beautiful Coeur d’Alene, Idaho at the marina on Lake Coeur d’Alene. June 21, 2009, Father’s Day, starting point of Ironman CDA 2009, 7:00a.m. There are over 2,000 athletes, looking like a mass of black seals in our wetsuits, milling around on a ½ mile stretch of beach. Men with red swim caps, women with white swim caps, all indistinguishable to the thousands of spectators, family and friends who line the beach behind us. It is cloudy and cool with the water temperature actually being warmer than the air temp at about 67 degrees. The wind is blowing and the waves rolling in are big. I knew what to expect – sort of. I understood that it was going to be a crazed mass of arms and legs and bodies as we entered the lake and started along the long line of yellow and orange buoys that marked the race course. I knew I would get kicked and hit and pushed and pulled. Nothing I had read, nothing I had seen, nothing I had done so far ever, EVER prepared me for what happened when the starting gun went off.

I don’t know if I ran into the water under my own power or if I was just carried along by the mass of bodies around me. I dove in when I could and started to swim. Well, I tried to swim. I’ve never been IN a washing machine but I imagine that this is what it might feel like. I couldn’t catch my breath and every time I opened my mouth water went in. Arms and legs and bodies were everywhere around me, behind me, on top of me and the waves created by the mass of swimming humanity and urged on by the strong winds facing us seemed insurmountable. I was flailing and gasping for air and everywhere I turned was only worse. I drank enough water to hydrate me for the whole day! I panicked. And stopped.

On the verge of tears I treaded water while other athletes fought their way past. I wasn’t the only one stopped – others were obviously panic-stricken and fighting for composure all around me. It seemed like forever had passed, but I’m sure it was only a few seconds. I was scared enough that I thought about quitting. Right then and there, for a few moments, I was going to turn back. But I thought about all the people there supporting me and the ones at home following on the Internet. I thought about all the months and months of training; in the wind, the rain, the snow and the sacrifices of my family and time. I thought about how much money I had to put into the race with registration fees and travel expenses. I couldn’t quit now. So I took a deep breath, this time without water in it, and started to swim. I tried to get in a rhythm with the waves and to go through them, not fight over them. I kept the buoys always in my sights, keeping as straight a line as I could, fighting the feet in front of me, the hands behind me and the bodies beside me. Finally the pressure eased some, I was able to swim 8 or 10 strokes without hitting anyone else and then it would bunch up again. We got to the first turn finally and chaos resumed. We are already swimming 2.4 miles, no one wants to swim any extra and so everyone cuts the turn as closely as possible. Again we came to a standstill with everyone fighting to turn the same way. There were dozens and dozens of us in the same spot, grabbing and pulling and trying to find a clear lane to swim. Panic almost set in again as people fought to get moving. None of us realized that as we made the left hand turn we needed to just make a gradual turn, not a sharp turn. So the kayakers were there shouting at us to “go right, go right”. I kept waiting to feel one of their paddles knocking me on the head to get me back on course!

We made it around the two corner buoys and headed back toward the shore to finish our first lap. As we got to shore we had to get out of the water, run around a marker on shore and then get back in and do one more loop around the course. We took the few moments of being out of the water to adjust our goggles, catch a deep breath and start again. This time around it was spread out much better, although it still seemed that every 10 or 12 strokes someone else was in the way or swimming over me. I encountered several swimmers who were not good at sighting the buoys and they would come at you from an angle and swim right in front of you, messing up your direct line along the course. Then suddenly they would look up and realize they were going crooked. So they would turn the other direction, put their head down and fire off in the other direction, right back in front of me! I swear some of them must have swum an extra ½ mile or more. After what seemed an eternity (but was actually an hour and sixteen minutes)I made it back to shore, ran up through the crowd to the transition area, trying the whole time to unzip my wetsuit and peel it down to my waist. There were people waiting to assist me out of my wetsuit so I dropped to ground, they grabbed it and peeled it right off me like a banana. Then it was off to the bike course.

I survived the mass swim of the Ironman, even though it almost ended before it began. The doubts and the fears and the pain tried to overtake me but I fought them back and kept moving. They would come back again that day, and again. Relentless forward motion. I WILL BE an Ironman!

(to be continued)

Frozen Teeth and Buxom Bosoms

2009-06-09T13:07:00.000-07:00

It seems like it's been forever since I've updated my blog. I don't know how the year is passing so quickly. I do know that we have now entered the first week of a two week taper culminating in the BIG 140.6!! OMG! I am getting so nervous/scared/sick. I think the marginal beach at Couer d'Alene has enough sand that when I puke prior to race start I can cover it up well! lol I know, I know, nothing to be nervous about - I'm a lean, mean, well-trained machine and what's the big deal about working out for 12 or 13 or 14 or 15 hours?... :)

Last week was our last heavy training week. I was (and still am) fighting that damn cold. It never got horrible but ran me down a little, and made a bit of an issue out of my exercise-induced asthma. I feel pretty good now, but the coughing thing has caused me to nearly lose a lung or two on a few occasions while working out. I did finally give in and go refill my inhaler as even prior to catching this cold I had a couple of minor breathing issues after getting off the bike and running. Enough to scare me into NOT wanting that to happen at Ironman. A chest cold only worsens the asthma issue so the two combined make me a very annoying partner to work out with and it's a little difficult to steer my bike straight when I'm hacking up a lung. Lovely image eh?

Anyhooo....I made it through the training week, only missing a couple workouts, however that has been the same consistently throughout the program. I am now done teaching kickboxing for the summer so I have three extra nights open now and can fit in the "program specific" workouts I was missing to teach. I did fairly well on the lactic asshole workouts, although I'm sure I didn't push quite as hard as I may have been able to if I wasn't sick - I still feel like I had a good performance in those workouts and was able to maintain the targeted heart rates without keeling over. Always a plus!

Saturday was another semi-local sprint tri in Buffalo. Got up early and Gregg and Joy picked me up about 5:45. By the time we got the bikes loaded (Gregg is just a TINY bit anal about this process, although I will admit our bikes have never been scratched, dinged or lost from the back of the vehicle), got breakfast of champion sandwiches at McDonalds - just coffee for "Mr. Cheerios" and on our way we were going to have to hustle along to make pre-registration prior to it closing. Which we did, of course. Signed in and got our numbers, goody bags, etc. and went out to visit and set up. It was threatening rain all around but so far had held off. Not super warm (but when has it been this spring?) but not real windy so that was good. Saw several friends from previous tri's that live around the state and my main competition was there as well. Daisy from Casper - she has been on my all three years that I have done triathlons. So far I have managed to stave her off, but you never know. She's a strong swimmer so I'm always playing catch-up and also a good biker which makes me work my ass off to try and catch her. Her run hasn't been as strong as mine, although last time I raced her she had much improved. Looks like it might be a good race today - I was not wanting to have to really push hard though because of trying to recover from this damn cold, plus we still had an almost 4 hour ride to complete after the race.

Got our bikes set up - didn't realize til pictures later that we had set up right under the handicap sign in the parking lot? Fitting? lol

This race sports a small pool so teams swim the night before, individual women swim at 8:00 and then the men follow at 8:30. Hopped in with about five minutes to spare to get a quick 150 warm up in. Very few solo women this year, only 11 or so, I had a lane to myself which is highly unusual. Daisy and another girl on one side of me. Reminded my counter to not let me swim extra and we were off. The gal swimming with Daisy was a speed demon!! It didn't take her long to lap me, and then lap me again. But I couldn't believe that I was keeping even with Daisy!!! Usually she laps me as well. I didn't have time to think about it til later but either I got better or she go worse! Reminded myself to ask her when we were done. Felt fairly good on the swim, hopped out and raced out to my bike. Plopped down in my lawn chair, threw on my shoes and helmet, grabbed my bike and pushed off. I was trying to hurry cause Daisy was out of the pool right with me and I wanted to try to get a head start. I asked Gregg and LJ where the "speedy girl" was. They told me not to worry, she was on a mountain bike! No worries! Off down the street and passed speedy girl less than a mile into it, just in time for the first big hill which is a little over a mile long. I hailed her swimming prowess as I passed - kudos to her! Settled into a good rhythm on the bike. About 15 minutes into the bike grabbed some gel and water and kept trucking. There were a few times I felt i could have picked it up/pushed the pace but kept reminding myself that this was NOT my goal race, I'm trying to recover from a cold, AND I still have 60 miles to ride later in the day - so I did not give a full-out effort on the bike but did stay in front.

As I got to T2 I did not prop my bike up but sort of laid it gently in a big hurry down on the grass, sat down and put on my running shoes. My laces weren't quite right on the right foot but I tied em as they were, grabbed my race belt, puffed on my inhaler and was off. As I took off I heard them hailing Daisy on her way in to T2. Snuck a look back about a mile in and she was there but didn't appear to be gaining. At the turn around she wasn't in sight for a minute or so and so I knew I was good to go. Felt real strong the second half of the run. On the way to the turnaround I came across a quarter - so had to tell Gregg about it when I met him on his way out to run. Finished the race in 1:33 - good enough for first overall female. Daisy about 3 minutes behind me. The difference in this race and Gillette's sprint is that the run in this race is a 4-miler. My time was 9 minutes slower than Gillette's so I knew I had held back on the bike a bit as I'm certain my run was around the 7:30 pace or a bit faster. Anyway, I finished up feeling good; Gregg got his quarter and beat me by 4 minutes! Dang. Oh well, good day for all.

We waited around for the awards and recognition and then off for the rest of our workout. It still threatened rain and the wind had picked up some - only about 45 degrees or less. We had planned on a short wetsuit swim out at the lake prior to starting our bike ride. I decided I was hungry and so we went to Hardees for a burger prior to heading out to the lake. that really hit the spot!! got to the lake and decided that we really were not very smart in the head but we both refused to be the weenie so we hopped out and started the process of getting into our wetsuits. I managed to get in my suit without issues this time - it was on the right way and everything! Definitely wore the skull cap and the feeties, the whole nine yards cause it was COLD!! We walked down to the boat ramp and some guy pulling his boat in reminded us that we were, well in his words f*&*( crazy! Thank you sir, I didn't realize that! Gregg thought we should just jump off the boat ramp. I thought I might just have a heart attack from the cold if I did that so we opted to wade in for a nice slow death instead! And it was COLD!!! Holy Crap! I'm glad we didn't have a thermometer cause I did not want to know! Finally got all the way in and took off across the bay. Could barely put my face in because it was so cold. My hands were frozen after about 1 minute. Then my teeth froze!! Seriously. It was so cold that my teeth felt frozen trying to keep my face in the water. This was a really stupid idea!! We made it across the little bay and right back and hopped out - ten or fifteen minutes or so. That was enough! Grabbed dry clothes and changed to get ready for the bike ride. It started to rain a little - I was SO enthusiastic about this ride I could hardly stand myself. Dry clothes felt good - real good - as did the heater and the heated seats in the car. I didn't want to hop out. But, again, neither of us was willing to be the weenie so we loaded up our food and drinks, said goodbye to Joy and headed back to Buffalo with a short part of the trip on the interstate. It was raining on us a little as we took off but the wind was favorable on the way in. Made it to Buffalo in about twenty minutes - IBB had to stop for a break at the gas station and then we were off toward Ucross. Heading the opposite way now of course the wind was in our face. But it didn't rain on us anymore til about an hour and a half into the ride and then it just sprinkled on us briefly in bits. Met Joy near Clearmont and decided we'd still have probably another hour past Clearmont to get in our time. She picked us up about Arvada, at the bottom of a big 'ol hill (we told her we didn't want to ride up the other side). Going down that big hill was the first time all day we were able to coast because of the wind. i looked up once as we were crusing down and saw a BIG wobble from Gregg. I was wondering what the hell he was doing - afterwards he said for some dumb reason he decided to come out of his arrow bars at 38mph and it didn't go so smoothly! He's lucky he remained upright!

So we load up our stuff and hop in the car and off to Spotted Horse for the bathroom. It's a bar so we can't just go in and use the bathroom without buying something - that would be rude! But Gregg and Joy are late for their grandson's bday party so we didn't want to buy a beer cause that would take too long to drink so we settled for a shot instead! I definitely did NOT want to tequila, but she didn't have any sweet kind of shots so we decided on a shot of Crown! Well, let me tell you - I was warmed up after that. So was Gregg, we were jabber jaws the rest of the evening. Got home and unloaded and off for a hot shower! I was headed out to the bday party to so tried to hurry - was starving so had some chips and a cheese stick and a whiskey/coke. there was supposed to be food at the party but since we were late I wasn't sure how much would be left. As it turns out, there wasn't much left except pasta salad.....and whiskey! Well, I did have a plate of salad. Our mistake was in hydrating improperly right after our ride. Usually we down a couple bottles of Gatorade before anything else but this time the whiskey and beer got in the way. So we were on our way to a good evening - and I'll just leave it at that. No birthday cakes or small children were harmed! lol Actually, the birthday cake was harmed a little - we ended up with blue frosting on our faces which I pulled off with my fingers and let the dog lick it up and then HE ended up with a blue tongue and blue teeth! It was quite hysterical really - I'm sure you had to be there!

Next day was a short run, short bike. It was pouring rain - we did go run, although Gregg had to be drug out the door kicking and screaming. We cut it short by about 15 minutes and were absolutely soaked to the bone. Decided not to bike. By the time I got home my teeth were chattering uncontrollably and it took me ten minutes in the shower and a hot chocolate to warm up! I swear, we are ready for any weather in Couer d'Alene - except extreme heat.

Joy as usual took tons of pictures from the Buffalo tri and brought them over on a CD last night. I decided that, No. 1 - I take mostly horrible pictures at events like this and No. 2 - that tri jersey I've been wearing makes me look like I have a HUGE chest. Gregg and Larry saw no problem with this but I was like, what the....? I guess just the way the stripes on it are just really expands my upper body look. Ugh. I'm not exactly a little waif as it is and, well, you know how girls are - does this make my butt look big? No, but your chest is MASSIVE!! lol. I guess not quite that bad. I'm going to practice my workout faces in the mirror though and see if there is some face I can make while I'm dying that doesn't actually LOOK like I'm dying. And please, no more close ups! :) Especially since the headlights are always on too!

Well, good luck to my friends racing in the coming weeks and ready for my email to let you know how to track us at Ironman CDA - just a week and a half away! OMG.

sick & can't talk about it!

2009-06-01T10:48:00.000-07:00

It really sucks when you get a cold in the spring/summer. It's nice and hot outside and you have a cold; it just feels wrong!! Last Thursday I knew it was coming on - had the burning sensation in the back of my throat that either says I just had a shot of tequila OR I'm getting a cold. Well, I try to stay away from "ta kill ya" these days so I knew it was a cold. Hoping I was wrong... woke up Friday morning and sure enough - it was a cold. I hadn't been around anyone that had been sick that I knew of - could be just the culmination of all the training and running down my body. I've read lots of training articles that talk about how you get sick close to race day, I suppose my body has had better things to do than fight infections. To top all that off, I had a tough time getting in my training sessions last week. Kids and work, etc. combined to make it a juggling act to get any of them in at all. So it worked out that Friday night I ended up picking up the kids and hurrying home to get my "track workout/interval session" in before we packed up and headed to Sheridan for my fourth graders bball tournament. I have a loop around my neighborhood I run when the kids are home so I'm always close. I felt okay with my cold, just really stuffed up but otherwise not too bad. Kind of shortened the workout a little because of time constraints, but only took out of the warm up and cool down, not the main part. Got all 16 repeats in; heart rate where it should be. It was hot!! Didn't even shower, just loaded the stuff in the Yukon and headed to Grandmas.

Had a couple three whiskeys for dinner and headed the kids to bed around 9. Hannah had to be at the 3 on3 tournament by 8:00 a.m. They have been playing on 10 foot baskets and in this tournament the baskets were 9' so they needed to get in a little practice prior to game time. Got everyone up and moving on time and headed in to town. Loaded down with water and gatorade and oranges and chairs - it was going to be in the upper 80's, no shade where they were playing on that hot black asphalt. They had two morning games and then a break until 4:00 o'clock. They won the first, lost the 2nd. I sent Jarron with his dad, Hannah stayed with some friends at the tournament and I left to do some quick shopping and get my workout in. Stocked up on Hammergels and a new running cap (hot pink so they can spot me when I'm lying in the ditch!). Then I went down the street to the bike shop to see if they had some tires in stock that I need. They ended up having exactly what I have now, Bontrager race lites, $50 a piece, so I grabbed them up too. My current tires are getting SO nicked up I'm waiting for a flat tire any minute now. We will put new tires on next week so we can get a few miles on them prior to race day to make sure they seat well, etc.

So I got my shopping done and drove back out to my mom's to go for my run. It was in the mid 80's by now; haven't had many hot runs this year because of the weather so this will be good to help me start acclimating. Loaded up my fuel belt with water and gels, put on my new cap, my music and headed out. Felt pretty good, not even too sore/tired from last nights repeats. Went the same route as last weekend's bike ride - up, up , up. I let my heart rate ride a little higher than was planned just because of the never-ending hill. Got to my turn around point and that's when I was supposed to pick it up and let my heart rate drift up. Had to hoof it pretty good downhill for a while to get my heart rate up to where it needed but when I hit the flat it was no problem keeping it there. Felt great the whole time. Ended just right at 1:45 back at my mom's. Was supposed to bike for a short bit but ran out of time and hurried to shower and head back in for the next two basketball games.

Ended up yelling myself practically hoarse at the games so had to have a drink with one of the coaches afterwards while the kids swam at the hotel with their friends. Then back out to my mom's for dinner (uh oh, I think i'm a little bit sunburned too). Just in time for dinner - Gregg and his family arrive on their way back through from Billings. Had a great dinner and then sat around with some whiskey's and good conversation. My voice was still hoarse. Don't know how Hannah stayed awake; poor little girl was completely wiped out from hot sun, bball and swimming. She finally laid her head down in front of the t.v. and feel asleep. I crashed pretty hard too. We didn't have to get up too early since her game wasn't until 9:00 the next morning. Single elimination tournament.

When we got up it was already hot! And I discovered that my voice was gone! Great. How am I going to yell at the games? Hannah will probably be glad because I embarrassed her the day before by yelling. "Be quiet MOM" lol I still felt not too bad, just no voice and very stuffed up nose.

I knew I'd have to really hydrate well all day with the sun and our planned five hour workout for later in the day. we went through Starbucks on the way to the games and Hannah had to order for me because I couldnt' talk. She thought that was great and I bet the clerk was wondering who was driving that had such a young voice! The kids played hard in their first game but ended up losing so we were out of there by 10:00. Called Gregg (well, texted him since I couldn't talk) and told him I'd be ready to start our 4 1/2 hour ride by 12:30. Dropped the kids off at their dad's and headed home to get stuff together. Carried my big waist water pack - that thing has worked really well on our long rides, holds like 64oz or something. Gregg had gotten some Gatorade Endurance powder and mixed it up so we each had a bottle of that. That's what they serve on the course at Ironman CDA so figured we better try it and see how our systems handle it. Had my oranges packed in my waist pack, a bottle of gel and three snickers bars (they get kinda messy on these hot days let me tell ya). Gregg thought it was going to be a pretty quiet ride since I couldn't talk. Like I can ever get a word in edgewise with him there anyway! lol The wind was out of the north so we tried to keep to some East/West loops as much as possible. First half of the ride we were a little poky but picked it up the last half and ended up with just about 70 miles in about four hours and twenty minutes. Hopped off and got into our running shoes and off for a thirty minute run. Sposed to be a quick pace - we opted for two loops around my neighborhood; running well at a sub 7:30 pace for the first half and then my lungs started to seize up. Have been training without my inhaler; however, this is now the second time this has happened to me on the run right after the bike and so I'm going to call in and refill my inhaler. It starts to shut down and then I panic and that of course makes it worse. So I had to slow way down, then walk for a minute and then start back up. Had to really back off the pace. My legs felt fine - it was just my breathing that wasn't cooperating. And it was HOT! I think I probably could have drank even more fluids on our ride and I'm definitely picking up some endurolytes prior to race day. I've used them in all my Big Horn runs and I swore by them when it was super hot. Made it back to the house; we grabbed big bottles of gatorade and walked around the block for a cool down. Drank all the gatorade and then collapsed in the lawn chair for an ice cold Blue Moon.

Definitely a good workout; I'm feeling confident now with my nutritional intake. I just need to keep an eye on the time and make sure I'm taking it in at all the scheduled intervals and don't get behind. My knee has completely quit hurting since I got my new shoes so that's a HUGE relief. This coming week is our last week of training before we hit our two taper weeks. The time is coming soon! And a short sprint distance race this weekend in Buffalo just for fun!

Oh yeah, I need to digress a bit. Back to last Monday. Memorial Day. Of course the weather is always somewhat crappy on Memorial Day. I got back to town from Sheridan late in the morning. We had talked about getting our wetsuits and going out to Keyhole for a little swim just to try them out; get in the open water. It was cold and blustery but I called him and we decided to go. Loaded up quickly and headed out. Got out there, the wind was blowing HARD. There were no other idiots out there swimming! A couple boats was it. The waves were quite large! So we're standing there freezing, trying to get our wetsuits on and generally yakking about how dumb we were to be out there. I'm very carefully getting into my wetsuit. Last time I put it on I didnt' get it pulled up enough and it just didn't feel right. So I was carefully, carefully pulling and tugging and hop kicking and whatever else I do to get into this thing. Get it pulled up nicely, over my rear and everythings dandy. Just starting to put an arm in the sleeve and Gregg looks at me and busts out laughing! What? He very kindly mentions to me that my wetsuit should not zip up the front! Oh crap!!!! I've got the damn thing on backwards! And I was being soooo careful too! Sigh. Well, if you've followed my blogs you'll know all about my backwards issues and that this isn't the first time such a thing has happened. anyway, so I had to start all over.

Got that taken care of, put my neoprene feeties on and my neoprene skull cap with my swim cap over it (so the two boaters out there could spot me and not run over me) and off we went. i was glad for the feeties, mainly because I have such weenie feet that it was nice to be able to walk on the sand/rocks and it didn't hurt. Also, because it was damn cold!! And that's where the fun began. We got in and the waves were coming at us. I could not get my breath; everytime I tried there was a wave in my mouth. I struggled along in a verticle position for about ten minutes (which is very inefficient when trying to swim :) and Gregg finally said, "You're gonna have to put your face in the water sometime ya know". I know, I know. It seems so pointless to put your face in when you can't see a damn thing. In the pool you can see where you're going. in stinky 'ol keyhole all you can see is dark green. So I tried, got a little better but the waves were kicking my butt. I still felt like I couldn't get a good breath and I couldn't get a rhythm going through the waves. I know you're supposed to go right through them but I just couldn't relax. It was a struggle to get out to the buoys but I finally made it. I'm not afraid of drowning because the wetsuit is very buoyant and it doesn't take much to treat water in it. But I just don't want to have to struggle that much to go. It was really a good learning experience because I know I need to relax and just swim. On the way back it was a little easier because we were WITH the waves. I could breathe better but still felt like I wasn' t getting in the rhythm of "swimming". I didn't feel like I was kicking my feet enough or at all. Just SWIM! Who thought that swimming would be so hard? It's a whole different world trying to open water swim for sure. And then I have to add 2300 other of my closest friends all going from point A to point B at the same time....Thank goodness the swim isn't the biggest part of the race. I just need to relax...relax...relax...

Okay, train hard, stay safe!

I think I can, I think I can

2009-05-19T13:14:00.000-07:00

A month away from race day!! Yikes!! I'm starting to panic. Last week was one of our longest weeks with regards to overall workout time - 19+ hours. So I broke my cardinal rule for this training program and looked ahead to the next couple of weeks. The overall workout time for a week drops down significantly - back to the 15+ hour range. I got scared when I saw that - OMG I'm not in shape enough yet; I'm not ready for a break. I need to work harder. I should have pushed a little harder on the lactic assholes, I should have ran a little faster that day..etc. etc. Well, some of the intensity does drop off, however, the weekends are still fairly long. With the exception of this weekend because we are on a recovery week. I know I'll be just fine but now that it's getting close I'm getting worried. When we actually hit taper weeks I'll probably really lose it - the big worry from what I understand is basically that after all this intense training you hit taper and then feel like a big, fat loser cause you're "hardly" working out. I know, I know, ya gotta get some good muscle recovery in there and then you come back on race day all rested and feeling fine and totally KICK ASS!! Yes, that is what I'm gonna do.

I think.

This past week did a lot for my confidence again though. The training IS paying off; big-time. I did miss a couple of the workouts last week, although typically I have missed a swim and a bike each week because of kickboxing so I don't think I'm really missing that much. Friday night I was still trying to figure out my workout schedule because the kids were with me that weekend and every babysitter, grandma, ex-husband and friend that I know were all busy. The kids' dad did call and offer to help out in the couple of free hours he had though.

The kids decided they wanted to run the kids 1K at the Spring Zinger run on Saturday morning. Spring Zinger is the first race in a 5-race series that the rec center puts on throughout the spring and summer. Prior to each run/walk is a kids 1K event as well. Well, they stayed up late Friday night and the kids race was at 7. I woke up early of course and then laid there for a half hour trying to decide if I should wake them up or let them sleep. Finally Hannah moved so I asked her if she wanted to run. She said yes so I said we better wake up your brother cause it starts in a half hour. We woke him up (crabby guy) and he said he didn't want to go run. Hannah still did. So we left Jarron home with his friend that had spent the night and we hurried up to the race. Made it with a few minutes to spare (and they started it late) so she ran, got 1st place!! Got her medal and we headed back home to check on Jarron. Spent the morning cleaning house and all that wonderful stuff that I absolutely DESPISE doing.

The plan was to meet Gregg at 10:00 at the rec to run our first workout of the day - an 1:45 run. The kids had decided they wanted to just play at the rec center while I ran. So we took off - beautiful morning but a little breezy. My weenie running partner was COLD to start off with! Big baby! :) Had a good run, not speedy, probably just 10 1/2 or 11 miles but again, heart rate based, supposed to keep it under 75%. Gregg was running a little high (HE wasn't high, his heart rate was) probably because he HAD raced the 5K that morning and I didn't. Anyway, nice easy, enjoyable run. Back to the rec to pick up the kids and head home for the next two parts of the workout. Grabbed them some lunch on the way home and then hopped on the trainer in the garage for an easy hour spin; jumped off to head right out on my run. Jarron was playing a game with a couple of older friends so I made Hannah get on her bike to ride with me while I ran. Couldn't remember exactly the structure of this run except that it was supposed to be 45 minutes and had about 20-25 minutes of heart rate at 84-88%. So I blasted out the door on a pretty good clip and got my HR right up there. Hannah kept telling me to slow down; I was like "hey, you're the one on the bike, pick it up girlie!". Was just doing loops around my neighborhood to stay close to home. She ditched me after the first loop and went to find friends. I kept up the pace, sticking fairly close to a 7:30 pace (just a guesstimate) for about 30 minutes total then slowed down for the last loop and brought the HR back down. Felt really good actually; must've stayed well hydrated and ate just right. So far the Hammer gels haven't been killing me. If I can continue to use them and keep them down then I will be a happy camper!

Had some time for a little bit of rest/play time with the kids and housework and then off to the soccer fields for Jarron's end of season parent/kid soccer game. We divided up into teams (big people and little people on each team) and played. Now, I have never played soccer and I definitely suck at it! I will never, never make a comment again when I see some poor kid kick and totally miss the ball - I don't know how many times I did that! Surprised I didn't blow a hamstring. Talk about an anaerobic sport!! I was starting to get after Jarron for just standing out there and acting tired when I finally looked at the clock and realized we had been playing for TWO hours!! My legs were definitely starting to get fatigued - 16+ miles of running that day and an hour spin plus two hours of soccer. On one of our last plays I hit a low spot on the field and buckled my legs under me. About that time I remember Gregg warning me to "be careful, now's not a good time to sprain an ankle" and I was also thinking about our 5 hour bike ride the next day. So...I went and sat down finally; my feet were killing me! Turns out they only played for another ten minutes or so and then we all went out for pizza. I don't like pizza that much but the salad bar and an ice cold beer certainly hit the spot!

Home and to bed early. I was pooped. Luckily so were the kids. they both went right to sleep without a fuss. Next day slept in til 7:00! Wow! That felt great. Kids didn't get up til 8:00. Now I had to start planning for our long ride today. Supposed to be beautiful day - upper 70's temperature, some wind and lots of sun. Best day we've had all year to ride. Now I had a dilemma. Had to get the kids' bikes to their dad's along with all their stuff AND my bike and stuff to Gregg's. No way all that fits in my Yukon. So we left the house at 10:00 and took my bike over to Gregg's and dropped it off and then to the store to buy my fruit, gatorade and snickers bars for my ride and then back home. Loaded up their bikes and all their gear and took them across town to a friends' house to meet their dad who was helping build fence. Got all that dropped off; now it's 11:45 and I'm supposed to be at Gregg's ready to ride at noon cause he goes on call at 7:00 that night and so has to be done and ready for work at 6:30. Great - my fuel light just came on too! We've only run the Yukon out of gas like three times, no problem! I decide to chance it - make it to Gregg's right about 12:00. He just pulled his lazy butt out of bed not too long before! Hmmm too much whiskey last night Gregg?

Trying to do as few stops as possible on the ride today. Joy is going to come out for one fuel stop for us. I have my two water bottles - one gatorade, one water and then my Camel back waist pack full of water. A banana velcroed to my handle bars and two oranges peeled and in the pocket of my Camelback. Bento box has three snickers bars and three Hammer gels. I'm set. We decide to ride North to Weston. Little wind in our face on the way out which is good when we finally hit our turn around. I am getting way, way better at fueling on these long workouts and it has made a HUGE difference in my performance. I have finally found something that seems to work with my overly sensitive guts and probably just training it to be more tolerant as well. It feels like I'm eating and drinking constantly while on the bike but it appears that that is what it takes. Twenty minutes in I'm drinking Gatorade, then at 50' in I gel and water (lots more water than I used to, I think that was also part of my problem) I try to get in at least four BIG drinks with the gels and that helps a lot. I didn't even spill it on myself this time. My handlebars are all sticky and my gloves from previous "gel issues". Or I get it all over the side of my face. Usually I'm trying to rip open the gel and then wobble on my bike and about wreck so I grab the gel and then it squirts all over the place...I'm a real mess. Then I have to use some of my water to try and get all the sticky crap off me. Hammer gels are a lot runnier than some of their counterparts, which is why I like them better, they don't gag me as bad; however, they really get all over in a hurry.

Anyway, I digress. So gel at about 50' in, then another fifteen minutes go by and I have a banana or orange (the whole thing) and then another twenty minutes and I eat half a snickers bar. Why snickers? Well, I'm not sure but they seem to work. Same nutrition abilities as a power bar basically, but doesn't taste like cardboard! Kinda melty in the heat though. I can just see all my pictures during Ironman with Hammergel and chocolate smeared all over my face! Nice. Then it's back to Gatorade time again. Oh yea, and I drink a bit of water with each food intake. Well, not with oranges, they're plenty watery. Definitely with the banana though. I STILL do NOT like bananas. They still gag me. But I've forced myself to deal with it because they really, really do provide a lot that i need.

So Joy meets us about 50 miles into our ride and we fill back up with water, Gatorade, more hammergels and snickers bars and continue on. About the last 45 minutes or so of our ride my back is starting to stiffen up. Gregg takes off up a couple of the last hills and after about two seconds of increasing my speed I decide that that is a bad idea and I need to save some for our run that we still have to do post-bike. We get back to his house and hop off for a quick transition. We're running a little late as far as him getting back and ready for work so we settle on about a 2 1/2 mile loop instead of the 45' we were supposed to do. Took right off fast, did a good portion of that run at sub-7:30 pace and the downhills were sub-7:00. Felt good actually. Last little bit of uphill was the first time during this training program that I was wishing I had my inhaler with me; Gregg sped up - he was feeling fine and I tried to pick it up even more and the lungs tried to squeeze shut on me. Slowed it back down and finished up. Feeling good! We made 83 miles on the bike - never really raced or hurried just a nice 17+Mph average speed.

I know now that I can make the full 112 at Ironman. And being able to run that well off the bike; even though I realize i will NOT be running that fast of a pace on race day - it just added another layer to my confidence level. The day is fast approaching and I know it will soon be over. I'm determined to do well, for my own sake and for the sake of everyone who has supported me so strongly during these months of training.
And I can't wait to buy shirts for my munchkins that say "My mom is an Ironman"!

Train hard, stay safe!

Purely Pissy & Positively Pooped!

2009-05-11T12:39:00.000-07:00

Yea, well, the title about sums it up! Last week sucked!! It ended well but started out crappy. I guess last weekend's 1/2 marathon race and 78 mile ride finally caught up to me. We had Monday off as usual - except I had kickboxing of course that night. And let me tell you what...I was feeling Sooore. Luckily only one person showed up - I was going to tell her just to forget it cause I usually don't teach for just one and then she went on about how excited she was to have her own "personal workout session" with me so...well I went ahead and had class. As usual I started feeling better, but not all that great. Right behind my knees was killing me! Especially kicking the bag; I actually had to sandbag it a little bit because it felt like my hamstring was going to bust right out the back of my leg if worked any harder! We did lots of upper body work on the bags that night! Went home with the anticipation of a good nights sleep and of course I couldn't sleep very well. I think when I'm that tired/sore whatever that it keeps me awake. I'm just too uncomfortable to sleep or something.

Tuesday was a bike and swim day. This week the rec center was closed so we had to go the aquatic center to swim but they are only open for lap swimming from 5-7 in the morning. So got up early to head there. I'm not usually a morning swim person. It feels weird to me for some reason to be in the water when it's dark and early outside. I finally woke up and had a fairly good swim. Raced home to get ready for work and load up my bike. We decided on a noon outside ride this day since it was supposed to be nice. and it was nice. We got a nice little 19 mile or so ride in - didn't follow the scheduled lactic assholes for the day but just enjoyed the weather and the ride. Legs were okay, but not too excited on the hills.

Tuesday night it hit me. I was exhausted from not much sleep the night before and from the days workouts and the weekend catching up to me. Besides the nice bike ride that day, work was a busy, hectic, crazy pain in the ass and I could just feel myself getting pissier and pissier as the day went by. To top it off our computer "genius" had been by to work on our computers and as usual when he left nothing worked. We wasted half a day not being able to get in the system. this isn't the first time; it's quite typical. Well, I blew my cork about it and ranted and raved around the office. ***side note - if you ever want to know how I feel about something - just ask me! lol By the time I was heading home I was having maniacal road rage thoughts and gesturing rudely at other poor souls commuting at the same time. I really knew I had lost it when I got home and threatened poor kitty with a ride on the end of my foot across the garage if he didn't quit meowing at me! It took about ten deep breaths and three whiskeys to calm me down and I was STILL pissy when Larry got home - which he tactfully mentioned ! :) I knew it was time for me to just go to bed and try to sleep it off. Thank goodness the kids were at their dads this week. I always feel bad when I'm so tired and cranky and end up yelling at them for no good reason.

Wednesday was no better. I still woke up pissy. Went in early to spin at the rec center. Crabby bout getting up and bitched through the whole workout cause it was a boooooring 2 x 30' sets at 75%! Why bother!!! Same computer issues at work and five people wanting ten different things "right now" from me did nothing to improve my mood. Ran at noon and felt okay, just tired legs. Then I had kickboxing that night - bout on the verge of tears on the way to class (which really tells you how tired I was) because I just didn't want to work out again. I was completely worn out. I showed up hoping that it would be a repeat of Monday where only one person showed up and I would just cancel class. No such luck. I walked in the door and they said three people had already showed up for class! Early. So I had to get to work on my mental attitude and did a happy dance around the lobby of the rec center. Did it help? Well, sort of. Once I got going with class of course I felt better. My legs weren't nearly as dead as they were Monday night but still sore. I sandbagged the bag workout again a little bit and we did lots of push-ups and abs.

Thursday morning - same bitchy, bitchy when I woke up! I can hardly stand myself at this point! We decided on trying a wetsuit swim since neither of us has test swam our new full body wetsuits. I only worn a wetsuit like five times total, only twice for races and that was a short john (sleeveless, short legs). Gregg has his on and is patiently waiting for me to get done with my "wetsuit gyrations" which probably sort of resemble either a person on fire or someone in the midst of a seizure of some sort. I hopped and pulled and kicked and finally got it up to my butt. By this time the lifeguard is laughing at me as is Gregg. Notice I said I got it up TO my butt. Not OVER my butt. Now it's stuck, I'm hoping for a longer zipper or something? My ass isn't that big really but somehow this thing is bunched up under my buns and it's pushing everything upwards in a "lovely" (note the dripping sarcasm in my voice) bulging package. My butt is now where my belly button ring used to be and I'm still not exactly sure how I'm ever going to get this thing on. I double check the size cause I'm sure they must have sent an Xsmall instead of a large. Rats. It's a large. Great, now I'm a big fat pig I"m thinking. So I hop and kick and dance and finally get it up a little farther and my butt recedes back to it's normal spot. I try to get my arms in the sleeves but now my crotch is hanging down somewhere between my knees and ankles and so I can't raise my arms up at all and I'm flapping around like some marionette at the puppet show. Gregg is offering all sorts of advice and comments and the lifeguard is probably letting some other fool drown while she laughs at me! I know you're supposed to roll them on like you roll on Nylons but can I tell you how many years it's been since I've worn a pair of those?
Anyway, I finally get the stupid thing up enough so that most of my body parts are where they were when I first started. I suck it in as much as possible so Gregg can zip me up. Now that I'm in and choking to death I realize that I'm also sweating like a pig. So we hop in and begin our workout. This sucks!!! I can't breathe, I can't stretch my arms out. Everytime I turn at the end of the lane I cut off my air supply. Gregg is ahead of me by several lengths (which doesn't seems odd maybe, except for the fact that typically I kick his butt in the pool). I'm tired, I can't breathe, I'm pissy cause it's rubbing my neck and I'm squished and sweaty. We complete the workout finally and I'm left thinking that if I have to swim 2.4 miles in this thing I'm going to drown. Gregg helped me get the thing off, which luckily took about 1/4 of the time it took to get on. Home to shower and head to work. We plan on doing our run at that track tonight after work. So no lunchtime workout today and I'm hoping that the rest will help me out. Work is still crazy and can you believe it? I'm still pissy.

We make it to the track to run and I'm thinking it's going to be a slow night for me. Lactic assholes again tonight (if this is the first time you've read my blog you'll have to go back a few postings to catch up on what "lactic assholes" are). Anyway, I actually ended up doing okay on the repeats, although I've since decided that a lot of my intestinal distress issues are related to the iron that I'm taking and not as much to gluten. So finish off the run and head home for some much needed sleep. We actually decide to take Friday off since we are racing Saturday. Well, I still had kickboxing Friday night but no other workout. Good sleep Friday night and determined not to make a nutritional mistake this weekend so I load up on fluids (more water in my whiskey - lol) just kidding. I made sure I drank a 32oz gatorade that evening.

Saturday morning dawns; I'm awake early and up for coffee. Dreading the day, dreading the race. I'm still feeling worn out and just mentally down from the week I had. I still make sure to breakfast well; on the safe side go gluten free with Rice Krispies and banana. Only two cups of coffee. 32oz of Gatorade and an orange. Get all my gear set up for the race. Need to hop in the pool and make sure the tri outfit I was wearing was going to hold up in the water. I had't worn the top yet; in fact when I got it I had a little more body fat and when I put it on I swore that thing was going back to the store. I did NOT want to hang out with all these athletes with that roll hanging out from under that top. Well, now it fits much better and I wasn't so self conscious about it; except for the fact that I knew when it got wet it would be 100% see thru! Who would make a girls tri top like that? Well, obviously a guy designed it. But of course I put a sports bra under it so it was good. The tri shorts were another thing I hadn't been sure of when I first got them. My ten year old daughter asked if they were hers!! Nice. Well, somehow, this 39-year old body fit into them - I'm not going to say it was pretty but as long as I walked carefully and didn't slouch or breathe then all the body parts stayed where they were supposed to. So, anyway, I hopped in and swam a 300 to warm up and make sure that everything felt okay. And I did feel good, Surprisingly. I started to perk up a little bit and started working on getting my race day attitude on.

Just before race start I swam another 100 to make sure I was good and limbered up and ready to go. On the gun I took off smoothly, thinking all along about keeping my stroke even maintaining the pace I new I could. I even kept my count straight. and as a bonus I swam in the lane by a ladder so I didn't have to bang my rickety 'ol knees on the side of the pool when I got out. Hopped out and ran straight out to transition. Didn't catch my time for sure but it was just under or just over 14'. Sat down to put on socks and shoes and heard Corky say"Geez Gregg you're a little slow". Holy shit! Gregg was still here! I beat him out of the pool and into transition. That lit a fire under my arse! I carefully buckled my helmet as it tends to give me fits and I didn't want to get flustered. Ran out to the street and again, carefully made sure my right foot clipped in (new shoes, not used to them) and then I hauled ass! As good as I could anyway. I wanted to get as much road between me and Gregg as possible. Plus I had no idea who or what girls were ahead of me. The wind was kind of an issue, in my face up hill (and down hill). As I turned onto 14/16 I looked back and Gregg was closing in. Damn! Oh well, just ride my own ride. about halfway up the next hill I heard huffing and puffing (lol) and asked "is that you?". Yep he said as he peddled on by. Then I about passed him back but thought he'd say I was drafting so I backed off a smidge and off he went. I passed two girls (both from teams so no worries) and then could see the front runners coming back. No other girls in front of me. Good. Kept Gregg in my sights but he did open up the gap. I was left, once again, by myself between the front runner guys and then the rest of pack behind me. I muttered along about "dirty stinky boys" always leaving me in the dust and kept riding my hardest. I did take in a hammer gel and a good 6-8oz of water on the ride. Back at transition I hurried into my shoes and took off, not sure how far ahead of me Gregg was. then I saw him. 1/4 mile maybe? Legs were a little leaden but after about 1/2 mile they loosened up and I picked up the pace. I could see Gregg ahead of me several times but just kept running my own pace and kept increasing my speed as I went.
Came into the finish at 1:24:something - A good finish for me, putting me first overall female. Turns out I was only a minute behind Gregg at that time - he said later if he'd known how close I was he would've run differently! LOL

Well, that's the best I had felt all week. Finally blew off my pissy mood with that race. We had a great turnout and I was so excited to see so many of friends out there giving there very best efforts! It made me really proud of all the girls (and guys) that completed the race. It's such an accomplishment and to see the looks on everyone's faces when they finish, and then when they get an age group medal that they NEVER expected - That is the greatest joy for me! I'm so proud of all my friends. And it was fun too to see returning competitors that take the time and the effort to travel several hours to come to our little event. In Wyoming you don't have that many choices for these kinds of races so it isn't unusual to drive three to five hours to attend one.

We ate a little and went through the awards ceremony and then hopped on our bikes for another 28-30 mile ride. supposed to be a total of 4 1/2 hours or something according to our program but we cut it short. I felt good on that ride too. Got home just in time for it to pour rain for a little bit. Out to Corky's for a post-race, goodbye Sara, party. Stayed out a while that night, home at 10:30 though. Sunday was a 2 hour run and 50 minute easy bike. Bulk of the run was at 70-75% then 20' of 80-84%. When I started I wasn't sure about the 80-84% but after our 1 1/2 hour warm up (lol) I was actually feeling pretty good. We hoofed it on our 20' pick up and it actually felt okay. I had done a gel on the run and it didn't negatively affect me so that was a bonus! got on our bikes and headed out for an EASY spin- toodled through some neighborhoods and just enjoyed the warm day. Was a little sore hopping off when we were done but otherwise, mentally, much, much better. Pissy me is gone for a little while, although looking at this week's workouts (19hours) we'll see which alter ego I am next Sunday afternoon!

Work out hard, stay safe and BE FIT!

Ironman - so do you just go do it, or do you have to train?!

2009-05-05T17:11:00.000-07:00

LOL! You read the title of this blog and you're saying WHAT? If you're an athlete anyway that has any understanding of what an Ironman is. While we were riding (and riding, and riding, and riding) our bikes Sunday I remembered a conversation that was had between a young man (early 20's) and Gregg and I (not early 20's) in a bar earlier this spring (GASP, we were in a bar? training?) :). Anyway, someone mentioned to this young man what Gregg and i were training for and he, very seriously, asked "so do you just go do it, or do you have to train?"

After I got done laughing in disbelief, I told you could probably just go DO a 5k or even a 10k, maybe even struggle through a sprint distance tri, but you don't just go DO an Ironman. I know I've talked about this particular story before, but somehow, when I've been out on the road for several hours it always seems to come to mind.

So last week was a pretty heavy week as far as training goes. So heavy in fact that I can't remember the majority of the workouts! Or the week for that matter! Did I mention I'm scattered? I decided last week that I must have adult ADD. Seriously. I'm not making light of anyone out there that has been diagnosed; I swear though, the way I act I am completely losing it. So for those of you out there who seem me often, please watch me for signs of complete mental loss, okay?! More than I usually display anyway. thanks!

All right, where was I? Oh yes, last week's training. The rec center pool closed last Thursday so I only got one swim in last week. Had to ride my trainer in the living room for two hours one morning cause no one to watch the kids. It wasn't bad, I watched the Fox news channel the whole time. Had to use Jarron's monkey towel to mop up the sweat; it was the closest thing I could grab. Hey, I washed it after!! Friday we usually do a swim, but with the pool being closed we didn't do it. We were heading to Sheridan that night to be ready to run the Beaver Creek Slide half-marathon Saturday morning. So no kickboxing either. Gregg, Joy and I made it to my mom's in Sheridan and joined in with my family for a "few too many" whiskeys. If you know George, well you know it's easy to have a "few too many"! Anyway, slept well that night.

Up fairly early to down some coffee and have some cereal prior to leaving for the race venue. Supposed to be a nice day, however the wind was pretty darn cool; so much so that you couldn't tell the difference between my knees and my goose bumps! I didn't end up getting in enough fluids, besides coffee which would cause me some issues in the middle of the race. Finally took off at 9:00am. Last year the front group kinda loped along easy for the first couple of miles until everyone figured out who was gonna race and who wasn't. Well, not so this year. Some gal took off right off like a bat outta H*LL. One other gal (who happens to be my niece, well sort of anyway) and the guy that won it last year, took off too after they realized this girl was serious and not slowing down. Gregg and I sped up some but continued to lolly gag behind the others. I asked Gregg if he was nervous and then, as they kept increasing the gap, told him to go ahead and make his move before they got way too far ahead. I maintained my pace, right around 8:00 miles or so. Three miles in, he is in fourth and I'm in sixth. As far as I could see, no one was making any gains on the rabbit. At five miles was the first of two aid stations and marked the ending of the good road and the entry of three miles of mud/snow/difficult terrain. I grabbed some water at the aid station and took off through the mud. I LOVE to run off road and quickly passed the guy in front of me and left the couple that were closing in in the dust; I was able to keep my distance from them but started feeling really crappy - dizzy, sloggy, bonky. A result, I believe, of not enough fluids prior to racing and dehydration from the night before. Stupid, rooky mistake but me always worrying about what's gonna affect my gut or not seems to make me make good choices with my nutrition. This is gonna make or break my Ironman and yet I still screw up.

Anyway, about halfway through the mud part of the run I spot someone over the next rise that doesn't look like Gregg (who was the next in line in front of me). Then I realize, it's the RABBIT! You're kidding me! Gregg is passing her. She must not be able to run in the mud! Wow! Now I'm thinking, maybe I have a chance. I was already settling myself for third place female and look what I see! Teaches you to never give up because you never know what the person in front of you is going through. Now I'm excited about catching her but nervous because I know I only have about 3/4 of a mile before the mud ends and we hit good road again. And man, was she fast on the good road!! I pass her on the steepest hill and keep trucking along, even though I feel like my lungs might explode at any minute. Hit the next flat/downhill and fly through the mud, alternately running normally and shaking one foot at a time while running to try and dislodge the 5 pounds of mud that keeps accumulating on the bottom of each foot. I can't see Gregg or either of the other two front runners but now I'm worried about Speedy Gonzales behind me. I pull into the second and last aid station and slug down a gatorade. I'm feeling better, must've got past my bonky stage. The road is a good hard dirt surface now and I try to pick up the pace. A couple of time on the corners I sneak a peek back and see the two I passed behind me. But not too closely. I try to push it on the downhills and get around the corners as fast as possible to mess with them mentally as much as possible. Don't want them to get me in their sights and put on the turbo boost! They never catch up and I end up finishing fourth overall, 2nd female. 6' behind Gregg though - wow that sucked! But still a couple minutes ahead of the next finishers. So all in all a pretty good run for me. Learned a lesson (again) on the fluid intake. I know better, just gotta do it is all. Sigh.

So Sunday morning wake up sore! Yea, the quads feel like they raced a half-marathon! Supposed to be a sunny, nice day. Well, I didn't see any sun when I got back. Low clouds, upper 40's. Not really any wind. We waited around til about 10 and then mounted up. Our plan was to ride from Big Horn toward Gillette on the back roads. 4 hours and 40 minutes was on the schedule. first part of the ride was great; no wind, flat/downhill for about 8 miles. Started to head east , still not bad then we hit the looong and eventually steep Jim Creek Hill. the wind starts to pick up, in our face and to top it off it starts to rain some. Not hard but there. By the time we reach the top of Jim Creek the wind is howling in our face. So much for enjoying the nice long coast down the other side! No such luck. So it's a push the whole next 8 to 10 miles. the rain doesn't continue though, just the wind. Once we reach Ucross we get to change direction a bit and now the wind is at our back. Made the fastest time so far of the day on the last 7 or 8 miles into Clearmont.

Clearmont we meet up with Joy and Jarron. Larry and his boy are there too to entertain Jarron for a little bit. He's not too keen on this hours and hours of crewing! Fill up on our drinks and eats and continue on. Luckily, the wind continues to be favorable and there's very, very little traffic to bother us. We make it to Spotted Horse and although we are about 40 minutes short of our intended ride time decide to call it a day. We've made at least an hour longer than we have so far in this program and about 20 miles further. So yes, finished up again with my longest ride ever; just over 78 miles. Whew. Only bummer was, Spotted Horse bar wasn't open so no stop for a beer; luckily our crew hadn't drank them all though and still had a couple cold ones in the cooler!

So I survived nutritionally and felt much better than I have previously. I found some "Honey Stinger" gels at the bike shop in Sheridan which I had read about and wanted to try. Almost pure honey and I thought it might be easier on my stomach. I also had Hammer gels which are much runnier than typical gels and also supposed to be a little gentler on the stomach. My plan was to drink every twenty minutes; a gel at 50' on the hour with water, then about ten minutes later a fruit (either an orange or a banana) and then at least half my snickers bar fifteen minutes after that. Yes Snickers bars! Practically the same ingredients as any old Powerbar, but much, much tastier. Well, I stuck to the plan, had no gut issues and maintained a great energy level!! Woo hoo! Now, I didn't have to run afterwards and that is usually where I have my problems but I now feel much more comfortable on what I have to do nutritionally to keep up the energy levels. At least get me in good shape to the run and then figure out what I can eat after that. It's all starting to come together. To this point we had only made 60 miles on the bike and I was still seeing it as ONLY half way (Ironman distance) and so it was tough to think about having to do that same amount again. Now we've made nearly 80 and I knew I could go on longer if I had to so I am now confident that I CAN ride the entire 112 miles at Ironman CDA!

Well, my fingers are out of energy. I need to go get laundry done and fix dinner and hold down the couch... have a great week.
happy training

Tri to focus

2009-04-26T18:45:00.000-07:00

Okay, I started this on Sunday but must've fallen asleep in the middle of it - now it's Tuesday so Im trying to finish it up.

It's been a long week. To tell the truth - I'm exhausted and just trying to stay upright and awake until 8:30 when I can put the kids to bed and HOPE to God they go right to sleep. Their first night back from their dad's always is an adjustment and it seems to take them one night to settle in. I really look forward to Monday's now - isn't that crazy? Why? Well, it's our REST day!! Woo hoo! And I NEED a rest. It's been a long workout week. Especially after last week being a recovery week with only 12 hours or so of workouts then this week was 17.

The weather was beautiful at the beginning of the week. 80 degrees believe it or not; sunshine, gorgeous. Too much wind but after all, this is NE Wyoming. What can you expect? Gregg had a crazy week at work and so I ended up doing two or three of the workouts without him. He did manage to get them in on his own time though. Todd joined me for one of the swims and I tried to kick his butt even though he had flippers on! Cheater! The morning cycling workouts were good intensity and I was feeling pretty good after last week's slow down. I'm trying to work on a "gluten-free" test to see if that helps me with any of my digestive issues. I'm not sure if it made a difference or not; when I was supposed to go back on my regular diet I subconsciously was making more gluten free choices than usual. So...as far as how I felt throughout the weeks workouts and the longer one's this weekend; I had no digestive distress. Not even on our lactic asshole workout on Thursday which is typically where it surfaces. Hey, I'll take any help I can get. If it works, I'll keep doing it.

I did decide I should go in and get my ferritin level checked again. If you've been following my blog you'll know I have been struggling with this issue for over a year now. I've been feeling pretty good and the medicine is expensive and not covered by insurance so I thought I'd go in and get it checked to see if I had magically improved enough to maybe go off the dose. It's hard for me to afford $50 a month for this. Well, my levels have dropped again; I'm sure due to the intensity of the program I'm in right now. Sigh. Back to the iron. I'm trying to do some more research on this and see what else I can take or do to get this problem resolved...I can't afford to be on this forever. Regular old iron supplements work, however they are typically much harder on the gut. Which is just what I DON'T need.

Anyway, besides that set back we had some good quality workouts this week. Ran all my 400 repeats right at the 1:45 pace and actually got faster through the middle portion. AND that was the third workout of the day!

Unfortunately, the good weather was not to last. Snow/rain came in Friday making a bleak lookout for our 4:35 bike ride for Saturday. Gregg thought it was going to be close to 50 on Saturday and no rain til the afternoon. We opted to skip the 30' swim so we could get out on our bikes. Our plan was to ride from Gillette to Sundance or close; which was basically an East, SouthEast route. The wind that morning was out of the West so it was looking good to have a tail wind all the way. We had our support crew lined up (Joy and Larry) - they had planned the bars on the route, picked out a lunch spot and meeting spots with out food/gear supply. As I left my house on my bike and looked East toward the power plant I swear I saw the steam from the plant stop, go straight up in the air and then start blowing right toward me! From the East. Yes, the freakin' wind switched all the way around right when we were starting our ride. Now it was in our face. And the 50 degrees? Yea right. I think it got close to 40. with 15 to 20mph winds in our face. We made it to Rozet with no incidents, stopped for bathroom and drinks and kept heading East. Every time we stopped I was freezing; hands were cold, even with gloves under my bike gloves. And to top it off, about an hour into the ride my left knee started hurting again. It's been getting a sharp pain on the outside and back of it about an hour into all my rides. I've tried repositioning and tightening cleats and pedals and nothing seems to work. I ordered new shoes and they came in Friday....bummer deal was they were too small. So I'm still in my old shoes and that's the only other thing I can think of that is causing my knee pain. My right knee is fine.

Anyway, so besides being cold and the wind in our face, my knee is killing me and I'm getting pissy. We finally make it to Moorcroft (I thought we were NEVER going to get to that stupid town) and stop again for bathroom. We're almost thirty miles into our ride and it sucks. We bag our idea of keeping on an East/SouthEast route and decide to turn around and head back toward Gillette so we'll have wind at our back/side. I'm mentally defeated for some reason and the ride back was tough. Gregg kicked my ass on the way back; every time I tried to pick up the pace my knee really kicked in; hurting like crazy. I was frustrated and cold and the wind didn't seem to be as good a tail wind as I hoped; although we flew back much faster than we rode out. My attitude sucked. Just about wrecked myself again - was trying to get in a rhythm and didn't watch closely; hit a rough patch on the side of the road and ended up dipping down to the gravel. I made it back to the road without mishap but it shook me up and had me close to tears. Too soon since my last wreck and just having a bad day.

We finally. Finally made it back to my house. An hour short on ride time. But pissy and cold and rain/snow moving in so we parked the bikes and headed out on our run. Supposed to do a 50' run. As we left the house after a lighting fast transition (lol, this probably rivaled what I anticipate my Ironman transition time to be, or slower) we headed out. Into the wind. Decided on our course and got in the groove. Amazingly we were able to hold under an 8:20 pace for the 50' run. I was surprised at how good I felt; my eating must've gone okay, although I still am pretty sure I'm not getting in enough calories. This day I made it through almost two whole snickers bars (total of only about 320 calories) an orange, one and a half bananas, 32oz of gatorade and 32oz of water. I'm figuring that on the bike ride I should be taking in at least 300 calories per hour. Actual ride time was about 3 1/2 hours so I should have had over 900 calories in; pretty sure the above does not add up to that at all. So, while I felt good on the short 50' run we had I'm doubtful on how long the "feel good" would've lasted. I've just got to keep working on it. It did start to rain/snow on us with about 20 minutes or so to go in our run so I was doubly glad that we had just bagged the rest of the bike ride.

Got back to the house, threw on some dry clothes and hopped onto the couch with a blanket and pillow and that was all she wrote for a couple hours. Up later for a hot shower - I didn't shower first 'cause we were going out that night and then if I laid down on the couch it would have dorked up my hair (Gasp! how awful) and then I would have had to redo it. It's okay, Gregg scoffed at me too. Anyway, loooong hot shower and a very delicious Crown and coke and then out to dinner to celebrate Larry's birthday with Gregg and Joy. Ate a big 'ol New York steak with garlic and mushrooms and loaded baked potato. I almost ate the WHOLE thing!! And it was delicious. Then we went out to our local "hang out" to karaoke and dance. Drank lots of water (some mixed with whiskey and lots of plain).

Didn't get home too early; well, it was early the next morning, like 12:30a.m. Goofy Todd was texting at 6:30 to see when we were running! Trying to sleep Todd. Hello. Woke up to 4-6" of snow on the ground! Great. anyway, we decided to do our hour and a half run at 10:30 then do our hour bike followed by another 40' run. On the way to the rec to meet Gregg and Todd I suddenly realized that the rec doesn't open til one, so we'll be done with our first run at 12:00. Obviously an hour too early to get on the spin bikes. I had already made arrangements to pick up my kids before 2:00 so decided to go ahead and run, then go home and finish out the bike on our trainers and run on our own. An easy hour on the trainer sure is boring! I set up in front of the T.V. and watched Dirty Dancing and did four Sudoku puzzles! Lol - Worked really hard, but the point was just an easy ride. Shoes were soaked for next run and I cut it short by about half cause I was runnin out of time to go pick up kids.

All in all, a long workout weekend. Really love Monday - Rest day. Except for my kickboxing class. First few minutes of that I wasn't sure my legs were going to hold me up for the entire class. Told them that if I collapsed they should just keep on working out!

A build week again - 18 hours this week. We are running a half-marathon race this coming weekend. It's a "fun" run- usually muddy/snowy off road kind of stuff which I love. We'll see how the conditions are and decide if we want to race it or just run it easy. Have a 5:20 bike ride the following day. Hopefully my new shoes should be here by Friday....

Happy training

It's a long way to go!

2009-04-19T15:18:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, I haven't posted anything in a bit. Sorry. Have I mentioned in any of my posts that I'm kinda busy!? lol Aren't we all huh? Well, that's one of the reasons I started this blog so that "real" people out there could see that even though I'm some sort of athlete I am also a "real" person, just like them. I have a job (or three) and kids and a life and all that - on top of my training.

My kids are young still and so I know it's only going to get busier, but this last week was crazy. Thank God we had a "recovery" week this week - only 12 hours or something of workouts. I missed a swim and a bike - I think that's it. Monday was supposed to be our rest day, but Sunday was Easter and we bagged our long run because of that (and the fact it was raining and we are both SOOO sweet we just knew we would melt!!) so we ended up trying to get a longer run in on Monday. I took an hour and a half lunch that day and we ended up getting in almost ten miles! So it was a good run; nice day. That night I had kickboxing and Hannah had bball practice so I had to find a way to get her to practice, get to the gym for class and have someone bring her to the rec because she got done before me.

Tuesday was an early morning spin - just an hour! Wow, felt like it was hardly worth it. It's pretty sad when we start thinking that "just" an hour on the bike or "just" a 40' run is hardly worth it! Back home to get showered, kids up and off to school then to work by 7:30. Noon time was a swim. Jarron's first soccer game was after work; we had time to run and grab some ice cream beforehand. By the time his game got done it was nearly 7:00pm. Sigh. Trying to figure out dinner on these nights when we don't get home very early is tough. This night I ordered pizza on the way home. Not the most nutritional food in the world but sometimes I just get too tired to do anything else. I don't have the energy to cook a decent meal; besides, by the time I get it cooked it's nearly 8 or after and the kids still have homework and supposed to be in bed by 8:30. It's always a rush.

Wednesday was a run day. "Just" 40'. Like I said, hardly seemed worth it. I actually only made it about 35' - ran the short loop. Hmm, last summer it seemed to take me a lot longer to do that same loop. Maybe I'm in better shape now??? I sure hope so. I was sucking last summer anyway with my iron issues and such. Wednesday night was another night of bball practice for Hannah and kickboxing for me. Running here and there, never getting home til after 7:00 makes for long days.

Thursday I missed the morning spin; Hannah was having nightmares at about the time I was supposed to be getting up. spent a half hour getting her calmed down and back to sleep so missed spin time. Oh well, that's life. Run again at noon-time; supposed to. Weather was crappy. Gregg busy in a conference. Jarron was supposed to have soccer practice so I texted Gregg to see if he wanted to run while Jarron was practicing. He said alrighty so we made plans for that then I find out soccer is canceled because of the snow!. Great. So now I've missed the noon time and now thinking I can't run at all because I'll have Jarron. And still have to figure how to get Hannah to 4-H meeting at 5:30. Thank goodness for all my helpers. Hannah's friend took her to 4-H, her dad met her there to get info, Larry took Jarron to McDonalds for me and then home so I could still make my run time with Gregg. And oh joy that was!! Another set of lactic assholes!! I hate those damn things. We ran from the rec over to the high school track and then a couple more laps for warm-up. The workout plan was for 4 x 1200 with 200 recovery in between - at 84-92%. I hate the track; cause I can't cheat and say it was the hill or whatever that slowed me down!! lol There was a wind issue one direction. Each time I felt like I was going to bout keel over and felt like I was slower and slower; but the watch said I kept them all on an even pace. About 5:20 for each. My recovery was a little longer than the allotted 200/2' but WHO CARES! I was gasping for air the first 100 of recovery and then did a v e r y s l o o o o w jog the rest of the way around. Hey, I need my recovery! Finished up fine, got home just in time to turn around and go back and pick up Hannah from her 4-H meeting. Took them to dinner at Arby's. Probably the biggest meal I've eaten all week. Turkey and Swiss sandwich with curly fries. And I ate almost all of it. Yea, Yea I suck at getting the calories in that I need. I'm workin' on it, I'm workin' on it.

Friday was a goofed up day too. Got the kids off to school, headed to work for bout an hour and a half and then had to drive to Sheridan for my Great Uncles funeral. My plan was to either swim up in Sheridan or get back in time to swim here and then back out to work to clean the office (my other part-time job) before picking up the kids and getting to kickboxing. Well, that plan went right out the window. After the funeral we ended up going to lunch and having a couple beers and then off to visit more cousins and by the time I finally got out of Sheridan it was 3:00 o'clock. I had planned on being back by 3:00. Now I made it back about 4:30, in time to run to the grocery store and find something to cook for dinner, drop it off at home, change, pick up kids and get to kickboxing. So missed the planned swim workout.

Now Saturday. Up until Saturday morning I still wasn't sure how I was going to get that day's workouts in. Trying to work on "gut" issues and so doing a gluten-free test. Supposed to go three days gluten-free, then back to normal diet for a week and then another three days gluten-free, hopefully ending with some sort of race effort and see how the guts do. Well, as I stood in my kitchen I was at a loss for a minute on what to eat for breakfast. Usually I would have a pancake, or english muffin with peanut butter and jelly, or toast and eggs and bacon. ... Well, gluten free means no wheat/flour products. So, no pancakes, no toast, no english muffins, no cereal.. What the hell do i eat? I settled for some hamburger mixed with two eggs and some cheese. Not bad actually. Then guzzled a couple gatorades before I went to work out. We had switched our Saturday bike ride to Sunday because the weather was supposed to be much nicer.. So did Sunday's run, bike, run on Saturday. I took the kids to the rec with me and hopped on the treadmill for a 45' run followed by a 15' spin. Drank another 12 oz of gatorade and ate a snickers bar (much tastier than chocolate flavored cardboard like the power bars) then I took them to the movie, dropped them off and headed out on an hour and a half run. Actually felt great on my run. Somewhere along the way I lost one of my water bottles. I have a Fuel belt, which secures with a velcro strap. Occasionally it pops open for whatever reason. I take too deep a breath, or I just get fatter all of a sudden or whatever. Anyway, it came undone and almost dropped to the ground. I grabbed it, hooked it back on and kept going. Supposed to keep heart rate in the 75% zone. No problem. Except I kept wanting to run too fast. I guess that's a good thing that I felt good enough to run too fast huh? Anyway, about 3/4 of the way back I went to get a drink and that's when I noticed that my full water flask was gone! Great. All I had on me was one empty flask. I couldn't remember where the belt had come undone at so I didn't find it. Made it back in good time though and felt great. Not sure of the distance but I'm guessing close to 10. I'll have to map it. Saturday night was a friend's surprise birthday party so I took the kids to their dad's for the night so I could go out. For dinner, gluten-free, was another small hamburger (no bun of course) with some carrot sticks. Did NOT eat enought at all. And the crown and coke (oops, NOT gluten free but sure tasted good) was going down very easily. I tried to eat some more food at Krystels but only got down a couple of chicken wings. Off to the bar we went for some singing and dancing and ended up having WAY too much fun!

Which was a great headache this morning. Thank goodness we weren't riding til 11:30. I finally got down some food (some more hamburger and carrot sticks - I've got to branch out but right now my cupboards are bare and my wallet is empty). I had to go clean the office since I didn't get it done Friday. By the time I finished cleaning I was feeling fairly human again. Stopped by the store and got some bananas, red grapes, gatorade and two snickers bars for the ride. Home in time to change, tape the bananas to my aerobars with electrical tape, stuff some grapes and the snickers in my Bento box and fill up my water and gatorade bottles just about the time Gregg rode up. The wind was kicking up good, but the temperature was great - 60 degrees! We decided on an into the wind for half hour and back for some recovery before heading back out into the wind again. 3:30 was supposed to be the ride time today. Wind gusts were in the teens when we started and quickly kicked up to 20+mph steady with 30mph gusts! Just lovely. Too scared to try and ride in my aerobars when the wind is this bad. Can't balance in normal situations (see back to my bike wreck three weeks ago - which I'm almost healed from by the way). Anyway, besides, the bananas were still on my aerobars so couldn't lay in them anyhow. It was great to finally reach our turn around point and we FLEW back to town. All in all felt pretty good. Knee is still bothering me some; I haven't tightened my cleat yet and I think that's part of the problem; also getting my new shoes this coming week! Can't wait and hopefully that will help with my knee as well. Back stiffened up pretty good and not sure how that's going to affect me on race day. When I got home and hopped (well, fell) off my bike, I walked up the drive like an old woman! Just thinking about having to go run at that point was NOT an exciting thought. Luckily today there was no run. Just the bike. And we made 60 miles basically; just under. My longest ride ever!! Decided also that maybe red grapes aren't a good idea for me. The other stuff tasted and sat just fine, but the grapes .....mmm not so much. No major issues but I think it would have been a problem if I'd had to run.

so we'll see how the gluten free goes. If it helps; I'll try anything. I don't want to be the porta pot queen! lol

Yeah tomorrow is a rest day. Except for work and bball practice and kickboxing. But yes, a rest. Happy training to all!

Friday was kind of a mes

How new terms get coined!

2009-04-07T12:44:00.000-07:00

As I finished off my last update I was preparing for a lactic acid threshold workout that afternoon. Well, since we started the "competitive" phase of training for our race (all of three weeks ago) we have been starting to really work on those. From what I've determined, the basic idea is to nearly kill yourself off and then recover enough to almost breathe normally again and then do it all over! And the reason behind it seems to be so that you can work yourself even harder and suffer a little longer each time before you need to stop and hook up to an oxygen tank! Gee, what a great idea it was for whoever thought up THAT little idea! And yet, there we were, out on the road like a couple of lemmings, following the program.... My only problem was, I didn't park the oxygen tank close enough to where we finished our last set and so some sort of hypoxia was starting to set in as we made our way back to our starting point during which time I lamented on how I really hated these lactic asshole threshold workouts! And so, that is how new terms get coined! Now I can't even LOOK at the phrase and think of it properly! lol okay, guess you had to be there but I think it's an appropriate term...

Then on to the weekend training. Yes, it snowed again and so, due to the weather we were unable to ride outside again on Saturday. It was supposed to be a 3:45 bike workout, if you had to spin indoors it was 2:50. This time we hauled our road bikes and trainers into the spin room and set up there where we would have music access AND a place to lock up our stuff when we had to follow up with a 45' treadmill run and a 1650 swim. So actually, the ride went well. It's definitely more of a workout on the trainer than on just the spin bikes, especially doing the one leg intervals - on the spinners the wheel keeps going and kind of pulls you along; on your trainer you really have to focus more on a smooth stroke to keep things even and provides a much better training. We did a couple longer sets just at 75% and then some shorter sets at 84%.

Until this point I felt like I had been doing a pretty good job with my nutritional intake on these long weekends. But I failed myself miserably this time. Throughout the whole 2 hours and 50 minutes of bike riding I only took in one Powerbar (prob around 210 calories or so) and that was it. Fluid-wise I had 32oz of water and 32oz of Gatorade (well 1/2 water, 1/2 gatorade). I felt okay during the bike ride, but when I hopped on the treadmill and started running I began to realize I wasn't performing all that well. We were supposed to warm up and then be right around 75% for the bulk of the run. Well, I had a difficult time keeping my heart rate down and running at a pace that should have been okay for me. I ended up having to hold a 9:13 pace, which is a bit slow for me when i'm only at 75% and even by the end of that I was hovering with my heart rate above 75%. I did manage to get in another 12oz or so of gatorade during the run. We hit the pool for a 1650 swim right after. Typically I have been ahead of Gregg with swimming - this day he started to pull away from me right off the bat. I struggled to keep up with him for a lap or two and then gave up and backed off. I must have started feeling better the second half though, or he slowed down, because I caught back up to him. We still ended up with a decent overall time. It was supposed to be a low effort swim and we finished in about 28:17. So all in all it wasn't horrible but the way I felt was. Gregg did well with all of his and took in probably three times as many calories as me. Lesson learned? Hope so.

Sunday I didn't do much better. We had an 1:50 run or something. Picked our loop, into the wind on the way out Legs were NOT springy at all; as Gregg said, they felt kinda like two stumps! But we kept on. After a 20-minute warm-up we were supposed to do a steady 1:20 at 75%. Usually we run pretty close to the same pace at the same HR %. Today I could tell he wasn't there yet and I was struggling to stay under. So I told him to cruise on ahead. And he did. I never could quite get to feeling a lot better. Pace stayed slow. i kept at my target heart rate but the pace did not feel good to me. So was this a carry-over from the poor nutrition the day before? On this run I managed to get in three bites of a power bar and drank 14oz of water and 14oz of Gatorade. Boooo Me. I know. I suck. Have we talked in the past about my extremely sensitive gut? Well, that's a whole 'nother blog story. Everything I take in (except water) affects me negatively. As in I'm not the only thing "trotting" about 10' after I take in Gatorade, Powerade, Accelerade, Gu, Powergel, Hammergel, shot blox, powerbars, energy "beans", etc. etc. Practically anything that is made to help me, hinders me. I have been working on this for a few years. I've come up with the following that work: Electrolyte tablets, Immodium pills, chewable PeptoBismol, oranges (or any "watery" fruit, trail mix and chips. Wow! Try to fit all THAT in your fanny pack!! LOL Well, I'm working on it. This coming weekend will be another trial and I will be attempting another nutritional plan. SOMETHING has to work or I'm going have a new name, just call me "BONK" at Ironman CDA!

Happy Training and enjoy those Lactic Asshole workouts!!!

do what ya gotta do

2009-04-02T08:15:00.000-07:00

Were we smart to pick a June Ironman when we live in Wyoming??? Was it smart to decide to do an Ironman at all? lol Define smart. 98% of the people I tell that I'm doing an Ironman respond with something like "are you freakin' crazy?"; "all in one day? have you lost your mind?" "I don't even like to drive that far". Stuff like that. So I guess "smart" is a relative term. As fellow athletes, you guys know the driving factors - the sense of accomplishment, the challenge to see how far and how hard and how long you can go, the feeling of being really fit, the discipline of the training, getting away from screaming kids...whatever the reasons, smart or not, it's a worthwhile venture.

So back to the training. Sigh. I love snow, I do. And I am always saying I wish we would get two feet of snow, like in the old days, etc. etc. And lo and behold, we finally did! During the two days I was snowed in at home I got to do lots of baking which I never have time for anymore and I also sculpted a snowman and snow dog out in my front yard. Loved every minute of it. I also rode my bike on my trainer in my garage. Which is fine for an hour. But now, due to this lovely snow accumulation we have only been outside on our bikes three times this training season. The roadsides are once again melting off, however, we are under another winter storm watch for Friday and Saturday. So it looks like it's back on the trainer for us again this weekend. 3 1/2 hours worth on Saturday, followed by a run and a short swim. I guess we're going to haul our trainers into the rec center spin room so we can at least be on our road bikes and then we can run from there and get back in time for lap swim hours from 11:30-1:00. I know people have ridden outside in colder weather than what we usually do, and the couple times we have gone out I've had to wear more clothes than usual to bike in. And that's okay; but we can't really do it with 6" of snow on the ground. So we are getting lots of mental training in by having to sit in the spin room. It's also helpful while I practice my nutritional intake so I can make a quick trip to the restroom if I have to. lol

Last weekend we were able to get outside to bike on Sunday. We rode inside Saturday for 2 1/2 hours and, due to time constraints and schedules just got a mile run in on the track. I was able to get a short swim in prior to the all that. With life that's just what I have to do and I figure if I get in the majority of the planned workouts then I'm doing good. Sunday was our long run followed by a bike ride of just under an hour. We did ride outside for that one; the wind was horrible but hey, it might just be windy on race day!! :) The road sides were fairly cleared off and I just had a couple of near-misses with stray snow chunks on the side of the road that my foot nearly hit. Just what I need is to do an endo caused by a snowball! I'm just almost healed from my last wreck; my poor skin is not ready to be re-exfoliated yet! Anyway, we made it and it was good to get outside.

I had a frustrating traffic moment on the way back - we were on the right hand side of the road, needing to make a left turn. So we pulled off to the side and waited for traffic to go by. Well, for some reason, everyone really wanted to be polite that day and they kept slowing way down or cars from one direction would stop and wait but the others wouldn't so we were just sitting there. Trying to wave everyone on by - like if they would just go normal speed they would all be out of our way and we could get across. But NO...for once in the life of our town the drivers decided to be respectful of us so pretty soon traffic was stopped in all directions to let me cross! I suppose this only took a few minutes but it seemed like time had stopped while I was trying to get across the street. Guess ya had to be there! lol

During our weekend workouts I felt pretty good; some leg fatigue but not like I expected, even on our Sunday long run. Sunday night and Monday was a different story though. Monday again was a snowed-in day. So I stayed home with the kids. My youngest (7) was playing his Playstation upstairs and I swear I made fifty trips up there to read one thing or another to him throughout his games. My legs were definitely feeling the fatigue then. Why can't I have a house with only one level? what the heck was I thinking? Can't wait until he can read better. Actually I think he got most of it, just wanted my company? :)

This week has gone okay so far for workouts. Tuesday morning I taught spin class as the other instructor was out for that day and asked me to sub. This is the 5 -6 am class. So we were on our bikes at 4:30 to try and get most of our bike workout for that day done before I started class. We were supposed to have 2 20-minute sections of heart rate 84-92%. I got through the first one and then class started, but with the workout I gave the class i ended up with my heart rate right up there again for a good portion of it. I think they were glad the other instructor was coming back today! :) We had a good swim Tuesday at noon, lots of breastroke/backstroke. Breastroke about kills me; just wears me out for some reason. Yesterday was an easy tempo run for about an hour and then I had to teach kickboxing last night. Couple of new people showed up so I had to be kind of nice so they would return. lol

This morning was spin again. Gregg was sick and texted me at about ten after 4 saying he wasn't going. I headed on in and got my 1 1/2 in on the spin bikes. Easy 75% most of the time;saving the legs for this afternoon's lactic acid threshold workouts. Yuk. Ooops, i meant to say yee haw!! I'm so excited!

Well, I've looked ahead to some of the workouts in our future and guess I'll be thankful for the "short" ones I have now! If nothing else, I WILL be absolutely physically prepared for this Ironman! Happy training!

It's complicated!

2009-04-01T10:06:00.000-07:00

I generally have to have some main issue running around in my mind to rant and rave about when I hit my blog. Lately the only time I get time to focus on an issue like that is at an inopportune "typing" time; such as in the middle of 50-mile bike ride - or just when I'm falling asleep. So then I have to just get on here and yak about whatever comes up.

So I joined a website - iamtri.com I've met lots of interesting triathletes from all over the world. Isn't it amazing that I can sit at my desk in Wyoming and talk to Robert in the United Kingdom about how ran in a blizzard this weekend and then rode bike in the sunshine not too many days after. Sounds like Wyoming! When I first joined this site - just a week or so ago actually, I enjoyed reading the profile pages of some of the members. They have a spot where you put down your "relationship status". One of the choices you can select is "it's complicated". I love that! I had to laugh at how may people selected that on their profile page. What does that mean exactly I wonder? I guess I just let my imagination do the walking!

I have some complicated relationships in my life too. Like, trying to understand my 7-year olds logic. Or lack thereof. "So mom, what if the sky was orange and then the cat went out the window and fell in the snowbank and POOF he disappeared and then there was this guy.....mom, what's for dinner?" Yeah, that's complicated. I also have a complicated relationship with my clothing sometimes. Like getting them on right. And noticing when they are NOT on right. Being in a rush to go for a bike ride and then halfway through the ride Gregg riding up to me and asking why there are strings hanging out the back of the waistband of my shorts! Ooops. You think I might have noticed they were on backwards? Apparently not. Or working with a personal training client at the gym, wearing a cami-type tank top. Wondering during the workout demonstrations why I feel like I'm about to "expose" myself when I've never noticed that before. Yep, on backwards. Ooh, and the best one? My second sprint tri. The pool is small so they have girls swim first and then the guys. While I was swimming a big wind came up and blew my helmet off my bike. Now i had it all set up like i was supposed to. On my handlebars, facing just the right way so I could grab it and put it on without worrying. Well, Gregg was nice and went and picked my helmet up for me after the wind blew it off and set it back on the bike. So I race out from the swim, throw my stuff on, grab my helmet put it on and hop on the bike and away I go. Right away I notice that my helmet keeps slipping down and knocking on my sunglasses. Really annoying. It starts to sink in that I haven't had this problem before. I try to peer up through the top of my glasses at my helmet and that's when the realization sinks in that my helmet is ON BACKWARDS! Nice. Yes, sounds difficult to get mixed up but I had a very generic helmet at that time that basically looked like a bowl on my head so really a very easy mistake!! Right? Right? Anyway, I'm not going to stop and fix it in the middle of the race. So I peddle on and finish up the rest of the tri - coming in first place for the women. And yes, in the paper, there I am on the front page, on my bike, with my helmet on backwards! Now, being that it did look like the aforementioned bowl, no laypeople actually noticed that it was on backwards. However, my lovely training partner and other fellow triathletes DID notice and of course, made no mention to anyone about it! NOT!! Hey, if I can't laugh at myself, who can I laugh at?

Why can't I get my clothes on straight? Just this morning I noticed my turtleneck felt weird. Yep, you guessed it. Backwards. I went almost a whole day at work last week with my shirt on inside out until someone asked why my seams were showing! Now that's complicated!

Two weekends - two firsts!

2009-03-23T09:41:00.000-07:00

What a change in weather! Welcome to Wyoming. This weekend it was in the mid-seventies - we biked and ran outside in shorts and t-shirts, loving the warm days. Today, Monday, it is about 20 degrees, 8-10 inches of snow and still snowing with 20-30mph winds! Interstates are closed, no travel advisory in town. and I'm home from work today.

Luckily today is our "rest" day and it might actually be an all out rest day for once. I'm pretty sure the rec center is closed so I probably won't be teaching kickboxing tonight. I should be cleaning house and such, but for the moment I'm enjoying the fact that the pain in my arm has finally, FINALLY, receded enough so I don't feel like I'm going to puke!

Oh yeah, I haven't told you WHY my arm is hurting! Well, you may remember that last weekend I had a first in my biking "career". My longest ride ever - 56 miles! Well, this past weekend I had another "first" in my biking career. You would think that again, it would be my longest ride ever as we are progressing with our program. But NOOOO, it couldn't be that easy...

Because of "life" we had to ride a little earlier in the day on Saturday, so the temperature wasn't quite 50 degrees when we met at the rec center at 9:00am. Ernie, Gregg and I. There was a pretty brisk wind from the SE so we decided on an out and back East/West ride. With a cross wind a little in our face on the way out and then a cross wind a little at our back on the way back in. Three hour ride was what we were supposed to do. Due to the wind I had shorts on but long sleeved jersey and a wind-proof vest, bike gloves, helmet of course. We started out good, getting warmed up, listening to Ernie yak on about "unsteady" tri riders! He typically rides with bikers, that just do biking. You know draft-legal racing, etc. Well, we obviously can't draft in our tris and so I, for one, am not the "steadiest" rider to be riding next to. I don't work on it, don't think about it really. More on that later -

Well, we're cruising along - feels like uphill into the wind all the way. Averaging about 17-18mph. Traffic isn't too bad although we don't have much of a shoulder so we stay single file most of the time. About 12 miles into our ride I pull up alongside Gregg to tell him that I won't to stop in the little town we're approaching and use the restroom. As I ride next to him I wobbled toward him, he wobbled toward me and our handlebars hooked! Oh Shit! I'm not exactly sure what happened then except I'm sure I panicked a little bit, jerked my handle off his. I had time to notice that he wasn't going to wreck, that I WAS going to wreck and this was going to hurt. I also had time to knowingly try and get my right foot out of my clip (the left one was kinda loose anyway and already came out). I couldn't get my right foot out and the bike and I folded into a "v" of some sort and went skidding down the asphalt on my right side. Ernie heard me make some sort of noise and turned around, immediately looking for traffic. Gregg had skiddered onto the shoulder of the road and parked, coming back for me. Ernie says "don't get up too fast" and then as he sees a vehicle coming "get up, get up"! I'm cussing myself, telling Gregg sorry for hooking on to him and generally blaming myself as I wheel my bike to the side of the road. They're trying to look for injuries; I'm feeling burning sensations and telling them I don't want to look, let's just get on and go. My brake hood was a little bent over, one end of my aerobar looks as though it dug in a little but otherwise looks like everything's in good shape. Luckily my body shielded my bike from any big damage! lol I was thankful for wearing my long sleeve jersey and vest - the sleeve of my jersey was shredded a little, otherwise my clothes were in good shape. I could feel a little fluid of some sort running down my knee, looked like blood during a quick glance so I didn't look again. Gregg and Ernie (against my wishes I might add) pulled up my sleeve (ouch) to take a look at my arm. Yea, lovely road rash from my elbow on down. My hip was feeling pretty sore too and we found a good gouge in it; guess I know where the end of my handlebar went!

Well, I got back on and we headed down the road, to Rozet, where I had wanted to stop anyway to use the restroom. All that is in that town really is the bar/restaurant where we stopped. We went in and they rounded up some antiseptic stuff of some sort to put on me. Offered me a shot of tequila but I turned it down since we still had some riding to do. So yes, we hopped back on our bikes and headed down the road, continuing East. Figured we still had about fifteen minutes or so before our scheduled turn around. Ernie was quite helpful in telling me about all the bad crashes he'd seen, how much worse it could have been and how "lucky" I was to have crashed on "smooth" asphalt! didn't feel very smooth to me! By the time we reached our turnaround point my arm was stinging pretty good and my hip was sore but now we're on our way back with the wind more at our backs. Our average to that point had been about 17.5mph - on the trip back we cruised much faster!

Got back to our vehicles, 52-miles later and Gregg and I still had a run to do. Was supposed to be a "quick" transition and into a 40' run. I was feeling pretty sore at the time so we just ran out a short trip and did a couple of miles. Home to shower - OUCH! My kids were impressed with my wounds and had all sorts of questions. The shower STUNG! to say the least. The rest of the day wasn't too bad, had lunch and kinda relaxed. Sometime during the evening the stinging in my arm started to get worse. And worse. Even just the air touching it made it feel like it was on fire. It felt the best when it was straight up over my head while I was standing. That didn't work so well when I went to bed. Tried to keep it over my head but every little thing touching it about killed me off. The stupid cat's tail kept brushing it and about made me pee my pants! I guess I finally got a little sleep sometime after midnight. When I got up this morning it hurt so bad it was making me sick to my stomach. My hand was numb with the stinging. Put some neosporin (supposedly with pain reliever) on it - I swear it made it worse. Thought I might cry for awhile. We ventured out in the storm with the closed roads to find something to spray on it and something to wrap it with. Finally after about an hour it started to simmer down and so far, so good. Can't believe I was such a weenie over a little road rash. Well, I guess it's more than a little but nothing was broken.

Well, I guess I'm glad I got that first wreck out of the way. I know there will probably be others and I can't say I look forward to them; just hope I can keep my bones intact. Meanwhile I'll see if it's okay with my boss to wear sweatpants to work!

Be safe, be fit and happy training

confidence builder or confidence buster?

2009-03-15T07:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I got my longest bike ride ever! (to date). 56-miles in three hours. No butt pad (what was I thinking?) Anyway, we decided it was time to get our rears outside on our bikes instead of plugging away on the indoor spinners which, while good training, is getting to be boring as hell. So the forecast was for 50 degrees and some wind. Gregg used to say he wouldn't ride outside unless it was 60 and no wind. Well, he's had to lower his standards to hang out with me! lol.

So we planned our route ahead of time; due to the recent snow accumulation we needed to get out of town to get the clearest routes. So we met at the local movie theater which is sort of on the north end of town. I dropped the kids off at the movie and then we saddled up and headed out. Warmth was my main concern when I was getting dressed so I had on capri tights, long sleeve jersey and a wind-proof vest. Bandana under my helmet to cover my ears. I wore my bike gloves but put regular gloves in my pocket just in case. The wind was going to be at our back on the way out so I wasn't too worried until we start coming back.

I knew we were going to be in trouble when we crested a hill doing about 20mph! Yep, the wind pushed us along nicely - I think we averaged 21+mph on the way out. I think my heart rate monitor is messing with my bike computer. I can't get cadence or mile per hour readings on there - starting out it says "too many signals". then eventually the mph started working - intermittently anyway. The cadence never did work. It recorded my distance part of the time but not the whole time. So either my batteries are dying or my heart rate monitor is messing with it. I need to go find my book for my bike computer and see if I can figure out what's up. Anyway, that was a bit discouraging because we've really been trying to work on keeping our cadence up so I had to rely on how it felt rather than the number flashing at me. And maybe that's okay too.

Anyway, we pushed it some on the way out and then backed off some and yakked along. It was such a beautiful day out and hardly any traffic. We were supposed to ride for 2:45 so decided to go out for an hour fifteen and then turn around to give us an extra 15 on the way back with the wind in our faces. I did a lot more practicing with my aerobars - I'm getting better but still feel way wobbly with them. We rode til the shoulder narrowed and that was about perfect timing to turn around. Stopped for a drink and food (fig newtons in this case. We'd actually already taken in some food at about 45 minutes into our ride - I choked on Newton dust but was able to wash it down with water. Newton dust - you know the dry crumbs from the Newton? I breathed in at the wrong time and sucked some of them down my throat. Newton dust. Happens with crackers too! anyway....

Our friend Ernie was supposed to be meeting us somewhere along this ride. He had a friend driving him out with his bike to catch us and ride back in with us. We were beginning to think he wasn't going to make it but about two minutes after we turned around they showed up. So he joined in with us. Now he's a real bike rider - as in rides with bikers that do the draft-legal bike races and such and they all ride in the little pack as close as they can get to each other with their matching outfits and zoom along like a horde of bees! Unlike me, who is still dangerously wobbly when anyone rides too close to me and besides, none of our races are draft legal so I'm not used to riding that way. But it's great practice for stability and control, which I need a lot of. Also, Ernie is a big boy - like 6'3 or 4 and about 220 pounds. So he makes a GREAT wind break! Hop in behind him and I didn't even have to peddle - even going uphill!! With the wind in our faces that was a nice break. Gregg actually led most of the time which trashed his quads of course; he had to be too manly and not back out unless I went up there and made him back off! Which I did a couple three times. And about keeled over! It's a very self-conscious position for me to be riding in; knowing I'm not as strong a biker as those two are and when you're first in the line with the wind of course you're going to go slower. Well, I tried my best and they said I did okay; even so far as to my "competitive edge" causing me to increase our speed for awhile. Hey, I was just trying not to let them down. I was also a little self-conscious because I had been informed earlier in the ride that the tights I was wearing were a little on the see-thru side! Nice. No wonder they were riding behind me all the time! lol These are actually my running capris and the top part of the back of them are mesh for ventilation when running. I've never ridden in them. Anyway, least I had unders on!! lol

I'm not sure how long it was after we turned around that I started wondering where the end was? We sped along pretty good, even with the wind (I think we ended up averaging 17 something mph on the way back, even with the big hills and wind). We got to a point where I was sure that just around the next corner was this little town that we hit before we get back to Gillette. And then okay, maybe it's the next corner. finally I asked Gregg and he said it was just around the corner. I was like, yea I thought it was just around the last THREE corners! Turns out, this time we were finally there. This was good because it meant we were getting closer to home but also signaled the biggest hill climb in the ride. My back had been tightening up pretty good so I told them once we got to the top of the hill I was stopping to stretch it out. My quads and hammies were trashed by then but I did get up the hill just fine (ahead of Gregg I must add!) and pulled over for a much needed stretch break. The only bad part was hopping back on the bike and then I realized that perhaps I should've worn something with a little more padding in the rear! it wasn't bad, not like monkey butt or anything near, but just getting sore.

Gregg had to pay me back on the next hill, while I beat him up it, he passed me near the top and then Ernie let me pull in behind him and we flew to catch up with Gregg and I got to do the slingshot pass! Woo hoo. But Gregg passed me right back. I called out truce but he kept on going! Ernie with him. I backed it off, hopped into my aeros for some more practice. We had a good long downhill and I wanted to practice on that, although I came out of them on the steepest part because with the wind I felt way too wobbly. They waited for me at the bottom and we rode the last three miles easy back to the vehicles.

So my longest ride ever. A half-Ironman worth. Only half? Ugh. I don't know that I would have had the energy to hop off and run 13-miles right then either. and couldn't imagine doing that whole ride over again right then as in a full Ironman. So I was happy that I made the distance and felt relatively decent. But it really brought home to me how long I'm going to be riding during the Ironman. And it made me a little nervous, a little scared, a little bit back to the "what the hell am I thinking" mode. But we still have 12 weeks of training left so I'm going to be okay. And I have shorts with a butt pad coming in the mail. I can do this right?

Today we have an 1:45 run followed by a short 50' bike ride. It will be interesting to see how my legs respond. They're fatigued for sure. A little bit of soreness above my left knee. But otherwise okay. This will reboost my confidence. I can do it. I WILL do it.

Train hard, train smart!

Lost in the Chaos

2009-03-10T09:45:00.000-07:00

Me, I'm the one that gets lost in my own chaos sometimes. Is it only Tuesday? It's hectic already this week. To top off any other issues, we have several inches of snow on the ground, just to remind us that yes, we live in Wyoming and despite last weeks 65+ degree temperatures, it is only March.

This past weekends workouts were not too bad, although we did spin inside for Saturdays 2:45 ride (oh how boring - but good mental training) and then did our short follow-up run outside. Sunday morning we had an 1:40 run and one of us (that would be me) wasn't feeling too well. Wasn't sure if it was the drinks from the night before or the bad choice of too big of a breakfast too close to the start of the workout. Regardless, we piddled around on our run, spending lots of time searching drive thrus and parking lots for money. Gregg more than doubled his yearly money find in our searching, so it was worth it! Kept thinking I would feel better but remained at the near-puking stage for most of the run. Gregg let me bail on our short follow up spin (he went home and did his ride on his trainer). I showered, ate and took a quick nap. Still never felt any better and upon going to bed Sunday night, still felt sick to the stomach. Hmmm. Oh well, got the majority of my workouts in.

Monday started off as usual when I have the kids. Up at 5:00am for me (which was tough with the time change and on top of that, Hannah coughed half the night keeping me awake) to shower and get ready, fix lunches and snacks, make sure homework is packed; then get the kids up.
Out the door by 7:00, it's snowing and icy so I drop the kids off at school at the before-school program so they don't have to walk from the babysitters. At work by 7:30 - noontime swim today, just 2600 yards. Stomach feeling okay but I'm out of energy. This is when I realize that for the third (or fourth) day in a row I've forgotten to fill my thyroid prescription. I think it ran out last Thursday (three to four days without it and I hit a wall). I know better but things get so chaotic that I run out of time, memory or sheer desire to get everything done like I should. Main bulk of our swim was 8 x 200 (100 @ 75%, 100 @ 80%). Corky, Todd, Gregg and I swam - Corky I'm sure was intent on kicking my butt since I kicked his last week. He finished ahead of us on all the 200's - in our defense his 75% and our 75% seemed to be quite different. Anyway, I usually get to feeling better as we move into our repeats but today that was not the case and I felt like I struggled all day just to keep up. I'm blaming it on my thyroid meds but who knows. Just a tired day? I couldn't imagine why I don't have energy sometimes. lol

So I zoom back to work, late as usual. Just before 5:00 I head across town to kids' school to get Jarron (Hannah stays at school for 6:00pm bball practice.). Well, I'm trying to hurry safely on the bad roads and get behind some Grandma going about 30 in a 45 with a mile of us backed up behind her. Now yes, the roads are a little slick but not THAT bad! So I cuss and holler at whoever it is just to make myself feel better and get a little extra heart rate training in and finally get to school. Get Hannah lined out with a snack and her bball stuff, start to head out with Jarron and then he decides he wants to stay for bball too. Hannah says it's okay so back we go and then I haul all their gear out to the car. By this time it's ten after 5:00, I still have to go back across town to teach my 5:30 kickboxing class. I use the drive to call the kids' dad and make sure he's available if they cancel bball for weather reasons cause I'll be in the middle of class and you get charged like $5 for every minute you're late picking up your kids from the after school program which ends at 6:00. Then I get to the rec, finally. Didn't have time to change clothes at work cause someone was in the bathroom FOREVER when I was trying to leave so I still have to change clothes. Usually my friend Rick who works at the rec sets up my kickboxing bags and stuff so I can just go in, set up my stereo and start class. Well, occasionally he can't and of course, since I'm late, this happens to be one of those nights he apparently couldn't set up. Sigh. One more thing to put me behind schedule. Figures. Luckily my class started setting things up for me. And I was only a couple minutes late starting. Finished class then back across town to pick up kids at bball. By the time we get home it's 7:15; they want homemade soup (well, i offered). So they get a snack and I set to making their favorite baked potato soup. Takes about half hour or so, so it's 8:00 by the time we finally eat. Then homework, then I feel bad that we haven't had a minute so we play a couple of games and i let them stay up til 9:00 before going to bed.

I get them in bed finally and set my alarm for 3:57a.m. Ugh. What am I thinking? 1;40 spin ride next morning; have to be on the bikes at 4:30 in order to be done in time to get home, shower and start all over again. The ride was a good one by the way; sweated my behind off. Now I'm pouring coffee into my eyeballs and trying to gear myself up for our noon run. It's 1 degree by the way. Yes, 1. Well actually with windchill it's 11 below. We're running outside. one hour run. I'm really looking forward to that soup I brought for lunch. My heart rate monitor will probably be going crazy because it needs sweat to adhere better to my skin so it reads properly. This cold I'm sure it won't stick to my frozen body well at all. Ah, this is the life isn't it? What better way to spend my life? Naptime anyone?

Be Fit

almost monkey butt and thigh lube - must be spring!

2009-03-02T12:39:00.000-08:00

Well, we worked our way back into our post-vacation training program with a bang! a 16.50 hour week or something we had this past week, which I think is our longest week to date. And to think, we have two weeks to go before we get into the actual "competitive phase" of our training program! I know one thing for sure, if we can keep up this program we will definitely be more than physically ready for our race. Mentally....well, that changes on a daily basis! And we still have a lot of work to do on our nutritional plan for training and race day which will make or break us. Again, that's always an issue for me because I have one of the worlds weaniest (is that a word?) digestive systems and have a hard time tolerating much at all on race day. To an extent you can train your gut to accept some food items and process it while you're working out, but to the extent that I can't I will just do the best I can and know when to make a flying leap (or crawl) to the nearest little blue house or bush or telephone pole or whatever for a pit stop. Lovely to think about eh? but I've learned that with me, it is what it is and I can either stop racing because of a fear of the inevitable port a pot stop or I can take it, deal with it and embrace the inner frequent pottier that I am! Well, that may be going a little far, but the bottom (no pun intended) line is that this annoying and sometimes embarrassing issue is not going to stop me from racing.

How in the heck did I get off on that subject? You're probably wondering about the title of this blog and how that all plays in. Well, lets skip the weeks workouts and head right to the weekend for that. I will digress and say that we had a couple of great bike workouts during the week, although getting up at 4 to be on the spinner at 4:30 for almost two hours was just a little early, but I'm proud to say that I got back to my house by 6:20 and had me and the kids showered, fed, dressed and out the door with ALL of our shit by 7:10! Go me!!! Anyway, back to the weekend.

My plan was to go see my mom in Sheridan Saturday cause I haven't seen her in quite a while and her birthday was last weekend and I was just coming back from vacation. Also, she hadn't seen my kids in a while either. So, I wanted to get out of town as soon as possible on Saturday but did NOT want to miss our big workouts. So I planned on getting on my trainer in my garage at 6:00 and doing our almost 3 hour ride there and then running from my house for the planned 50'. That way the kids could sleep in then get up and just watch t.v. or play with their friends or whatever while I was working out. The rec center also doesn't open until 8:00 on Saturday and I didn't want to wait til then cause it would be noon before we were finished and also I couldn't torture my munckins by making them be entertained for four hours at the rec. So.... I told Gregg this was what I had to do and he could make his plans around that. I figured I'd be riding in my garage by myself. Well, he decided he'd take this opportunity to get on HIS bike and trainer (actually Todd's trainer cause my bike's already on Gregg's trainer) and try it out. So he put all his stuff together the night before and sure enough, there he was at my door at 6:00 on Saturday.

A little side note here, I was catching a cold and feeling kinda tired but my good friend's birthday was Friday night and I promised her I would come out with them for a little bit, figuring to be home by ten, get a good nights sleep and be ready for our workout Saturday morning. A couple of people (Gregg and Larry I believe but I won't mention names) snidely suggested that there was no way I would pack it in by 10! I assured them I would...well, famous last words. I showed up there and my friend had about 20 people at the bar for her party. Then the whole rec center crew was there also! Well, about the time I drank my beer and sucked down half of Gregg's drink and he ordered me my own I knew I was going to have too much fun and not be home early. Well, I was home early, just the next morning early!

Okay, back to SAturday morning. So, I'm tired (not hungover though, at least I was smart enough not to overdrink) and my cold is still knocking at the door. We get our stuff set up, an ACDC live concert playing on the computer, all our food and drinks set up on the workbench beside us. It's a little cool, probably 15 degrees or so? But we get going. Gregg is huffing and puffing on the single leg drills and I'm thinkin' WOW I must not be working hard enough or he's got issues. Well, surprise, surprise, it turns out that he has issues! lol I think he had his tension adjusted a little too tight. Also, he says that his bike set up is nothing like how he's had his spin bike set up this season and it is making for some very uncomfortable spots on his arse and also really pulling in the hamstring/piriformis area. We had made some changes this year on his seat set up in spin and think his road bike was not close enough to that. Anyway... probably an hour and a half into it he's really having some issues and so we decided to just finish up the long set we were on and then go for our run to save him from major monkey butt issues. For those who aren't familiar with monkey butt - I guess maybe it would be more like baboon butt but it would basically be rubbing and chafing your arse so much as to resemble the bright red behind of a baboon. yea, yuK! So, we only skipped out on 27 minutes of actual intervals and i didn't even give him a hard time about it. Yet. I spose I might in the future.... so we hop off and execute a rapid transition to our running gear (like ten minutes! lol, it's nice to work out at your own house and go change all your clothes, go to the bathroom, get some drinks, etc. etc. ) and head out for our run. It's abeautiful day, probably upper 40's low 50's by then. Hardly any wind. Felt great on our run. Gregg spent a bit of time in the afternoon adjusting his bike fit - we were going to try and ride outside on our Sunday workout. I headed to Sheridan.

So Sunday comes around, I make it back to town by 1230, drop the kids off at their dad's and head home. Change clothes and Gregg is there to pick me up to head South of town a few miles to meet Lexi and Todd to run. This is 4 corners road, a gravel road that our group runs on quite a bit just to get off the pavement. it's also a good out and back course to get a 20-miler in. Lexi and Todd are doing 20 that day and they drove the course first and dropped off Gatorade for all of us. Gregg and I are just doing a two hour run and then back for an 1:15 bike. So we all take off together. Lexi and Todd leave us behind after the first couple of miles, we're supposed to be keeping under 75% heart rate so not speeding along. I'm feeling semi crappy from my cold still, mainly just can't get a good breath and my chest rattles with every breath I do take. I start to feel better about five miles in, when we reach the Gatorade drop. Another mile and some til we turn around and then we start some 1.5 mile intervals on the way back. First one I had no problem keeping my heart rate where it should be, the next two I had to keep slowing down. About the turn around point I realized that my shorts were starting to bug me quite a bit. Well, typically when we run long in the summer I put on some body glide or deodorant on my inner thighs to prevent chafing from the shorts. Well, it's been winter around here and I haven't done any long runs in shorts yet, so I sort of spaced it out. Only halfway into the run I'm now remembering why I use the stuff! Yea, sticky shorts to sticky legs makes for some oozy messes where you don't want none! TMI i know. Anyway, you a runner, you've experienced it at one point or another. So, besides those issues, our run went well. Probably should have carried drinks with us instead of only getting two stops for Gatorade, but it turned out okay. Had water and a power bar in the pickup on the way back to my house.

Went through another blazing fast (lol) transition and hopped on our bikes for our first outdoor ride of the season!! Woo hoo! It was nearly 60 degrees and no wind! Perfect conditions. This was my first ride on the road with aerobars. We got out on the road and I laid into the aerobars, veered left, veered right and just about killed myself and Gregg so I got back onto my handle bars to reassess the situation. Gregg says "don't get in those things when I'm next to you". Geez, no faith! Well, I realized that you really have to have a controlled upper body to use those things. So I spent the nice parts of the road working on that. Away from Gregg. we had a good ride, although trying to maintain 90rpms coming up some of those hills about killed us. I admit to weanieing out on a few of them. By this point my legs are shot. We agree to not race each other anymore on the way back and have a leisurely ride back to the house. Just over 18 miles in just over an hour so a good ride. Headed right to the fridge to slam a beer and watch the rest of the NASCAR race. Wow, what a weekend!

But we did it and again it restored faith in myself. We took almost a week and a half off for our vacation and came back and kicked ass on a 16.5 hour workout week! Monkey butt and chafed thighs aside - we ROCK!! Hope your workout week is all you want it to be and more!
Train hard

back to reality

2009-02-24T08:46:00.000-08:00

Whew! Well, I just returned (well, Saturday) from my CABO vacation! Larry, me, Gregg & his wife Joy and our friend Kelly. We left Thursday afternoon to drive to Denver to catch our plane Friday morning. Oh, this could be a looong story. However, this is my "training" blog so I'm going to talk about the training I did on my trip.

We started our vacation-specific training in Bill, Wyoming. Now, Bill has to be about the smallest town in Wyoming - there is a post office (which also doubles as a store and a bar all in one). I think that's it. Oh, I guess there's a cafe across the street and now a hotel. This is a big railroad area and methane area so fairly busy traffic-wise. Anyway... I had never had a drink in Bill, Wyoming so I suggested we stop there and rectify that situation. And thus began our vacation -specific training! Of course I started out with Blue Moon and Bud Light but had to switch to Corona, Margaritas and jello shots once we got to Mexico. Lucky for me I am a triathlete and thus able to handle this "multi sport" with no problemo! lol

It seemed like a long trip to Denver what with all the pee stops for Mr. IBB (itty bitty bladder Gregg), although no one else complained and all took advantage each time we stopped. We did make it, up early to go to the airport and begin a very long day consisting mainly of rushing to get to a connecting flight and then sitting on the tarmac for thirty minutes or so. No food, except for peanuts and biscoff cookies and jack and coke. All day! By the time we got to our condo in Cabo we were all about to pass out from lack of food.

So we ate well and drank well and sunned well and played well. I did manage to get some running in. I had the activities director at our condos take me for a run through the city on one day so I could figure out where to go. This involved a rather large hill which made me thank God that I was at sea level! The humidity and warmth was definitely a change from winter in Wyoming too! Gregg and I did do a beach run, half with shoes on, the other half without. Wow! Talk about a major exfoliation! All the old dead skin and several layers of new, soon to be dead skin too! A good workout though, high stepping through the incoming waves then sinking in the soft sand. I took Gregg on the same run the other guy took me on also, well, we started out the same and then got lost so added another mile or so to the run but after passing several chicken houses and lots of stray dogs we managed to get back to our condo unscathed. Being basically a third world country there isn't a lot of catering to the running crowd so narrow, falling apart sidewalks and crazy drivers made for an interesting and colorful excursion.

Swim workouts were quite varied on this particular trip. Most involved swimming to the swim up bar! lol Although I did do a water aerobics class one morning. I also got some swimming in the ocean when I unceremoniously and most certainly gracefully dumped myself off my jet ski and then practically RAN back to it due to my major shark aversion! Although I was informed by many friendly locals that the sharks in the area didn't like "gringo meat"! Whew! What a relief! We also got some swimming in when we went on a snorkeling excursion. We had to anchor out a little way and thus had to swim in about 300 yards to the snorkeling area and then back. I got some extra workout in by towing Larry (due to his injured shoulder he couldn't swim very well) and towed Larry AND Kelly on the way back. Got a good leg workout anyway, thank goodness for flippers!

We did a lot of walking to see the sites, plenty of dancing at Cabo Wabo Cantina, Squid Row, the Zoo bar and on a couple of our boating tours as well as at our hotel.

So all in all I enjoyed the break from our training program but still managed to stay active. We got back on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning got a nice, back to reality 6 miler in. Monday was back to the program, hitting a tough week this week with 16 hours or so. I'm ready to roll and was thankful for the vacation to rejuvenate before we enter our competitive program in about three weeks!

I'll keep you updated on the progress....

happy training

What really matters

2009-02-10T14:21:00.000-08:00

I've had a sobering day today and unfortunately it was tragedy that brought me back to focus on what really matters. Someone else's unimaginable tragedy and not my own yet still it has cut deep. We got the horrible news this morning that a little 6-year old boy from my children's school was killed while trying to get on his bus. I don't believe I know the little boy or his family, but I have a little boy, just a year older than he and this has hit too close too home.

I've spent the last few weeks/months frantically trying to fit everything in in my life - with workouts and work and my kids and life. It seems like it has gone so fast. And now I'm reminded, horribly, how in an instant, it can all come to a complete, and final, stop. Have I taken the time lately to really be thankful/grateful/appreciative of what I do have in my life? I do admit to hugging my kids much more since I've gotten divorced but I can guarantee you they will have the hug of all hugs when I pick them up tonight from school. I know I've sometimes let training be foremost in my mind and have tried all ways to reconfigure my schedule to get my workout times in. People that I love get moved to the side sometimes as I work toward this goal. That is part of training for a huge event like an Ironman, extra time is required to get the training in and that's just the fact of it. We need to remember, however, to always appreciate those around us. To remind them that we love them, to hug them whenever we have the chance. You never know when it will be the last time you ever get to.

In appreciation of those I love and those who love me,

YOU can do it!

2009-02-08T18:12:00.000-08:00

Whew! I am so glad it is Sunday night! Normally I'm a big fan of Saturday, cause that means I still have a couple of days before back to work, etc. But this week, a peak week in our program, I am glad to see the end of it. My legs are tired, fatigued, worn out, exhausted, etc.; my contacts are all fogged over from excessive salt dripping into them all weekend and my brain is slightly befuddled from constantly telling myself that I am big and strong and fit and can complete these workouts with NO problem!

But I feel GOOD! I mean really good - in a confident sort of way. 14.50 hours or so of workouts in this past week; which in and of itself only means something depending on where you are in your training program. Well, this is our longest week yet in this particular training season, and so, this was a very significant week. And we survived it! Not only survived it but felt good doing it. Gregg said yesterday that with the workouts we have done to date, we could feasibly go out and do a half-ironman right now. It may not be pretty and it wouldn't be speedy as we want it, but we could do it. We have the physical capability. That made me feel good, since I have never done a half-Ironman yet. Figured I'd just skip from Olympic to full...good idea? Guess we'll find out in June. Lol. Anyway, when you complete something that is difficult it brings you confidence and the ability to go out and tackle the next step.

That being said, it wasn't all that easy. This past week was slightly less hectic for me, only because the kids were with their dad this week and so I didn't have the guilt there of dragging them to the gym every night and lingering to finish up a workout and "forcing" them to eat pizza on the spin room floor and play basketball and swim for three hours to keep entertained while mommy worked out! We tried to fit in one of the swims that we usually end up ditching on Thursday night after work! What a disaster! We never took into account swim lessons - which took up the first three quarters of the pool. the remaining two lanes, yes TWO, were occupied by no less than 7 of us! Three gals next to the rope, who obviously knew what they were doing, did circle swim up and back in their own lane and their was no problem; except when I got too close to them while they were doing the butterfly, opened my mouth at the wrong time and about drowned. the middle of these two lanes was occupied by Gregg and I and we also did the circle swim thing. Right next to the wall was a very nice gal who was walking. The odd ball in the group was a youngster about 11 or 12 that hopped in and decided to try to lap swim or soemthing. She hopped up and back on one foot several times, tried backstroking which ended up with her in the middle of the three on the rope. We sort of explained nicely where she should go, but we definitely had to pay attention! We made it through about 3/4 of our workout and then it was open swim time so we hopped out! It was an experience at best.

The weekend workouts were 2:50 on the spinner on Saturday followed by a 50 minute run and then Sunday was an 1:55 run followed by a 1:05 spin. Sigh. Slept in a little on Saturday since the gym didn't open til 8:00. Decided to start at 8:30 so we had a little extra time to get in their. I had packed more food and drinks than you could shake a stick at. Two bottles of Gatorade, two bottles of water, a huge bag of gummy bears, three granola bars and some oatmeal/chocolate chip bars I had made the night before. We had three others join us for the whole ride and surprisingly it went by fairly quickly. I made sure to drink every 15 to 20 minutes like I had planned and had my first solid food intake at one hour. It works best to wash down the solid food with water and then on the alternate intake times take in gatorade! By the end of the bike ride I actually felt a little full and was worried about how that would affect my "oh so sensitive" stomach. When we took off on the run I was amazed at how good my legs felt. Neither of us had thought to bring along any drinks for that short run but I felt like I had taken in enough on the bike to be good to go. that was probably the best I've felt on a 6 miler for a while. The pace was right on, I wasn't sore, nothing hurt and I felt like I could go all day! That speaks well for our nutritional/fluid intake.

Got done and headed straight for a big 'ol hamburger! Yum. Hot shower and then decided I better not sit down or I wouldn't get anything done the rest of the day. To Walmart for groceries and Valentines gifts for the kids and other little odds and ends, then back home to clean bathrooms and fix dinner. Didn't sit down til about 5:30. Had a DELICIOUS dinner of twice baked potatoes, grilled steak and steamed broccoli! YUMMY. And I ate almost my whole steak and one half of a potato! To my defense, they were the big baking potatoes! Larry and I went out to a local hang out to sing karaoke and dance. Had a great time, only drank two beers! Home by 11:30 and up by 7:00. Breakfast of eggs, bacon and toast and tried to get geared up for our Sunday workout. Met Todd at the rec center at 10:30 and then drove North about 12 miles to a gravel road our group runs on occasionally. Met Lexi out there (she lives out that way so it was easier for her to meet us there, plus a good change of scenery). Felt good on the way out, gravel road, nice surface. No wind (or at least it was at our back). Out for six miles (Todd and Lexi out for 7). Turned around and....holy crap! Where in the hell did that wind come from? And where were these hills on the way out? I don't remember running DOWN any nice long stretches but I sure as heck could see all the UPS we had in front of us now. The wind was constant, no matter which way we turned. We plugged along and I must say that I knew I was going to be sore. My hip flexor on the right was starting to pull with about 3 miles to go and behind my knee on the left. We did carry drinks along and I made good use of them but had neglected bringing any solid food. Made it back to the car in two hours, fueled up and ate while waiting for Todd and Lexi. Headed in to the gym and by the time we tried to get out Todd's car I was thinking I was screwed. My butt was sore!! Piriformis was as tight as could be. and of course I was freezing! So we got in and hopped on the spin bikes. We had taken more time than I had figured getting out and back to our run venue, so I shortened the 1:05 bike ride to 30 minutes since I had to go pick up my munchkins. It was actually a good, good thing to spin for that long I must say. It really loosened me up and I'm sure I feel better tonight for it.

Looking forward to a shorter week this week and for the big event CABO! Heading out Thursday. Gotta love vacation. Have a great week all and love that fit, strong body you call your own!

Just can't get enough of ya baby! (food that is)

2009-02-03T09:35:00.000-08:00

Oh fine! I give up! Well, not literally. So my latest task - last week - was to monitor my nutritional intake closely and then deliver my outstanding results to YOU; right here in black and white. Well, orange and white. Anyway, so I found a neat little website called my-calorie-counter.com and I created an account and dutifully picked my way through my daily nibbles and glugs. It's actually kind of a cool site, they have lots and lots of different food items on there so you can at least get a good idea of what sort of calories and nutrients you're taking in. You can also track your activity and calories burned daily also. I think they overestimate a little bit on the number of calories you burn during exercise though....

Even so, my goal was to get a "general idea" of how I was doing. Remember that it was decided that I would need around 2900 calories a day to achieve the best performance from my poor body. 1500 approx just to function the organs, etc. and then burning another 1200-1500 per day with exercise (or more). Now, being the typical female I always assume I'm eating way too much. The first day of recording I thought it was just a fluke and i wasn't too hungry. But by the latter part of the week I was rounding up the servings, putting down the whole plateful when i really only could get half of it down, recording every bite of cracker, adding extra coke to my nightly whiskey (on paper anyway lol) - anything to get that stupid calorie number up to where it needed to be. The only day I even came close (within 500 calories) of my target number was the day I ate a Wendy's chicken sandwich and fries (I didn't put down that I didn't eat the bun, had no mayo on there and only ate half my fries). Every other day - and this was with conscious effort, I was well short of my goal by 1000 calories!

Now I know most of you are out there saying "oh you poor dear, you just can't eat enough (imagine this in a voice dripping with sarcasm)!" "Gee, sucks to be you"! And I'm not trying to be cool, or coy, or whatever goofy term you're thinking of; I really was honest about what I was trying to do. I even ate like four bananas last week! I HATE bananas! What I realized is, is that it is difficult to eat enough "good" calories. Sure, I could bump that number up every day real easy with a fried Chicken sandwich dripping with mayo (yuk, I hate mayo anyway), big 'ol fries and a shake. But that is basically self-defeatist as far as performance enhancing goes. That's way too many fat calories and will only enlarge my bottom line, not make it go faster!!

The other problem I have is the hunger issue. Number one, the big fat iron pill I have to take every day (refer way back in my blogs for THAT story, main point is I had a major nutritional deficiency and have to take this for a year to try and get my body back to normal, whatever that is) makes me sick. If you've ever had to take iron in any dosage besides your everyday vitamin, well, it doesn't settle real well. and I have a weenie stomach anyway that is fairly intolerant. So, I try to take this at night because it makes me sick to my stomach for a couple of hours after I take it. If I forget and have to take it during the day then I'm toast for a bit as far as eating goes. The second thing is - I get all gung ho and try to boost up the quantity of a meal and then can only eat half. My friend Rachel (who inspired this by the way) said instead of one egg for breakfast, make it two. Add a pancake. Whatever. So I try. With good intentions. Two eggs, a pancake and two pieces of bacon. One egg and part of a pancake usually end up left over.

I've determined now in my infinite wisdom (lol) that I need to eat more meals more frequently. Just snacks basically, all day long. Well, okay. So Im trying. I'm making sure I bring lunch to work, or try to when I don't get crazy trying to get the kids packed up and ready to go and all my workout gear for the day in the car and then get halfway to work and discover I left my lunch sitting on the counter! I have a couple of "standy meals" at work just in case. Crackers in my desk drawer and instant oatmeal. But I get busy, you know how it is and suddenly three or four hours have gone by and maybe I'm hungry and maybe I'm not...sigh.

well, blah blah blah, who cares about my problems right? :) Just me. Although I am being hovered over (not by buzzards, well, during my long runs sometimes) by friends and family urging me to eat! YUK I say! I will get it figured out though. Determined I am!

So that was a long yakety yak about not much. How did my workouts go last week? It was actually a fairly decent week, not as tough as this one is going to be. I had a great swim on Wednesday - we did 16 - 100's as the main set and I was really dreading it because the last time we did 100's I thought I was going to keel over for the first 5 or 6. Well, this time it was great. I felt good through all of them and kept a decent pace in the low 1:30's for all. Must have been the new suit! Felt good about myself til Corky told me I was "whaling" around - way too many strokes per length. Well, i worked on that yesterday and THAT about killed me! I need to breathe more often so I stroke more! Flawed thinking I know. But I did work on it and will continue to. Saturday we got in about 30-miles on the spin bikes followed by a 4-mile run. I had the kids of course and had to figure out how to keep them entertained for the 3-hour workout! another friend who was coming in to workout has two kids about the same age as my two so we planned on hooking them up to play in the gym and then go swim. I ordered pizza (from my bike, while we were spinning) and had it delivered to the spin room for the kids for lunch! Gregg and I ate two breadsticks too since it was there. Hmm, wonder if they'll have pizza hut breadsticks at Ironman? Tasted pretty good. better than those stupid 'ol bananas! Well, between basketball, pizza and swimming the kids kept busy and had no "how much longer are you going to be" complaints. MY kids are used to me working out like this but some of their friends sure look at us funny! Sunday I dropped the kids off at a movie with some friends so I could get my long run in - did about 1:40. Again, a beautiful day and I felt good. Did an out and back and thought I had my timing all figured out as far as when I needed to turn around then realized I miscalculated so I definitely ran negative splits on the way back! Made it with time to spare though. My math skills make for some looong workouts! ha ha

Well, this week is a busy one - the kids are with their dad though so should be able to get in all the workouts this week; still have one personal training client on Tuesdays, kickboxing M,W,F so schedule just the same. Killer weekend coming up as far as workout duration. Thank GOD we head to Cabo next week!

livin' and learnin'

Eat damn it!

2009-01-27T07:28:00.000-08:00

My very good friend Rachel has been on my butt (and rightfully so) about my nutritional intake as I am training. She said that, as women, we have spent most of our lives worrying about our weight at one point or another and therefore always sort of thinking about our calorie intake, be it subconsciously or consciously depending on where we are in our lives. And that sort of thinking is not good for an athlete. Yes it's possible to work out a lot and still gain weight or work out a lot and not lose weight. But the main focus here, especially with the sort of endurance event I am training for, is function. Muscle endurance. The ability to improve strength and function and performance. Nutrition is vital to that. I KNOW that, as a personal trainer, fitness instructor and athlete. I KNOW it. But DOING it is another thing and getting over that "girl" thought process is hard.

I spent a good deal of my adult life about 30-35 pounds heavier than I am now. I was somewhat active and not big and fat, but definitely heavier than now. And so, even though I KNOW I'm at a good weight for me now, I still sometimes see and feel like that person I was 35 pounds ago. It's been six years since i've lost and maintained my current weight and I STILL sometimes feel like that. So it is something that I will probably always think about in the back of my mind and I have to get rid of that old image in my brain and see the REAL me as I am now. I try not to focus on weight as much as how I feel and, more importantly, what my body can do. I am extremely proud to know that this 39-year old body can kick ass!! And a side benefit of that is looking good!

So i've bee thinking a lot about the nutrition thing. My New Year's resolution for the past three years I think has been to eat better. Healthier. Most of the time I would work out enough I don't have to worry about what I eat, the downside to that being I don't focus on healthy eating all the time. I have gotten much better for sure and I make a lot of good choices - but it's a constant process. Always will be. I do NOT diet. Don't believe in them. I think that is a sure way to FAIL. If you have to deny yourself something, or eliminate a food group or anything like that it's going to just reverse itself when you eventually go back to "normal" eating. It all has to be followed with "lifestyle" changes. Eat better most of the time and don't worry about the rest. Life's to short to avoid all the goodies out there!!

Anyway, back to the eating for me thing. Rachel sent me a female athletes calorie guide and based on that and what I am doing for workouts I should be taking in roughly 3000 calories a day. Now most people think that if they are working out a lot and do not seem to be losing weight that they are eating too much. Remember I'm talking ATHLETES here. Like serious, hard core working out. Not general population. Well, I haven't really lost any weight since we started our actual training program a few weeks ago, but I have noticed a "shape' change. Rachel mentioned I should do a nutrition diary for a few days to get on track and see where I'm at. I always tell my clients to do that - guess I should follow my own advice? lol So I logged on to "my calorie counter .com " and they have a journal place to enter what you eat and it calculates the calories, you can also enter your activity. Now I realize this is just based loosely on what I'm actually eating and doing because it doesn't completely match up with my food and exercise. But it's a great tool for getting a general idea. Now I figured I have been just eating like a pig (typically girl thinking I guess). I added up my intake for yesterday and guess what? If I fudge a little I could get to 2000 calories! And i burned roughly 1400 just from exercise plus another aprox 1500 just from existing so 2900 calories from working out. so a deficit of 900 calories. Now I know this is just one day, but it was a pretty typical day for me as far as eating goes. I even included my nighttime whiskey/coke! So typical thinking would be that I would be losing weight like a crazy woman right? (just for the record, I'm not really trying to lose weight, maybe 5 pounds max).

But here's what happens. My body needs to replace some of those calories. Running your body on that big of a calorie deficit is like running your car on E. It won't last for long. So what is happening is, my body is basically in starvation mode. It's saying "what the hell are you doing to me you crazy woman? You expect me to work hard enough to burn 2900 calories in one day, yet you don't even give me anywhere close to enough fuel to do that. So I am going to hang on to every cotton-pickin' calorie you put in me so I can do my best to do what you want me to". Therefore, very difficult for any weight loss. And even more importantly to me, as an athlete, no fuel to sustain the performance. My poor body is just trying to maintain enough caloric intake to keep my major organs functioning and then also sustain my over-the-top exercise regimen. So what I am setting myself up for is performance failure, or at the very least, majorly holding myself back from optimal performance.

So I KNOW all this, yet I'm having to kick myself in the ASS to do it. And I will. If I can make the time to fit all this crazy exercise into my already full life, than I can MAKE the time to eat right, eat enough to get the most from myself. I am determined to succeed at this Ironman. But I don't want to just succeed - I want to EXceed my expectations. So thank you Rachel, for caring enough to get on my ass, and I AM going to work on this.
I'm keeping a log for a full week and I will post it after the week is up so you can all see where I'm at.

Train on !

Ice box

2009-01-25T07:36:00.000-08:00

yesterday was my long run day. It was 3 (-7 wind chill) when we started on our run, 81% humidity (which is really unusual here) and luckily only a slight breeze out of the Southeast. We headed south first and I didn't think the wind was too bad until I noticed that the front of my legs felt like two frozen chunks of ice. Gregg's glasses froze over about 15' in to the run so I carried them in my pocket for him and made him run on the inside so he didn't fall off the curb and sprain an ankle or something! Found a couple neighborhoods to wander around in that kept the wind off of us and then turned around to head north back. My quads warmed up, but then my butt was froze! And you couldn't blink too long because you're eyelashes would freeze together from all the frost on them! Great time! We got our hour and ahalf in and then headed to coffee with the rest of the running club. Took me about fifteen minutes in a HOT shower to warm up afterwards. I'm glad we switched our long run from Sunday to Saturday this week though because this morning it's -3 with a windchill of -12! Frosty! Crazy Wyoming weather - just last Tuesday we ran in shorts and t-shirts and it was 60! Well, what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger right? This is good training for us - last year at Ironman Coeur d'Alene it snowed three days before race day so if it does that to us this year we'll be well prepared!

It just keeps snowing - but really not much accumulation. I think it's too cold to snow! But today is a 2 hour bike - we will be spinning inside. Feeling a little bit tired this morning - it couldn't be because we didnt' get home til midnight and then the kids were up at 6:30? We went to dinner at Gregg and Joy's last night (bacon wrapped shrimp, grilled salmon, steak- YUM - the kids ate pizza lol) then picked up the babysitter and dropped them all back at the house. Then we all went to the Fireside for Saturday night karaoke and dancing. We were all pretty mellow tho'; had a good time but drank a lot more water than beer so no headache this morning! We're not going to spin until 1:00 or so so maybe I can sneak a nap in? I haven't even looked at next week's workout schedule yet. I'll let you know how it goes!

Happy day

Time flies by

2009-01-22T18:51:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it's already Thursday night! It's been a semi-hectic week; well, maybe not more than usual! lol Not really my week to have my kids with me, but their dad had a couple of out of town trips, at the last minute, so I got to have them Tuesday night and tonight. No biggie, although I haven't slept well all week and was really really looking forward to a good nights sleep tonight. Hopefully they're worn out too.

Workout-wise this week has been a little less intense than last week. Not easy necessarily, but less intense. We had our longest swim to date - I mean our longest interval; straight 1500. It felt okay actually, although I didn't use my legs much on my first 500 so my shoulders were shot for the next 1000. I feel I'm actually coming along okay at this stage in the program considering I just started swimming again in December after (yikes) more than a year off.

Cycling workouts have been doable; I sweated up a storm this morning for some reason - main set of 35' at 75%. Getting more used to the aero position - I just got aerobars for my birthday last fall and haven't had a chance to ride my bike with them, but trying to get used to them on the spin bike. I sure miss my own bike seat though when doing that. I don't see how anyone can cycle for long periods of time without causing some serious damage to their nether-regions!! Talk about numb! I definitely see how proper position is KEY and a good seat with cutouts in all the right places! Or else just get a park bench seat with two inches of lambswool cushioning! Might as well put a basket on the front and add a little bell! lol I could just see me at Ironman CDA - !!

Our run on Tuesday was awesome! It was nearly 60 degrees! In January, in Wyoming! What the heck? So, we left our HR monitors in the bag and just ran for the sheer pleasure of running in the sun, with hardly any wind in January, in shorts! Today's run was 3 x 10' at 75%, 75% and 84%. Again, it was a beautiful day, nearly 50 degrees and no wind (when we started anyway). the pace felt great, even the 84% was an effort but I could definitely have kept going. Progress? Or just happiness at lovely weather. Tomorrow it is supposed to be snowing and 20 degrees or less. Back to reality.

Tomorrow is a rest day. And it will be - except for kickboxing. I teach Monday, Wednesday and Friday so there is no rest day for me. We're switching our Sat/Sun workouts because of my schedule with my kids. Long run Saturday morning and then our 2 hour spin on Sunday afternoon while the kids swim. there's almost always a way to work it in - and if there isn't then I guess that makes it my rest day and I move around the schedule for the rest of the week.

No kids tomorrow night so probably go out with my boyfriend - one of our favorite pasttimes is singing karaoke! Crazy I know. It sure is fun and I'm not real great at it but not horrible and just enjoy the fun of it. Don't look for me on American Idol anytime soon! Way too old! lol

Back to the snowy, wintry Wyoming tomorrow! Looking forward to Cabo in a three weeks? woo hoo

fit to be tired!

2009-01-19T19:25:00.000-08:00

As we left kickboxing tonight I told Gregg it seems like not very long til we have to work out again! And he said, yea, like twelve hours. Only I think it was less than that, cause it was like 6:45 as we were heading out so that means I'll be showered and getting ready for work in twelve hours, following another workout. Sigh. I sure look forward to hopping in my bed every night!

So this past weekend was a good workout weekend. It was a tough week, finished up with a two hour bike ride on Saturday and an hour and half run on Sunday. I had the kids this weekend so to fit in my two hour bike ride I had to wait until the pool opened at the rec center. one o'clock is the magic number on Saturdays - so we show up at the pool a little before one and it takes me fifteen minutes to get my two kids and two friends checked in, some extra money for snacks, trying to make sure it doesn't get lost. Three times get a different key for my little boy for a locker - the first one is too tall for him to reach, the second one already has someone's stuff in it and third one is empty but they don't have a key. So... I finally end up getting him dressed in the family room and then taking all HIS stuff into the girls locker room for the girls to put in with their stuff. So I'm about fifteen minutes later in the spin room than I hoped to be - but ended up only 8 minutes behind Gregg. Had some good intervals planned; tough intervals, looked like we had just got out of the shower. I forgot to tell the kids how long I was going to be spinning so they got out way too soon - showed up in the spin room while I still had a half hour to ride. Well, between their whining about me hurrying up and they were hungry and tired and bored and thirsty I had a really hard time keeping my heart rate at the appointed level for the workout!! lol finished up and man my legs were shot for the rest of the day. sunday morning it was great to get to sleep in. Had pancakes for breakfast (okay, one pancake for me and that was it). Hung out with the kids. My little girls' tenth birthday party was at the roller skating rink today at 1:00 so finished up her cake and loaded everyone up. I brought my roller blades and made a few trips around the rink - no crashes either. although I did try the limbo. I was actually out on my second trip through but, being the oldest one in the line up decided I deserved one more chance. i made it through without touching my body to the pole, but my skates stopped without me and I did a face plant underneath it - soo... I was out. Fun anyway. Sent the kids home with their dad and hurried home to change clothes and meet Gregg at my house for an hour and a half run. supposed to be semi-easy, heart rate 75% or under and no hills. We have a good 10-mile loop from my house that is fairly flat so off we went. Other than the mud and the Sunday drivers it was a great run. Got back just after sundown. 9.88 something miles i think. Felt great. Showered and out to dinner with Gregg and Joy - had a big 'ol steak and about bit the waitresses hand off when she asked if I wanted a box! I said, heck no, I'm eating the whole damn thing! It had been a long time since my pancake! I know, Rachel, I know, I'm working on the eating thing! Sigh.

So today was a Monday. Yuk at work, getting in the groove. But we had a nice swim at lunch - 2200 yards or something. 6 x 150's was our main set, keeping 75-80%. Kicked a little wrong on the very last length and tweaked my hip flexor. Starving after that workout, the bagel for breakfast didn't cut it. So I was in a hurry to get back to work; went past hardee's and no line in the drive thru so in I pulled. Sat at the ordering place..and sat, and sat and sat. I could see people walking around in there. Finally said screw it and pulled up to the window. Two of them, one being the manager, glanced my way and hurriedly looked away again. No one even offered to come near the window! So I left. Guess they were helping my diet and keeping me away from the fries huh? So I decided to go to a local coffee shop to get a little bit healthier sandwich than what I had been planning - go in and there's a long line! Aargh. All I'm trying to do is get some damn food!!! Decide to leave, then decide that I know I really need to eat SOMETHING. So I wait in line and order a bowl of soup to go. chicken and rice. Eat it at my desk at work, but guess what? That just didn't cut it! I was starving in kickboxing - asked my class if anyone had acheeseburger handy in their bag! so hungry I was about ready to puke! So finally get home and really wanted to just pig out but I took my time and made some soup. Yes, more soup but it was much more filling than the itsy bit I had at noon, and now I have some good leftovers for tomorrow.

So, on tomorrow's schedule, up to spin at 5:00am for an hour and fifteen, then noon run of just under an hour. Kiddo has to go to the dentist in the morning, personal training client right after work so another night not home til 6:30 or 7:00. Yee haw, another week is upon me!

work out hard! love ya

oops, this is about training!

2009-01-15T07:13:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading my last blog again, laughing at myself - I sure hope someone else gets my very strange idea of humor! Then I got to thinking (again, I gotta quit that) that I created this blog to talk about my TRAINING! Oh yeah. I get off track sometimes if you haven't noticed.

So how has training gone this week so far? Well, Monday started off just typical - up at 5:30 to get ready for work...then about 6:00 I get an automated call from the school saying school is delayed two hours because of the weather! Great. Throws the whole day off for me. I call my before school babysitter to see if she can still take the kids. If she can't, then I'm home until almost eleven which means I won't get my usual lunch time workout in since I will have missed a whole morning at work..Anyway, turns out she CAN take them, so I do get to work on time (almost). Lunch time is a swim workout - 2500 yards. Back to work, leave a little before 5 to race across town to pick up kids, back across town to the rec center to teach kickboxing at 5:30. After class Gregg and I have been throwing in some extra core work so we did that with some knee raises and planks. Home for dinner / homework / play time and kids to bed at 8:30.

Next morning up at 4:30 (yuk), turn the coffee pot on and get on my cycling stuff. Not too cold this morning (like 30 degrees) so I'm good with just shorts and t-shirt in the garage. Hop on my bike trainer a little before 5:00 for an 1:15 ride. Main set was 4 x 8:30 w/ 1:30 recovery at 75%, 75%, 84% and 85%. Worked hard, kept my heart rate in the right zone! Great thing about the garage compared to spin at the gym - I can SPIT on the floor in my garage! lol Gets me in trouble if I do that at the gym - just kidding - I wouldn't do that! So worked up a good sweat anyway. Got done and got showered up and ready, kids up and fed and off to babysitter to work at 7:30. Lunch time this day was a 50' run with 4 x 250 strides. Gregg and I have argued about whether we should do 4 sets of 4 x 250 (he said), versus just 4 x 250 total (I said). Still not sure but I did my version. About 5.3 miles in the 50' - good run but had a hard time keeping my heart rate in the 75% and under range due to the wind and the hills. Leave work a little before 5:00 to again, race across town to pick up kids, race back across town to the rec center for a personal training client. Put her through her paces, home about 6:30 for dinner, homework ya da ya da.

Yesterday, Wednesday, sleep in til 5:30 get to work by 7:30. Lunchtime is a little bit longer swim - 2700 yards. Thought about puking a couple of times. Main set was 12x100 at 85% with only 10 seconds rest in between. I think whoever wrote this training program we're doing must be a swimmer! Anyway, by about rep number 4 I was about ready to give up - we were holding average around 1:35 I think for the 100's which I feel is pretty good for us at this point in our season. I hung in there and started to feel better about rep 6. Definitely tired me out. Back to work - ham and swiss sandwich for lunch. Now you know the routine, race to pick up kids, back to rec center, teach kickboxing, extra abs afterwards, home for dinner, homework, blah blah blah.

Got more snow during the night. Today's run is supposed to be main set of 3 x 1' repeats at 7:00 minute pace. In 4" of snow? Well, I probably can't hold a 7' pace right now, but might aim for about 7:45 or so, we'll see how slick it is at lunch. K, that's where I'm at and thank god it's Thursday already. Have a great workout today!

You're so vain!

2009-01-14T12:38:00.001-08:00

I was thinking today as I rushed off to swim - yes, I rushed, it seems as though I rush everywhere. Or maybe your were questioning the fact that I was "thinking?" Yes, I was doing that too. Anyway, I was thinking, why do I even bother to get up and do my hair and my makeup in the morning? I get up at 5:30 (unless I'm spinning that morning and then I'm up at 4:30) to shower and try to get myself ready, eat breakfast, fix kid lunches, gather all my gear for the day, finish laundry, unload the dishwasher, watch the news, check the weather, ya da ya da ya da and get the kids up at 6:30. I think I should get up at 3:00! Okay, I keep getting off track. So I spend like 15 minutes getting ready - shower, blow dry hair, makeup, straighten hair. I stress out trying to get all that fit in with all the other crap in the morning, look beautiful (lol) until about noon at which time I either run, swim or bike. Now my work place is pretty flexible with my schedule; they think I'm nuts to do any of the workout things I do, but they're pretty nice about the time I take for my workouts. Swimming is the hardest because it's a 10 minute drive to the rec center - 15' total to get there and get undressed, swimsuit on, take off the stupid makeup I just put on like four hours ago, shower and hop in the pool. Then between the actual workout program and yakking our swim takes about an hour, get out, shower off, dress. By now I've given up even trying to take time to DRY my hair. Then the drive back to work. So all this takes me close to an hour and a half. And that is plenty of time to be gone from work. If I'm running at noon, I don't take off my makeup - unless it's summer time and it's 100 degrees out because it sweats into my eyes and REALLY stings. But by the time i get back it has mostly run off, my hair is just doing whatever my hair does - which is stick in as many directions as possible, especially the gray ones! AND, I'm really gonna gross you out now - I have no shower facility at work. Well, it's nothing that a little deodorant and perfume can't cure!! In the winter time it isn't so bad but in the summer it takes me an hour to stop sweating! lol.

Well, I don't let a little thing like that stop me. I know that's what a lot of people, women especially, use as an excuse for not working out at lunch time. "I get sweaty" GASP! Sweat? How gross and disgusting!! I'm sure you would just shrivel up and DIE if you happened to break a sweat during lunch!! OMG That just kills me you know? I'm not a vain person, could ya tell? When people see me out, like at dinner and I'm dressed up with makeup and stuff on they usually say, "my gosh, I didn't recognize you...(what they mean here is, wow, you're not all red and sweaty and in workout clothes)" So it's just another good excuse to not work out. Yes, I have a job where there isn't a lot of face to face with the public, however, I must say, that after the red face goes away and the sweat dries up (give me a break, I use a wet towel to clean myself off if it's really, really bad lol) I can come back looking fairly decent. I'd rather be feeling great and somewhat worn out from a great workout that gives me a HUGE boost of energy to finish up my day than feel like a BFL (see earlier blogs if you don't know what BFL is) because I took my perfectly manicured hair and fingernails to lunch with "Bobby Jo" and "Denise" and picked at my huge salad with a gallon of dressing on it and gossiped about that "crazy" girl we see running all the time and how she must not have a real job or a real life because surely we'd be in that great of shape too if we weren't just so darn busy and had nothing else to do in our life like her....

Okay, deep breath. LOL. Anyway, my point is, if I have a point at all (questionable huh? I just like to yak a lot) is that I guess I don't worry about what I look like most of the time. Those who know and love me are used to seeing me red faced with black makeup circles under my eyes and my hair all wet and sweaty and for some odd reason they still like me! What matters most to me is the power and confidence I feel from knowing what my body can do! And it is amazing! It doesn't mean I don't CARE about my looks. I do, and that's why, whenever I get the chance, I DO put on the makeup and fix my hair because I'm a girl and that also makes me feel confident - just knowing that I CAN look nice. Put that together with this rockin' body of mine and I'm a real hottie!! LMAO - ha ha ha ha. Just kiddin' - Just get out there girls and sweat your ass off - who cares what ya look like while you're doing it? What matters is that you're strong, you're confident, you're healthy and then, when you get the chance - Dress it up and knock their socks off!
Later

every event is a marathon!

2009-01-11T16:53:00.000-08:00

So today we were on our Sunday "long slow run" - early in the program so it was only an hour and twenty minute run, keeping our heart rate between 70-75% of max. Which is the pace supposedly you can maintain all day. Well, it did feel sloooow (around a 9:05 minute mile) but we determined that in our past training runs we have most likely ran our "long slow" runs a little too fast. Anyway, had a good run with Gregg and Todd, nice weather about 30 degrees and very little wind. This was my longest run in quite a while and I developed a little bit of hip flexor and IT tightness in the last couple of miles. Had a good stretch after and feel good tonight so far.

anyway, another thing we talked and laughed about while we were running was how the people in our lives - mom's, dad's & friends - that don't work out much and don't know all the terminology - describe every race and event and workout we do the same. They don't know the difference between a 5K our a half-marathon or a sprint, olympic or full distance (Ironman) triathlon. The key word out there that most lay-people know is - Marathon. So my mom is proudly telling all her friends about the "marathon" I'm doing in June, and Gregg's mom is writing in her Christmas letter how he is going to Mexico in February to "train" for another marathon! I guess it's only funny to those of us who are more involved the sport and live for it. But, I guess in this instance they are partially right. We will be running a marathon. After we swim 2 1/2 miles and bike 112. But who's counting! The main thing is that they are supportive of us, they are proud of what we accomplish and they all collectively think we have lost our minds!

Occasionally I take the time and try to explain to someone who asks exactly what I'm training for but as soon as I start to go into detail one of two things happen: Either there eyes glaze over and they just say "you're crazy" and the subject changes, OR they launch into their "i've done that too only much better, faster, longer than you but I don't know because my knees are bad so I've got a big, fat belly that surely is much better on my knees than working out and staying fit".. okay, the last part of that statement is my interjection but it's as sure as the sunrise, believe me.

A classic example of those who don't understand what it is we do and what we have to put in it was, at the bar the other night, a young man was sitting at our table with us. He was a fit kid, into boxing and such so not a complete newbie to working out. Somehow the subject came around to the fact that Gregg and I were training for an Ironman. After we explained the distances involved to the aformentioned young man he asked me, in all seriousness, "so, do you train at all for that or do you just go and do it?" OMG. Enough said.

Have a great week to you all, I'll keep you updated on this weeks's workouts, but I haven't even checked the schedule myself yet. I know we have a 3300 yard swim (approx) tomorrow.

later

pro athletes say "rest" is the key to their success

2009-01-07T06:02:00.000-08:00

I've read a few different articles from Pro triathletes recently. Many of them say the difference between them and some of the top age groupers is "rest". A pro athletes job is to train. And that's it. And part of their training is massages, sitting on their can doing absolutely nothing, etc. Actually "resting" during the rest portion of their program. But Joe and Jane Everyday, like you and me, have to go work out, then go to work, then hopefully work out again, then go home and cook dinner and do dishes and homework, etc. etc. sometimes sacrificing sleep time in order to not disturb family time. Not that pros don't have families and obligations - they do - but again, their job is what I said above.

I was thinking about this yesterday morning when my alarm went off at 4:30 a.m. I had gone to bed fairly early the night before, kids are at their dad's so no small visitors in the night to interrupt my sleep. Still, 4:30 is pretty dark and pretty cold in January in Wyoming. Had the coffee pot all ready to go the night before so clicked it on, clothes already laid out, got dressed and slammed some coffee. I think I had a pop tart too! Nice and healthy huh? Made it into spin right at 5:00, Gregg already there too. Usually I am the instructor for this class but since my divorce I can only be there every other week when I don't have the kids. So someone took over the class and this was his first day. I was there with my own workout to do, just enjoying the company while I was at it. So we got a good hour ride in, or just over. A little over 15 miles. It's such a rip-off on spinners, you just don't get the mileage that corresponds to the effort. Oh well, it is what it is and I worked hard.

Out of there by ten after six and back home to shower. Fix a quick breakfast omelet, one egg, mushrooms, a little cheese, a piece of bacon and a piece of toast. I'm all for big breakfasts, you burn it all off during the day AND it keeps me from wanting to snack all morning long. Got some good protein in for post workout recovery. At work by 7:30. 11:30 Gregg shows up at my work for our noon run - 5 1/4 mile loop, snow squalls just started about the time we head out the door. Windy, but hey, this is Wyoming. Felt good on the run, minus the initial worry about my heart rate monitor reading 288 bpm! I thought I should be feeling faint or something at least if it was that high? lol.. Took about 10 minutes for it to settle down and read right. I figured it was frozen too and couldn't connect to my frozen body. Did I mention I also forgot my sports bra so had to run with my regular one? That's just soooo comfortable. Good thing I'm not a DD! ha ha An d on top of that I was trying to load all my stuff in the car this morning in one load instead of making two trips and ended up tipping my coffee cup over into my workout bag! OMG! this kind of stuff always happens to me! Soaked my hat, my gloves, part of one of my workout shirts. So luckily I have a whole crapload of stuff in my workout bag, was able to find a dry headband, extra shirt and a pair of gloves in my car to wear on my run.

Finished up the run - a gal at work bought pizza so I had three breadsticks for my lunch and then a slice off the left-over cheese ball from the Christmas party with some Ritz crackers. Did I tell you that my New Years resolution for the last three years has been to eat better? lol I'm off to a great start. This is what happens when you don't have time. I didn't have time to fix a lunch - and sometimes if I do have time I just forget. Anyway, so at 5:00pm I have a personal training client so of course I'm late 'cause I didn't get out of work until right at 5:00. ten minute drive to the rec center. Luckily, she's been with me a while, knows I'm always late, so she got herself started on her warm up. Got changed into my clothes and then all I could smell during her whole workout was COFFEE! Imagine that.

Finished up with her at about 6:15. A friend of mine is consolidating two households and had invited me out to "shop" his cupboards at one of the houses he is selling. So I headed there, 25 minute drive out- got a hot chocolate to go on the way and some chips and salsa. OMG I really need to eat better. Sigh. When I get a chance to go to the store. So I get out there and he's trying to talk me into taking his whole house. I don't have room but I do end up with a whole set of dishes - I mean the whole set, like twelve place settings with all the different cups, bowls, saucers, butter dishes (yea, I needed one of those), casserole dishes, some things I have no idea what they're used for.... and some blankets and towels which I can always use. Also a dresser for my daughters room! Now she can get her socks and stuff off the floor! But the BUTTER DISH. I'm pysched about that! That's the only reason I took the whole set! Seriously. :)

Loaded all that up, wondered where in the hell I was gonna put it, had a beer with him and then drove back to town. Got home a little after 8. Unloaded all the boxes in my garage, and sat down for a few to unwind. Man, it's been a long day. I think I finally hit the hay around 9:00.

So my whole point of this story was, where is the rest time? This is just part of everyday Joe and Jane training. There IS no rest time, not in the real sense of the word, not in the way the Pros get to do it anyway. My rest time is anytime I'm not working out. And I'm exhausted. Thus is the way of my every week....

Later

bfl

2009-01-05T19:10:00.000-08:00

Okay, for all of you out there - you need to know the term bfl. I use it a lot, it stands for "big fat loser". This is a term I use probably too often.... I miss a workout, miss a BUNCH of workouts, whatever - that's what I say I'm feeling like. Anyway, that's just me.

So, I've been feeling like a bfl all week. Busy between Christmas and New Year's. My main goal was to spend time with my kids and have fun with them and so my own personal things had to go a little by the wayside. We went to a waterpark/hotel complex and stayed three nights and did skiing on two days. So I got a little exercise in, skiing one day. My youngest didn't want to ski the second day so he and I hung out at the hotel while the rest of the gang skiied. I guess running up the stairs the three stories to the top of the water slides over and over is good exercise right? Well, again, it was about my kids and my little guy really enjoyed the alone time with mom. Being the youngest he never really had too much time alone with me. Enough about that. We had a GREAT time and getting to play and have fun with them was the best Christmas gift of all.

But now, back to reality. I'm thinking June is feeling really close and Gregg cheated and got a HUGE workout in yesterday that I missed out on. Guess I'll have to catch up. The wind was awful today so I wimped out and voted to swim, which is actually what's on the schedule. 2300 yards - 4 x 300's increasing speed was the main part of the workout. Felt great. Kickboxing tonight which turned out well. big class, only one brand new person but lots of returnees that didn't make it most of the month of December. I'm making Gregg work on core stuff with me so we are doing some extra ab work after kickboxing. Tonight was one set of front knee lifts, one set to each side (sets of 15) and a one minute plank w/ toes balancing on the BOSU. I feel much less like a bfl now that that is all done with.

I'm ready for bed now. up early for spin at 5:00am. No kids this week so gotta get in what I can! See ya tomorrow

kickin my own ass!

2008-12-29T14:16:00.000-08:00

You ever wonder what drives you to kick your own ass? Why do you go out there and work out hard enough to make yourself almost puke? We all have our own reasons, our own demons, our own drive to get something done or achieve a goal? I try to figure out what mine is - although I think I hate to go down that path and actually face reality. I truly think I am trying to kill myself off sometimes - I get driven by self-hatred and guilt and I go in and try to beat it out of myself. Well, there you go - I'm wacko!

So yesterday I had a day off - the kids weren't getting back from their dad's until today. I've learned that with my schedule I have to take any time I have available to work out and do it then, because then I may have two days in a row that I can't work out. So when I have a chance I will work out as much as I can. What a training program huh? So I went to the gym yesterday wtih the goal of some cross training. I've decided to start focusing on a lot more core training and my training partner is ecstatic to be a part of it too! ha ha I hopped on the arc trainer for 30 minutes. always set it to a difficult interval program on a level 8 or 9 (out of 10) and maintain a heavy pace throughout. 550 calories in 30 minutes! almost as good as running. Well, needless to say I was about ready to puke when I got off. Now it's time for abs - we have arm straps that hang from the pull up bar so you hang from those and pull your knees up to your chest over and over. I got the big idea last year of holding an 8# medicine ball between my knees while doing this just for some extra burn. So I did 3 sets of 20 with knees forward and then 2 sets of 15 for obliques. In between sets I got in 1 set of 20 pushups (yes, full body) and 2 sets of 15 pushups, a 1' plank, and then 2 sets of 1' each plank with toes on the physioball and hands on the floor. Tough. My abs hurt today and are going to be worse tomorrow.

Kids were coming back today so I had to get my workout in a little earlier. Training partner Gregg was able to meet me for the whole workout. So hopped in the pool for 45 minutes or so - 500 warm up w/ drills; 4 x 300 progressive pyramid, then 300 cool down. got out and 40 minute run w/ 4 x 250 yard strides. good workout - tired. Kids got home, finished opening their Christmas presents and now are busy playing with friends. We are heading off tomorrow for a couple of nights at Watiki Water park and a couple days of skiing. Skiing ought to make me hurt too. You see, going to be off on the workouts for the next few days, therefore, got in what I could, when I could. Oh yeah, and kickboxing tonight! I sometimes forget to count that! lol

I'll check back in when I get back from skiing. I can just imagine how my quads are going to feel. I'm sure it'll take several stops at the lodge bar to make them feel better! that's what I LOVE about being fit! Happy New Year all!

Determination, creativity & sweat

2008-12-28T14:00:00.000-08:00

Well, Merry Christmas and almost Happy New Year!! This is the time of year we are all thinking about new year resolutions - whether we believe in making them or not! Thinking about the past year and wondering how much better we're going to make the new one.

I'm no different than you all and now I have a rare moment to sit down and "blog" about it! It's been months and months since I've been on here and since I created this site just to talk about my "workout" life it would seem I haven't been doing any workouts? Well, that's not the case. Although I will digress back and say that the last year or so has been really tough on me, physically, mentally and personally. It started last summer with what turned into physical sickness from stress, a "failed" marathon (if missing my Boston qualifying time by ONE minute because of not being able to run the last four miles while puking is a failure) and a divorce after ten years of marriage. The physical sickness ebbed ever so slowly, leaving an exhausted me in it's wake, thinking that once the stress left then I would be back to normal. Well, I continued to try and try and try but wasn't getting any better. Finally after talking with and about other female runners that I know I went to my dr. with a specific request for a ferritin test. Ferritin is the protein in your body that stores iron. Well, as it turns out, I was about out. My "level" was a 9. More on this later. Which completely explained my extreme fatigue and inability to perform athletically or really, in any normal capacity. So I started some prescribed iron supplements and thought I was feeling better. Went back three months later and ..... no change. The dose was increased (if you've ever had to take iron supplements, you'll understand that this is not easy on your guts). Well, before I was puking and getting sick or having extreme gastric distress with even the shortest runs so I figured "big diff". Kept on taking it. Three months after that, I go back again. "You're doing great" she says. "You're ferritin level is 29 now!" Wow I thought! I'm good to go, off the supplement (which was expensive and not covered by insurance). Then she proceeds to tell me that she's writing a prescription for me for a YEAR! WHAT! But Look how high my level has come. 9 all the way to 29! that has to be good! Well, as it turns out, I haven't even quite got to the very bottom level of normal yet. Normal range for a woman apparently is 30 (at the very lowest) and 150 at the top. Sigh. So much for that.

Well, to make this long story longer, I'm taking the supplement still and feeling better and better. Which has made my main training partner a little nervous. He and I have a lot of good natured competition between the two of us and I rather think he was enjoying the fact that I could barely get around. Now my pace is picking back up, my energy is much higher and I know I still have a long ways to go!! Nothing like healthy competition.

Anyway, that sort of brings us up to date as far as my health goes. Now my goals. I told myself when I started triathlons three years ago (yes, three years) that I wanted to do an Ironman before I turned 40. Well, 2009 is the big year for me. I AM turning 40 next fall. So my training partner and I, along with our significant others, traveled to Couer d'Alene Idaho this past June to observe, volunteer at, and ultimately sign up for the IRONMAN! So, yes, I paid my registration (which cost my left arm and leg and probably my first born child) so I am in, I am training and I WILL complete that race unless there are bones sticking out that can't be fixed! You heard it here. This blog will detail my training - well as much as I can fit in the time to get on here and write about it.

My main intention here is #1 just to put it all down in writing. And #2, and mainly, I hope that other athletes will be able to find inspiration and companionship here. I hope that everyone who visits this site will have the opportunity to see that it isn't just people with lots of money and time and natural talent compete in these events, but normal, everyday people do to. I am a single mom, working too many jobs and if I can do it, so can you!!

So here's an idea of my schedule. I work full-time 7:30-5:00pm Monday thru Friday for a general contractor's office. I teach cardio-kickboxing three nights a week from 5:30-6:30pm. I am a personal trainer and typically see clients one to two nights a week. I also am a Mary Kay beauty consultant in my spare (ha ha) time. I have two beautiful children, ages 7 and (almost) 10 that I have with me every other week. So you can see some conflicts with training for an Ironman.

I have borrowed a trainer for my bike which is set up in my garage and on the weeks my kids are with me I get up at 4:30am and ride my bike in my garage for an hour then up to shower, get ready for work, fix lunches, take the kids to the sitter then be at work about 7:30. Currently I am just cycling two - three days a week. On my off-weeks I cycle at the gym at 5:00am with my training parnter. Noon times are no time for lunch - they are precious workout times. M, W, F we run - typically a 5.5 - 6 mile run. T and Thursday are swim days - my office is a little bit out of town but they work well with me and I take a little longer lunch on those days. M, W, F I leave work about ten til five, race across town to school and pick up my kids from the after school program then back across town to the rec center to hopefully be there in time to start my kbox class at 5:30. Typically we get home a little before 7, then it's a quick dinner, homework and bedtime. I always say I'm going to stay up and get stuff done but I'm too tired usually to do it.

My oldest finally finished bball so that helped some. she had games or practice on Tuesday and Thursday nights at 5:45 so I usually tried to squeeze in a personal training client at 5:00 on those nights so I could be done in time to watch the last two quarters of her games. It makes for very long weeks and by the end of the week my 7-year old is begging me to "just go home" just once, right after school. Breaks a mothers heart but when you have little money, you have little choice sometimes.

this past Saturday we got a great workout in - we are just starting to get into an actual training program for Ironman Couer d'Alene so the time constraints will be even more. Due to scheduling we got to the rec center when it opened, rode bike for 1/2 hour then hopped in the pool for a 1/2 mile swim, back out to the bikes for another 1/2 hour and then dressed and over to the site of our local "Polar Bear 5K" race and ran that. It was a little snowy and really windy but a good run anyway. 24 something was my time. Not bad for early season I guess. Oh, and our 1/2 mile swim I think we did in 15:08. So...I guess I'm on a good track.

Stay tuned - I hope to update once a week or so with my schedule and workouts. Pain, determination, hopelessness and glee! It's all part of the deal. It will never be easy, there will never be enough rest time, never enough workout time, just never enough time. So if you're out there and you're telling yourself you don't have time to work out - just look at my schedule. I beg to differ. You DO have time if you just choose to find it.

Happy New Year and Happy training

Running with the Cats

2008-05-26T15:13:00.000-07:00

Happy Memorial Day! I hope everyone took time out of their day today to remember all of our brave military men and women who have given their lives in service of our country so that we may remain safe, do basically as we please AND write whatever we wish on the world wide web for all to read.

i spent the whole of Memorial Day weekend in a beautiful unknown oasis where we only saw one other vehicle the whole weekend, no other human beings (except those driving the other vehicle) and just listened to the quiet, the crackling of the fire and the screams of the kids as the bats dive bombed us! But that's another story, soon to be told on my myspace. This is my "athletic endeavor" site and so, that is what I shall talk about.

So, I had a slow workout week prior to Memorial Day weekend. Monday and Tuesday were good, then running errands, packing and end-of-school-year activities for my kids took up the rest of the week. I did pack my running gear on our trip and by Sunday morning was absolutely needing to get a run in. I grew up on this ranch so am comfortable with direction and distance, etc. My only concern on this day is the possibility of mountain lions joining me on my trek. It's not a major concern; I know they are here, and there are some very large ones in the area, but for the most part I'm certain they will not make themselves visible to me and haven't heard of any being spotted recently. So I gear up and head out, enjoying the absolutely beautiful green countryside, slight drizzly rain, dirt road and silence! I'm trotting along, thinking about how far I want to run, how nice it is to run on the dirt (err..mud), how green it is, etc. I see a few "fly up the creeks" (a type of heron for those who don't know; funny, they always seem to be flying DOWN the creek when I see them). Also where I'm from it's "crick", not "creek" as in I've got a creak in my back. So it's a fly-up-the-crick! Okay, enough language lessons. I can hear the rock dogs chirping at me as I run by, see ducks floating around on the reservoir, lots of hawks enjoying the breeze as they search for a slow mouse to dive bomb. Peaceful; I'm starting to get warmed up and get the kinks out and I realize that it's all down hill for now; which means uphill and into the wind on the way back. Oh well, who's in a hurry?

That's called foreshadowing, lol. So I get about three miles into my run and happen to look down (and actually focus on something) as I run. I see, well, I see big 'ol kitty tracks! BIG KITTY TRACKS! And fairly fresh, since it has been raining like crazy and they aren't all the way filled up with water and/or washed out yet, which means kitty,kitty, kitty has been around real recently. He (or she) is heading down the road in the same direction I'm going at the moment. Morbid curiosity gets the best of me and I stop, curl my hand into a fist and set it into the track. Well, now I'm not a big huge person but I'm not a dainty little prissy chick either and Mr. Kitty's pad on his foot is bigger around than my curled fist. So I spread my fingers out to check out the size of his whole foot, including his toes. That too is bigger than my hand! Well, now I'm trying to run while my head is swiveling back and forth; I'm going to be brave and fnisish out the next mile before I turn around, just like I had initially planned. Let's just say I ran a negative split that day! I kept waiting (and waiting) for one of the kids to come along and "check" on me on the four-wheeler; later they said they would have come after me - AFTER they ate breakfast.! Gee thanks. By then I would have been breakfast!

Well, another interesting workout. You never know what you'll come across. Happy running!

2 flats and a spare! No, it's not bowling!

2008-05-21T13:44:00.000-07:00

Second ride of the year! Yesterday - it was a beautiful day; hardly any wind (which in Gillette means less than 10mph), the sun was shining, it was so warm. Hopped up for work and threw my bike and gear in the back of my bike rack (aka Yukon). Thought my tire looked a little squishy, but hey, I always let some air out when I have to pack it in the Yukon so I don't have a blow out (like some people I know that I train with who have had that problem - they should practice what they preach; but I digress) so...anyway.

My riding partner Gregg is supposed to show up in about fifteen minutes so I unload my bike and pull it into my office to get ready. Now I notice that my tire isn't just low, it's flat. As in pancake. Now I go into "I am woman and need no man to do my mechanicing" mode and figure that if I hurry I can get this baby changed before Gregg gets here and has to save me. Won't he be shocked and amazed that I actually figured it out on my own. I had a fleeting thought that maybe I hadn't tightened the valve stem back all the way and all the air really DID leak out and so my tube didn't really have a hole in it - but, I was trying to hurry and being in the previously stated "I am woman and need no man to do my mechanicing" mode I plowed ahead.

Opened up my pack and found that I actually do have tools and stuff to do this little project. Go me! Flip my bike over and start off by taking the chain off the wrong way. Oops. Don't need that part off. Put it back on and then loosen the brake and the nut and take the tire off. At this point my hands are black and I briefly note that I am still wearing my work clothes - pink shirt and white shorts. Good one. Anyway, mechanics don't worry bout their clothes, right? Anyway, I let the air out (well, it's already out so never mind; that tends to happen when your tire is flat, huh?). Unscrew the little nut thing from the valve stem, get my spoons out and pry the tire off the rim. Pull out the tube. Hey, so far so good. I say, self - you are good! Run my finger along the inside track of the rim to check for sharp, pointy objects and then do the same thing to the inside of the tire. I find nothing (more on that later - just pointing out that I DID check). Get the new tube out, get the valve stem in and spend a couple minutes trying to remember if I start with the valve stem near me or away from me. I think I ended up somewhere in between. Now this is the first time this tire has been off, so it's pretty tight. If I hadn't just taken it off I would have been thinking it was the wrong size. So I'm getting close, only a few more inches to get the tire back on, but it's a tight fit, I'm not sure I can get it back on without pinching the tube and I start to seriously doubt my prowess as mechanic. I give in (BFL) and text Gregg, telling him I'm changing a flat but worried bout pinching the tube. He, with all the great faith he has in my ability, CALLS me and says, don't move, I'm almost there.

So he gets there, makes me take the tire back off and we start over. Again, it's a bitch to get the tire back on and I berate him for making me take it back off in the first place. We finally get it on there and blown up and we're wondering if the original tube actually had a hole or if this was just training 101 for she woman!

I manage to get changed without getting my clothes all black and we're heading out. warm enough I decided to "let it all hang out" and wore just my sports bra and shorts to work on my tan. I know, I know, all you REAL bikers shudder at the thought!

things are great - we're cruising along, enjoying the ride, working on keeping our cadence up, just getting a great workout. Until POP! Did you hear that? Why am I feeling like I'm riding more weirdly than normal? Do I have a flat tire? You think that it would be easy to figure out if you have a flat, but if you're ME, well, that's a different story. Ask me sometime about the Cheyenne Sprint tri and how I rode most of the 12-mile bike ride in three inches of rain (no exaggeration) on a flat tire and didn't know it! Told ya I was a goof! Anyway, back to the story. yes, I have another flat, same tire, and I figured it out much faster this time. So we hop off, flip the bike over, take it off and debate putting the tube I just took off back on. Until Gregg finds a piece of metal sticking through the inside of my tire. okay, looks like we have a culprit. Finally get the metal pulled out and his spare put on. Now we have no spares left and just our cell phones. So we're good. Finish up our ride with no problems.

So, this was a good training session for me. I'm much more confident now in my tire changing abilities so feel that i could do it in a race without too much difficulty; as long as it happens in the next week so I don't forget again! Ha ha. The best part was getting out and getting a great ride/workout in. Have a great day and remember, even a goof can be an athlete!

Beaver Creek Slide - half marathon 2008

2008-05-15T13:00:00.000-07:00

I guess I just like to talk - so even if nobody but me reads these blogs, at least they are here for posterity!

May 3rd - I rise and shine around 5:00am since I am picking up Gregg and Joy at 6:00 and then driving to Sheridan. Load all my stuff; gear for every weather - after all, it is springtime in Wyoming! It could be snowing in five minutes, then raining and then broiling hot by the time the race is over in a few hours. Joy has her cooler already packed (good girl) with the token ice tea bottle and pepsi but only of each so as not to displace too many beer spots! Joy is the ultimate and very bestest support crew around. She knows how to pack, takes great pictures and always saves one beer for us! (more on that later)

So we have an uneventful and safe trip to Sheridan with only ONE pee stop! Wow, but I must say that some of us were floating and had yellow eyes by the time we got to my mom's house in Big Horn. Small digression here; my mom was signed up to do the 3.5 mile walk/run that was also taking place along with the half marathon. A brief stop at my mom's and she decides to come out a little bit later since her walk doesn't start until 10:00 and we start at 9:00. It's looking to be a beautiful day - the sun is shining, there is no wind. A storm had just gone through recently however and we were wondering about mud and snow and such; especially since most of the race is on dirt road (yee haw, my favorite).

We arrive at the race venue with the picturesque Big Horn Mountains providing the backdrop. Bill Dahlin, the race director, happens to be a friend of mine and my families from way back and so it is a nice little reunion. As far as putting on a race goes, Bill knows his stuff. He is an ultramarathoner and so understands all aspects of racing, etc. The race always benefits a local non-profit orangization which is nice too. Some people were actually walking the half-marathon so had taken off earlier. I can't imagine walking that far! That takes way too long. I'd rather run and get done and be off to the next fun thing but congratulations to those who DID walk it. They are definitely out there getting healthy, supporting a good cause and that is what counts.

So it is time for race start. 80 total participants though I'm not sure how the break down was between the half marathon and the 3.5 mile. Gregg and I started out with the thinking that we would have a nice, slow, enjoyable warm up. I was not planning on racing or pushing hard and had no excpectations other than to hopefully finish since I have been fighting some physical ailments that have sabotaged my training efforts and am just trying to get healthy again. Anyway, we take off nice and easy and as we are loping gracefully along (LOL) we find that we are up in front. No one is "taking off" or anything and without any perceived effort at all we are up with the "front" three guys. We are going slow, I mean, it is the first mile of the race, but these guys are going even slower. So we "lope" past them. Well, that didn't last long. One broke away and moved up with us - apparently he was just seeing he was going to do what with this race. So he ran with us for a while, some nice downhill and onto the only part of the course on paved road. About a half-mile onto the pavement I can feel that Gregg and our lead friend were starting to speed up so I cheerfully waved them on and said see ya at the finish! They moved on and soon after two more guys passed me and moved up with the top two.

I cruised along on my own and then a nice gentleman pulled up beside me and we chatted about races and tris. He has done Ironman Brazil and some others I can't remember. I mention how we are going to go to Couer d'alene to volunteer this year for Ironman so we can sign up for next year. Turns out he is doing Couer d'alene Ironman THIS year! Cool! So we talk about training strategy and such, and, as a relative newby to the sport of triathlon and thinking of my first Ironman he offers up some of his own advice. I'm always happy to listen to experience. We turn back onto dirt road AND the start of the hills for the course. The guy running along with me feels to me like he has been holding back just to chat with me and I was about to tell him to go ahead and leave me in the dust when we started up the first hill. Well, i could see a long way and what I could NOT see was the top of the hill! Now I have been doing some significant hill training at home since my office sits at the top of a BIG hill and every day I run I have to come back up it to get back to work so I'm actually feeling pretty good about hills. Apparently this guy's office is NOT at the top of a big 'ol hill because now I'M feeling like I'm starting to pull away from him. So being the nice gal I am, I say "see ya" and continue on up the hill. I'm wondering what he was thinking because he had just got done telling me that the biggest mistake racers make is to take off too fast at the beginning, etc. I'm guessing he was thinking I was going too fast? Good excuse since I was smokin' him. ha ha

Anyway, I proceed to trot up the hill and I'm feeling pretty good and finally I spot the first aid station which is supposedly around 5 or 5 1/2 miles. The lead four guys are easily in my sights still so I'm feeling good and still cruising in fifth place. Bypass the aid station since I have my own goodies with me and subsequently get passed by myself by one more racer. Not the guy from the hill. Now we are in my kind of turf. The recent snow was still on this back road - so much so that the road is actually filled up with snow and so we run alongside the road, in the mud! I love get dirty. It's fun to splash in the biggest puddles and see how much you can get on yourself. Oh quit looking at me like I'm crazy - you love it too!! So we are navigating all sorts of ruts, rocks, grass and snow and we're all just making our own pathway. Now just because the road got bad unfortunately did not mean that the hill stopped. The next three miles or so was a LOT of uphill and all snowpacked and muddy. We did not venture onto the road during any of that part. Did lots of sidehilling by the barb wire fence. The mud was so thick and sticky that I would stop and kick my foot as hard as I could so the big clumps would fall off and I'd proceed feeling like I'd lost ten pounds. At least til it gummed back up on me, which was approximately three steps later!

I had chanced a look back right when we got into the muddiest part of this course and saw a couple other guys closing in on me. Still not the Ironman guy though. Well, I figured I'd be passed up soon but running mud and trails happens to be a great strength of mine and soon those two others were out of sight again. Ha ha men - take that! jk Finally the second and final aid station comes into sight. The road had improved slightly about a half-mile before that stop and the four lead guys had increased their distance from me pretty good and the other guy that had passed me was picking it up too. After that aid station we were back to fairly dry, dirt road. The lead four flew out of there and I could see the race was on. No more Mr. Nice Guy with them. Gregg said they were doing some 6:30 or so miles along that last four miles! Well I too was still feeling good and just running how I felt was able to really pick up the pace myself. Didn't time any of it but certain that I was around 7 minute or under for a good part of those last four. For as crappy as my training had been lately this is the best I had felt in quite a while.

Flying along (no more trotting or loping now), listening to my tunes I didn't notice until I was passed that someone else was behind me. One of the guys I blew away on the "crappy" part of the course. He flew by me and I briefly (very briefly) toyed with the idea of trying to keep up with him. I rejected that idea but continued on just happy to be feeling so good. All of a sudden I noticed I was gaining on the first guy that had passed me at the first aid station. Hmmm, I said, self, looks like that guy is either fading a bit or you're picking it up. Let's see what we can do. So I kept pushing along and with about a mile or so to go I passed him back! Go ME!

To the finish line, which, by the way, is at the top of a little hill (always so fun to finish that way, eh?) So glad to be done, where is my beer? Yes, I finished in first place (female) and 6th place overall. My time was around 1:56 which speaks for the difficulty of the race. I was really happy with how I felt! Wonderful post-race food including home made french fries! Yum. And you wonder why I run!!

So back to the beer in the cooler and having Joy save one for both Gregg and me. She THOUGHT she had saved only one beer each but as it turns out, she apparently drank too many to remember how many she had packed and ended up leaving THREE beers in there.! Gasp! that is so unlike Joy but as I pointed out to Gregg who asked if she could count, she did not come up to Sheridan to do math that day!

My mom finished her walk soon after I got done. What a great job she did. Her feet were hurting a little bit but she made it the whole 3.5 miles! and is talking about doing it again next year and having my sister do it as well! See, more converts to a wonderful, healthy way of life!

So that was my first experience at the Beaver Creek Slide. I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves to get dirty and just lives for the experience. Happy running!

Boulder Peak Triathlon 2007 - Olympic distance

2008-05-15T09:04:00.000-07:00

July 24, 2007

Hello all! I am back from my “big” race! Maybe you didn’t even know I left, but that’s okay. Now you’re reading this and you’re stuck ‘til the end. So I may have mentioned that I have been training for an Olympic distance triathlon for the past few months. I ended up doing one three weeks ago in Loveland, CO as part of my training program. Well, this past Sunday, I finally made it to my “goal” race – the Boulder Peak Triathlon. 0.9 mile swim in Boulder Reservoir, 26 mile bike ride and a 6.2mile run around the reservoir.

But first, the trip. We loaded up Friday morning: Kevin and me, Gregg and Joy and Hannah and Jarron all packed in the Yukon, two bicycles on the back and all of our gear stuffed in there somewhere. We were able to avoid stacking anything on top, although I did offer a spot up there to Gregg! We headed off toward Rawlins where we were meeting Kevin’s mom and sister to get rid of our children for the week. Several bathroom stops later (and me getting run over by the beer guy at one pit stop) we made it to Rawlins where we enjoyed lunch with a very crabby waitress. Kids headed off with Grandma and we headed to the liquor store to stock up our cooler!

Off we went toward Cheyenne, making a pit stop in Laramie, first at the gas station and then at the liquor store. (are you sensing a pattern here). Now keep in mind, Gregg and I are racing in two days so who do you think was causing us to continually fill up the cooler every two hours? Anyway, I digress. We get to Cheyenne (luckily, since we discovered about halfway between Laramie and Cheyenne that we maybe should’ve used the Laramie gas station stop to actually GET some gas!). So we fill up, and then we are off to the home of Gregg’s friend, Skip. Now our real reason to stay in Cheyenne on Friday night is because we got tickets to see BON JOVI at Cheyenne Frontier Days that night!!!! And as sheltered a life as I have led, this will be my first rock concert. Bon Jovi is Kevin’s all-time favorite band; this will be the fourth time he’s seen them.

We have standing room only tickets and we get to the fairgrounds around six – consume some ice cold beverages to brave against the heat (since we heard that inside they are charging $5 apiece for same said ice cold beverages). Then we troop off to find our “spot” amongst all the standing room only people. We find our entrance and make our way through. I’m in the lead and the silly people are all sort of lined up on one side of the track so I just head on past as many as possible ‘til we get very near the front of the group. I hear people say as we go by – “hey, how come they’re getting up there?”. Well, maybe because you’re standing there like a bonehead! We break down and flag down the beer lady while we’re in line and pay $20 for 4 beers. My were they delicious! It had been so long since our last beer ya know – at least five minutes! Then at 7:00 they opened up the gates and everyone flooded forward. Well, it turns out that the standing room only tickets we have are for right in FRONT of the stage! Yee haw. This is so awesome! We plow our way through as close as we can possibly get and end up being about twenty feet back from the front of the stage and right in the center! What a great, great place to be! Of course we are soon packed in there like sardines and we become a little nervous considering that it is only 7:15, concert doesn’t start ‘til 8:00 and there’s no way to get to a beer without losing our spot! As we do our best to not think about our excessive thirst that is brewing, another issue arrives in the form of a very small bladder! No, not mine. Just for your info, I made it the whole four and a half hours without going. Actually, three of the four of us made it the whole four and a half hours…..Yes, Gregg had to go. He made it through the first band, a warm-up group from Oklahoma that was actually really good. But he thought about it so much he finally had to make his way out. Several people on the way warned him that they would NOT be letting him back in. People by this time were getting very protective of their spots in the crowd. It took him three minutes to get out and about a half hour to get back in. Joy finally had to go grab him and drag him past a dragon lady and her troll friend to get him back up to us!

Finally, a little after 9:00 the lights go down and here they are!!! Jon, Richie Sambora and the rest of the gang! Awesome! They played lots of their old songs, several new ones and basically rocked the house! It was incredible! We were all singing and dancing (well as much as sardines can dance). About halfway through, Kevin felt something pushing him in the elbow and he looked all around and didn’t see anyone touching him. He happened to look down and there was this gal, who was five feet if she was an inch (and about five feet tall too!). She asked to get through. Obviously she couldn’t see a damn thing. So she squeezed by Kevin, I told her I couldn’t move but somehow she displaced me and got by but the gals in front of us said nothin’ doin’ and she was stuck there. Now tell me why, if you’re only five feet tall, would you buy a standing room only ticket? Interesting thought. The concert finished up about 10:30 and we headed to the porta-pots, then back to our cooler and back to Skip’s house for some good rest.

The next morning, Gregg and I are up early to go for a fifteen minute bike ride and a fifteen minute run. I have to digress for a minute. I only have one key for the Yukon ‘cause someone (I won’t mention names but it starts with “K” and ends with “evin”) lost our other one a long time ago. I’ve never made a new one yet. So Gregg is always worried about this and he decides that he will be in control of the remote clicker and I get the key and that way we can at least always get in or whatever. So back to the morning. I have already unlocked the vehicle, got my bike ready, etc. Gregg comes out and says he has the remote (heretofore known as the clicker) in his shorts pocket. Okay. So we hop on our bikes and head out on the bike path for a short little jaunt, and then back to the house to change to running shoes. As we head out on our run, he is feeling around in his shorts (for the clicker I assume) and doesn’t find it. Oh shit, says he. I’ve lost the clicker. So we run along the same path as we biked (not as far of course) and don’t find it. Back to the house, he searches his bag, the house, his shorts again (and again, and again, until I’m wondering what’s really UP!) ha ha. Nothing doing. Doesn’t find it. Back on the bikes to retrace the steps. Still, no clicker. I tell him not to worry about it, and Kevin says “at least he didn’t lose the car or something”. So I shower and then Gregg goes to shower and comes out saying Yee haw, I found the clicker! Guess where it was? In his shorts! Now, how he missed it with all that feeling around, I’m not sure and don’t want to know. Anyway, at the moment, the clicker is in the lab being sanitized!!

Now we’re off to Fort Collins. Kevin has been in touch with a bike shop there that has a great sale on some new bikes and he is looking for my Christmas present. I have been, very gratefully, riding Gregg’s old road bike for all my races and now that I’m certain I love the triathlons, I think it’s time to get my own bike. On Wednesday they tell Kevin that they have six of these bikes left (in my size) and that they will hold one for him. We get there and they haven’t held one and they’ve sold them all (like I said, it was a great sale). However, they have another store in Fort Collins, so they call and they have one left in my size. They hold it for me ‘til I get there. A Trek Madone 5.2SL, 2007 model with the Discovery Channel logo on it – probably means nothing to many but it’s pretty darn cool! I go through a fitting to make sure it’s the right size and all set up for me and take it for a little test drive down the street. Awesome! Light, fast and wonderful. We’ll take it says I. We decide to come pick it up the next day on our way back home. Why not get it then and race it say you? Well, don’t try anything new on race day…enough said.

We make it to our pre-race meeting and packet pick-up. Wandered around and found a couple of items at the expo that we couldn’t live without and then we made our way to my friends house where we were spending the night. First of all we had to stop at the liquor store (surprise, surprise) and then the grocery store to get food for the morning. You know how picky athletes can be about their food…and if you don’t know, just suffice it to say that you haven’t seen anal until you’ve seen an athlete prepare to race! We find Steve and Elizabeth’s house and we are so psyched! It is only about ten minutes from the race start! Go us! We come in to find Steve, cook extraordinaire preparing a delicious smelling feast for us. Two different kinds of chicken salad, a broccoli-slaw, a couscous salad, bread, and blueberry buckle for desert! Yum! We noticed a spa-like quality (as in steam room) to their house and I found out that someone else on earth besides us does not have air conditioning! So we are going to have a picnic outside which may be cooler than inside! They have a great little pond/beach area for their subdivision so we went there and spread out our fare. Had a nice little swim in the pond and enjoyed a great, great meal. Caroline, Steve and Elizabeth’s daughter, drew us a wonderful lions foot in the sand and their son, Charley, caught a great fish. It was perfect, relaxing evening and fun to catch up. Back to the house to get our gear all put together for the race which takes some of us much longer than others. Eventually we get it together and off to bed with a four a.m. wake-up call.

Of course the alarm goes off way too soon for me but I struggle up, make some coffee and toast a bagel. Elizabeth had warned us there was no way she was getting up that early but was kind enough to show us how to use the coffee maker (which involved a tea pot and a filter). It was awesome! Thanks, Liz. Gotta have coffee in the morning. We get all of our crap reloaded into the Yukon and off we go. As we approach the reservoir from the back way, again, go us! for having friends so close to the race start; we can see a long, long line of headlights. But since we’re coming the other way in, we get to the gate and zip right in! Ten minutes from the house to parking. Unload our bikes and gear and off to the transition area. Kevin and Joy had signed up the night before to be volunteers at the race (since Gregg and I were too cheap to buy them lunch tickets!). They find their place and start off with body marking. Now, if you haven’t been to a tri, this is one of the best jobs ever (except the beer tent). You take a black permanent marker and as the athlete comes up to you you tell them to drop their pants and take their shirt off basically. You write their race number on both arms and the back of both legs! There aren’t too many fat chicks at a tri either. I saw Kevin and Joy both grinning quite widely several times! So we get all our stuff laid out, do several walk throughs of the transition area and make sure we know where our bike and stuff is (1650 competitors – that’s a lot of bikes to look through) and then get suited up.

Now, since I am my father’s daughter, there is a little bit of “show” to some of the things I like to do. My idea came from a four-year olds birthday party. When we do our swim of course we need goggles. Well, we found some great goggles…..that look just like Spiderman! So Joy got us two pair and we are now traipsing around the beach in our wetsuits and Spiderman goggles. (see attached photo) Let me tell you, we got some pretty strange looks. Many people were laughing; some, who seemed to have their wetsuits on too tight or something looked a little disgustedly at us. Overall, the effect was lighthearted and fun. No, we didn’t wear them on the swim – didn’t seal up too good.

So it’s time for the race start (finally you say?). there are eleven waves of starters, all with 100+ athletes and all spaced five minutes apart. I am in wave nine so pretty near the end. I line up with all the other 35-39 year old women (all 116 of them) and on the count down I leap in and start swimming. Now, open water swimming involves watching where you are going so you aren’t off on the other end of the lake while everyone else is completing the previously laid-out course. So you have to look up every few strokes, look for the buoys and keep going. Now you’d think it would be easy to see the buoys but with the sun right in your face and your goggles fogged up; sometimes it’s a little difficult. I managed to stay pretty well on course, only got kicked a few times and, not on purpose, dunked one gal’s head under water! No, really, it wasn’t on purpose! Hop out of the water and it’s up over a little grassy knoll (no President around to shoot at, ha ha – get it? Grassy knoll?) anyway. A little kiddie pool is set up to wash the sand off your feet. Step in and run across the asphalt (ouch, ouch, ouch) into the transition area. Find my bike, plop down on my butt, pull socks onto fairly wet feet, slip on bike shoes, helmet and sunglasses and up I go, running my bike out to the mount area. Off I go. Gregg did mention that it is a gradual uphill the first several miles; well, he wasn’t a kiddin’. Why can’t I go any faster? Why can’t I breathe?

About six miles into the race we get to the HILL. A big ass hill! 15% incline for almost a mile. I was in granny gear before I even got to the bottom of it. Many people were walking their bikes; not me, no sirreee, I dug in and even managed to say yee (huff puff, huff puff) haw a couple of times at the spectators. Many people lined the hill, lots dressed in costumes. A big group of devils (which I can only assume that they too have ridden this hill and deemed it hell); all with their little forks, etc. I jokingly tell one to poke me in the butt with his fork so I could get up the hill faster. I pass him, but soon feel a sharp poking…in my butt! He yells gleefully “be careful what you wish for”! Well, I did go faster for a brief time. The next notable moment was the unfair use of a GAS powered motor on a biker next to me. Let’s just say it’s a good thing no one had a lighted match in the vicinity!

Finally get to the top of the hill at which point of course we get to go down. Well, it’s such a nice, gentle descent that there is a mandatory speed limit imposed (and strictly enforced) at 35mph due to the fact that someone had been killed there in a prior race. Well, I’m okay with the speed limit since I’m still not that excited about speeding downhill on two small wheels. The rest of the course passes pretty smoothly with more sightings of devils, roman gods (nice legs, say I to him) and various other spectators who enjoy watching foolish people try to kill themselves with physical activity!

I come flying into the transition area and spy Kevin and Joy a bit in front of me, cameras at the ready. Well, according to them I blend in with the pavement and so, thus far, have only pictures of my butt on the bike after I have already gone by! Park the bike, put on running shoes and race belt with inhaler and off I go for 6.2 miles of 90+ degree, shadeless running. I actually feel pretty good for once on the run. One gal I caught up to I found out was in my age group and thus my competitor. Our ages are marked on our calves so you don’t actually have to talk to someone, just get behind them. I decide that I shall not let her beat me. So I pass her and speed up to see if she has an answering push. Obviously she checked out MY calf and then she sped up and passed me. Okay I say to myself, let’s just keep right behind her, make her set the pace. So I did. She never got too far in front of me and I could see she was faltering. So not far from the end I was able to push myself faster, pass her and thus place one up of her! Oh the excitement of racing! And I wasn’t nearly so close to puking this time!!

Yea, we’re done. Grab some water and fruit and then head to the beer tent. Yes, athletes do have priorities. Why do you think we work out, after all? Free beer for all competitors and volunteers. We get to finish watching the pros race and then back to Steve and Elizabeth’s to shower, pack up and head to Fort Collins. Well, we got directions from Steve how to get there and between the four of us and a (wrongly) written note we ended up heading toward Estes Park instead of Fort Collins. We did get turned around and back to the right place. Lunch at Olive Garden and picked up my new bike. Now we’re heading home. Fairly uneventful trip home. It still takes a long, long time to go from Douglas to Gillette. But we’re back, we’re happy, with to top twenty finishes and THE top finishes for male and female from Wyoming! Look out next year!

Hope you all enjoy the story! I know it’s long but maybe you can get some idea of the fun I had.Wendy

Loveland Lake to Lake Olympic Tri 2007

2008-05-13T20:08:00.000-07:00

Just back-logging on triathlons - this is from 2007 but surely shows the true "dork" athlete I am -
2007
Okay, I'm back and I survived! Actually I more than survived - I fared pretty well and did make (and beat) my goal of finishing in under three hours. Actually my time was 2:52:22 which placed me 8th out of my age group (there were 61 total gals in my age group) and I was 182nd out of a total of 541 finishers!

The drive down of course was long, about five hours. We picked up our race packets and then Gregg gave me a tour of "most" of the bike course. Up hill, up hill and some more up hill, each followed by a nice downhill, however, my fear of excessive speed (over 35mph) on two very skinny wheels accompanied by a wobbly motor (me) made me a little nervous about the big downhills. I did notice that at the bottom of one of the hills there was a liquor store which I quickly made note of, just in case!! :) My partner advised me just to buck up and do NOT brake; I would need the momentum to help me climb the next hill! So we headed to our friends house where we were spending the night, avoiding the last 7 or so miles of the bike course since it was just an easy ride to the finish from there! Supposedly.

We arrived at Gregg's friend's house and they had a wonderful spaghetti and meatball dinner all ready to go which I ate way too much of. Then I had to wash it down with a beer. Just one though. Part of my "training" regime you know! We went through all of our equipment and got our numbers on our bikes and helmets and made sure we had all of our shoes and food and drinks and swimming gear, etc. Etc. By now it's 9:30. The transition area opens at 5:00am and closes at 6:15am so we have to be up by at least 4:30am to get to the race start and get our gear set up. No sooner had I layed down and got my alarm clock set (4:15) than the power went off! Yep, no storm, no nothing. Just blackout. So I get my cell phone out so I have a clock, Todd lent me flashlight and I settled back down, thinking, well, I know I won't sleep 'cause I'll be too worried about not waking up. Another hour passed and the power came back on so I got up and reset the clock and then back to sleep.

Too soon it was time to get up. Packed up all my stuff and grabbed a nice cup of coffee (thank you Todd for getting up early for us) and some granola. Threw everything in and off we went. Arrived about 5:15 to find the closest parking lot already full so we had to park behind the school and get all our gear in one load and walk our bikes over to the transition area. Found a good spot to set up our bikes and all our stuff. All too soon it was time to get in our wetsuits and head down to the water. Now, swimming a mile in the pool is one thing, back and forth, back and forth, 25 yards to each end, no problem, just repetition. Well, you get to a lake with a mile course set up with HUGE red and yellow buoys and it looks like forever! I get sucked into my wetsuit and wobble on over to the waters edge feeling like a big 'ol whale and step in. Hmmm, actually feels a little cool but not bad. Six waves of starters based on age group and sex; all four minutes apart. I'm in the fourth wave - we line up and off we go. Just swim, I tell myself. The difference in open water is that you have to look where you're going. All the time. It's so easy to stray off course and who wants to add several extra yards to your already long swim around the lake? So stroke, stroke, look for a buoy, etc. It actually goes pretty well. I'm not panicked by not being able to see my hand in front of my face. Nobody has kicked me too hard yet or anything. I'm passing people that started in the waves ahead of me. Go me!!

We reach the beach finally (about 25 minutes later) and then you have to get up and run. It's about 100-150 yards up to the transition area. So I'm trying to run, trying to unzip my wetsuit, which, for a while will not come undone, pull of my swim cap and goggles and try to breathe! Into the transition area, find my bike among the other 540 or so, pull of my wetsuit, grab my socks, (who cares if there's still sea weed between my toes, this is a race!) pull on my bike shoes, helmet, sunglasses, gloves, quick puff on my inhaler and run out to the bike mount zone. This whole thing took me one minute and forty-six seconds or so. I hop on my bike and off I go, following the other bikers. They had great traffic control and volunteers and I made it a point to say "thank you" to each and everyone as I passed. The bike portion went well. I got passed, a lot, however, I passed a lot of people as well. Averaged 20mph which I felt was great considering the hills. And on the downhill, I bucked up and FLEW down the hills, all the while thinking of Gregg and Todd telling me to NOT brake. I didn't look at my mph but afterwards my computer said I went 42! Holy crap! I flew by people like they were standing still. Most moved out of my way, I wasn't sure if it was just good timing or because they could hear me saying "holy crap, holy crap, look out I'm out of control!" Either way, it worked pretty good. I tried not to envision how far I would flip, roll and slide if my tire blew out or if I just wrecked. On the second downhill I reluctantly sped past the liquor store, envisioning for one moment vodka in my Gatorade bottle! And just a side note, as I turned the corner to go the last 7 miles or so (remember we didn't drive this part the night before, just an easy ride in I was told) I noticed a HUGE hill in front of me. I said, "self, Gregg did not mention this big-ass hill" or the next roller or the next! Well, they weren't so bad as it turns out and I flew into the transition area with a 1:29 bike ride for 30-miles.

Now came the hard part. Concrete type legs do not run well, so I staggered my bike up to the rack, sat down and shakily untied my bike shoes, put on my running shoes, running hat, grabbed a drink, my race number and a puff of my inhaler and I was off. If you've ever tried it, it feels like you can't quite get your legs to go straight all at the same time. Most people look like they've just got off a big, fat horse and tried to run. Anyway, it sucks for the first mile or so. Then you're in the mode, looking for people in your age group (your age is written on the back of your leg for the race). My run didn't go as well as I wanted. Two girls in my age group passed me and I thought I should try to keep up with them but wasn't feeling that great so I hung back. Turns out they were the top two finishers of my age group! Damn. Oh well, I don't think that I could have hung with them. I ended up having to stop at a little blue house along the road (it was urgent) and was passed by a couple of others (obviously since I ended up 8th). Felt much better after that, and with the help of a kindly resident who soaked me with his hose as I went by (thank you God) I picked up the pace and felt much stronger. As I got near the end though I started to feel rather nauseous and as I crossed the finish line and the lady stopped me to undo my timing chip I was forced to plow through the crowd of volunteers yelling that I was going to puke so MAKE WAY! They all scattered and I made it the side of the trees.....well, I didn't puke, but it was close.

So all in all I had a good day. It was a great experience and I have my "goal" race of the season in three weeks in Boulder. Same distance as this one so I'll know what to expect. Of course, I've learned that every race is different. The same race is different every year, depending on the temperature, the wind, everything. So I'm happy that I can do this and thankful that my body allows me! Sorry this was so long, just wanted you to know how it feels!
Wendy

-------Original Message-------

From: Wendy Lloyd
Date: 6/29/2007 8:03:09 AM
To: Anna Hovde; Becky Gleason; Betsy Willett; Carson; Chris & Matt; John and Gina; Kassie; kgpeabody@bresnan.net; Lynde McCollum; peabody1@bresnan.net; Sandra J Smith; Wendy Brooke
Subject: Next athletic endeavor

Hello all. Just wanted to let you know that I am off to attempt a new athletic endeavor. I'm heading to Loveland, CO today to compete in an Olympic distance triathlon tomorrow morning. For those of you who are "lay" people (or just don't care, ha ha) this is what it will involve. At 6:42am I will be hopping in a lake and swimming .93 miles with about 600 other people kicking me, hitting me and swimming over the top of me. Then I run out (or stagger), hopefully get help getting out of my wetsuit, put on my bike gear and hop onto my bike for a lovely little 30-mile ride. Once my legs are sufficiently dead and feeling like concrete blocks attached to my butt I will fall off my bike, strap on my running shoes and sprint (or crawl) for 6.2 miles. Total elapsed time - a goal of under three hours is what I'm shooting for. Since this is my first attempt at this distance and my first open water swim we'll have to see how it goes. Wish me luck. Hope everyone has a great weekend
Wendy