Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category
But they are only going to get tougher. Since joining Endurance Nation to coach me through my next ironman I have learned what their token term “work works” actually means. This is only the second week of the outseason training and I am already feeling right back in the groove and working harde than I ever did in my training last year.
Last years training was a lot of long and slow and build up longer and slower. The outcome was that I had a great race, finished Ironman CDA with no issues and crossed the finish line with a smile. That was my goal and I accomplished it in just over 14 hours. My goal this year is to shave 2 hours off that time. I believe I can finish an Ironman in 12 hours as long as I become a stronger cyclist. So, I am putting in the work.
Today’s main set on the bike was 3 x 8 minute Z4 with 3 minute recoveries. The first was the hardest, even after a 15 minute warmup with some 1 minute spin ups. Overall, I sweat buckets and feel awesome.
Steve has now been gone 10 days. Last week I was pretty good about getting out and getting my runs in, keeping on track with my training, etc. This week, not so much. I did a lot of teaching over the weekend coupled with some teacher training, I had family visiting for a night and no wonderful partner to keep me on track. I went to the grocery store and loaded up on snacks for my visitors that went untouched so now I have been grazing on them throughout the week. I had a babysitter for M on Monday night at which time I ordered pizza for them to have for dinner, with a lot left over I have been grazing on this as well. I haven’t cooked a decent meal since last week- though we have been eating a lot of fruits. Why is it that I fall so far off track so quickly when my love is gone?
I have been squeezing in some group spin yoga classes to at least maintain some fitness but why is it that I can’t drag myself out for a solo run or ride without knowing my husband is in town or at home waiting for me? A strange phenomenon indeed.
Just one more reason I consider myself very fortunate to have such a wonderful partner in life. He makes me a better eater, better athlete, better person overall!
Looking forward to tomorrow’s return!
Ahhh, Lots of yoga this weekend teaching 5 classes as well as taking 9 hours of teacher training on prenatal yoga plus squeezing in a restorative practice myself last night. What I did not do is run or bike as time did not allow it. I did have a little time out of the studio but didn’t feel like forcing our daughter in to the Bob and running for an hour when I hadn’t seen much of her.
So…… today, at some point, and if I am smart it will be sooner than later when it is hot, I need to get in my 6.5 miles of running to prep for the Denver Half Marathon In October. I have been training for the race with my local Stroller Strides group coached by Erin Johns. It is a great group of women, many of which struggle with the same things, like how do I squeeze in workouts and running without taking valuable time away from my child. However given Steve’s travel schedule the last week and this one I haven’t been able to make any of our trainings.
Time to do some quick work then pull out my five fingers and hit the trail!
Today is one of those days that the training just isn’t going to get squeezed in. I had a meeting all morning, family coming in to town this afternoon and a pretty messy house to address. Oh, I also need to do my work which is what I should be doing now but when reading an article on reading glasses online just now I saw the following headline:
“Experts say urinating in the shower is not so bad from a health and safety standpoint.”
Seriously, how could I not read that. I know they say urine is sterile, if you’re ever stranded and have nothing to drink you can resort to drinking your own pee, etc., etc. Well it seems that Brazil, in efforts to promote water conservation is recommending folks pee in the shower:)
My husband Steve prides himself on the fact that he has never peeed in his wetsuit. We even lent it to someone participating in the Rattlesnake Tri last weekend and I had to do so with the stipulation that it was not to be peeed in. He actually even needed to pee during his Ironman swim this summer and said he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. So my question is, if going green makes it ok to pee in the shower, does that also make it ok to go in your wetsuit??? Chime in please, I’m curious to know what you all think…….
For the record, I have yet to pee in my wetsuit……. but I’ve only worn it a few times:)
The run was great, the sun was shining, people all around me on the course. I didn’t love that it was all on concrete but I was able to find some packed gravel alongside the path in spots to run on. I could probably spend more detail but a run is a run is a run sometimes, and this was nice but nothing terribly remarkable. Plus….. I just found a better topic to write about for today so look at the other posts:)
OK, post swim as I said in my previous post it is a fairly steep little up hill jaunt back to transition. But jaunt I did, I actually ran much to my surprise and I wasn’t dizzy as I have been in the past upon exiting a swim from the open water. My wetsuit was removed by volunteers which was pretty slick and I moved on in to my bike.
Steve had advised me on methodically setting up my transition before hand for quick changing. I had a sock in each shoe and some arm warmers as well as sunglasses in my helmet…. so organized. My skin was cold and wet so it was not easy to tug my arm warmers on but once I did I must say I loved them. Really LOVED them. I never realized something so small could make such a big difference in warmth.
Two stations over there were two women competing together who were in a full body sunscreen lather fest. I think I probably wasted 30 seconds just staring at the wonder of it all. It was early, the race was a sprint, and one could have easily screened before the race started if necessary. Yet these two gals must have dumped an entire bottle of sunscreen on to one another’s legs and arms and were rubbing it in to one another. Strange Indeed! OK, focus, back to the race.
Once my shoes were on I grabbed my bike and actually ran with it to the exit to get started on the bike course. I was actually acting like this was a race. There was a bit of hustle in me which is not necessarily my natural state. I had ridden the bike course just the week before so knew exactly what to expect and I think that helped me going in to this. I probably pushed it a little harder than I might have if I didn’t know what was in store for me.
pedal, pedal, pedal, huff and puff. This is how it went for the first mile or two as I found my cadence and settled in to my rhythm. I have spent most of this summer on the bike playing with shifting… something I have never been good at before so never fully utilized to my advantage.
The bike portion brought me much joy as I felt like I was actually in the race again. I am a fairly slow swimmer so by the time I got on the course it was nice to burst forward on the bike.
I held my own for the most part with the women cyclists only being passed by one or two- keep in mind that is because all of the front runners were long out of the water. About one mile in to the bike the leading men started coming with their disk wheels and tri bikes buzzing by.
Lots of rolling hills and a sunny morning made for a beautiful ride tht morning, even if a bit chilly.
Alas, the ride was over. I pulled around the corner, saw my Love Steve and our daughter cheering me on giving me the energy I needed to have a strong run. I dismounted at the white line and trotted my bike back in to transition, if only I could find my spot…….
So I’ll start my race recap with the swim. Sunday morning was very cold, upper 40’s when we arrived at the reservoir a little before 6am. This was somewhat troubling to me as I had driven out to the res the Thursday before for a final practice swim and the water was freezing even though it was warm outside.
I must say, surprisingly, the water was quite comfortable. It was almost a relief to step in to as the water temp was in the mid-upper 60’s and warm in comparison to the outside air temp. I was wearing a full body, long sleeve wetsuit so I can’t say how it might have felt if I didn’t have the extra layer on but the temp was really nice.
Rattlesnake Triathlon has a strange swim start. You run down a little chute one at a time in reverse age order, women first. I actually liked this at the beginning of the race as there was no mass start, fists flying, legs kicking chaos. It wasn’t great in that you couldn’t stand in the water and wait to begin. The other thing that I found, as did a number of my teammates, was that by the time you rounded the corner of the triangle and were swimming back to shore people started to bottleneck. SO…… just when you might have started to fall in to your rhythm of swim strokes you were suddenly getting kicked or water in the face as you came up for a breath. It was just an interesting experience, I’m not sure if it was good or bad, just different.
All in all the swim portion was fine, slow for me, spending 13:40 to cover the 500m, but a success. I didn’t flip out, I didn’t find myself wishing I hadn’t signed up for the race, I just kept returning to some Total Immersion Focal Points I learned over the winter when training with Brian at FDS coaching in Denver. As Yoda might say, Speedy I was not, but calm I was.
A pretty steep uphill exit from the swim beach back towards transition brought me to the wetsuit stripping area which was great. By then the sun was up, it was feeling a bit more warm, and I eagerly entered transition, slid on my arm warmers and hopped on my bike…..
I’ll break own the bike portion tomorrow.
Alas, I am an official triathlete. After training on and off for the sport for three years and staging and participating in numerous variations of the sport for Steve’s training I have officially completed an organized triathlon race. I LOVED IT!
After having run too many running races to count, the idea of getting up to go and run in a pack for various distances is still attractive at times but not as attractive as the lure of a long run in a gorgeous location outdoors with just my husband or a good friend. That being said, the lure to participate in another organized triathlon is HUGE!
Yes, the prep is cumbersome. Hauling all of your gear, tugging on the wetsuit, ripping off the wetsuit post swim(they do this for you at Rattlesnake), setting up all the transition stuff, etc. It makes one question why do it all, until you’re lined up on the beach surrounded by hundreds of other folks all wearing matching swim caps wondering what the rest of the morning has in store for them. The energy is pretty much unmatched.
It is also great to see the number of well rounded (as far as athleticism or endurance sports go) individuals surrounding you. You can’t really participate at a reasonable level unless you have done some cross training. Swimming, biking and running. That being said YOGA and weight training also help.
The other thing I realized while racing yesterday is the little competitive part of me that seems to appear when running in a race presented itself on the bike as well. I do like to pass people! I’m no speedster by any means but with the various divisions and age groups participating it’s always possible to find someone to pass. Shame on me:)
Total time was 1:30:58. I was properly classified as a newbie on the site but somehow they also have me classified as an Athena athlete- this is not correct.
OK, more specifics on the different legs to come.
Given the race this weekend I decided to take today off from any crazy running or biking activity. Being the spose of an Ironman I almost feel as if a taper isn’t even legitimate for a sprint race, but heck, I took it anyway.
What I did do is take the opportunity to sneak away from our Friday Play Doh Happy Hour with our daughter and go sneak in a yoga class at Qi on Colfax. Dawnelle, owner of Seasons Fit/Qi, was guiding the class and boy was it awesome. Many of the folks present wre racing this weekend in one form or another of the Rattlesnake Tri so we focused on a Yoga for Runners type flow.
Hip openers galore! Just what I needed. Today I actually received an adjustment from Dawnelle in pigeon that sent me deeper in to the posture than I’ve ever been, and I LOVED IT!
Full disclosure, I also teach yoga at Qi. Regardless of that I can honestly say I can’t think of a better class or better flow sequence to have opened me up and prep me for this weekend’s event!
If you’re reading this post and wonder how you can find some sequence in yoga postures similar check out yogadownload.com. Dawnelle actually has a few Yoga for Runners sequences posted, as well as yoga for cyclists. It can’t compare to a studio class but is also good in it’s own right.
This is me finding my bike at Transition 1 during Ironman CDA. My support crew was waiting for me by my bike so I of course stopped to say a quick hello.
Apparently, I was having too much fun at this point in the race. Notice the volunteer who helped me find my bike. He told me I was having entirely too much fun for being in a race. To me, that is what it is all about. Fun, fitness, and healthy challenges.
I may not be fast, but did you notice all the other (and very expensive tri) bikes still in transition as I am pulling out. Makes my think my swim time wasn’t so bad….