Vegan Run Amok

Soma Quarterman Results [G]

2008-10-27T21:26:00.004-06:00

I'm back! Actually, I got home at about 10:00 PM last night but the results weren't available online yet and I was too pooped to post anyway. It took everything I had just to shower and get my PJs on.

Anyway, the short version of my race report is that this race went MUCH better than Elephant Man. I wasn't much faster - in fact, on the swim I was slower - but I kept my breathing under control, had fun on the bike and generally enjoyed myself overall. The few problems I did have were strictly due to (a) lack of speed and endurance, still, but I know I'll get faster and stronger as I continue to train, so that's OK, and (b) slacking off pretty badly on my stretching even though I know better, but this, too, can and will be remedied.

On to results!

My overall time for the Quarterman was 4:17:10.

I placed 49th out of 55 women ages 35-39 and 249th out of 270 women overall. My split rankings within my age group were 53rd in the swim, 42nd in the bike and 50th in the run. My overall rankings were 254th in the swim, 214th in the bike and 251st in the run.

So, it's clear that I need to work most on the swim, followed by the run and finally the bike. I'm going to spend my off-season working on my running, though, because I want to try to run my first half marathon on March 1. :)

Here are my Quarterman splits compared with my Elephant Man splits:

Quarterman Swim - .6 mi, 36:05, 3:25/100 yd
Elephant Man Swim - 1 mi, 50:40, 2:53/100 yd

Quarterman Bike - 27 mi, 1:56:58, 13.8 mph
Elephant Man Bike - 26.5 mi, 2:00:17, 13.2 mph
UPDATE: Reliable sources are now telling me that the Quarterman bike course was long, possibly by as much as 4.5 miles! If I really rode 31.5 miles, my average speed was something more like 16.2 mph which is closer to what it felt like I was doing. I was riding pretty hard on the straightaways even though I had to slow down a lot for the many crazy U-turns and the occasional climb.

Quarterman Run - 6.5 mi, 1:33:06, 14:19/mi
Elephant Man Run - 6 mi, 1:27:54, 14:39/mi

And here are my Quarterman feelings compared with my Elephant man feelings:

Quarterman: happy, happy, ouch, happy, happy, happy, double ouch, happy, happy, uh-oh, well, nevermind, happy, happy, tired but happy, tired but happy, tired but happy, done, happy

Elephant Man: calm, not calm, freaked, freaked and miserable, miserable, miserable, miserable, inconsolable, miserable, miserable, slightly less miserable, miserable, done, relieved but miserable

I'll post my full race report just as soon as I finally get caught up on my blog reading! I've been chipping away but am still behind.

Thanks again for all your positive thoughts and encouragement!

You guys are the best! [G]

2008-10-21T17:42:00.002-06:00

Seriously, you guys, thank you so much for your kind comments and awesome support!

It was all I could do to get that epic race report posted before becoming overwhelmed with work deadlines, meetings, appointments and an unplanned, sick foster cat (now OK and back with her family, don't worry). I'm SO sorry I haven't responded to your individual comments yet and also that I'm so far behind in reading all your blogs. According to Google Reader, I have 87 unread posts plus another 23 starred posts that I opened but didn't really read. Eek!

I'm going to try to get caught up on all of that, though, starting just as soon as I finish posting here.

As for the Soma Quarterman, my sister, who's always up for a road trip, has agreed to drive up with me - hooray! We're going to head out Friday after work, spend the night somewhere en route and try to be in Tempe by 11:00 AM Saturday morning so that I'll have plenty of time to do a practice swim and scope out the bike course if it's allowed.

I rented a De Soto wetsuit as they use a two-piece design which looked easier to get in and out of than a one-piece design. I took it for a test swim on Sunday (the other reason I got a De Soto is that they're chlorine treated so you can use them in a pool) to see what swimming in a wetsuit feels like. I had to experiment a bit to find a new catch position that didn't make my biceps hurt (that was weird) and it seems like it takes a little more work to rotate fully with the wetsuit on for some reason, but otherwise - WOW! - huge improvement.

With the wetsuit on, my hips and heels float right at the surface of the water and my fastest 100 yd time, which in a swimsuit is still around 2:23, is around 2:04. Not that I could maintain that in open water for the full .6 mile swim at Quarterman, but still.

Yay!

Also, for the past several weeks I've been practicing swimming with my eyes closed to try to break my mental dependency on the lane stripe since, apparently, they don't paint lane stripes on lake bottoms.

And, I've been trying to pick up the pace on all my runs as I think I tend too hold back more than I should out of fear of not being able to finish otherwise. Last week I ran 6.5 miles at an 11:32 minute pace which for me is really good considering that I would usually run that distance at a 12:00 to 12:04 minute pace.

I haven't biked as much as I'd hoped to post-Elephant Man due to multiple rained-out weekend rides and the fact that it's now dark before 7:00 PM.

But, whatever. The Quarterman is just for fun. :)

Elephant Man Race Report: Part III [G]

2008-10-08T20:56:00.009-06:00

BIKE: 26.5 MILES

I mounted my bike, clipped in and rode across a short bit of flat parking lot before turning to start up the big hill out of transition. Somehow as I turned I found myself sandwiched between two guys on mountain bikes. Where did they come from? I'd been all alone in transition so they must have been in the Porta-Potties or something as I was sitting on the carpet scraps trying to get my breathing, and my head, together. One pulled ahead of me and one dropped behind me and we remained in that order as we proceeded up the hill. I dropped into a low gear and spun my way up to warm my legs up, then geared up and passed the guy in front of me as soon as we turned onto the main road.

The first few miles after the initial big hill were pretty flat and went by fast. Then the hills started again but I still felt I was doing well until sometime around, maybe, mile 6 or 7. At this point I came up behind another guy, a Clydesdale, I think, on a mountain bike. We would go about the same speed on the downhills but on every uphill I would have to slow down because under the no drafting rules you have to either stay a minimum of 3 bike lengths behind the bike in front of you OR pass the bike in front of you within 15 seconds. I didn't think I could pass him within 15 seconds so had to hang back instead.

It wasn't until after the race that I realized that I was, I believe, not thinking correctly about passing. I was thinking that I had to get from 3 bike lengths behind him to 3 bike lengths in front of him within 15 seconds, which I didn't think I could do. In fact, though, I believe my pass would have been considered complete when I got to the point where my front wheel just edged past his front wheel, at which point he would be required under the rules to drop back himself to 3 bike lengths behind me.

In any event, I lost a lot of time being stuck behind him on every uphill, more time I'm sure than if I'd gotten even several penalties under the no draft rules (not that there were even any refs around this far back in the pack, but still) which could have been avoided anyway by just dropping back out of the draft zone at 14 seconds had a pass turned out to be incompletable.

LESSON 5: If somebody's slowing you down, always at least TRY to pass!

I tried to take advantage of being forced to slow on the uphills to front-load my nutrition a bit in the interest of being able to take full advantage of the flat and downhill speedy section in the last third of the course. Still, it was unbelievably frustrating, plus I was already pretty emotionally frayed from the whole swim disaster and being literally the last person out of the water.

Also, I had decided before the race that it would be a good idea to not track my time during the event, that rather it would be better to just try to make sure I was doing the best I could at any given moment and let the time take care of itself. So, I did not make a note of what time my swim wave started and because the start of all the waves had been delayed did not even really have a reliable estimate.

And this turned out to be a problem because the swim felt so long and horrible that I was sure I'd been in the water for over an hour, an impression which was reinforced when at the beginning of the bike leg I looked at my watch to begin timing my food and hydration intake and it was fifteen minutes later than I thought it should have been even taking into account the morning's delays.

This threw me into a state of despair because although I knew that in theory there was a possibility that if something really bad happened I could be out there for five hours, I really thought my training should get me in in about four. And yet, here I was now, apparently at least fifteen minutes behind schedule and totally exhausted already and probably doomed to a five hour finish time after all.

And so it was that at the Mile 10 aid station I dismounted, locked myself in the Porta-Potty and sobbed for several minutes while the sheriff's deputy outside, who I'm sure could hear me, politely pretended that he couldn't.

LESSON 6: Lack of information leads to catastrophizing. Track your time.

At this point I remembered what The Little One's coach told her. Don't give up on yourself! I repeated that to myself many times and was finally able to emerge, remount my bike and get moving again.

Right after the aid station was a steep hill with hairpin turn that the race director had warned us about. I'd been nervous about it but navigated it without any trouble. I got stuck behind mountain bike guy again as the course continued to go up and down and up and down. I was starting to have trouble breathing again, though, and eventually wasn't stuck behind him anymore so much as I was struggling to keep up.

And then we came to the big hills.

There are three big hills that you have to climb to get up out of this little canyon and up to the access road where you then cross the interstate and cruise back into town. I knew they were going to be steep which I why I'd been riding steep hills every Wednesday for the past several months. I did not, however, realize that the first one was going to be almost vertical, which I might have known had I taken the time to at least drive the course the day before. I didn't even try to ride it as I was already wheezing again, plus I just wasn't psychologically prepared. Instead, I got off and walked my bike then stood gasping for air at the top, thinking all the while how pathetic my entire performance was turning out to be.

Only two things really kept me from giving up at this point.

First, it had been a long time since I'd seen any kind of vehicle going any direction and I couldn't stand the thought of just sitting there by the side of the road until one of the two guys who were presumably still behind me could get to the Mile 20 aid station and send somebody to retrieve me - especially as the race director had warned us that with the recent rains, the rattlesnakes were out in force. Eek!

And, second, I kept thinking about what I'd told our club president the day before - that, you know, I'm a stubborn person and that that it would take something pretty catastrophic for me not to finish the race at all. I knew that while a broken limb or mangled wheel could certainly be sold as catastrophic, feeling exhausted and wheezy and emotionally fragile and being on course to come in very nearly last almost certainly could not be.

And so, I got back on the bike and wheezed my way up the last two hills and up to the access road. Finally I crossed the interstate and turned onto the access road on the other side. It was such a relief to be finally be done with the hills that I suddenly got a second wind. I got down in my drops, passed mountain bike guy, finally, and hammered all the way back to transition. As I descended into town, volunteers waved and cheered from every corner. I couldn't believe they were even still out there, but it was great. That last third of the bike course was the only part of the event I really felt good about although in the end it wasn't enough to save my average speed on the bike. Still, it felt good.

By the end of the bike I was feeling the perkiest I'd felt all day. I rode carefully down the steep hill toward the dismount line where I encountered our club president who had already finished the race. He said encouraging things while I tried not to freak out over the fact that people were already finished - some had apparently already showered, even - whereas I still had at least an hour and 12 minutes of running yet to do. Oh. My. God.

I dismounted, jogged into transition, racked my bike, went through my T2 checklist and jogged out of transition. Oops! Wrong gate. A volunteer intercepted and redirected me and I jogged out of transition again, this time through the correct gate.

RUN: 6 MILES

Running through the parking lot felt surprisingly good. Maybe I can do this! I thought, in a brief flash of optimism. Then I hit what was supposed to be a little under a mile of packed sand beach trail with a big hill of loose deep sand at the end. My plan for that first stretch was: run 6 1/2 minutes, walk 30 seconds, run to big sandy hill, walk big sandy hill, run to Mile 1 aid station.

This plan fell apart as it turned out that the beach trail was not packed but rather mostly plowed up. There was loose, deep sand everywhere. So, I ended up walking up much of the first mile and any perkiness I'd had at the end of the bike leg totally evaporated. I hiked up the big sandy hill to the road, then ran down the hill to the Mile 1 aid station where Pirate and GeekGirl piled on encouragement and sent me trotting out across the first dam in the direction of Mile 2.

I tried to get back into my planned run strategy (walk 1 minute through aid station, run 5 1/2 minutes, walk 30 seconds, run to aid station) but this quickly fell apart once again. There were lots of big hills, plus I was passed in the first part of the second mile by hoards of people running the other direction, down to Mile 1. They were all super nice and shouted lots of encouragement but because by now I was total emotional toast, I would gasp out a thanks, then start to cry. I just wanted it to be over.

A guy on his way down did tell me that the Mile 2 aid station was just at the other end of the second dam, which was encouraging. I kept up my new run/cry/gasp for air/walk routine for awhile. It seemed like it took forever to get to Mile 2. I realized shortly thereafter, when it took no time at all to get to Mile 3, that it was quite a bit more than a mile from Mile 1 to Mile 2 and quite a bit less than a mile from Mile 2 to Mile 3 but since I wasn't yet aware of that, it was demoralizing to go and go and still no Mile 2 aid station in sight.

And so, somewhere on the second dam I gave up on running altogether and started just walking. Be in the moment, be in the moment, be in the moment, I told myself. I made myself notice the lake, and the desert and the sky. I noted the temperature - cool, slightly breezy, nothing like the baking temperatures I'd trained for just in case. It was a gorgeous day. I couldn't deal with the thought of a Shot Blok, but I had a piece of grape Laffy Taffy and it was the Best. Thing. Ever. I started to cheer up a little and then finally, there was the Mile 2 aid station.

The volunteers there were fantastic as were all the volunteers at this event. They didn't care that I was still on track to come in almost last. They thought it was great that I was out there at all. They told me I just had a little uphill before the big downhill and big uphill leading to turnaround at Mile 3. I walked the uphills and ran the downhill. On the downhill I felt like I was getting my legs back a little, finally.

The return trip from Mile 3 to Mile 1 (now Mile 5) went by fast. I ran the downhills, walked the uphills and sort of ran/walked (in very short intervals) the few flat bits. Pirate and Geek Girl were waiting to cheer me on again at Mile 5. I ran/walked up the last paved hill then mostly walked the beach path to the finish line although I did manage to run across the line at the end. As on the bike course, there were still volunteers out on the run course to cheer on even those of us way at the back of the pack.

POST-RACE AND RESULTS

My clock time was 4:45:something but this didn't include an adjustment for the wave start. I drank some Gatorade and water and chatted with the race director's dad, then went in search of fruit while waiting for my adjusted time to post. I ran into some other people from my club, who had all done very well. I'd seen a few of them coming off the run trail just as I was heading up and many had finished even before - some way before - that.

Eventually my official time became available:

4:27:11

Ack. Not 5:00:00, but still, 22 minutes off my realistic, or so I thought, semi-secret goal time of 4:05.

If 10 or 15 of that 22 was spent struggling in the water, though, I figured, and if I lost as much time on the run as I thought I did, I must have done OK on the bike even with the two mini-meltdowns in order to have come in anywhere under 4:30.

That made me feel a little better. I gathered my stuff out of transition and piled it at the side of the parking lot, then began hiking up the hill toward my campsite to retrieve my car. A volunteer and his son, who looked to be about 9, pulled up beside me in a golf cart and offered me a ride.

Great! I hopped in and the volunteer asked me how I did. I told him I had really struggled and wasn't very happy with my time but that my main goal had been to finish and that I'd done that in spite of being tempted to quit more than once so was happy about that, at least. He described a solo quadrathlon he did where it was all he could do to finish as well and we agreed that the main thing was that we both got out there and tried and how many people don't even try, right? Right.

His son then told me that he had done the whole 6 mile run that morning and that it had been really hard, with all that sand and all those hills. I told him how impressed I was - especially since when I was his age I could probably barely run around the block and here he was out running a very tough course with some very serious adult athletes!

They dropped me at my campsite and I collected my car and drove down to transition. As I was loading up, a volunteer who had cheered me on coming and going at one of the sandiest part of beach trail came up to me. "Oh, honey, you're still here?!" I explained that I'd camped, so had to go retrieve my car after the race and had just gotten back.

It turned out that she was from out of town and was visiting her sister who had been the event staff person in charge of the run. I got the impression that she had never seen a triathlon before today and she had all kinds of questions about it. I told her about super sprints and sprints and relay options and about beginnertriathlete.com. Her sister came by at that point and I told her how fantastic all the volunteers had been and much I appreciated the great support, especially as a back-of-the-packer. "Beginnertriathlete.com," the first sister kept saying, afraid, apparently, that she might forget. I'm laughing now to think that even in my post-race misery I have may have helped recruit a new person into the triathlon community, ha!

I finished loading up the car, drove home and immediately logged on to see if my splits had been posted yet. I was shocked to see that my swim and bike times were not what I'd expected at all.

Swim
50:40
Huh. Totally within my predicted range of 50:00 to 54:00. But it felt so long!!

TI
5:04
Not as bad as I was expecting considering that I had to sit down.

Bike
2:00:17
What the hell? My predicted time had been 1:36. I knew I'd lost time being stuck behind mountain bike guy, crying in the Porta-Potty and walking up the vertical hill, but I really thought I'd made it up on the back third. This was the most upsetting split to me because the bike was supposed to be my best leg. I would have been happier to have seen a longer swim time.

T2
3:17
Not bad, my goal was to not exceed 3:00 and I knew I'd lost some time going out the wrong gate and having to backtrack.

Run
1:27:54
Pretty upsetting, but given how much walking I did I kind of expected something around 1:30, so not that surprising.

Once I saw the splits and realized that my swim time had actually been within my predicted range, I got pretty upset with myself again, this time for having come apart at the seams emotionally and also for not having tried to push a little harder on the run.

In retrospect, though, I can see that besides the mistakes described above, my performance was limited by the simple facts that (1) I had taken on a race that I knew was over my head because I knew I wouldn't train as hard if I weren't training for something I was scared of and (2) I was putting all three events together for the first time ever on race day (at least for this length race) so it's no wonder I struggled with the volume.

LESSON 7: When training for future races, try to do more two-a-days and more bricks to better prepare for the extra work volume you'll have on race day.

LESSON 8: Expect first anythings to be extra difficult and try harder in the future to remember that this is supposed to be FUN!

And that's my report. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading! My Soma Quarterman report will be, I hope, heavier on the fun and lighter on the drama! :)

Elephant Man Race Report: Part II [G]

2008-10-07T18:56:00.010-06:00

I slept well in spite of having to get up twice during the night to pee, the result of having drunk a gallon of water over the course of the day as part of my hydration plan.

Luckily, I had had the foresight to reserve a campsite right across the road from the restrooms. The temperature was mild and there was no moon and hardly any artificial light, either, so I could see about a gazillion stars. The lizards that were everywhere under foot when I'd first arrived that afternoon were in their burrows now. I heard coyotes howling in the distance the first time I got up but the second time there was only the sound of a light breeze and a few night insects.

My alarm went off at 4:30 AM and I got up and began working my way through my checklist. Everything went smoothly and by 6:30 AM I was walking my bike and my transition bag the .8 miles down to bike racking while the sky over the lake grew pink with the sunrise.

This was a very well-supported race and the race start was teeming with friendly volunteers. At the entrance to transition, one volunteer checked my helmet for a Consumer Product Safety Committee sticker (CPSC) sticker while three other volunteers prepared to body mark me and timing chip me but then decided it would be easier if I racked my bike, set down my transition bag and came back to them after getting rid of a few layers of clothing.

Bike racks were not assigned at this race so I racked my bike just down the row from the friendliest looking person I could find, a tall, calm-looking woman who seemed to be about my age. Then I went to get body marked and chipped and finally came back and began setting up my transition area.

Up to this point I had been feeling very calm and centered, probably because I was so organized, but as I began setting up, I suddenly started to shake. I managed to lay out my towel, then my T1 and T2 instructions, then all my T1 and T2 stuff, and to snap my race number onto my race belt, but by the time it was time to attach my bike number to the top tube of my bike, my hands were quaking so badly I could barely hold a twist-tie let alone thread it through the little holes in the card.

And it was at this point that the tall, calm-looking woman I'd racked my bike near because she looked so friendly complimented me on the color of my bike. I didn't snap directly out of my panic, but we started chatting and the more we talked the calmer I began to feel.

It turned out she was from Albuquerque, so I told her my story about how I improbably reconnected with my childhood friend Pirate through GeekGirl's blog and the Outlaws' website. She of course knows Pirate and GeekGirl, is an Outlaw herself and turned out to be... Cindy.

Cindy!!!

That was amazing because not only have I read her blog BUT also I had recently looked at the results from last year's race and determined that if I had a really good race that I might - might! - be able to approximate her time from last year. I told her this and immediately started to worry that she would think I was stalking her but she claims, at least, that she thought no such thing. Anyway, I told her that I post as Vegan Run Amok and she said, oh!, that she has read my blog, too, so it was another nice little triathlon small world moment. :)

By the way, you can see pictures of Cindy and of me (number 206) pre-swim on her blog here as well as pictures of her friends Holly and Kathy whom I also met and who were also very nice. (Thanks again for the pics, Cindy!) You will notice that I am not wearing a wetsuit. At this point I thought I was being clever by not wearing a wetsuit because (a) unlike everyone around me, I had not had to struggle into one and (b) also unlike everyone around me, I was not going to have to struggle out of one.

Of course, this turned out to be not so clever after all.

LESSON 2: Always wear a wetsuit in a wetsuit-legal race.

Anyway, as we chatted, I gradually stopped shaking and eventually was able to get my bike number affixed and get my sunscreen on. The pre-race meeting and race start ended up being delayed by about 10 minutes, maybe a little more, due to some equipment problems. Before the pre-race meeting I chatted briefly with GeekGirl's husband, S. Baboo, who was racing rather than reffing today - and in running shoes from the Walmart in Truth Or Consequences, no less, as he'd forgotten to pack his own. Of course, he did awesome, even in Walmart shoes.

After the meeting I walked down the water with Cindy. We were going to be in the last wave. She went down and got in the water briefly while I chatted with some people from my club who were scheduled for earlier waves. Then she came back up and I waited with her and Kathy as the first wave took off, then the second, then the third and finally it was time for us to get in the water to wait for our start.

SWIM: 1 MILE

I waded out into chest deep water with the rest of the people in my wave and waited for the horn. BBBRRRAAAHHH! Off we went!

My plan was to alternate 6 sidestroke strokes with 14 freestyle strokes, to do my sighting on the sidestroke strokes and above all to not go out too fast, to swim calmly and deliberately and to remain relaxed and streamlined at all times.

In fact what happened was that I took three sidestroke strokes and suddenly felt the little toe of my right foot starting to cramp up. What the hell? I never get cramps when I swim. Never. OK, actually, once during that crazy swim conditioning class I took over the summer I got a cramp in the arch of my right foot but my instructor told me it was probably because I was dehydrated. I drank a bunch of water, massaged it out and it never happened again.

So, here I was, about to swim out into deep open water for the first time ever and my foot was starting to cramp. To my credit, I didn't totally panic at this point but I was worried. I finished my 6 sidestroke strokes and started my 14 freestyle strokes but only got through four before I realized that the wheezing I'd experienced at my first triathlon back in June and which I'd attributed to going out too fast was coming on already, just a few strokes in. I had thought I maybe had exercise induced asthma, but this, wheezing from the outset, made no sense.

In retrospect, having read a little more about asthma now, I realize that if I do have it that it could have been brought on this time by anxiety, or possibly also by the temperature of the water. The pool I train in is kept at 86 degrees whereas the water temperature on this day and also at my first triathlon was around 75 degrees. Of course, it could also be that I don't have asthma at all, that rather I was merely hyperventilating - violently.

LESSON 3: Dude, get a diagnosis already.

Whatever the reason, I could barely breathe, and putting my face under the water, where I couldn't see anything but a halo of greenish water, only made it worse. And so, I ended up doing sidestroke for the whole mile, wheezing the whole time.

At some point the cramp in my toe went away. Also, by the time I reached the first buoy, I was unambiguously the last person in my wave, and since my wave was the last wave, I was also the last person in the water. As a consequence of which, and probably also because the spotters were afraid I might actually drown the way I was flailing about (I kept smiling and giving them the thumbs up, in fact, because I was afraid they might decide to pull me out of the water otherwise), I got a personal kayak escort for the rest of the swim.

Now, had I not had the escort, I think I might in fact have panicked, especially when I got to the back of the triangular course and realized just how far from shore I was. As it was, though, I mostly just felt rushed. This was not because of anything my escort said or did. Really, he was a paragon of patience. Rather, it was coming from inside my head. You're last! You're very last! And you still have the whole bike to do! And the run! You're gonna be out here forever! And all these people are waiting for you so they can get off the water! Hurry up! Hurry up!

LESSON 4: Practice being in the moment. Practice it more. Practice it even more.

The result was that I still could not relax, which meant that I couldn't get streamlined in the water, which made me have to work even harder just to move forward, which exacerbated my breathing problems, which further inhibited my ability to relax. And here is where I really started to regret my stubborn anti-wetsuit position, because a wetsuit would have made me more buoyant and I probably wouldn't have paid such a heavy penalty in terms of energy expenditure for my form having totally fallen apart.

In the end, the only sense in which the swim was not a total catastrophe was that: (1) I did not drown; (2) I did not stop to hang on the kayak to rest at any point even though doing so would have been allowed under the rules (as long as I made no forward progress while resting); and (3) I finished.

After what seemed like an interminable time in the water, I finally got close enough to shore that I could stand and touch the bottom. I slogged out of the water, ran up the hill though the foot rinsing station and further up into the transition area. By now I was having so much trouble breathing that a volunteer asked if I needed medical attention. No, no, I'm OK, I croaked. He looked skeptical but left me alone.

I tried to begin working through my T1 checklist but still felt like I wasn't getting any oxygen, so I sat down cross-legged on the carpet between the bike racks and did yoga breathing until finally the wheezing abated. I knew I'd expended a huge amount of energy on the swim and was sorely tempted to throw in the towel at this point in order to avoid further humiliation, but I managed to talk myself out of it: you trained 16 weeks, DFL > DNF, the bike is your strong leg, just do the bike, you can decide about the run later, what will you tell your blogger friends if you quit now, what will you tell your fellow club members... OK. OK, here we go.

I stood up, went through my T1 checklist, unracked my bike, jogged out of transition and managed, I think, at least a weak smile at the volunteers at the mount line.

Elephant Man Race Report: Part I [G]

2008-10-01T21:43:00.007-06:00

I woke up nice and early Saturday morning because I wanted to be sure to have time to eat a good breakfast, do any last minute packing and non-postponable work email, take a shower, load the car and hit the road no later than 11:30 without feeling rushed.

Everything went smoothly and - woohoo! - when I removed the bandaid from my elbow before hopping in the shower, that last big scab, which I was still afraid might interfere with my swim, fell off! Thank you, healing powers of the body! Thank you, universe! The huge collection of waterproof bandages in all different brands and sizes in my transition bag was now just taking up space.

I loaded up the car, hit the road and had an uneventful drive which could have turned eventful, maybe, had I said, as I wanted to, to the guy at the Border Patrol checkpoint who asked me how far I was going today that it was none of his business how far I was going today, that I'm a U.S. citizen and last I checked we still have freedom of movement in this country, do we not?

In the interest of making it to my destination on time, however, and also because I'm probably just too much of a non-troublemaker personality to actually mouth off to authority no matter how tempted I sometimes feel, I told him I was going to Elephant Butte, and when he asked why I told him I was competing in a triathlon, and when he said what's under the towels in the back I told him it was my bike and that the towels were to keep the chain lube from getting all over my camping stuff and then he waved me on and that was that.

My goal was to get to Elephant Butte by 2:00 PM to help at our tri club's info table at packet pickup. I pulled into the parking lot at 1:55 PM, just behind our club president. We set everything up and hung out there for awhile but things were very slow so at about 3:30 PM we decided to just leave some membership forms on a clipboard for anyone who might be interested and go do whatever we needed to do to be ready for the next day.

He said he thought we'd probably get some new member sign-ups in the morning after the race and that he would be there to man the table as soon as he finished the course. I said I wouldn't be much help in the morning because I had calculated that 3:48 would be a fairly miraculous time for me and that 4:05 would be, probably, a realistic time. He said he didn't think I'd be out there for four hours, but I assured him that, no, seriously, I'm really slow.

"The two things I do have going for me, though," I added, "are that I'm really organized and also that I'm pretty stubborn. I mean, it would take something pretty catastrophic for me to not finish at all."

I realized as I said it that I had really committed myself now. Shit. But the words were already out of my mouth, no taking them back.

As we were closing up shop at our table, a couple of club members came by and announced that they were going to go for a swim to test out the water. I found out later that other members were driving and some were even biking the bike course to familiarize themselves with it.

I, in contrast, was focused on conserving every ounce of energy I could because I had no confidence at all that although I had the distance plus some that I needed for each leg of the race, that I could actually stack them one on top of the other and not die. And so, in the interest of conserving energy, I drove to my campsite to take a nap. In retrospect, this was a mistake because the lack of even a few minutes of real open water swim practice and unfamiliarity with the bike course set me up for problems.

LESSON 1: Always do a pre-swim if it's allowed AND always drive or ride the bike course if possible, too.

Up at my campsite I met some of my neighbors including a group of folks who were up there to do some powered paragliding which I hadn't heard of before. They were really nice and one of them was traveling with his two beagles, Otis and Snoopy, who came snuffling over to visit a few times during my stay. :)

I took my nap, ate dinner, then headed down to the lakeside for race orientation and finally up to Elephant Butte Inn for the official pre-race dinner where I thought I'd have a little salad or something just to be social. As I was getting out of my car someone called my name. I looked up and saw my friend Pirate, who had just arrived from Albuquerque with her two girls as they were all scheduled to work the Outlaws' aid station at mile 1 of the run the next day.

I got some salad and sat with Pirate, her girls and GeekGirl (yes, she of the Athena Diaries!) who was also there to work the aid station as she unfortunately wasn't going to be able to race due to an injury. :(

I also met Sarah, Gail, and Bill and Kathy, all hailing from various parts of New Mexico, and of course they were all super-nice and encouraging as so many triathletes are. Kathy couldn't race because she'd just had hip surgery - she was really sad not to be able to participate, too :( - but Sarah, Gail and Bill raced and they all did great!

After dinner I finally found the folks from my club hanging out near the pool. We all said good night and they headed to their hotel rooms and I headed up to my campsite and was asleep by 9:00 PM.

Soma Quarterman [G]

2008-09-30T19:18:00.005-06:00

I just hit Register.

It's on.

I guess for training, the logical thing is to just repeat the last four weeks of the 16-week plan I used to prepare for Elephant Man.

Only this time, I hope, without the jury duty four weeks out, the veterinary emergency three weeks out* and the bike crash exactly two weeks prior to race day!

*Not one of ours. Our neighbor's cat apparently jumped out of a tree in an attempt to grab a hummingbird at the feeder and impaled himself on a garden stake on the way down. Eek!!! His people were working out of town but in an insanely lucky turn a landscaper who wasn't even supposed to be there that day saw the dogs trying to free him from the stake and brought him to me and I rushed him to my vet where he had surgery to repair the hole in his chest. He's fine now, though I hate to think how many lives he burned through in a single day, there. Geez Louise.

First Olympic Distance Tri Done [G]

2008-09-29T19:33:00.007-06:00

I'm still too emotionally raw to post a full race report but know I need to post something so you, loyal readers, won't be worried.

The short version is, I finished, which was my main goal, and I finished even though it was a very rough day emotionally (example: I spent several minutes of the bike leg sobbing in the Porta-Potty at mile 10) and even though I thought very seriously about quitting twice, once after my catastrophic swim as I sat all alone on the ground at T1 in full hyperventilation mode and once as I stood wheezing after walking my bike up a nearly vertical climb somewhere around mile 13.

I felt a little better when I saw my final time and then worse again once I got home and saw my splits (which were not yet posted by the time I left for home) and realized that my mental account of the race - that I had lost a lot of time on the swim but made it up on the bike which left me with nothing for the run - was totally inaccurate and that what had actually happened was that I had finished the swim in a few minutes less than I had thought it would take me but so exhausted and emotionally frayed that I was never really able to recover, even on the bike which was supposed to be my strong leg.

Anyway, after a good night's sleep I'm holding it together better today than I was yesterday and by tomorrow should, I hope, be able to post something semi-rational.

Thanks for all your support. I seriously think I would have not been able to finish had I not known you guys were rooting for me.

And... last ride done before Elephant Man [G]

2008-09-24T19:50:00.003-06:00

Bike-Club Ride/Solo Ride Combo

So, the plan was to do 10 to 12 super easy miles on the bike. I ended up doing a little more than that, closer to 18, because my Wednesday night riding buddies were doing a 25 mile easy to moderate pace flat course ride and I decided to ride out about 8 miles with them for company, then turn around and come back on my own, but it was too windy to go back the way we'd come so I did a loop instead which gave me some shelter but added a couple of miles.

Oh, well, no biggie, especially since on the way back I just geared way down and spun and I think that helped loosen up my muscles and joints finally because I no longer feel as stiff as I've been feeling.

And that's it, training is over! A friend of ours is coming into town tomorrow so we'll be doing stuff with him tomorrow night and Friday night and then late Saturday morning I drive to Elephant Butte, help with our club's information table during packet pickup and, later, set up camp, and then the race is Sunday!

I'm more or less ready to go but I still need to: finalize my lists, especially my list of things I need to do Saturday morning that can't be done in advance, and make sure everything I need is packed or on the list of things to pack right before I go; hit the grocery store one more time for wet wipes, Pop Tarts (the unfrosted ones are vegan) and grape Laffy Taffy; and do all the laundry and ironing I've been putting off for the last, oh, week and a half.

I tested mandarin orange slices on the bike tonight and that's doable, so here's my fuel and hydration plan:

DAY BEFORE RACE

Drink 1 gallon of water over course of day
Healthful breakfast, lunch and travel snacks

PRE-RACE DINNER (5:00 PM SATURDAY OR A LITTLE EARLIER)

1 Dr. McDougall's Right Foods Vegan Curry With Brown & Wild Rice Pilaf
2/3 cup peas
1 apple
Water

RACE DAY BREAKFAST (5:00 AM SUNDAY OR A LITTLE EARLIER)

1 cup raisin bran with 1/2 cup dried blueberries and 1 cup plain Silk
16 oz coffee
Water

HOUR BEFORE SWIM (7:00 AM SUNDAY)

5 small whole grain crackers
6 oz orange juice

15 MINUTES BEFORE SWIM

4 oz Ultima Replenisher

T1

4 oz Ultima Replenisher on arrival
4 oz Ultima Replenisher right before I take off on the bike

BIKE

1 cup mandarin orange slices (drained)
1 unfrosted strawberry Pop Tart (cut into little squares)
Minimum 36 oz Ultima Replenisher (3-4 swallows every 10 minutes, will carry 48 oz in Camelbak just in case I end up being out there for longer than 1:36*)

*My estimate of how long the bike will take but if it's really windy or if the hills are worse than I'm anticipating I could end up being out there longer.

T2

4 oz Ultima Replenisher on arrival
4 oz Ultima Replenisher right before I take off on the run

RUN

6 strawberry Shot Bloks (or mix of Shot Bloks and thirty calorie pieces of Laffy Taffy if I get sick of the Shot Bloks)
Water (from aid stations, 3-4 swallows every mile)

This has all been tested although obviously not, to date, all put together on a single day.

The strategy, though, as you can see is to do more or less whole foods for as long I think I can get away with, then transition to refined foods and eventually, by the run, to pretty much straight sugar.

And I know that looks like a lot of fluids, but I've done the before and after weighing thing and think the above is about right to keep me from getting dehydrated. Of course, if my stomach starts to get sloshy, I'll stop with the liquids until it stops.

Last hill run before Elephant Man! [G]

2008-09-24T14:28:00.005-06:00

Monday I was feeling fatigued for some reason - stress, presumably - so slept in in the AM until I absolutely had to get up for work then napped after work and didn't run, thinking I would run yesterday - Tuesday - instead.

Then things at work blew up yesterday and I wasn't able to run yesterday, either.

So today, I made running my Number One Priority because if I were to do a 39-minute hill run anytime after today I wouldn't be sufficiently recovered by Sunday.

Run-39

3 x (walk 1:00 min, run 5:30 min, walk 0:30 min, run 5:00 min)
1 x (walk 1:00 min, run 2:00 min)

I still felt kind of stiff but there was no discomfort in my hip today at all which was a welcome improvement.

Tonight I'm going to do a super easy 10 to 12 miles on the bike and then I think that's it!

I had wanted to get in a short swim before the event, too, but the problem is that I have a scab on my elbow which still today won't quite allow me to raise my elbow into the position I need to be able to raise it into in order to lift my arm out of the water between strokes (or to make a ponytail, for that matter, which I also need to be able to do on race day).

The good news, though, is that the scab has finally started to itch - as opposed to just hurting - and I can see some healthy skin starting to peek through here and there and little bits of scab are starting to flake off here and there, too.

Yesterday, therefore, I bought a jar of cocoa butter and have been melting that down and applying it in an attempt to at least soften up the scab to the point where I have full range of motion by Sunday and it seems to be helping.

So, I think I'm just going to concentrate on that as well as on making sure that I haven't missed anything logistics-wise and not worry about getting in the swim.

Test Ride [G]

2008-09-21T09:52:00.002-06:00

Bike-Solo Ride

Done!

I did 19 miles on rollers in about 75 minutes for an average speed of 15.2 mph. It took me nearly half an hour to get warmed up and to get over feeling nervous and wobbly on the bike, so I took it easy on the way out - it took me 45 minutes to get to the turnaround point - then hauled ass on the way back. It helped that guy on a tri bike passed me just after the turnaround. I chased him more or less successfully for about 8 miles before he turned to go up the mountain, which just left me with mile or so to go on my own.

Riding didn't bother my hip or elbow at all, so so far the only known issue is the run. The swim remains a question mark. The drugstore has a bunch of different types of supposedly waterproof bandages and medical tape, though, and I think I'll experiment with those at the pool on Wednesday and/or Thursday in at attempt to get in at least one more quick swim before the race. If the bandages will really stay put when immersed, I might use one at the race itself as the idea of exposing my still very raw elbow to no doubt really gross lake water is starting to give me the willies.

In the fuel department, I experimented today with taking banana chunks and a few Shot Bloks in a little Ziplock bag in my Bento box but it got too slimy. Ick. When I ride again on Tuesday, I'm going to try mandarin orange slices in one Ziplock and some Shot Blocks in another Ziplock instead. I think if I pat the orange slices dry before bagging them, they should do OK.

Tomorrow: 39-minute hill run, probably.

Test Run [G]

2008-09-20T19:27:00.006-06:00

Run-23

Done.

Technically, this was supposed to be a speed run but since it was my first day back doing anything since my accident, I just ran for 23 minutes without breaks on a flat course at a comfortably easy pace to cover approximately 1.96 miles according to my maps program.

I coated my scabs with a little Neosporin before heading out in an attempt to protect them a bit from sweat and it seemed to work - nothing really stung.

I'm pretty stiff and the even though I tried to run with minimal impact there was some discomfort in my elbow and also on my hip which is still scabbed and bruised. However, I found a place just to the left of my hip flexors where I can apply pressure with my left hand to make my hip more comfortable if necessary and also a place on my left forearm where I can press with my right hand if necessary to help my elbow.

I hope not to even need these tricks by next Sunday but I at least I've got them if I need them.

Tomorrow: back on the bike, I guess. Eep!

At least my bike is ready [G]

2008-09-20T14:44:00.004-06:00

Apparently, it was overly optimistic to think I'd be back to training by Wednesday. I ended up writing off Week 15 altogether but will try to at least complete Week 16, starting with a run this afternoon as long as that doesn't jar my elbow too badly.

All my other cuts, scrapes and bruises are either pretty much healed up or arrived at the crazy-making itchy phase. My elbow, though, still alternates between discomfort, deep ache and stabbing pain, plus I continue to get climatically unjustified hot and cold sensations running up and down the back of my forearm. Doctors living on both sides of us have looked at it, however, and declared it "healing up normally," so I'm trying to just suck it up.

Those of you have actually broken limbs and stuff, feel free to say now, "Geez, what a baby!"

Ha ha. :)

Anyway, my bike, in contrast to my poor widdle elbow, is rarin' to go. New wheels (Neuvation M28 Aeros with ceramic bearings), new tires (Serfas Seca-RS folding), new tubes (Specialized, nothing fancy) and just back from a pre-race tune-up at the bike shop where they also swapped out my torn up black handlebar tape for new electric blue.

And actually, I'm quite proud of myself because I managed to apply rim tape to the new wheels (they came without), to transfer the cassette from my old wheelset to the new and to install the new tires and tubes all myself prior to taking it in - and all of this with mostly just my right arm. :)

Road Rash [G]

2008-09-14T21:35:00.004-06:00

Today I had my first real bike crash. We were on mile 35 or something of a 63 mile ride and I was getting too close to the wheel in front of me. You aren't supposed to brake while riding in a paceline because the person behind you is likely to hit you if you do. Rather, you are supposed to pull out of the line just enough to let the wind slow you down to the pace of the person in front of you, then pull back in.

So, I moved a little to the left, out of the line, only to find a dead turtle directly in front of me. I instinctively swerved to avoid him (I would have gone down if I'd hit him, too - he was pretty big, poor guy), lost traction and went down hard on my left side.

Whereupon the rider behind me ran over my shoulder, kicked me in the head and went down herself.

Ouch...

Incredibly, she wasn't injured.

Also incredibly, though less importantly, my bike shorts didn't tear (I was wearing my favorite, favorite, favorite Louis Garneau Zone 8 shorts, the only short I've found that really fits me properly, plus the fabric is awesome) and our bikes are basically fine. My chain fell off, we both tore gashes in our handlebar tape and she lost one of her handlebar end caps, but no damage to our frames, derailleurs or anything else that really matters. She did tear a hole in the palm of one of her gloves, which I offered to replace, but she insisted that they were wearing out and she was going to get a new pair anyway.

This may even be true, but I still feel bad. :(

As for me, I skinned up my left elbow, left hip and the outside of my left calf pretty badly and have a quite a bit of bruising in all those places plus up and down the inside of my arm. We stopped at a convenience store not far from where I went down where I washed up the best I could in the bathroom sink. I had taken an 800 mg Ibuprofen tablet about an hour earlier because my gracilis was bothering me, but I was still in a lot of pain. I managed to complete the ride, but had to take another two Advil after getting home, showering and applying Neosporin everywhere. After that, I was able to sleep for a couple of hours, and when I woke up, the feeling that my entire left side was on fire had finally subsided.

Still, my riding buddies warned me that I'm probably going to be super sore tomorrow, which sucks because I really needed to spend tomorrow and Wednesday finishing up Weeks 13 and 14. Oh, well. I only had a couple of short swims and a short run left - I managed to get all my long workouts in before this happened, at least - so I guess I'll just write off the rest of Weeks 13 and 14 and start Week 15 (the first of two taper weeks)on Wednesday if I'm able. My hip feels like the bruising goes pretty deep, but I'm trying not to freak out about it.

I should probably be more worried that I am about the missed sessions, but I just can't work up any panic about it. I feel like I'm pretty much as prepared as I'm going to get for the race at this point and that getting in those three speed sessions wouldn't make a significant difference in my time anyway.

I'll try to get my Week 13 and 14 post up tomorrow. The highlight, besides the fact that I completed my longest ride ever today (with injuries, even) was that I ran very nearly 7 miles yesterday - unprecedented!

And exciting, too, because this means that after Elephant Man I can start working toward to running a half marathon the first Sunday in March - and then, if I pull that off, to making my first half iron attempt the last week of June.

Woohoo!

Dream big, I say. :)

Elephant Man Training Week 12 Of 16 [G]

2008-09-02T00:05:00.005-06:00

Fairly easy week, which I really needed as I was feeling a little run down after last week.

Monday: Finishing Week 11

Tuesday: OFF

Wednesday: Run-25

Our weekly Gap ride got cancelled because it started pouring as we were pulling into the parking lot where we meet, but it wasn't raining in my part of town so I came home and got a run in instead.

I didn't feel like counting minutes, so I went by blocks instead (represented here as "b"):

1 b easy run
1 b moderate run
1 b hard run
1 b easy run
1 b moderate run,
1 b hard run
Short hydration break

Rinse, repeat until time up

Thursday: Swim-42 (Continuous) PLUS Club Ride

42 minutes of:

6 sidestroke strokes
14 freestyle strokes (right pull counts as one stroke, left pull counts as another)
No stopping
No pushing off the wall

It felt like the water was extra thick today, but I don't know whether I was tired or whether my blue swimsuit has finally stretched out so much that it's creating drag.

After work, my Wednesday group met up to make up yesterday's rained out Gap ride. It was sunny and hot as we started to climb but soon it got very dark and scary windy. When it got to where we had to get off and walk our bikes it was so windy, we turned around. I think we only did 14 miles total, but they were challenging and it was better than no miles and most importantly, we got them in and got off the mountain before the thunderstorm started!

Friday: Swim-25 (Speed)

100 yds warmup
4 x (25 yds + 10 sec rest)
2 x (50 yds + 20 sec rest)
1 x (100 yds + 30 sec rest)
4 x (25 yds + 10 sec rest)
2 x (50 yds + 20 sec rest)
1 x (100 yds + 30 sec rest)
Freestyle to finish out the time

Again, this felt really hard - and I was in my faster, black swimsuit this time, so I think I was just tired - but my best 100 yd sprint time was 2:16, a few seconds faster again than last week's 2:20. Yay!

Saturday: OFF

Club ride got rained out and frankly I was glad because I was still feeling wiped out.

Sunday: OFF

The Nike/Starbucks Human Race 10K (Run Anywhere Else) I was going to run with one of my riding buddies got rained out and again I was kind of relieved because I was still feeling very stiff and low-energy.

Monday: Run-10K

This morning, finally, I woke up feeling ready to exercise again. I was supposed to do an easy Labor Day breakfast ride (I know the ride leader and it would have been a friendly ride), but I decided my time and new-found energy would be better spent making up yesterday's missed 10K.

I mapped out mostly flat 10K course in my neighborhood and ran it as follows:

5 x (1 min walk, 5 min run, 30 sec walk, 5:30 min run)
1 x (1 min walk, 5 min run, 30 sec walk, run to finish)

My total time was 1:14:23 for a mile pace of about 11:58. Right on target!

Now, on race day:

The course will be hilly rather than flat, and
I will be pre-exhausted from having swum and biked.

On the other hand:

It will, I hope, be a little cooler than it was today. I waited until 1:00 PM to go and it was in the low 90s with 40% humidity. Last year at the race I think was in the mid-80s and similar or maybe somewhat lower humidity.
I will be wearing less, and lighter colored, clothing. Today I wore a dark gray, fairly thick technical T and black tri shorts. On race day I'm going to wear a white, bra-style tri top and gray tri shorts.
I will not be wearing a CamelBak on race day. Besides the weight it adds, I'm pretty sure it holds in quite a bit of heat on my back and shoulders.

So, I'm hoping it will be a wash on race day or at least that I'm able to maintain a mile pace no higher than 13:00.

In more frivolous news, I was looking for a cute beach towel to make my transition area more fun (because by T2 I am really, really, really going to need a reminder that this is supposed to be fun). Finally at REI I found this cute, "3 Daisies On Hisbiscus" Life Is Good beach towel on sale. Not eco-friendly, I know (but I promise I will use it for years and years), but otherwise perfect! Hooray!

Elephant Man Training Week 11 Of 16: Part II [G]

2008-08-26T18:11:00.006-06:00

Here's the rundown of my wonderful Week 11 (yay!):

Monday: Finishing Week 10

Tuesday: OFF

Wednesday: Club Ride

Gap ride, 20 miles total, up and over, up and back.

Slightly shorter than usual because it's starting to get dark earlier so we've changed our meeting place, but we actually get in a little more climbing, so it probably evens out, training-wise.

Thursday: Swim-42 (Speed)

100 yds warmup

4 x (25 yds + 10 sec rest)
2 x (50 yds + 20 sec rest)
1 x (100 yds + 60 sec rest)

4 x (25 yds + 10 sec rest)
2 x (50 yds + 20 sec rest)
1 x (100 yds + 60 sec rest)

4 x (25 yds + 10 sec rest)
2 x (50 yds + 20 sec rest)
1 x (100 yds + 60 sec rest)

Remainder 6 sidestroke strokes/14 freestyle strokes to cool down

Today I had a HUGE breakthrough. All of a sudden I can do a proper 2-beat kick! I don't know what happened. It suddenly just clicked for whatever reason and now swimming feels just like walking. (And, presumably, just like running if I can simply speed it up a bit now!)

Also, my best 100 yd sprint time today was 2:20, a few seconds faster than last week.

Hooray!!!
Friday: Swim-70 (Continuous)

72 lengths (approximately 1 mile) open water simulation/Elephant Man strategy practice:

6 sidestroke strokes
14 freestyle strokes (right pull counts as one stroke, left pull counts as another)
No stopping
No pushing off the wall

I finished this part up in 51:06 with hardly any effort, so I think next time I can probably pick it up little.

Remaining time:

Slow, deliberate, continuous freestyle concentrating on my stroke

This went very well, to the extent that I started to think that maybe I should try to do straight freestyle at Elephant Man.

Really, though, I think that for purposes of sighting and of panic prevention, I should probably stick with the sidestroke/freestyle plan. Maybe next race I can try all freestyle.

Saturday: Run-42 (Speed)

4 x (1 min easy run, 1 min moderate run, 1 min hard run, 1 min easy run, 1 min moderate run, 1 min hard run, 1 min easy run, 1 min moderate run, 1 min hard run, 1 min walk)
1 x (2 min easy run)

This felt pretty hard, especially since it was very hot, but my average pace for the whole run was 11:08. Pretty good for me, especially considering that by the end my hard run was probably looking a lot more like a shuffle!

Sunday: Club Ride

54.5 flat, fast miles with our new friendly riders only weekend group. :)

Previously, my longest ride to date had been 52 miles taken at a VERY easy pace.

This ride was a LOT more challenging. Our average pace for the first half was around 17.5 mph and our average pace coming back was around 16 mph, which is more impressive than it sounds considering that it was super windy all morning with lots of crosswinds so we never really got a break.

We stopped three times - once at a little grocery store about halfway out, once at the coffee shop at the turnaround point and once at the little grocery store again on the way back in.

At the grocery store the second time, I noticed that they had Odwalla bars by the cash register. I'm not a huge fan of Odwalla bars generally, but they had this one called a Sweet & Salty Peanut Chewy Nut Bar and OMG, it was the Best Thing Ever! It reminded me of a PayDay, one of the candy bars I really, really miss from my pre-vegan days. YUM!

I think I'm going to stock up on these as post-ride, post-race treats. :)

Monday: Run-70 (Hills)

My longest run to date and I didn't die, woohoo! In fact, I did 72 minutes rather than the 70 minutes scheduled for reasons I shall soon explain. :)

First, though, I knew it was going to be a little cooler than it was during last week's 64-minute hill run and also cooler than it is likely to be at Elephant Man. I couldn't think of a good way to simulate the sun beating down on my head, although in retrospect I guess I could have worn a hat. I did wear an extra shirt and picked an extra hilly route, though.

I had mentioned last week that I was thinking about shooting for run 7/walk 1 at Elephant Man, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that that wasn't going to work well with aid stations placed every mile and me running, probably, a 12:00 to 13:00 minute mile pace on average.

So, I wanted to use this run to test out a new strategy:

Walk 1 minute
Run 5 minutes
Walk 30 seconds
Run to first aid station

Walk 1 minute through aid station
Run 5 minutes
Walk 30 seconds
Run to second aid station

Walk 1 minute through aid station
Run 5 minutes...

And so on.

I decided to do a test based on a hypothetical 12:00 minute mile. Here's what I did:

6 x (1 min walk, 5 min run, 30 sec walk, 5:30 min run)

I felt surprisingly strong through the whole run and covered 5.92 miles in the course of 72 minutes. This is the longest I've ever run since I was in my twenties, I think, and on hills, no less, and at just over a 12:00 minute per mile pace which for me is quite good.

I am seriously shocked that I pulled that off.

And majorly relieved, because last week I only covered a little over 4.5 miles in 64 minutes I was struggling so badly and I was seriously starting to fear that I was going to go into Elephant Man never having run a full 10K on hills.

But now I feel much better!

This Sunday, one of my riding buddies will be doing the Nike/Starbucks Human Race 10K (the Run Anywhere Else option as we don't have an organized race here). I didn't feel like buying a Nike SportBand just to be able to participate officially, so I'm going to run it unofficially with her and just make my own donation to a charity. We're going to run it on a flat course, but at least it will be a full 10K.

And then, this week (Week 12) is an easy week according to the training schedule, but in Week 13 I'll do another 72 minute hill run (schedule says 70) and in Week 14 I'll do an 80 minute hill run (schedule says 77) which would correspond to 10K at a mile pace closer to 13:00 - which might be more realistic given how tired I'm sure I'll be by that point in the race and also given how hot it's likely to be.

Weeks 15 and 16 will be taper weeks, but at least I will have gotten in three more 10K or close to 10K runs prior to the race, which will be great for my confidence as well as my conditioning.

So, yay!!!!

Elephant Man Training Week 11 Of 16: Part I [G]

2008-08-25T21:28:00.005-06:00

Hooray! Finally, a truly good week, which I really needed as my confidence was seriously waning.

Also, the lovely, speedy and ever encouraging Amanda helpfully pointed out that when one is following a training schedule, it's not supposed to get easier from week to week. I laughed when I read her comment because of course she's totally right. I really hadn't thought that through!

And finally, I think I at last have a race plan which, if I have a really good day, might - might! - get me in in just under 4 hrs rather than the 5 hrs I've been afraid I might take to complete the course.

SWIM: 72-80 x (6 sidestroke strokes/14 freestyle strokes)

BIKE: Ride like hell (that's a strategy, right?)

RUN: 5 x (walk 1 min/run 5 min/walk 30 sec/run to 1 mile, 2 mile, 3 mile, etc. aid station), 1 x (walk 1 min/run 5 min/walk 30 sec if necessary/run to finish)

I'll post the Week 11 details tomorrow. I'm exhausted post-hill run, must go to bed!

Elephant Man Training Week 10 Of 16 [G]

2008-08-19T22:49:00.003-06:00

A better week insofar as I got in all my sessions, including both runs.

I'm still a little frustrated and alarmed that it all remains so difficult, but I'm trying to remember that this is supposed be fun and also that I'm undeniably stronger and faster than I was 10 weeks ago, even if things aren't coming along as quickly as I'd like them to.

And really, I had a good swim week and even the biking wasn't so bad in spite of a disastrous club ride on Saturday. I guess it's really just the running that's super frustrating, still, but somehow that manages to taint my feelings about my progress as a whole. I guess I just need to be vigilant about not letting it.

Monday: Run-38 (Speed)

3 x (2 min easy run, 1 min hard run, 2 min easy run, 1 min hard run, 2 min easy run, 1 min hard run, 1 min walk)
1 x (2 min easy run, 1 min hard run, 2 min easy run, 1 min hard run, 2 min easy run)

I felt guilty about doing 1 minute rather than 2 or 3 minute hard runs, so tried to at least do 1 minute intervals as flat out sprints.

Almost, but not quite, died.

But I finished.

Yay, me.

Tuesday: Swim-64 (Continuous)

Open water simulation/Elephant Man strategy practice again:

6 sidestroke strokes
14 freestyle strokes (right pull counts as one stroke, left pull counts as another)
No stopping
No pushing off the wall

This went pretty well, although by the end I was really wishing for a waterproof MP3 player. Somewhere around minute 35 the swimming began to edge from pleasantly meditative into unbearable boring.

Wednesday: Club Ride

Gap ride, 11 miles up and over, 11 miles back and down. No rain, no flats, no wheezing at the top. Plus, I got to coach a new rider up! Not super new to cycling, just new to the Gap, and she appreciated my help, so that was rewarding!

Hooray!

Thursday: Swim-38 (Speed)

100 yds warmup
8 x (25 yds + 10 sec rest)
4 x (50 yds + 20 sec rest)
2 x (100 yds + 30 sec rest)
Remainder 6 sidestroke strokes/14 freestyle strokes, rinse, repeat, easy pace to cool down

Another breakthrough: for once I was NOT totally dying after each 25! After the 50s and 100s, yes, but not after the 25s.

Plus, I swam the 100s at 2:24 and 2:23, my fastest times to date!!

Hooray!!!

Friday: OFF

Saturday: Club Ride (A Rant, by Vegan Run Amok)

This was a leaderless ride and I should have known better since these inevitably become an excuse for shitty behavior, but the route looked like good training so I went.

We were supposed ride the Rollers to the Gap, climb and descend the Gap, then return to start on the Rollers for a total of about 42 miles.

As I was coming off the mountain, I saw a handful of riders ahead of me turn onto the Rollers, then do a quick U-turn and come back up, turning in front of me to continue westbound. Apparently, they were changing the route due to a bad headwind but they didn't stop to make sure everybody knew about the change, they just did it.

My friend slowed down up ahead to make sure I knew the route was changing so that I wouldn't hang an unnecessary left. I caught up to her and almost immediately we slowed down again to check on a guy who was pulled over on the shoulder because his wheel was wobbling. He said not to worry, to just let the others know what was going on and that he'd catch up with us.

Meanwhile, several people in the pack had told my friend that they would stop to regroup just up the road. Wheel guy is an experienced rider, so my friend and I went on ahead thinking we would meet up with the pack at the regroup and make sure they waited for wheel guy or at least that somebody made contact with him by phone to make sure he was going to be able to make it back.

Well, the pack never did stop to regroup. Incredibly, we eventually caught up anyway to within probably 50 feet of them and even though I know some of them saw us, including some of the club leadership who know better, they opted not to slow down even at a stop sign to let us catch up and get on somebody's wheel, so we chased them at 21-22 mph in a headwind until finally we came to an intersection where my friend thought they'd said they were going to turn left and they were gone. My friend found out later they'd gone straight instead.

Wheel guy never did catch up and because neither of us had his number in our phone, we don't know if or how he made it back. So much for safety in numbers.

Thank goodness I was with my friend, too, because by now I didn't know where I was anymore since we'd strayed so far from the originally planned route.

The whole group was supposed to meet up a coffee shop for lunch after the ride, but my friend, especially, was so mad at everybody by this time - she's a fast and experienced rider and part of the club leadership herself - that we stopped for lunch by ourselves at the outlet mall, then climbed back to the ride start using a back route she knows. Eventually, the club president texted her to make sure we were OK, but it was like, why do you care now? You changed the route not once but twice without making sure everybody knew where they were going, didn't regroup, didn't care that you lost somebody off the back due to a mechanical issue, didn't slow when you saw us riding in a flat out sprint against a headwind to try to get on someone's wheel, so WTF?

Anyway, this just confirmed to me that "leaderless," to this group, means "aggressively paced free-for-all, riders will be dropped, participants must be mechanically self-sufficient and familar with the area or be screwed" - and that, to me, defeats the purpose of riding with a group, which is explicitly to not get lost or into some kind of unrecoverable trouble while riding alone.

So, yeah. We're done. From now on, our little Wednesday group will be organizing our own weekend rides (we aren't the only ones who are fed up) and only inviting people who "ride friendly" as they say in these grammatically challenged parts.

Sunday: OFF

Should have done my hill run today but I was wiped out from yesterday's catastrophe of a ride.

Monday: Run-64 (Hills)

The plan was:

8 x (7 minutes run/1 minute walk)

It was very hot and my body wasn't coping with it very well, even though I was taking frequent sips of ice water from my Camelbak. Still, I walked for an extra 30 to 60 seconds at minute 48 and again at minute 56, but otherwise managed to follow the plan.

I think I might end up using 7/1 as my run strategy at Elephant Man. On hills, 7 to 9 minutes of continuous running appears to be about my limit still. And, I've only been able to manage 8 and 9 in the context of a pyramid, not repeating 8/1 or 9/1 sets, whereas I've done repeating 7/1 sets a few times and at least haven't died.

One More Late Post: Elephant Man Training Week 9 Of 16 [G]

2008-08-17T09:09:00.006-06:00

This was the first full week of August. I didn't get in either scheduled run, mainly because I was once again having doubts about my ability to finish Elephant Man. What was I even thinking signing up? Of course, skipping the runs just reinforced this negative thinking. Blah.

Monday: Finishing Week 8

Tuesday: OFF

Should have run but in a funk.

Wednesday: Club Ride

I met up with my new little Wednesday group to do a Gap ride again.

We were going to do 11 miles up and over, 11 miles over and back but just as we got to the top it started spitting gigantic rain drops even though the sun was shining and there wasn't a threatening-looking cloud in the sky.

Then, as we were standing there on the shoulder debating whether to continue on or turn around, the heavens opened. We turned around and inched our way back down the pass through sheets of rain so thick we could hardly see. Scary!

And then, about a mile from the bottom, we passed through a wall of water and... out into the dry sunshine again. We took a short break to wring out our tops and shake the water from our sunglasses, then took off in hopes of making it back to our cars before the rain caught up with us again, just in case it was moving down the mountain in our direction.

Thursday: Swim-58 (Continuous)

I spent most of this session refining my Elephant Man strategy:

6 sidestroke strokes
14 freestyle strokes (right pull counts as one stroke, left pull counts as another)

Once again I tried not to push off the wall at all and I mostly concentrated on speeding up my turnover on the freestyle a little since I think my slow turnover, while it does give me a lot of glide, (1) contributes to my breathing problems in the water (by making me have to go too long between breaths) and (2) makes me lose so much momentum between strokes than the next stroke is unnecessarily difficult.

Friday: OFF

Should have run but still in a funk.

Saturday: Swim-35 (Speed)

Warmup
8 x (25 yds + 10 sec rest)
4 x (50 yds + 20 sec rest)
2 x (100 yds + 30 sec rest)
Cooldown

These things still kill me.

Sunday: Club Ride

26-mile Rollers ride for gearing and climbing practice.

My OCR3's stock wheels came with 700x25 tires but today I borrowed a friend's Neuvation M28 Aero wheels with 700x23 Michelin carbon something something tires and WOW!

Skinny wheels and tires make a HUGE difference, plus the Neuvations are way lighter than whatever my stock wheels are.

I went straight home and, taking advantage of Neuvation Cycling's current clearance sale, ordered my own set of M28 Aeros.

They take the same cassette as my stock wheels so I'm thinking about just transferring that cassette over to the new wheelset for now rather than buying a new one.

For tires, I think I'm going to order a set of folding Serfas Seca RS-es (however you make that plural) as they've gotten a bunch of good reviews at roadbikereview.com and as they're relatively lightweight yet, according to the reviews, pretty puncture-proof, a good combination for both training and racing, as far as I'm concerned.

Plus, they come with different colored trim to match one's bike. I'll be getting mine in blue. :)

Another Late Post: Elephant Man Training Week 8 Of 16 [G]

2008-08-16T15:31:00.011-06:00

This was the week consisting of the last few days of July and the first few days of August.

I missed one run due to travel and being tired and WAY behind on seemingly everything after being away for only four days. (I had forgotten why it is that I never go anywhere. This is why!)

By counting the week as Tuesday to Monday again rather than as Monday to Sunday, however, I managed to get in one run, two swims and four (!) bikes (two counting for this week - including my first 50 mile ride! - one a makeup ride and one mistake, probably, because it didn't really count for much training-wise so I probably won't do one of those again if it comes up).

Monday: OFF

Driving, driving, driving back from reunion.

Tuesday: OFF

Recovering and catching up. Plus, this was the last week of my swim class, but I had missed both evening sessions last week and had therefore missed two water polo lessons and didn't want to go and have to be gotten caught up on everything.

Plus, I was feeling burnt out on the class in general and decided that since it had already done its job in getting me to where I could now swim a continuous mile (plus a little) that I would just cut my losses at this point, declare it a 5-week class completed satisfactorily rather than a 7-week class that sort of fell apart near the end and revert now to the swim training outlined in the in the beginnertriathlete.com 16 week Olympic distance training program I'd been following for running.

Wednesday: Swim-21 (Speed) PLUS Club Ride

For this short swim I did:

Really brief warmup
8 x (25 yds + 10 sec rest)
4 x (50 yds + 20 sec rest)
2 x (100 yds + 30 sec rest)
Really brief cool down

And about died. Apparently I was still tired!

Later, I skipped the regular Wednesday night ride to do the Gap again with the little group from last week, 8 miles up, 8 miles down. I felt stronger on the climb than I did last week although I did start wheezing a little when we got to the top. I decided I'd ask the sports doc when I went in for a follow-up on my back the next week if he could recommend somebody to test me for exercise-induced asthma since this was now at least the fourth time this has happened since June.

Last week's Gap ride and this week's were both kind of ad hoc, but my little group decided on this night to make a regular Wednesday night thing of it at least for awhile, which is great for me because I obviously need the climbing practice, both for Elephant Man and in general.

Thursday: Club Ride Sort Of

Really I should have run today instead, but I didn't feel like it, plus someone from the tri club was putting together an ad hoc ride and I felt sort of obligated to go in order to support club activities since we're still trying to get off the ground and anyway I figured I could count it as a makeup ride.

Not too many people showed up due to the short notice, but a few did including a woman who said she was a beginniner, so the group leader took us out on a 17-mile route at a super easy pace. Eventually it came out that she was a beginner triathlete, not a beginner cyclist, and so the ride ended up being junk miles for all of us it was so unchallenging.

In the end I didn't really feel justified counting is as a makeup ride. I should have just stuck to my schedule and gone for my run instead. Oh, well, lesson learned.

Friday: Run-21 (Speed)

3 x (3 min easy run, 3 min hard run, 1 min walk)

This went OK, except that because it was only 21 minutes, I decided not to carry water which turned out, between the heat and humidity and the speedwork, to be a mistake as I got a little dizzy toward the end and by evening had a killer headache.

Another lesson learned.

Saturday: Club Ride (Makeup Ride)

30 miles, mostly flat, moderate pace. Fun ride!

Sunday: Club Ride

My first 50 mile ride (actually 52, but who's counting). We took it at a fairly easy pace and made a stop for coffee and sandwiches, but still... woohoo!

Monday: Swim-35 (Continuous)

35 minutes continuous freestyle with sidestroke breaks, concentrating on my stroke and, toward the end, experimenting with bilateral breathing.

Conclusion: bilateral breathing is probably something to work on after Elephant Man, not before. Better for now to just keep it simple and concentrate on my stroke and on building endurance and speed with the right-sided breathing I already know how to do.

Late Post: Elephant Man Training Week 7 Of 16 [G]

2008-08-12T22:07:00.008-06:00

Ack! OK, I know, I've been AWOL for a few weeks.

The last full week of July a friend of mine from high school flew into town whereupon we road-tripped to our 20th high school reunion. I'd assiduously avoided all prior reunions largely because I went to a school that was supposed to prepare us to do Great Things and I haven't. I mean, I've done some Cool Little Things here and there, but no Great Things to speak of.

My aforementioned friend convinced me, though, and so we went, even though I was so stressed out about the impending trip that three weeks prior to it my hands erupted in what I'm pretty sure was dyshidrotic eczema, a condition which persisted in all its burning, itching glory until the day I returned home, whereupon it promptly cleared up.

And really, the reunion wasn't half the nightmare I thought it was going to be. However, between the work and stress involved in getting ready to go, being gone, then trying to catch up from being gone, especially with a work project from hell and our new triathlon club's membership drive unfortunately starting up at the same time (I volunteered to be membership coordinator at a time when the schedule for the work project was still up in the air) - well, you can see for yourself that I'm three, almost four weeks behind in my blogging.

Plus, to be honest, I had a week or two there where I started to think that maybe Elephant Man really is over my head and that even if I do finish, which I probably won't, do I really want to be DFL or would that be just too humiliating, especially since, like, half the club is doing this event? And I frankly didn't really feel like writing anything while I was going through my little defeatest phase.

In the meantime, though, I've had some little wins here and there and have also been reminded again - by reading your blogs, mostly, loyal readers - that, oh yeah, this is supposed to be fun!

And I'm feeling much better now, thank you. :)

And thus we bring you (drumroll, please)...

Week 7 (the last full week of July) in review (boy, it's a good thing I write stuff down as I do it or I'd never be able to reconstruct this!):

Monday: See end of Week 6

Skipped swim class, too busy and stressed.

Tuesday: OFF

Skipped swim class again, too busy and stressed.

Wednesday: Club Ride

Skipped swim class yet again, too busy and stressed.

A couple of my regular riding buddies invited me to ditch the regular Wednesday night ride (which for a change was not rained out) to ride the Gap with them. The Gap is a low mountain pass just north of town. It's about 8 miles up - pretty steady climbing except for the very last little bit where it suddenly gets really steep - and 8 miles down if you just go to the top, or about 11 miles out and 11 miles back, I think, if you go up and over and then come back up and over.

Since it was my first time doing the Gap, we planned to just do 8 up, 8 down, which turned out to be a good decision because by the time I reached the really steep bit near the top I was so tired that I lost control of my bike and skidded off the road. I regained my balance but - too late! My rear tube had a pinch flat. I rode the rest of the way up (not good, I know, but I was so close, plus I was mad) and, once I'd caught my breath, mostly held stuff while my friends changed my tube (I told them I could do it, but I think they were in a hurry).

We turned around and headed down. It was my first time riding downhill where the hill had no visible end and I was a little freaked out, but I tried to be brave. At one point about halfway down I was maintaining a nervous 24 mph and trying not to glaze my brakes when I skidded out again!

Again, miraculously, I didn't fall, but I knew immediately that it was another flat.

We changed the tube a second time and luckily this one held as I only carry two. We made it back to our cars before dark, which was the main thing, and I was happy, at least, that I'd survived the climb! A lot of regular club rides include a Gap climb and I've always avoided these as I didn't know if I could do it - but now I know I can!

Thursday: OFF

Skipped swim class to take little Dylan, AKA Latest Beast, to the vet for his second-to-last set of shots and then my friend flew in later in the day.

Friday: OFF

Driving, driving, driving...

Saturday: Run-58 (Hills) PLUS Bonus Hike

I was a little concerned to see 58 minutes on the schedule, especially since this was supposed to be a hill run plus the reunion was in the mountains at an altitude about 2000 ft higher than I'm used to. I got up early, though, to take advantage of the cool morning air, and successfully completed:

7 x (7 minutes run/1 minute walk)
1 x (2 minutes run)

Returned to the dorms where we reunionites were staying, took a shower, went down for breakfast and then it was time for an organized hike. Now, the reunion schedule said "Canyon Hike" which I and many other people assumed meant a leisurely stroll up the road at the bottom of the canyon. And so, I wasn't worried that I'd just completed a 58-minute hill run at altitude.

But, no. What the organizers had in mind was in fact a ridge walk. Which was fine once we were actually on the ridge, but there remained the matter of getting up to the ridge and subsequently getting down again.

Ow.

The only consolation was that the semi-strenuous hike made up a bit for having skipped a club ride and all four scheduled swim classes in order to attend reunion.

Sunday: Run-35 (Speed) PLUS Bonus Dance Party!

I got up early again and did:

4 x (2 min easy run, 2 min hard run, 2 min easy run, 1 minute hard run, 1 min walk)
1 x (3 min easy run)

It was hard since I'd done hills the day before, but I got chased briefly by a chow which was good for motivation (I think he was just playing, but you can never be certain) and I had the advantage again of cool morning air.

I wasn't going to go to the dance party that evening, but the alumna I was sharing a room with (not the alumnus I drove up with as he was, of course, assigned to a room on the boys floor) convinced me that it would be a good idea to go, so I went (are you getting that I'm suggestible? yeah, me, too - I'm starting to wonder if I should be worried) and about a bottle of wine later I was ready to try to relearn the salsa and the merengue and all the other dances I sort of learned when I lived in Central America and always sucked at and had forgotten in the meantime anyway... but, yeah, anyway, my roommate and I got in about four hours of dancing (well, dancing in her case, she being Ecuadorian, and "dancing" in my case, me being nothing remotely approaching Ecuadorian).

It wasn't all Latin dancing, I should point out - there was also some Abba and some Queen as well as a variety of other singable, danceable "oldies" which we were sure we caught our 17-year-old DJ rolling his eyes at (yeah, kid, whatever, your time will come). But it was a lot of Latin dancing and also some West and Southern African dancing which we all learned on the fly from some of the organizers (there were and are a lot of international students at this school) but which is apparently a lot easier to pick up when you are at your 5th or even your 10th high school reunion than when you are at your 20th.

Anyway, it was fun and I was exhausted by the time we turned in (at, like, 2 AM, which is like 7 AM 20-something time)... and so I figured I would be justified in counting it as a bonus workout. :)

Elephant Man Training Week 6 Of 16 [G]

2008-07-21T14:09:00.006-06:00

Finally, a gold star week! It ran Tuesday through Monday rather than Monday through Sunday like it was supposed to, but whatever. Not only did I get in all my sessions, including a bike ride with some tough climbing and my hardest hill run to date, too, BUT I also swam a mile for the first time ever!

So, I now have the swim distance I need for Elephant Man and also the bike distance, including hills. The running is coming along and I'm increasingly confident that barring catastrophe, I will definitely be able to finish, even if it takes me 5 hours. Which it might, including transitions, but that's OK. DFL I can live with. DNF is all I really want to avoid.

This week (Week 7) training will be lighter as a friend is flying in on Thursday and then we'll be traveling Friday through Monday. I won't have access to a pool and don't have room to take my bike but I'm going to at least try to get in a makeup run or two. My quads and glutes are pretty sore today from my two weekend bikes and today's run, so a lighter week will probably actually be good for me recovery-wise anyway.

And now...

Without further ado,
Week 6 in review!

Monday: OFF

I still wasn't feeling 100% plus I only got four hours of sleep on Sunday night due to work deadlines followed by certain kittens jumping on my head all night. I don't know why he was so wound up. Usually he sleeps through the night other than needing to be fed sometime between 1:00 and 3:00.

Tuesday: Run-32 (Speed) PLUS Swim Class-90

4 x (2 min easy run, 2 min hard run, 2 min easy run, 1 min walk)
1 x (4 min easy run)

Done! I was finally feeling some energy again on Tuesday and this was a good run.

Swim class was tough as usual. Freestyle, kick, breaststroke, breaststroke with two kicks and one pull, more kicking, freestyle sprint and then... water polo!

Yes, our instructor has decided to spend the last three weeks of class teaching us to play water polo, which sounds fun but which in fact is really, really hard. On Tuesday we learned to swim with the ball, which is hard because you have to keep your head out of the water which makes your hips sink and which also forces you to use a bunch of short strokes rather than fewer long strokes. My heart was pounding out of my chest after just one lap with the ball!

Wednesday: Swim Class-60

Done! Freestyle, kicking, kicking, kicking, medley, fins, fins, fins.

Wednesday night ride got rained out as usual. The only good thing about it is that the desert is super green right now - really pretty.

Thursday: Swim Class-90

Done! And tough as usual. Freestyle, kicking, hand paddles, hand paddles, hand paddles - Are your back and shoulders burning yet? No? Keep going then! - hand paddles, hand paddles, hand paddles, water polo!

On Thursday we learned how to manipulate the ball, how to rotate in the water while holding the ball and how to pass. Oh. My. God. Water polo players must be the strongest athletes on the planet.

Friday: 2000 Yard Swim!!!!

I decided that since I missed Monday's swim class (again) that I would make it up by going to the pool on my own and trying, finally, to swim a continuous mile (actually 1.13 miles).

And I did it!

OK, true, I did do sort of an aquatic version of run/walk in that each time I turned around after reaching the wall, I would do four to six sidestroke strokes in order to catch my breath a little before resuming freestyle swimming. On the other hand, I only took two 45 second breaks the whole time and also tried not to push off the wall, rather to simply pivot there and start again from a standstill to better simulate open water swimming.

Anyway, it took me 62 minutes to do the whole 2000 yards at a pretty consistent 3:00 minute/ 100 yard pace. Considering that previously 3:20/100 was a pretty good pace for me, I think the swim conditioning classes are definitely helping to improve my aerobic capacity. I used my old Total Immersion technique for the most part although I incorporated a few tricks I learned in class, too, and it still seems to work best for me, so I think that's what I'm going to stick to for Elephant Man.

Saturday: Club Ride

This was going to be my first 50 mile ride and was also going to involve some climbing, so I was pretty worried about it.

Due to a thunderstorm, however, we ended up having to change our starting point and route. The new plan was to do about 40 miles, but with two flats, a rear tire blowout, a dispute or two and finally another downpour we ended up only doing about 22. It was still a good workout for me, though, because we did about 12 of those miles at 20-21 mph on low rolling hills and although I couldn't really carry on a conversation, I did at least manage not to get dropped.

Afterward we stopped by the coffee shop for lunch. I love this coffee shop because they have several yummy vegan options. On this particular day I opted for a PB&J.

Best. PB&J. Ever.

Sunday (Yesterday): Club Ride

This was an ad hoc ride, organized while we were waiting in line at the coffee shop the day before. A small group of us met up on Sunday morning and rode to a little local airport where the Experimental Aircraft Association was having its monthly pancake breakfast fundraiser.

There were a ton of cyclists there, some from our club who had come up separately from us and others from clubs in surrounding towns. Apparently this is a Thing To Do! Anyway, it was a lot of fun. There weren't a lot of vegan options at the breakfast, obviously, but there were peaches and orange juice and coffee, and that was all I really needed.

The whole ride was about 34 miles. The ride up involved a very long, steep climb, probably the longest continuous climb I've done to date. I ran out of gears a couple of hundred yards in, which was disheartening, and I think my average speed for the whole climb was something like 6.2 mph, but I made it without stopping, which is the main thing!

I was looking forward to coasting down on the way back, but the headwind was so strong on the return that I had to pedal all but the very steepest parts. By the last three or four miles of the ride, it was all I could do to maintain a 13 mph pace, but my riding buddies were very patient. They toodled along chatting as I huffed and puffed behind them.

Monday (Today): Run-53 (Hills)

I woke up sore, but determined to get in my long hill run in order to get my gold star. :)

This was my longest and hardest hill run to date, but I managed to get through it. I'm pretty proud of myself, especially since I was still worn out from yesterday's ride.

1 minute run/1 minute walk
3 minutes run/1 minute walk
5 minutes run/1 minute walk
7 minutes run/1 minute walk
5 minutes run/1 minute walk
3 minutes run/1 minute walk
5 minutes run/1 minute walk
7 minutes run/1 minute walk
5 minutes run/1 minute walk
3 minutes run

Yay, me!

And no leg numbness, either, even after 53 minutes! I was worried that as my distances started to increase that my back might start acting up again, but so far, so good. Woohoo!

Late Post: Elephant Man Training Week 5 Of 16 [G]

2008-07-19T16:13:00.006-06:00

Ack, I was supposed to post this, like, last Monday. I'll try to get this week, Week 6, posted on schedule at least.

OK. Week 5. Week 5 was pretty light. I only did five of my eight sessions, in one case due to injury and in the other two cases due to exhaustion. I'm feeling much stronger now, though, so I guess I really needed the extra recovery time.

Anyway...

Monday: OFF

I had pulled something in my hip on Sunday and it still hurt when the alarm went off on Monday so I decided to let it heal, whatever it was, rather than risk making it worse.

Tuesday: Run-29 PLUS Swim Class-90

5 x (2 min easy run, 2 min hard run, 1 min walk)
1 x (2 min easy run, 2 min hard run)

Done! This one wasn't too bad.

Swim class, on the other hand, was hard! Freestyle, kick, breaststroke, breaststroke with two kicks and one pull, freestyle sprints, more freestyle sprints, even more freestyle sprints, breaststroke torpedoes. Oof!

Wednesday: Swim Class-60

Done. Freestyle, kick, pull, freestyle sprints, medley.

I was supposed to do Wednesday night ride, too, but it got rained out yet again. I will be so glad when summer monsoon is finally over!

Thursday: Run-40 PLUS Swim Class-90

I was feeling really drained so decided to do a shorter, makeup long run in place of the longer, scheduled long run I was supposed to do. I didn't feel like driving to find hills, either, so instead I used this run to try to do some longer continuous running - 7 minutes straight rather than the 2 to 5 minutes straight I've been doing.

I did:

5 x (run 7 min/walk 1 min)

and it wasn't that bad. It was super humid but I was able to maintain a pretty steady pace all the way to the end and, more importantly, my leg didn't go sleep at all in spite of the lack of variation in terrain and pace (other than the walking breaks, which I'm sure do help stave off the numbness).

Swim class was difficult as usual. Freestyle, kick, fins work, more fins work, still more fins work, bunch of relay games and - no, still not done - treading water! There, now you're done. How do you feel?

Friday: OFF

Exhausted. Exhausted is how I feel.

Saturday: OFF

Worn out.

Sunday: OFF

Ugh.

On the bright side...

Sunday was the first real Getting Organized meeting of the new triathlon club. It was fun, a lot of people showed up and I'm the new membership coordinator, ha! The best thing is that even the super experienced people there want the main focus of the club to be bringing new people into the sport and supporting beginning and intermediate triathletes in their goals and training. Awesome! So, I'm really psyched about that.

Also, it turns out that a bunch of people from here are planning on doing Elephant Man, so that will be fun.

Yay!

Elephant Man Training Week 4 Of 16 [G]

2008-07-06T16:45:00.007-06:00

I may as well call it what it is, I guess. There aren't any other Olympic distance triathlons within driving distance this fall or winter (I looked, hoping maybe I could find one scheduled later in the year in order to buy a little more training time). So, I'm stuck with Elephant Man even though the course is almost certainly over my head. Plus, I already sent in my registration and all.

So, yeah.

Eep!

The good news is, this was my best week yet, a silver-star-plus week according to my new rating system, which I just made up today. :)

For the first time since I started my current program, I managed not to miss a single session. The only reason it wasn't a gold star week was because my two 90-minute swim conditioning classes ended up being only 50- to 60-minutes this week and also because my scheduled short and long runs this week were both pretty short due to the mini-taper that occurs in the program every fourth week.

This was all partially offset by the brutal - for me - club ride I did this morning, followed by a run.

But still. Anyway, silver-star-plus is major progress for me!

Monday: Swim Class-60

Done! Kickboard, pull, freestyle, fins, medley. Medley was a joke as I really can't do backstroke or butterfly AT ALL, but oh well. I floundered about for a few lengths and eventually it was time for cool down.

Tuesday: Swim Class-50

Done! This was my 90-minute class, actually, but the instructor wasn't there. His sub posted a beginner workout and an advanced workout and left.

In the absence of an intermediate workout, I chose the beginner workout, but it turned out to be all fins. I'm pretty speedy with fins, and I knew it wasn't 90 minutes worth of drills, so I flipped a kickboard up in front of me perpendicular to the surface of the water to create as much resistance as possible and made a game out of getting through as many drills as possible without resting.

I finished in 50 minutes and thought about moving to the other end of the pool and doing at least part of the advanced workout, but upon climbing out of the water to switch lanes, I realized that my legs were shaking! So, I showered and went home to rest instead.

Wednesday: Swim Class-60

Done! Freestyle, kick*, pull, one-arm freestyle, medley (again, total joke, but whatever).

*Without kickboard as I've concluded that for me for some reason using a kickboard for kick drills doesn't really help me, plus it makes my lower back and left rotator cuff hurt, and I don't need that!

I had planned to do a Wednesday night ride, too, but we got rained out, rare for here!

Thursday: Run-17 PLUS Swim Class-60

Done and done!

The run was my short run for the week, and sticking to my plan to use my short runs for speed work and my long runs for hill work, I did:

3 x (1 min easy run, 1 min hard run, 1 min easy run, 1 min hard run, 1 min walk)
1 x (2 min easy run)

This run went pretty well! It was quite hot, in the mid-90s, but I felt pretty strong, even on my last minute of hard running. Encouraging, even if it was super short.

Thursday's swim class was supposed to be 90 minutes again, but I was half an hour late due to work (argh). I still got a pretty good workout in, though, I think. Freestyle, kick (again, without the kickboard), pull, breaststroke, breaststroke with two kicks and one pull, about a gazillion breaststroke torpedoes, vertical kicking (ack!), and a little more freestyle.

Friday: Club Ride

Done! 30 mostly flat miles at at average speed of about 17.5 mph. A few tough stretches due to wind and rough road but overall not too difficult.

Saturday (yesterday): OFF

Yay! I really needed a day off, especially as I didn't manage to work one in last week.

Sunday (today): Club Ride PLUS Run-29

Done and done!

The ride... OMG. I'd put it on my calendar three or four weeks ago and have been eyeing it warily ever since. I knew it was going to be hilly and challenging but I had no idea just how hilly and challenging.

The worst of the climbs were during the first half. At one point my friend, who had assured me I could do this ride, turned to my wheezing, panting person and said, "So, are you cursing me yet?" And in fact, I wasn't, but I was wondering what the hell I was doing out there, swearing silently that this was my Last. Club. Ride. Ever. and trying to figure out how to get down off the mountain and back to my car by myself without having to re-traverse all the stoplight littered streets we'd just climbed up plus cross under the interstate by myself.

In the end, there didn't seem to be any solution other than to just finish the ride, which I did, even though the group leader and my friends/cheerleaders kept saying, "That was the last hill! It's all downhill from here!" only for us to immediately encounter yet another climb.

In the end, the ride was only 33 miles, but I was totally depleted by the end, a problem as I still had to run. Argh!

I went home and checked email and did a few other things around the house and after about 90 minutes felt recovered enough to tackle the run.

I drove to a super hilly neighborhood about 15 minutes up the road and managed to grind out the following 29-minute pyramid:

2 min run, 1 min walk
3 min run, 1 min walk
4 min run, 1 min walk
5 min run, 1 min walk
4 min run, 1 min walk
3 min run, 1 min walk
2 min run

It was about 95 degrees out and humid enough that I was drenched in sweat by the time I finished, but I did finish even though I'm sure my run was really more of a shuffle by the last half of the pyramid.

I finished, came home, ate lunch and promptly passed out for a couple of hours.

Unfortunately, when I woke up, I realized that I must have pulled a hip flexor or an adductor on today's run. It hurts to walk unless I walk with my left leg rotated outward. Weird. Anyway, I'm hoping it isn't too serious and that ice and rest will clear it up. It has to, really, because tomorrow I start all over again with a 6:00 AM swim class. Ack!

Oly Distance Training Week 3 Of 16 [G]

2008-06-29T22:00:00.001-06:00

Well, this week went better. I only missed one session, a 60 minute swim conditioning class I once again just could not drag myself out of bed for at 4:45 in the morning.

I was - probably stupidly - looking at photos of last year's Elephant Man online just now and am still not sure I'll be ready for this course by the end of September. Training for it is still going to make me a lot stronger, though, even if I decide at the last minute that I can't do it - or if I try and DNF - so I guess I'm just going to keep training for it and see how things go.

I'm still having trouble doubling up workouts, as a result of which I ended up not taking a day off this week, something I really need to remedy in future weeks. Still, I consider this week progress.

The week in review:

Monday: Swim Class-60

Other people got to swim, but it was a hour of kickboard work for me.

So.

Frustrating.

Because I still wasn't moving forward very well, even after an hour of trying different things.

Oh, well.

Tuesday: Swim Class-90

Done! Lots of sprints.

Tip of the day: I should reach as far as I can before spearing my hand into the water, then pull all the way through from my entry point to where my thumb brushes my thigh, NOT put my hand in near my head and try to anchor myself there for the pull.

OK. So, on one hand, I think my instructors are pretty much undoing my whole Total Immersion technique, which is sort of what I feared they would do. On the other hand, I'm definitely a little faster already. On the other, other hand, I'm afraid I'm gaining speed at the expense of efficiency and I hope I don't end up dead in the water at Elephant Man due to my heart exploding...

Wednesday: Club Ride

Done! Wednesday nights are kind of a free-for-all, so I actually rode on my own although there were a ton of people riding the same route, some by themselves and others in little groups, all at different paces. I did about 24 miles at a frustratingly slow average pace of about 15 mph thanks to some pretty strong winds and nobody to draft off of. I guess it was a good workout, though, because I woke up kind of sore on Thursday and I'm rarely sore after riding anymore.

I skipped Wednesday's 60 minute swim class because I was up until 2:00 AM the night before and getting up at 4:45 AM was just out of the question.

Thursday: Swim Class-90

Done! Lots of breast stroke and underwater swimming followed by hand paddle work followed by towing people behind us - first without hand paddles and then, when we were too exhausted to tow people anymore without hand paddles, with hand paddles. My abs were quivering by the end of this session and I still can't believe I didn't wake up Friday morning with unusable lats.

A plus: I did much better on the small bit of kickboard work we did on Thursday! I'm not sure what I was doing differently but somehow I was getting a little more forward propulsion out of my kick.

Another plus: Swimming in the 12-foot used to freak me out, but I realized toward the end of Thursday's session that I'd done the whole session in a 12-foot lane and not thought once about the depth. I definitely trust the water more now that I'm spending so much time in it.

Friday: Run-29

Done! Which is impressive because I really Did. Not. Want. To. Run. It took me, like, an hour and a half to get myself organized and out the door. Ack.

It turned out to be a good run, though. I did:

5 x (2 minutes easy run, 1 minute hard run, 1 minute easy run, 1 minute walk)
1 x (4 minutes easy run)

and I felt really good afterwards. Tired, but kind of buzzed, you know, as opposed to just plain flattened, which is how I feel after a bad run.

Saturday: Run-44

Done! Finally, a long run! I picked a hilly course because the Elephant Man course has some big hills and I really need to start preparing for them. The plan was to do pyramids, like so:

2 x (2 minutes run, 1 minute walk/ 3 minutes run, 1 minute walk/ 4 minutes run, 1 minute walk/ 3 minutes run, 1 minute walk/ 2 minutes run, 1 minute walk)
1 x (6 minutes run)

At one point I started to think I'd accidentally skipped over a 2 minutes run, 1 minute walk sequence and a 3 minutes run, 1 minute walk sequence, so I tacked one of each on at the end just to be sure they got done. I ended up covering a little more distance than I'd anticipated, though, so I think I may have made them up unnecessarily. Oh well, bonus!

Anyway, apparently I really needed the hill work because my legs were like jelly by the time I finished, and I woke up this morning, Sunday, with quivering abs again and super sore glutes.

Sunday: Club Ride

My club ride choices today were a 25 mile ride at an easy pace with a leisurely stop for coffee in the middle or a 30 mile ride at a moderate pace with no stop for coffee in the middle.

I chose the 25 mile coffee stop ride.

My hips and legs and abs thanked me.

It was good coffee, too! :)

Oly Distance Training Week 2 Of 16 [G]

2008-06-23T23:53:00.002-06:00

Oof!

I've been struggling a bit to get up to speed with the new training plan.

The four-day-per-week swim conditioning class I started on Monday took a lot out of me in the first week - and I even ditched one day! I had a really tough bike session last Sunday, too, thanks to hills and crazy heat and a big step up in distance for me. I've managed to get my short runs in so far but not my long runs.

Anyway, about mid-week I started thinking that maybe it would be better to look for an Olympic distance triathlon happening in late November rather than pushing to do Elephant Man in late September but there isn't one within driving distance, so Elephant Man it is.

So, I registered, partly because it would suck to train and then get shut out of the event due to not having registered early enough, and partly for the motivation having committed will provide. I plan to make my campground reservations later this week and then I just need to train, train, train!

After I registered, I sat down and worked out my training calendar through the end of July, when my swim class ends. I think I've figured out how to, beginning this week, start working my long runs in and not, I hope, die. Cross your fingers for me!

I wrote about the first part of Week 1 here. Here's how Week 1 ended:

WEEK 1 (END)

Saturday: Run-40

NOT done. :(

I was exhausted and was worried I wouldn't make it through Sunday's club ride unless I took Saturday as a rest day. Which turned out to be a good decision because...

Sunday: Club Ride

Done! Barely, but still!

I had been told it would be 30 mile ride. Great! I thought. The longest ride I'd done prior to Sunday was 25 miles, but 30 didn't sound like that big of a step up. I can totally do this!

When I got to the parking lot, somebody told me that the route was actually 32 miles.

Then the ride leader announced that he was tweaking the route in order to pass by a place that sells really good, freshly baked cookies and that the total distance would be closer to 35.

Um...

The official final distance turned out to be 34.6. I actually did pretty well for the first 30 miles, too, but the last part of the ride was pretty much all steep uphill and by now the sun was climbing and the temperature was creeping into the high 90s. I had started with two bottles of frozen Ultima but what was left by this point was so warm that drinking made me feel worse (I kept drinking anyway, but still).

It took everything I had just to make it back to the parking lot where I stopped, dismounted and was immediately overcome with wheezing just like happened at the beginning of the run leg at Milkman. Some riders who came to check on me reported that I was "white as a sheet" which was a little alarming as I'm usually red as a beet after exercising, even in moderate temperatures.

I don't know if that was just from the effort, the heat, the pollution, high ozone levels or what, but I think if it happens a third time, I'll have to get it checked out, just in case.

But anyway, the main thing is that I finished my hardest ride to date. Yay!

WEEK 2:

Monday: First Day Of Swim Class-60

Done! I started out in Lane 3 of 6 and got promoted to Lane 4 of 6 based on my speed, such as it is, so that was encouraging. Also, there were beginning, intermediate and advanced workouts posted on the board and I made it through the intermediate workout in the time available, so that was pretty encouraging as well.

Tip of the day: What I read about spreading my fingers is wrong. The instructor told me I'm supposed to keep my fingers held tightly together and think of my cupped hand and forearm as an oar.

Tuesday: Run-44 PLUS Swim Class-90

Swim class done! Run NOT done as again, I was too tired to get up and do it. :(

Swam about a mile total in swim class, much of it in sprints, plus did 200 yds of kickboard, too, which is totally anti-Total Immersion, I know, but whatever. I'm a really ineffective kicker so need the practice.

Tip of the day: I need to kick more, even if I'm doing Total Immersion. My legs are sinking and it's creating drag and slowing me down.

Wednesday: Swim Class-60 PLUS Club Ride

Swim class NOT done. :( I literally could not get out of bed. Muscles failed me. I passed out for another couple of hours and felt a little more recovered, though still not very.

Done! Well, sort of. It was 106 degrees in the parking lot and I was concerned because of the heat-related problems I'd encountered on my last two rides. So, rather than try to hang with the big group, a friend and I did our own VERY easy ride, 22 miles at about 13 miles per hour average. This time I had two frozen water bottles filled with Ultima plus my medium-sized CamelBak filled with ice water and I did a lot better. I was sore in a bunch of weird places, though, which my friend suggested must be from the swimming and I'm sure she was right.

Thursday: Swim Class-90

Done! This one I made it to. It was fins night and the pool fins cut up the tops of two toes on my left foot, which really, really hurt. On the other hand, I felt like I got a really good workout. Also, I think I kind of get now what my feet should feel like when I'm kicking. I think I've been holding my ankles too rigid, or maybe they hold themselves rigid. Anyway, I need to work on developing a more fluid kick, I think.

Tip of the day: No tips on Thursday as the instructor was focused on making us sore (he told us that).

Friday: OFF

Done! I was actually supposed to run on Friday and take Saturday off, but I was too exhausted from my swim class to get up and run so took Friday off instead.

Saturday: Run-26

Done! For mental stimulation and speed development, I did:

6 x (2 minutes easy run/1 minute hard run/1 minute walk)
1 x (2 minutes easy run)

Not that you could tell much difference between my easy and my hard run by about the fifth repeat, but whatever! I felt tired, but good, when I finished, so I think it was a good workout.

Sunday: Club Ride

Done! An easy 30 miles (wow, I never thought I'd say that!) at 17 to 19 mph. I was helped by the fact that this was a flat ride, wind was average for the area, nothing horrible, and it was a little cooler than the previous Sunday. Also, I had my frozen Ultima bottles and my ice water-filled Camelbak so I felt better prepared than I was the previous week and just knowing that allowed me to relax a bit, which probably made the ride easier, too.

Oly Distance Training Update [G]

2008-06-13T18:21:00.004-06:00

So, on Monday, I started, on a trial basis, an Olympic distance training program. So far this week I've done:

Monday: Run-24

Done!

Tuesday: Bike-48

Done! I actually subbed what should have been a 90 minute club ride for this session.

I say "should have been" because it was in the low 100s when we headed out and although I had done a really good job of hydrating prior to and during Milkman, I apparently didn't do as good a job of hydrating after the event. Plus, I think as of Tuesday I still just wasn't fully recovered from the event.

Anyway, we were about 12 miles into the ride when I started feeling nauseated. I stopped and got off my bike, which saved me from throwing up, I think, but now felt super weak and dizzy in addition to sick to my stomach. I might have been able to make it back but was afraid to risk it, so I called my sister, who, hero that she is, came with the truck to come collect me and a friend who was kind enough to wait with me.

Three days, lots of rest and several gallons of water and Ultima later I'm feeling much better, but I obviously need to work on my heat tolerance and on my hydration as last year it was quite hot at Elephant Man, the event I'm tentatively shooting for.

Wednesday: Rest

Yesterday: Swim-40

Done! I couldn't find my groove, for some reason, so sort of floundered through this session at an average 25 yd stroke count of about 23. Yikes. But whatever, it's done.

Today: Swim-24

Done! Today I found my groove again for whatever reason. I did the whole swim at a very steady, comfortable 25 yd stroke count of 17.

Tomorrow: (Projected) Run-40

Sunday: (Projected) Bike-80 (substitute 30 mile club ride)

So, so far, so good, I think. And in fact, I think my plans for the next 7 weeks, at least, are falling into place.

Remember how I told you that at Milkman a bunch of us triathlon newbies from here resolved, more or less, to start our own triathlon club since our city was sadly lacking one?

Well, on Wednesday, while recovering from Tuesday, I was getting ready to register a domain name and start designing a flyer announcing an organizational meeting for said new club when I discovered that someone else had very recently had exactly the same idea! My Milkman buddies and I did some asking around and verified that there is, in fact, a newly founded triathlon club here! The next meeting - the second ever - is scheduled for the middle of July!

I contacted the founder, who was pleased to hear that I'm available to help and who added me to his mailing list. I then received a weekly bulletin from him announcing, among other things, a 7-week, 28-session swim conditioning class being offered through the continuing ed program at the local university and to be taught by - drumroll, please - a former Olympic swimmer and her husband, a veteran triathlete.

OMG, perfect!

I went online and signed up immediately. The class starts on Monday!

So, for the next seven weeks, starting Monday, I think my weekly training schedule is going to look like this:

4 x swim class
2 x club or training partner ride
2 x run, following the progression laid out in the beginnertriathlete.com 16-week Olympic distance training program here: 16 week Olympic distance training program

That's a lot of swimming, but the swim at Elephant Man is a mile, so I really need to get up to speed quickly. Anyway, I think this schedule plus the eight weeks of training which will follow should leave me in pretty good shape for the swim and the bike at least. I'll probably still have to grind out the run, or even run/walk it like I did at Milkman, but I can live with that.

And now, an avocado sandwich calls. I'm living on fruit and sandwiches this week as it's been way too hot for soup!

My First Triathlon Race Report: Part III [G]

2008-06-11T01:09:00.005-06:00

FFFWHOOOOOOOOOO
OOO0OO0OOOOOOoOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOO

No!

Right into a headwind! I couldn't believe it.

There was one small downhill section where I got to fly and then the flat bit at end as I returned to transition but other than that I fought the headwind the whole way down.

So, the bike was quite a bit tougher than I'd anticipated, but I was proud of myself for powering through it anyway.

Also, I had decided to carry 24 oz of Ultima with me on the bike and 6 strawberry Shot Bloks (I ran out of time to experiment with whole foods fueling prior to the race so didn't want to risk it). I consumed all of this pretty steadily over the course of the bike leg and I think it worked pretty well! Even though the bike leg was hard, I never felt thirsty or light-headed.

As I approached transition, I was alarmed to see spectators lined up right at the edge of the little path leading to the timing mat. We were required to dismount and trot our bikes across the mat. I couldn't stop off the path because of all the people and was afraid that if I tried to stop on the path, I would fall over and take out a bunch of cyclists who were coming up fast behind me.

So, I stopped off the path just up the course from the first spectator. I managed not to fall over, and trotted my bike the rest of the way in, keeping far to the right to let other cyclists pass me, explaining apologetically to anyone who gave me a funny look that I'm really bad at stopping and didn't want to take a bunch of people down at the mat.

My official bike time: 52:22.2

TRANSITION 2 (T2):

I crossed the timing mat and returned to the transition area where, again following the written instructions I'd left for myself, I racked my bike, drank about 4 oz of Ultima, changed from my bike socks and shoes into my running socks and shoes, donned my race belt to which I'd pre-attached my race number, removed my gloves and helmet, stuck a packet containing three strawberry Shot Bloks in my gel pocket, drank another 4 oz of Ultima... then jogged off to the not-that-proximate porta-potties for a quick pit stop before jogging back to start the run.

As no other participant had a T2 time even remotely approaching mine, I can only assume that I was the only person in the whole race who required a pit stop. I hadn't timed dinner and breakfast correctly, though - my only real logistical error - and I feared being waylaid by GI issues on the run if I didn't make the stop, so whatever.

As I was changing shoes and socks, I noticed a long blister forming on the back of my right heel. I couldn't feel it once I got my running shoes on and just hoped it wouldn't be a problem once I hit the run trail.

My official T2 time: 7:09.9

RUN:

My pit stop had allowed my heart rate to fall a bit and I started the run feeling pretty good... until perhaps 50 or 60 yards in at which point I suddenly couldn't breathe. The wheeziness I'd experienced in the latter part of the swim had returned only now I my inhalations as well as my exhalations were constricted. This had never, ever happened to me before and I could feel myself beginning to panic, which only made the problem worse.

I stopped running and stepped off the trail to get out of everyone's way and spent the next two or three minutes taking deep, long hold yoga breaths in order to calm myself down and return my breathing to normal. Soon I was good to go again but knew I wouldn't be able to run continuously, so set the timer on my watch and did 2 minutes run/1 minute walk for the remainder of the run, which did turn out to be sustainable.

There were four aid stations on the run, a good thing as by now it was quite hot. I ate one Shot Blok at each of the first three stations and washed it down with 6 to 8 oz of water and again, my fueling strategy seemed to serve me well.

I was running behind a man and a girl I took to be his junior high aged daughter. As we came around a stand of juniper and were about to head up a low hill to the second aid station, they stopped abruptly. The man took the girl by the shoulders and steered her to the left side of the trail. At first I thought that maybe she had cramps or was going to vomit, but then he turned to me, signaling with his hand that I should stop, and shouted, "Ma'am, there's a rattlesnake, get to the left!"

I stopped and moved to the left of the trail and sure enough, right there on the trail, not too far in front of him, was a snake. Luckily for us, it was already on the move. It slipped into the long, dry grass to the right of the trail. I warned a man coming up behind me to keep to the left due to a rattlesnake and he, I hope, warned the people coming up behind him. In any event, at the awards ceremony there were no reports or rumors circulating of any runners felled by snakebite, so I think the snake must have decided to seek shelter somewhere where there was less commotion.

The man and his daughter and I continued up the hill to the second aid station where I noticed that my right toes were starting to feel a little numb. The numbness progressed as it always does once it starts and by the 2 1/2 mile marker, my right leg was totally asleep. This hadn't happened in weeks but I chalked it up to three nights sleeping in a lawn chair in the kitchen with a very sick kitten followed by four hours of driving and a night sleeping in an SUV, all compounded by inadequate stretching.

On the other hand, I couldn't feel, and hadn't felt even before my leg went numb, the blister I had noticed at T2, and anyway, whatever. By now I knew I was definitely going to make it and was just psyched that I would soon be crossing the finish line. I kept up my 2 minutes run/1 minute walk strategy and almost before I knew it I was trotting across the grassy field and into the finish chute.

My official run time: 43:21.3

THE END:

I heard them announce my name as I entered the finish chute, but I was so exhausted that it didn't even occur to me to raise my head and look at the display to see my time. It turned out that that would have been my unadjusted time, anyway, I think. My official time was that time adjusted for my wave start which was about 20 minutes after the gun for the first wave.

My official time: 2:03:48.7

I had thought that a realistic time finishing time for me at Danskin would be 2:15:00 or thereabouts. The swim at Danskin would have been a little longer, .5 miles as opposed to .5 kilometers, so I felt like my 2:03:48.7 was pretty much in the range or even perhaps a bit faster than I had expected.

I went back to my vehicle and then to the washrooms to clean up a bit before the awards ceremony. At the ceremony, S. Baboo and GeekGirl very kindly came over to see how my first triathlon had gone. I told GeekGirl about the wheezing and told her I didn't know if that an altitude thing or a little bit of exercise-induced asthma or what. She advised me that caffeine helps prevent wheezing, so I guess I need to experiment with drinking (even) stronger coffee in the morning or figure out a way to take in caffeine on the course. Gels would be the obvious solution, I guess, although again, that sort of conflicts with my dream of a whole foods fueling strategy for future races.

Anyway, in spite of a few mishaps here and there I think I had a great first race!

And now I can't wait to do another one! :)

Oly Distance Training Test Day One [G]

2008-06-09T22:03:00.000-06:00

Rather than committing to Elephant Man outright, I think instead I'm going to try following this 16 week Olympic distance training program from beginnertriathlete.com for a couple of weeks and then see how I feel.

If I feel like I'm handling the volume OK, I'll sign up for Elephant Man.

If I feel like it's just too much for me still, or if my back starts acting up again, I'll pick a sprint distance event to do in the fall instead and try for an Oly again after that.

And so...

Run:

24 minutes

Done!

A little labored as I'm still a bit tired from Milkman, but not terrible. It was cool out this morning, lots of people out exercising, a perfect morning for a run, really!

My First Triathlon Race Report: Part II [G]

2008-06-09T22:02:00.000-06:00

SWIM (.5 K/.3 Mi/547 Yds)

POP! The gun sounded and we were off. I had no idea what swimming in a lake would be like and it really wasn't that bad. I couldn't see much underwater but it wasn't completely dark. Rather the first foot or so of water was a cloudy, light-suffused green. I was also happy to find the laws of physics unaltered. I applied the techniques I'd been practicing in the pool and they worked! Reach, roll, pull, glide, reach, roll, pull, glide. I slipped forward through the water just like during training.

Unfortunately, even though I had strenuously coached myself not to, I went out way too fast and by the end of approximately the first quarter of the course, found myself gasping for air. Unable to recover, I ended up doing a fast sidestroke for the remainder of the swim, comforted by the fact that others around me were also by now resorting to backstroke, breast stroke and dog paddle.

The only problem with doing the sidestroke was that I ended up drifting far to the right - Swim left, swim left! the guards kept hollering, and it took me awhile to realize they were yelling at me - and had to cut way back in to make my turn. On the return, I drifted out again, but this was probably for the best because by now the faster swimmers from the wave after us were starting to overtake the stragglers from ours and although I ended up swimming a longer distance than the people who swam the course straight out and back, I at least didn't get kicked or punched or swum over.

As I was approaching shore on the return, my exhalations suddenly began to feel and sound very wheezy. I didn't feel oxygen deprived so I wasn't too worried, but it was an odd development nonetheless.

Shortly thereafter, my fingers struck muck, indicating that it was time to stand up and slog my way to shore.

My official swim time: 16:46.6

Transition 1 (T1):

I ran up the ramp, through the first bike corral, into the second bike corral and over to my bike. I had always wondered how people managed to run barefoot after the swim, but at this race, at least, the organizers had kindly covered the ramp and the path to and through transition with carpet scraps which made it pretty comfortable.

Following the instructions I'd written out for myself, I drank about 4 oz of Ultima, then quickly removed my goggles, swim cap and earplugs and tossed them into my transition bag. Next I poured water over my feet, dried them rapidly with a towel, rolled on my socks and slipped on my bike shoes (a triathlon model with a simple velcro closure). Finally, I reapplied sunscreen to my face, neck and shoulders (why risk skin cancer to take a couple of seconds off transition), reapplied Beljum Budder anywhere I could reach with modesty, donned my gloves and helmet, drank another 4 oz of Ultima, unracked my bike, jogged to the timing mat, crossed the timing mat, mounted my bike and took off.

My official T1 time: 4:08.8

BIKE (20 K/12.4 Mi)

The first part of the bike course was flat and fast. 24 mph! said my bike computer. 22. 24! 23. 24!

This is awesome, I thought! I'm gonna rock the bike!

Then there was a hill.

Uh-oh...

And as I crested that hill, another hill appeared in front of me. And on and on it went. Most of the downhills weren't long enough to build any momentum for the next uphill so it was basically climb, climb, climb. At one point I looked down to see my bike computer reading 9 mph. At what point does one just get off and walk? I wondered.

There were a few bright spots.

For example, I successfully crossed the uncovered cattle guard without catching my front wheel and breaking my arm.

Also, the cow who appeared to be thinking about stepping out right in front of me decided at the last second to remain on the shoulder with her friends. S. Baboo, who was officiating, told me after the race that shortly before I'd arrived at the spot on the course, the cows had been on the road and one of them was in fact running down the road next to the cyclists, freaking them out to no end, I'm sure. S. Baboo somehow herded them off the road.

Plus, the whole way up I kept thinking, man, I am going to smoke the descent and that will make up for this whole 9 mph thing.

The turnaround at the top of the course was very narrow and I had to slow waaaaay down to navigate. I managed not to fall over, though, and was feeling pysched about the imminent coast downhill when all of a sudden...

JOIN US TOMORROW FOR THE THRILLING CONCLUSION!

My First Triathlon Race Report: Part I [G]

2008-06-08T22:46:00.006-06:00

I arrived in Dexter just as twilight was fading into dark. I knew nothing about Dexter prior to my arrival, but passing feedlot after feedlot it grew quickly clear that I was in dairy country. I had wondered why it was called the Milkman Triathlon. Now I understood.

I saw the little green sign indicating the turnoff to the lake just a second too late. I made a U-turn a little way up and this time turned in the right place. There was a parking lot to my right and some campers ahead. I could see the lake beyond the parking lot. There were tents pitched here and there and people sitting out on the piers. I followed the road around the lake slowly, to get my bearings and to see if I could find a better place to park for the night than in the parking lot, but in the end the parking lot seemed to be my best bet. That turned out to be a good decision because the next morning I found myself right where I needed to be: packet pickup, body marking and the bike corral were mere yards away.

A family parked next to me was setting up a tent in the grass just beyond our vehicles. We chatted a little and it turned out we were from the same city. The husband looked like a veteran triathlete to me and I didn't find out until the next day, when they were passing out finishers cups to all first-time triathletes, that it was his first triathlon as well.

I didn't want to be rushed in the morning, so I set my alarms for 4:00 AM and went to sleep. It was my first time sleeping in the back of this particular vehicle and I wasn't sure how it would be, but it wasn't bad! I awoke in the morning feeling rested and clear-headed... and surprisingly calm! Again, I think because Milkman was not the race I had been preparing for and I therefore had no expectations, all the pressure was off, which was really nice. I got dressed, ate breakfast, paid my registration fee (a very kind volunteer named Britney had allowed me, upon hearing my sick kitten story, to register by phone even though it was last minute and to pay the morning of the event), picked up my packet, wrote out step by step instructions for myself for T1 and T2, organized all my transition stuff on a mat next to my car, racked my bike and moved my transition instructions and stuff to the transition area. Several terrific volunteers answered my many dumb newbie questions:

So, OK, how does this chip thingy work? You put it on your left ankle like this. Make sure you can fit a finger in there to start because your leg may swell as the event progresses.

I have my race number, so what's this for? That's your bike number. It goes over the top tube of your bike, like this.

Do I put all my transition stuff to the right or to the left of my bike? Doesn't matter, whatever your preference is.

I was back at my car, sipping water and killing time until the pre-race meeting when suddenly I thought I saw... GeekGirl, of Athena Diaries fame! She is friends with and a fellow Outlaw of my childhood friend Pirate with whom I reconnected last year basically through GeekGirl's blog and I met her and her husband, S. Baboo, last September when Pirate wisely suggest that I come volunteer with the Outlaws at the Elephant Man Triathlon in order to get a better idea of how a triathlon works. Anyway, I tracked her down at her car and reintroduced myself, then tracked down S. Baboo, who she had told me was officiating, and reintroduced myself to him as well. I told them both that it was my first triathlon and they were both super supportive and encouraging and S. Baboo patiently answered more dumb newbie questions about bike penalties and how to avoid them.

Eventually the pre-race meeting started and then it was time to report to the wave clerks. My wave consisted of all the 35 to 39s. We had to line up by number in front of a little sign. The two people behind me were also from my city. The woman had done a couple of triathlons but this was going to be her first open water swim. The man was doing his first triathlon. We had all been jealously eyeing the Triatomics' awesome red uniforms and semi-resolved on the spot that we really do need to do something about the lack of a local triathlon club, a conversation I had again the next day with the first time triathlete whose family's truck was still parked next to my vehicle. USA Triathlon has helpfully posted a guide to starting a triathlon club and I think we're really going to do it!

But I digress.

The gun went off and the first wave took off. Then another gun and another wave, another gun and another wave and finally it our turn to walk out on the pier and hop down in the water to wait for our start. While looking for directions to the lake on Friday I had accidentally stumbled on the fact that the water is only about 4 feet deep, which instantly took away any fear I had of the open water aspect of the swim, and they repeated this information at the race meeting. That left only the water temperature to worry about - the pool I train in is kept at 86 degrees, I wonder what 75 degrees feels like? - and in fact it felt quite chilly upon hopping in. We all stood there shivering with one hand on the pier waiting for the one minute warning, then the 10 second warning, and finally...

TO BE CONTINUED

(Hee hee!)

Somebody stop me [G]

2008-06-08T11:56:00.002-06:00

Last night I was so wiped out by my little sprint distance race that I told Boy Genius I didn't understand how people do Olympic distance races, let alone half-irons or ironman distance events.

But then this morning I was trying to figure out what my next event should be when I discovered that (a) it is exactly 16 weeks to the Elephant Man Olympic distance triathlon I volunteered at last fall and (b) beginnertriathlete.com has a 16 week Olympic distance training program for which I already have the pre-reqs: 40 minute swim (OK, 35 but close enough), 80 minute bike and 40 minute run.

I mean, it's a sign, right?

I know it's a super challenging course but I also know that last year they didn't kick anybody off the course and that the last person crossed the finish line about 20 minutes into the awards ceremony and everybody cheered for her.

And, see, I'm competitive. I think I'm a serious contender for last place this year and that I should go and give that woman, should she choose to return, a run for her money.

Ha!

I know, I still owe you a race report. It's coming, really! :)

My First Triathlon Done!!! [G]

2008-06-07T21:59:00.001-06:00

Wow!

That was fun!!!

And hard!

But mostly fun!

I'm exhausted and still need to unload the car so Boy Genius can have it back, so full race report will have to wait until tomorrow, but here are the highlights:

I finished!
Faster than I expected to!
Encountered just a few minor problems, but nothing major and certainly nothing catastrophic
I rocked the logistics!
There was a rattlesnake on the run trail!
Triathletes appear to be almost uniformly super friendly, helpful people!

OK, more soon!

One Day To Milkman! [G]

2008-06-06T12:37:00.001-06:00

Dylan is much better today. I've been sleeping on a lawn chair in the kitchen so that he can sleep with me, but last night had to get up at 4:00 AM and go to bed because he was awake and wanting to play! Pouncing on my head, attacking my hair, that kind of thing. He's still sniffly and sneezy, but his rash has faded a lot and the swelling in his face is almost completely gone. His temp at the vet's today was 101.0 which is in the low normal range for a cat. Boy Genius will take him to the vet tomorrow for nebulization and then our vet wants to try taking Sunday off to see how he does without treatment.

Hooray!

I got the work done this morning that absolutely had to be done before I could leave town. Lunch is in the microwave, and as soon as I've eaten, I just need to throw everything in the car then head out to run a bunch of last minute errands. My goal is to be heading out of town no later than 3:00 PM in hopes of reaching Dexter no later than 7:00 PM.

So, OK! Here we go! Wish me luck!

Two Days To Milkman! [G]

2008-06-05T20:40:00.000-06:00

Dylan continues to improve with treatment. As of this evening, the swelling in his face has pretty much subsided and a lot of his little skin lesions are starting to scab over. When the vet took his temp this morning, it was 102.4, I think she said. That's the first time since his illness began last Wednesday (eight days ago, now, poor baby!) that it's dipped below 103. He's starting to get his spunk back a little, too. He fought the vet tech today when she tried to put the nebulizer mask over his face - she ended up having to swaddle him in a towel - and twice today made a run for it - jailbreak! - when I opened the kitchen door to check on him. He's still pretty congested and still makes the little smacking noises that tell me this throat is still sore, but still, it's astonishing how much better he seems now than he did on Monday and Tuesday night.

So, it's looking like I will in fact be able to do Milkman and not have to be worrying about him for the 24 hours or so that I'll be gone. Right now I'm gathering up everything I need to take with and making a shopping list of stuff I will need to pick up tomorrow on my way out of town. The only thing I haven't figured out is how I'm going to make my coffee at 5:00 in the morning on Saturday morning, but maybe I can find a 12-volt immersion heater at the sporting goods store on my way out of town or something. Otherwise, I guess I'll just take some instant coffee and mix it up cold. Ugh, I know... but better than trying to race without my morning caffeine, and it doesn't seem worth it to mess with a propane stove just for coffee.

Three Days To Milkman [G]

2008-06-04T20:18:00.002-06:00

Today was a relatively good day for Dylan again. When I took him in to be nebulized this morning, our vet also gave him a steroid shot because, she said, in looking into the very latest research on VS-FCV last night she found some studies pointing to an autoimmune component to the disease. The autoimmune component contributes to the skin ulcerations and steroids can therefore help with that.

Have I mentioned how much I love our vet? I love our vet. I wish I could find a people doctor as thorough and conscientious as our vet.

So anyway, the steroids kicked in sometime in the early afternoon. Not only are his rash and the little lesions on his chest, legs and feet looking a little less fierce, but he actually got up and played with his favorite toy for about 20 seconds before climbing back into his little bed and going back to sleep.

He was a lot less congested today, too, thanks to the second nebulization treatment. I know he still isn't totally out of the woods, but seriously, at this time last night he looked so horrible that I was seriously terrified that he might stop eating and die before the end of the week in spite of all our efforts to get him through this. Tonight, though, I feel like he's probably going to be OK if we just keep up the treatments and continue to nurse him through it.

OMG. What a relief.

So anyway, I was thinking about making up that 15 minute swim session tonight since Milkman is looking likely after all, but decided I need to sit down with myself for a logistics meeting more than I need to swim since now I need to organize myself not only for the triathlon but also for camping (SUV camping - Boy Genius is lending me his vehicle so I can just sleep in the back rather than having to pitch a tent, which I don't even own at this point - but still).

And I'm starting to think that the no Danskin thing is actually a blessing in disguise in a way. I wanted to go into Danskin with the sole goal of finishing, but I knew enough about the race and the course that I was starting to formulate secret goal times which I would have been disappointed not to have achieved.

In contrast, I know nothing about Milkman other than that Dexter is somewhere south of Roswell, that there's a lake with free camping for race participants, and that the race is a qualifier for some national events but is also advertised as friendly to "fitness beginners." I have no idea whether it's hilly or flat, dry or verdant, high altitude or similar to here, rough road or smooth... nothing. And please, if you, Dear Reader, know anything about it, do not tell me, because here's the thing: knowing nothing should probably freak me out, but instead I'm finding it really liberating. It takes all the pressure off! I no longer have any secret goal times or expections of any kind, for that matter. And I will do my damndest to finish, but if things go irretrievably wrong and I can't, then you know what? Whatever! I wasn't even supposed to be here today.

(That's a Clerks reference. Insert appreciative laughter here. :) )

Anyway, that's the update. Please continue to send good thoughts Dylan's way. I think they're helping!

Oh, I forgot [G]

2008-06-03T22:37:00.000-06:00

Bike:

15 minutes

Done

:(

Four Days To Milkman... [G]

2008-06-03T22:35:00.000-06:00

Milkman Triathlon

Maybe...

So as of last Friday evening, we thought Dylan was pulling out of whatever was wrong with him. Saturday he slept a lot but still seemed to be on the mend. On Sunday, though, he started sneezing. Just a few sneezes, here and there. But still. Then yesterday afternoon, I noticed that he was getting congested. Last night at bedtime, we noticed that a red rash was starting to form on his temples and ears. And this morning, when I got up to take him to the vet, the rash had turned bright red and a bunch of red, raised bumps had appeared on his neck, front legs and on the tops of little front feet. The vet looked in his mouth and found blisters at the back of his throat.

She isn't sure, because there isn't a test, but she strongly suspects, given the way it started (fever and a limp) and the way it's progressed (to upper respiratory symptoms with oral and skin ulcerations), that his mystery virus is the new virulent systemic feline calicivirus (VS-FCV) that's going around. And as of tonight, he's starting to show the facial edema that's also characteristic of the virulent strain.

She is encouraged that he's still eating and drinking even though it must be super painful for him to do so, but still, VS-FCV has a high mortality rate and she warned me that even if he gets better, he is likely to get worse first. I'm supposed to bring him in first thing every morning to be nebulized until we see some improvement. Also, we have had to separate him from our adult cats as he is now in the phase where he will be shedding the virus. Our adults cats are vaccinated against VS-FCV, but still, it's a highly mutable virus and vaccines are never 100% effective anyway. So, he's quarantined in the kitchen and we are trying to spend as much time with him as possible in there with him in order to keep him as happy and comfortable as possible under the circumstances.

So, needless to say, Danskin is now out of the question. If a miracle occurs and he is showing definite signs of recovery by Thursday, I am going to do the Milkman Triathlon instead. The registration deadline is tomorrow but I called and they let me sign up by phone. That race is on Saturday and is much closer than Austin. I would drive up there Friday night, camp by the lake, do the race the next morning and drive back that afternoon and Boy Genius would be Head Nurse To Dylan while I'm gone.

Given how bad Dylan looks right now, I actually think it's unlikely that Milkman is going to happen for me either, but anyway, that's my plan B for now.

Please keep him in your thoughts. That's a baby picture of him at the top. He still looks pretty much the same, only sick. I really cannot believe this is happening. He was in foster care since he was two weeks old, with me since four weeks and is about twelve weeks old now. He has never been anything but healthy other than a minor eye infection which he had when he and his littermates were transferred from their first foster mom to me. He had only ever been away from our house four times prior to his visit to the emergency clinic last week - twice to the shelter for shots and testing and twice to the off-site adoption center with his brothers, none of whom are sick as far as I can ascertain. Typical incubation for VS-FCV is 1 to 5 days, so if indeed that's what he's got, he likely picked it up at the adoption center. And if not there, then at the shelter when I took him for his second set of shots. Unbelievable.

Six Days To Danskin... [G]

2008-06-02T22:03:00.008-06:00

... and I'm feeling really unprepared.

I took Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of last week off from training due to Dylan's illness.

On Saturday I swam 20 minutes and intended to run for 30 minutes, too, but ran out of time for that. Sunday, no time to do anything. Today, I swam 20 minutes again.

That leaves:

15 minute swim
30 minute run
15 minute run
15 minute bike

not done.

It's too late to do the 30 minute run now as I'm afraid that if I do it, I won't be sufficiently rested on Sunday.

I need to cut one other workout, too, and am thinking about cutting the 15 minute run. Runs just require so much more recovery.

Plus, I want to do the swim because it helps my back so much (as opposed to the run, which would just stress it).

And, I want to do the bike because I haven't been on it at all since its tune-up and I don't want to be getting used to the adjustments they made to it on the first 15 minutes of the bike leg at the event.

So anyway, when it comes to self-assessment, I'm still a black and white thinker, even though I know it's a really bad mental habit and one I've been trying to break. Black and white as in, it wasn't a A+ so it might as well have been an F. That sort of thing. And in this case, I missed two sessions, so I might as well not have trained at all.

Now, I know this is ridiculous. I do.

But still. I feel depressed.

Although I realize that that's probably due to the taper, too. Dopamine deficit or whatever.

But, my nutrition has gone to hell over the past two weeks and I'm worried about that.

And also, I was hoping to have this week to get really organized for the event but the way my week is shaping up it looks like I'll just be throwing stuff in the car Friday morning and going, crossing my fingers that I haven't forgotten anything essential.

Or, maybe the universe will smile on me and Thursday will be a slow day and I'll be able to get organized after all. At a minimum, I really need to figure out my nutrition strategy because currently I don't have one at all other than that I'll be drinking Ultima on the bike leg.

Sigh.

OK. It probably is just the taper that's making me feel like this, right? Depressed when I should be productively nervous?

Dylan is still much better than he was last week but he's all congested now in spite of being on Clavamox. I guess that's just the next phase of the virus, whatever it is, but anyway, we're going to the vet first thing in the morning now that she's finally back in town just to see what she thinks and to see if there's some kind of kitty antihistamine or something we can give him so that he can breathe, poor baby. He really needs to be better by Friday because the plan is that my folks are going to watch him at their house while we're in Austin this weekend!

Dylan drama denouement [G]

2008-05-31T07:20:00.002-06:00

Dylan, because he's still very little, sleeps in a huge dog kennel in our bedroom. He's got his litterbox, food and water dishes, little fleece blanket and favorite catnip toy in there. I cover it with blankets at night so the big cats don't bother him and also so he doesn't keep us awake all night talking to us. It's his own, private apartment.

This morning at about 6:00 AM, I awoke to the sound of him crunching away on his kibble. Later, I heard him lapping water. At about 6:30, I opened the kennel and he came darting out, fluffy and bright-eyed and ready to run and play, just like before his scary little mystery illness.

I cannot tell you how happy and relieved we are to see him feeling back to normal!

Busy day ahead: need to get my car inspection done (just realized Wednesday that I forgot to do it in April, oops, but then Dylan was sick and I still haven't gotten it done), run, swim, do some more work on the contract handover project, finish cleaning the house, and then somewhere in the middle of all that, too, I'm going with my folks and sister to a taping of Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion at a university in the area.

Boy Genius and my brother-in-law, not appreciating Scandinavian/Lutheran humor, apparently, opted out, but that's fine. Boy Genius can be in charge of supervising Dylan today. :)

Another Dylan update [G]

2008-05-30T10:24:00.004-06:00

Thanks so much for your concern and kind comments about Dylan, you guys! We really appreciate it.

So, last night we had to go back to the emergency clinic because his temperature was climbing dangerously high again. He spent the night there hooked up to an IV.

The vet, the same one as the night before, tried again, and failed again, to get a urine sample, but she did a new blood panel and found that his white blood cell count was now low. Based on that, and the fact that his temperature was continuing to go up and down in spite of the antibiotics she'd already given him, she revised her diagnosis from possible urinary tract infection or invisible abcess to, and I quote, "some kind of nasty virus."

Whatever they gave him in the IV seemed to help - I believe they gave him some glucose as well as some kind of fever reducer and I don't know what all else. When I went to collect him this morning he was able to stand (he'd hardly barely been able to for the past two days) and was being very vocal and on the ride home and was sticking his paws out of his carrier and trying to touch things.

By this afternoon, though, his temp was starting to climb yet again in spite of the sponge baths I was giving him every few hours. The vet had said most mystery viruses last three to five days and today was only day three so really it was premature for me to be panicking, but at 4:00 PM, there I was on Google convincing myself that he had dry form FIP or something and was going to die on me (he had tested negative for feline leukemia and for FIV at both the shelter and the emergency clinic but there's no good test for FIP), when suddenly he walked into my office and started playing with one of his dangly toys which I keep tied to the arm of my swivel chair!

Oh, thank goodness.

Boy Genius came in and sat down on the couch and Dylan ran - ran! - over to him and jumped up on the couch next to him. From there he tried to make it to the windowsill but missed and fell because of the shunt they had left in his left front leg in case he needed to be put back on IVs tonight. So, we removed the shunt (we probably should have let our daytime vet do that, I know, but again, she's out of town until Monday) and he ran around investigating for maybe fifteen or twenty minutes before he was worn out again.

Anyway, what a relief to see him returning to his normal get-into-everything little self!

He's still picking at his kibble and has rejected both the canned food and the baby food I've offered him, so I force fed him some canned food again this evening and syringed some baby food into him, too, just to get his energy up a little. Right now he's napping in Boy Genius' office. I'll continue to monitor his temperature and of course the big thing is to get him eating and drinking normally again, but we hope that he's out of the woods, now, at least.

So, that's where we stand!

In other news, I had dropped my bike off for a tuneup Wednesday morning before we realized Dylan was sick and they called me today to let me know it was ready, so I picked it up after work. It's all shiny and race ready and they installed my bike computer for me as I still hadn't gotten around to figuring out how to do that on my own - hooray! Supposedly they have finally also fixed the problem of the front brake pads rubbing on the front rim in order that I no longer have to ride around with my front brakes half open anymore.

I am feeling really unfocused about Danskin right now even though we leave for Austin this coming Friday. Between the work involved in getting Dylan's littermates placed into good adoptive homes, and now Dylan being sick, plus trying to get the person who is taking over my contract from hell up to speed on everything and get everything turned over to her in good order by this coming Monday all while keeping up with my regular workload, my head has just been elsewhere. I only have three short sessions to make up, though - a 30 minute run and two 20 minute swims - so really that's no big deal, I guess. I'll do the run tomorrow morning and work the swims in during the coming week as I don't think doing those so close to the event will affect my taper and will actually help ensure that my back is in good shape on the day of the event.

I do need to sit down at some point and figure out what I need for each transition and also figure out my nutrition and hydration strategy, but maybe I can do that Monday evening, otherwise Tuesday at the latest.

Anyway, thanks again for your concern, everybody. I hope you're all doing well. I am going to try to finally get caught up on some blog-reading this weekend!

Dylan update [G]

2008-05-29T11:26:00.000-06:00

Dylan's doing a little better this morning, although he still just wants to sleep in his kennel and still isn't eating much, either. We're going to try some canned food later today to see if we can get some calories into him in any form.

Also, I filled out his adoption paperwork this morning and will drop it off at the shelter later today. We think Little Beast is going to be OK with him. She can tell he's sick this morning and seems worried about him which is shocking (!) but good.

I wish we knew what the underlying cause of the fever and limp was, but I guess the main thing is to get it cleared up, whatever it is. So, that's the update so far!

The cat ate my swimsuit [G]

2008-05-29T00:59:00.000-06:00

OK, that's not actually the reason why I didn't swim this evening. Here's the real reason:

Latest Beast, AKA Dylan (Boy Genius decided that was a better name for him than Bix, although I prefer Bix), skipped his usual morning play session this morning and instead slept until 2:00 PM, and then, when he finally did get up, alarmed us by limping on his left front leg - really weird because he seemed fine when we put him in his kennel last night.

Our vet is out of town this week, of course, but we figured he probably just sprained something in the course of tearing around the house like a crazy person yesterday, but when I picked him up out of his bed this evening to see if he wanted food or water, his little body was burning up!

The ear thermometer said 105.5 and about 2 seconds after I saw that, we were in the car on the way to the emergency clinic where they submerged him in a cool bath and sub-q'd him with cool saline until finally, about two hours later, his temperature was down to 103.1 after spiking to 105.9.

Everything on his blood panel was in the normal range, and they couldn't even express his bladder to get a urine sample, he was so dehydrated, but the vet's best guesses are that (a) he has a urinary tract infection (although I've never noticed him straining to pee or crying when he does) or (b) his brother bit him while they were playing at the adoption center this weekend, or maybe bit him while they were playing at our house sometime last week, and injected some bacteria into his leg with those little needle-like kitten teeth and he has an abcess that hasn't grown large enough yet to show up as a bump on the outside of his body.

Anyway, they gave him a shot of penicillin, waited 20 minutes to make sure he wasn't going to have a reaction, then sent him home with a bottle of Clavamox and three pre-drawn syringes of Metacam.

He's sleeping off his penicillin shot now and we hope he'll be feeling better by morning. I have a picture of him to post but no photo editor on this computer and I think I need to reduce the resolution in order to post it. I'll try to figure out a solution to that problem soon, but be assured that he is super cute! :)

Days 80 & 81 Done! [G]

2008-05-27T21:56:00.000-06:00

Day 80 (Yesterday)

Rest

Done!

Day 81 (Today)

Bike:

35 minutes + 55 minutes

Done! One of these was a makeup session but I'm not sure anymore which one. I rolled them together and subbed a 90 minute intermediate pace group ride for them. The group rides are better training than individual rides for me at this point because of the whole what if I fall over and injure myself while riding all alone on a semi-deserted rural highway issue which keeps me from venturing out alone on the roads where I can ride long and fast, so I didn't want to skip this week's group ride, BUT at the same time I didn't want to do the group ride as a bonus on top of the scheduled bike sessions because I don't want to compromise my taper... so, this seemed like a good solution.

It was a great ride for at least three reasons:

1. I made it through the whole ride with no mishaps (although, I have to say, my new favorite word is "Clear!" because it means we're going to roll through the intersection and I don't have to worry about stopping, ha!).

2. I met a really nice cyclist about my age who is also planning her first sprint triathlon! She wants to wait until next spring but actually that's perfect because I am going to convince her to go to Irongirl Las Vegas with me next April or whenever it is. She can do the sprint and I'll do the Olympic distance event and it will be great! So there, that's settled, ha!

Also, we were lamenting the lack of a triathlon club here and, not that I need to add anything more to my plate right now, but we were kind of thinking it might be fun to start a club that focuses on getting new people involved in triathlon. Even if we're all beginners at first, we could get a team uniform and all cheer each other on. :)

Based just on my recent trip to the dentist - where the dental hygienist, dentist and receptionist all got really excited when I told them I was training for Danskin and said they'd all been thinking about doing a triathlon themselves, but just hadn't organized themselves to do it yet - I think there would be a lot of interest. If nothing else, we could organize a caravan to Danksin Austin every year and maybe another to a beginner-friendly coed event so as not to leave out the guys.

3. One of the more experienced riders riding with us tonight (some of the advanced guys use our rides as recovery rides) told me he thinks I should come try and ride with the advanced group again one of these days now as I'm riding really strong. Woohoo! I know I still need a lot more practice before it will be safe for me to ride in a fast paceline like those guys do, but still, that was really nice to hear!

FOLLOWED IMMEDIATELY BY

Run:

30 minutes

My second and final brick before the event. The first five minutes of the run really sucked (really sucked!) but the rest of it was, well, not fun, but tolerable, at least.

And now it's done.

Which feels really great!

And, finally...

KITTEN UPDATE:

So far so good on the provisional third kitty front. Little Beast has actually played with him a few times although she does it with a dark, frowny look on her face which makes us slightly afraid that she may still forget herself one of these days and really attack him as they're playing.

BUT at least she's stopped snarling and yeowling like a wild animal which is what she did when we still had all the little guy's littermates here. That in itself is a HUGE improvement. HUGE!!

Days 70 to 79 Done... [G]

2008-05-25T22:20:00.002-06:00

More or less, anyway. Between the whole foster kitten thing (read on) and all the work involved in turning over my contract from hell to someone new, I've juggled sessions around to the point that I don't really know what was originally supposed to happen on what day anymore.

Here's what I've done, though:

Day 70 (Friday before last):

Bike:

45 minutes

PLUS

Run:

20 minutes

Done and done. It was supposed to be a brick, but really hardly counts as one because I used the 45 minutes of bike time just riding around and around the block, clipping in, clipping out, clipping in, clipping out... and falling over four times, too, which was totally demoralizing.

I've made a huge mistake.

Seriously, by the fourth fall I was ready to go back to the bike shop and have them put my platform pedals back on.

The run sucked, perhaps because I was beat up from falling over so many times, but whatever, I finished it.

Check!

Day 71 (Saturday before this past one):

Swim:

20 minutes

Done! My Total Immersion book and DVD aren't super clear on what you're supposed to do with your arm on the pull. So, I had watched a bunch of other videos online on the Australian style high elbow pull and spent my swim session practicing that.

It didn't make me faster, unfortunately, but I can tell it's going to be better for my shoulders as it automatically makes you engage your lats rather than rely on all the little muscles in your shoulders. The clicking I used to get on my right pull ceased immediately with the new pull.

The rest of my day was super stressful because I had to take my foster kittens to the adoption center. I spent the whole day checking in on them and basically freaking out about the whole thing. There's a detailed application process and as foster mom I get to give final approval on each placement, but still - wah! They're my babies!

I am really not cut out to foster.

Anyway, two of my four got adopted, both to really good homes. I already knew one of the families, actually, and the other family seems like a really good family, too.

Day 72 (last Sunday):

Rest

That wasn't actually the plan, but I couldn't swim and get my two remaining babies to the adoption center by the time I was supposed to be there, and there aren't lap hours in the afternoon, and anyway, I was too stressed out about getting good homes for them to do anything else. Someone applied for one of them but they didn't meet our criteria, so the adoption counselor turned them down.

Day 73 (Monday)

Rest

Day 74 (Tuesday)

Bike:

60 minutes

Done! I actually subbed a 90-minute group ride because I didn't want to do a 60 minute ride on my own PLUS my weekly group ride when I'm supposed to be tapering.

I was pretty freaked out starting out because of all the spills I'd taking on Friday. I got a few more good tips from some of the more experienced riders in the group, though, plus I think the chain lube I'd used on the pedals before my ride on Friday had finally worked its way into the springs or whatever, because by the end of the ride I was clipping in and out on the right without any trouble.

Day 75 (Wednesday)

Run:

25 minutes

Done. I don't remember much about this one, so it must have gone OK!

Day 76 (Thursday)

Rest

Day 77 (Friday)

Bike:

30 minutes

More riding around the block to practice unclipping and stopping. I did great until the very end when I turned onto my street, attempted to stop in front of our mailbox to get the mail and fell over in the street.

Ow.

Day 78 (Yesterday)

Swim:

20 minutes

More practice on my new pull. On my way out, I noticed the poster announcing that starting tomorrow the pool will be on summer hours which means, among other things, no more lap hours on Sundays. WTF? I may have to find another pool because Sunday is really the best day for me to swim.

Also, my two remaining babies went back to the adoption center. One got adopted, again to a really good home (I met them and met the other two families the previous weekend, too), leaving just one for me to pick up at the end of the day.

Day 79 (Today)

Bike:

45 minutes

More loops around the neighborhood practicing unclipping and stopping. No falls today, which is a big improvement, but lots of awkward stops because I find that in order not to fall I'm now putting my heel down without waiting for the bike to slow down enough. I need to learn to slow the bike more without falling to the left.

And then... literally TWO minutes before I had to leave for the adoption center with my one remaining baby, Boy Genius declared that maybe I shouldn't take him, that maybe we should try him out for a week as a provisional family member and then, if we make it to Friday without Little Beast seriously attacking him (our big fear as she can be pretty vicious with other animals, although she seems to like or at least tolerate this one) adopt him ourselves.

:)

:)

:)

And, so far, so good.

He's a little beige guy, slightly tabby, with a white chest and paws and a striped tail, short-haired, and about 10 weeks old at this point. No official name yet, but if it works out, Boy Genius wants to name him Bix, like the jazz cornetist.

Cross your fingers for us. I'll definitely keep you posted! :)

Finally, I'm way behind on blog reading and commenting and I apologize!!! I will try to get caught up very soon.

Days 66, 67 & 69 Done! [G]

2008-05-15T20:57:00.000-06:00

Well, this week went to hell work-wise, which really sucks because this week was supposed to be my peak training week and next week the beginning of my taper. I think I'm still going to get all my sessions in, though, and if all goes well I'll be caught up by Saturday.

Day 66 (Monday)

Rest

Done!

Day 69 (Thursday)

Rest

Done! Two days early, on Tuesday.

Day 67 (Tuesday)

Run-45

Done! Two days late, today, but whatever. I'm actually pretty proud of myself for getting this one done at all.

It was the longest run on the schedule and I wasn't sure my back would hold up, but I broke it down into three approximately 15 minute loops, took a short hydration break and pit stop after the first loop and another short hydration break after the second and actually did OK!

Nothing went to sleep and other than a little knee pain on the last loop it was pretty comfortable (and I know how to fix this particular knee thing).

So, woo-hoo! I have a bike/run brick tomorrow and another bike/run brick sometime next week, but other than that it's relatively easy-ish workouts until the event now.

Day 65 Done! [G]

2008-05-11T21:24:00.004-06:00

Bonus Bike:

Group ride, 120 minutes

Done! And being my first ride using my clipless pedals, it was basically a two hour exercise in terror, but I made it through with only a small amount of panic, maybe a 2-3 on a scale of 1 to 10: my hands and feet went numb from anxiety- induced hyperventilation and at two points during the ride I had to make up an excuse to stop because tears were coming and I needed to calm myself down.

The main problem was my right pedal. When I was practicing clipping in and out yesterday, I was having a really hard time clipping out on the right, which unfortunately is the side I need to clip out on in order to stop. I thought maybe my shoe just wasn't tight enough or something, so I arrived at the ride early this morning so that I would have 20 minutes or so to practice in the parking lot before we took off. Not 3 minutes into my practice session, I was trying to clip out on the right, and finally did free myself but only by kicking out so forcefully that my bike and I keeled over to the left.

Have I mentioned what super supportive people there are in the cycling community here? I wasn't down 5 seconds before six cyclists - two couples who had been warming up on tandems and two people who rode up on individual road bikes - were crouching over me.

"First day using clipless?"

"Second day, actually, first fall. What do I do now?"

They freed my left shoe from my left pedal, lifted my bike off of me, pulled me to my feet, made sure I didn't have any cuts or scrapes, offered me some baby wipes so I could wipe the grease smears off my legs, then had me test my pedals.

"That right one's pretty tight. Hold on, I may have a tool in my truck."

They loosened my right clip a little and it helped but by now I was already silently freaking out about the ride.

Hills, traffic and riding clipped in? I should not be here. What if I fall to the left again? I'll be falling into traffic!

So, the whole way out, I rode mostly clipped in only on the left. Even with my right leg free, though, I was still convinced I was going to just suddenly topple to my left and get my head run over by a truck or something, hence the hyperventilating and fighting back the urge to cry. On the way back, though, I got increasingly braver and by the end was clipping out a mere 1/2 mile before each stop.

When we got back, I got a couple of pieces of helpful advice:

First, the more you clip in and clip out the easier it gets because the clips are always tight at first. So, do it a lot to break your clips in.

And second, apparently you can also lubricate your pedals with chain lubricant to make it easier to get in and out.

So, I will definitely be doing a lot of the first and looking into the second. And trying to remember, too, that I had a more serious panic attack in the pool several weeks into learning to swim, but I didn't quit and now I hardly ever feel anxiety at all. My clipless pedals, like the water, can become my friends if I just keep at it.

The good news is that on the return today when I was finally riding clipped in on both sides I discovered that (a) I can attain 24 mph at least for a short sprint on a flat straightaway and hardly break a sweat when clipped in, and (b) I'm pretty good at climbing hills! Woohoo, finally, something my body really seems built for!

PLUS

Swim:

50 yd Sweet SpotWith Hand Lead drill (25 right, 25 left)
50 yd Fish drill (25 right, 25 left)
50 yd Skate drill (25 right, 25 left)
30 minutes swim

Done!

Even though I was pretty worn out from the bike, today was a really good swim! Today I just concentrated on my catch and pull and tried to stay totally relaxed.

My 25 yard stroke count was a pretty consistent 15 through the whole swim, down from a pretty erratic 16 to 21 stroke range. I spent the last seven or eight minutes trying to do a 14 stroke length but I guess I'm just not there yet.

Still, I was really pleased with how I did today! The big lessons were that I can get more glide if I roll further onto to my right side as I pull with my left arm, and also that it really is better (certainly for your shoulders, but also for propulsion, apparently) to keep your arms just below your body as you catch and pull - to stay in the horizontal plane and out of the vertical plane as much as possible, in other words.

Tomorrow: Rest! Which comes not a day too soon. I'm exhausted!

Day 64 Done! [G]

2008-05-10T14:14:00.002-06:00

Swim:

50 yd Sweet SpotWith Hand Lead drill (25 right, 25 left)
50 yd Fish drill (25 right, 25 left)
50 yd Skate drill (25 right, 25 left)
35 minutes swim

Done, in spite of an annoying woman who, ten minutes into my swim, showed up with her kids during lap swim hours, deposited them in the shallow section next to my lane and then stood in the middle of my lane supervising them!

Because I had sound-blocking earplugs in, and because I'm endowed with a passive-aggressive personality, I swam into her three or four times to see if she would get the hint - at least stay over by the rope if you're going to stand in my lane, you totally rude person, you - but no dice.

Finally another lane opened up, so I moved over there to finish my remaining laps. When I got out of the pool she was still standing in my original lane and actually smiled and waved at me as I headed to the locker room. I have no idea whether that was sarcasm or whether she's really, truly totally oblivious to what Lap Swim 10 AM - NOON means.

Argh.

PLUS

Run:

30 minutes

I was hoping that my residual annoyance at Stupid Pool Woman would give me a boost on my run, but no such luck. Today's run felt like pulling train cars through the ocean against a hot current. Ugh.

Still, I finished and nothing went to sleep, so yay! And anyway, I guess learning to keep going even when you feel like crap is the name of the game here, and I'm definitely getting better at that!

Now I need to take a shower, get some laundry going and do a little work and then it will be time for some clipping in/clipping out practice on my bike so that I'm not doing for the first time ever on tomorrow morning's group ride!

Week Nine Done! [G]

2008-05-09T21:49:00.000-06:00

Yeah, baby!

Four weeks to go!

Next week will be my highest volume week, and then there's a three week taper, and then... Eep!

Run:

35 minutes

Done!

Much better than yesterday, which made it all the more annoying when I had to make a pit stop halfway through. It was hard to get back in the groove again after stopping.

Still, no leaden legs and nothing went to sleep. I'll take it!

Catch Up: Days 59 Through 62 Done! [G]

2008-05-08T20:39:00.002-06:00

Day 59 (Monday)

Rest

Done! That was the day I fixed my rear flat by myself. :)

Day 58 Part II Made Up (Tuesday)

Bike

35 minutes plus 90 minute group ride

Done! And already posted about here.

Day 61 (Yesterday)

Bike

35 minutes

Done!

My childhood friend Pirate was in town for a work assignment and had an hour or so to kill at the end of the day before she had to be at the airport.

Her coach had told her to try to get in a one-hour run if possible, so she came to my house and changed into her running gear while I printed out a map of the neighborhood for her with some suggested routes.

She opted for an out-and-back and I did I my 35 minutes on the bike in a sort of loop that allowed me to cross paths with her a couple of times and then I rode beside her at her pace the rest of the way back to my house so we could actually chat a little.

So, that was really fun!

Day 60 Made Up (Today)

Run:

25 minutes

Done, more or less. Tuesday was Day 60, but I was making up the second part of Day 58 on that day so I did my Day 60 today, Day 62, instead of resting.

It wasn't a very good run, maybe because it was preceded by three bike sessions in two days or maybe because my allergies are acting up again or maybe because I didn't get enough sleep last night or who knows why, but whatever. I could tell by the end of the first five minutes that it was going to suck, so I at least tried to maximize its effectiveness by running fairly hard for a minute or two before each inevitable 10 or 15 pace walking break.

I'm not too worried, though, as I have runs scheduled tomorrow and Saturday, too - so, I still have a couple more chances to have a good run this week.

Finally...

***BIKE ANNOUNCEMENT***

I got my new pedals, shoes and bike computer today! Woohoo!! My first fully equipped ride will be a group ride on a rolling course on Sunday morning! Hope I don't fall and break an arm!

Second Half of Day 58 Done! [G]

2008-05-06T20:18:00.001-06:00

This morning I had my three-month follow-up with my physical therapist. She was really pleased with my progress and says that unless my doctor says otherwise, I'm officially released! Hooray!

Bike:

35 minutes

Done!

And apparently my tube changing job was successful because there was air in the tires when I retrieved my bike from the shed... and still air in the tires at the end of my ride. Woohoo!

PLUS

Bonus Bike:

Group ride, 90 minutes, moderate pace

A bit redundant to do a bike session and a group ride on the same day, maybe, but whatever. I needed to check off Day 58!

I think I'm addicted to my training calendar, ha!

Anyway, tonight we had enough people to split up into beginner and intermediate groups. I went with the intermediate group and we did about 24 miles, I think.

It was pretty comfortable even when they picked up the pace a bit near the end. I'm definitely getting stronger on the bike!

I can't wait to get my clip-in pedals and tri shoes. I'm going to try to make it to my local bike shop on Thursday to - finally! - get those and my bike computer. Oh, and a second Bento box because I realized while changing my tube last night that the bike shop had given me only one spare tube, not two, and that I can only fit one in my existing Bento.

According to the people I ride with, the problem with carrying only one is that if you get a flat while you're out riding and then make a mistake while installing your replacement tube and either damage it or get a pinch flat, and you don't have another tube, then you're screwed. And since they speak from experience... I want to be able to carry two tubes.

But anyway, then I should finally be set for awhile equipment-wise.

Oh, except for a race belt. I want a gray one but all I can find is black.

OK, clip-in pedals, tri-shoes, bike computer, race belt and then I'll be set for awhile! Really!

You may be a mechanophobe if... [G]

2008-05-05T22:06:00.002-06:00

Instead of looking up how to fix a flat rear tire and then going and doing it like a good wannabe triathlete, you instead get overwhelmed at the thought of messing with the derailleur and end up spending the evening watching recorded SNL and Office episodes with Boy Genius and resident kitties instead.

Yeah.

So.

Today I did not do Bike-35 because I was still without a working bike.

This evening, though, I decided I really needed to bite the bullet, because now not only do I have a group ride tomorrow but also still a Bike-35 to make up, and then another scheduled bike session this week, and then an extra bonus group ride on the weekend in which we are going to practice riding lots and lots and lots and lots of hills.

So, I broke it down into tiny little steps:

1. Move bike from trunk of car to front porch
2. Change into grungy clothes
3. Have a drink
4. Look up how to remove back wheel (what did people do before the Internet, seriously)
5. Remove back wheel
6. Have another drink
7. Look up how to remove tire and tube from rim
8. Remove tire and tube from rim
9. Have another drink
10. Look up how to get new tube and tire back on rim
11. Get new tube and tire back on rim
12. Have another drink
13. Look up how to get wheel back on bike
14. Oh, gawd, this is the part where I have to get the chain back on the sprocket correctly; have another drink
15. Get wheel back on bike
16. Finish reinflating tube

OK, just kidding about the drinks, but I'm sure they would have helped!

Seriously, though, in the end, it took a long time, but wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be.

In fact, I could see the problem with the damaged tube as soon as I removed it. It looks like I bent the valve stem somehow as I was loading my bike into the car after Saturday's ride and it tore away from the tube a little bit. There was a hole right at the base of the stem.

Anyway, by end of the whole thing, I was even feeling confident enough to lube my chain for the first time. I'd been scared to do it because I was afraid of getting lube somewhere it shouldn't go, like on the brake pads or the derailleur. Now that I've really looked at how the thing is put together, though, I'm a little less nervous about screwing something up.

So anyhow, yay me!

The next tube change should be a lot less stressful, and I'm glad to have done it at least once before Danskin, because... you never know!

Day 58 Half Done... [G]

2008-05-04T18:19:00.004-06:00

Swim:

50 yards Sweet Spot drill (25 right, 25 left)
50 yards Sweet Spot With Reach drill (25 right, 25 left)
50 yards Fish drill (25 right, 25 left)
25 minutes swim

Swim thought: RIGHT-two-three, LEFT-two-three, RIGHT-two-three, LEFT-two-three, and on and on and on...

Done!

Now that I can complete the 1/2 mile I need for Danskin without stopping or panicking, I'm going back to the very beginning of Triathlon Swimming Made Easy and starting over to see if I can improve my technique a little more and, I hope, increase my speed a bit as a result. Hence the reappearance of the Lesson 1 drills.

The swim thought refers to kicking and relates to my ongoing efforts to better coordinate my stroke, kick and body roll. I think I was gliding a little further than usual on each stroke by the end of today's session. Next weekend I'll count strokes again and see if I have, in fact, improved.

After my swim, I walked briskly to the locker room, rinsed off quickly in the shower, changed rapidly into my bike gear, trotted to my car, drove 10 minutes to the parking lot where I intended to start my:

Bike:

35 minutes

... parked my car, popped the trunk, pulled my bike out of the back and...

Huh!

Weird.

My back tire was totally, utterly, completely, floppy flat. :(

Had it been my front tire, I think I could have changed the tube on the spot (I still haven't ever actually done it, but I've read a lot about how to do it).

However, as I don't yet know how to remove the back tire from a bike, I sighed, put my bike back in the car and came home.

I had a bunch of other stuff I needed to get done this afternoon, but will get on the internet later this evening and figure out to get the back wheel off and back on and, I hope, be able to make up my bike session tomorrow.

And then I can check "Learn to fix a flat" off my triathlon prep To Do list, ha!

Week Eight & Day 57 Done! [G]

2008-05-03T15:57:00.003-06:00

Yesterday the schedule said Bike-50. I was going to do it while Boy Genius and our out-of-town company were at dinner, but my mom brought my little nephew over in the afternoon to see the foster kittens and after playing with the kittens he wanted to run in the backyard where he promptly found a fledgling mourning dove who appeared perhaps to be orphaned.

I called a wildlife rehabilitator who instructed me to observe him from a distance for an hour to make sure his parents weren't feeding him on the ground. After an hour, there were still no parents in evidence so I put him in a box and drove him to the rehabilitator, who looked him over, declared him dehydrated and not fed for quite some time, then sent me back home with instructions to search the backyard just in case there was another one since mourning doves often have two chicks. I did an inch by inch by search of the backyard, but couldn't find a nestmate. :(

By then it was nearly 7:00 PM so I ended up going along with the group to dinner after all and getting a baked potato.

Never fear, though! I did the ride today (our company departed this morning, so I had more time today anyway) to complete Week 8.

Five weeks to go, now, eep!

Swim:

5 minutes kicking practice
30 minutes swim

Swim thought: Switch! (I'm still trying to program my brain to pull with the underwater hand at the same time my recovery hand enters the water, not before.)

Done!

Bike:

50 minutes

Done!

I actually did 65 minutes because I headed out on a 14 mile loop which I thought would take me 50 minutes or maybe a little under but then I hit a really strong headwind on the way back in and took forever to make it back to my car, ack! Oh well. What doesn't kill us and all that!

Days 54 & 55 Done! [G]

2008-05-01T22:05:00.000-06:00

Day 54 (Yesterday)

Rest

Done!

Day 55 (Today)

Run:

35 minutes

Done!

My legs felt like lead today, but I mananged to psyche/cajole/harangue myself into finishing anyway with only two 4-gulp hydration breaks in my driveway, a minute walking break starting at 26:36 and then three or four much shorter walking breaks in which my legs would simply stop running and it would take me 10 or 15 seconds to convince them to go again. I think I deserve credit for not just lying down on the shoulder and going to sleep, though, which is what I wanted to do!

I've been eating well and my head was clear so I don't think it was a glycogen thing. Rather, I suspect I must just have been exhausted from getting ready for company and also not fully recovered from Tuesday's run + bike.

More visitor-related activities tomorrow, so better feed the kittens and get to bed!

The better part of valor [G]

2008-04-30T22:19:00.001-06:00

Today the schedule said:

Bike-50

The weather report, however, said:

Wind advisory in effect until 10:00 PM. West winds 25 to 35 mph with gusts up to 50 to 55 mph.

Yikes! Not wanting to end my day getting blown off my bike into a ravine, or into traffic, I rearranged my schedule from:

W: Bike-50
Th: Off
F: Run-35

to:

W: Off
Th: Run-35 (before company arrives)
F: Bike-50 (while Boy Genius and company dine at one of the few types of restaurants I boycott outright)

The house is almost clean! I just need to tidy up my desk and vacuum in my office now and then in the morning clean the kitchen quickly so Boy Genius can do the floors. We put that off until last because the foster kittens are still here and I've been letting them play in the baby-proofed kitchen in the afternoon and evening and they can be pretty messy!

Days 52 & 53 Done! Or... [G]

2008-04-29T20:08:00.001-06:00

On the Awesomeness That is Me

*lol*

OK, seriously, now:

Day 52 (Yesterday):

Rest

Done!

Day 53 (Today):

Run:

35 minutes

Done!

I ran continuously other than two 4-gulp hydration breaks in my driveway (I did loops so I wouldn't have to carry a bottle or wear my Camelbak) and I covered just under 5K (4.8 or 4.9 according to my map software).

So, it wasn't my fastest run ever, but I had decided to take it semi-easy as (a) 35 minutes was a big step up from the short runs the schedule has had me doing the last two weeks and (b) it was 2:00 in the afternoon and 83 degrees and my first real run in the heat this year.

But anyway, slow as it was, it was a GREAT RUN!!!

Mainly because, MY LEG DID NOT GO TO SLEEP AT ALL!!!

I couldn't believe it. Not even a tingle in my foot.

The other great thing about the run was that I tested out my tri-suit and it worked great! I put it on, hopped in the shower to wet it, got out, dried off with a towel, put on shoes and socks, applied sunscreen everywhere and Beljum Budder as I plan to apply it for the bike (and maybe again for the run, just to be safe), grabbed my safety stuff and Ultima bottle, stashed said Ultima bottle under the juniper tree at the end of the driveway and took off.

Not only did I experience NO chafing, but I am NOT going to have to wear a sports bra underneath. Woohoo! I had feared it might not be sufficiently compressive but it was fine.

So, now I can stop worrying about what I'm going to wear clothingwise at Danskin and start worrying about... footwear! Specifially, tri-shoes to go with the clip-in pedals I hope to get next week or the week after at the latest.

PLUS

Bonus Bike:

Group ride, 60 minutes

Done!

Our group leader did a double century on Saturday (!), plus we had an injured guy plus a brand new rider in our group tonight so it was a super easy ride, about 14 miles at an average speed of 14 mph. That's fine though, miles are miles and it was beautiful out, just perfect weather for riding, so I treated it mostly as a decompression ride.

And now, nicely de-stressed, I need to take a shower and finish cleaning up the house, which is a total disaster, as we have out-of-town company arriving on Thursday, eep!

Day 51 Done! [G]

2008-04-27T14:15:00.004-06:00

Boy Genius, tired of Guitar Hero, has recently acquired Rock Band and has been bugging me for a few weeks now to do the vocals while he does the guitar. So last night, for date night, we watched two episodes of Entourage, then watched Juno (LOVED Juno and was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was it more complex than reviews had led me to expect), then played Rock Band until 1:30 AM because for some reason we kept failing on "Flirtin' With Disaster." I think there's a bug in the program or something wrong with the overdrive sensor in the guitar, but he was convinced that it was him and wanted to keep trying.

So, it was a little hard to get moving this morning.

But, eventually I did. :)

Swim:

5 minutes kicking practice
25 minutes swim

I spent the whole swim concentrating on switch timing. I noticed yesterday that especially when I'm rolled onto my left side to breathe, I tend to pull with my left arm before my right hand enters the water, whereas really these actions should occur simultaneously. So, today, it was switch, switch, switch, switch, switch, switch, and on and on for 25 minutes. I guess we'll see on Saturday whether that finally drove it into muscle memory or not!

PLUS

Bike:

35 minutes

Done!

It was super windy today and somehow I had a headwind no matter what direction I was going in. I don't really understand how that can be, but it was. So, today was basically an 35 minute exercise in coping with wind resistance. I spent most of the time on the drop bars and my back still feels OK, so that's good.

Also, today I tested out my tri-suit for the first time! It's a bit of a tight fit still, but it was surprisingly comfortable in both the water and on the bike. I applied a little Beljum Budder to the inside of my thighs before the bike and experienced just a tiny bit of chafing. It was right above where I'd stopped with the cream, so I think I can address that by making sure I apply the cream to just a slightly larger area on race day.

So now I just need to test the suit on a run and make sure I'm not going have any problems with chafing at the armholes. Also, the humidity was pretty low today but the tri-pad was still damp when I finished the bike. The humidity at Danskin is likely to be quite high, probably 80% or higher, so I need to make sure that the wet tri-pad isn't going to cause me problems on the run. I hope it doesn't because I really don't want to have to deal with changing clothes at transition. I'm going to be slow enough as it is! Tuesday is a run day, so maybe I'll wear it then and hop in the shower to wet it quickly before I head out the door.

Finally, I've concluded that braided hair is likely the most conducive to speedy transitions, to say nothing of minimal detangling work post-event. Which leaves only the question: one braid or two? Two are cute, but one might be all I can manage at 5:00 in the morning, which will really be 4:00 in the morning body and brain time (there's an hour time difference between Austin and where I'll be traveling from and it's not in my favor). I guess at some point I need to try getting up at some ungodly hour and see if I can braid at all. :)

Day 50 Done! [G]

2008-04-26T11:45:00.004-06:00

Woohoo! Another milestone. :)

Swim:

8 minutes kicking drills
30 minutes swim

Today, instead of doing sprints again, I decided to do a continuous swim.

My goal was to go slow enough to be able to complete the 30 minutes without rests yet fast enough to complete 800 yards.

And it worked out perfectly! Twice I had to take short (6 or 7 stroke) sidestroke breaks to get my breath back after accidentally inhaling water, but otherwise I managed to keep going without any rests.

Final results:

800 yds in 30:05 for an average 100 yd pace of about 3:45

If I can work up to 900 yds in 30:00 before Danskin that would be awesome (880 yds is half a mile, which is the swim distance at that event).

But if not, that's OK. I'm still frankly amazed every time I get in the water that I can propel myself forward through the water using a freestyle stroke at all! :)

Week Seven Done! [G]

2008-04-25T20:09:00.000-06:00

Six weeks to go!

Bike:

30 minutes

Done!

I've been having horrible allergy symptoms for the past two days and felt like I couldn't make my bike move today.

I kept track of my route, though, and figured out afterward that I did manage to cover 7.55 miles, which makes my average speed just over 15 mph. Considering that I can't breathe, that's probably not too bad.

The really good news is, it's Friday and I seem to have managed not to have contracted the flu that Boy Genius brought back with him from his trip. Yay! I'll take allergies over the flu any day.

Day 47 Done! [G]

2008-04-23T19:49:00.000-06:00

Bike:

20 minutes

Done!

Good ride, tried to keep the intensity high and was successful for the most part (lost some momentum at the several stop signs on my route, but what are you gonna do).

Plus, I did an accidental warm-up and cool-down because I forgot to start my timer until five or ten minutes into the ride and although I tried to adjust my turnaround accordingly, I went a little too far before turning back. The whole ride was 30 or 35 minutes, I think.

Ceeeeeeeelebrate good times, come on! [G]

2008-04-22T20:33:00.001-06:00

I have a few reasons to celebrate today!

It's Halfway To Danskin Day!

Day 46 and I haven't missed a session yet! Plus, I felt really strong on my run tonight, at least until the last five minutes, but that's just because I had worn myself out in a good way on the first 15, so whatever, I don't care how I felt the last five.
It's Earth Day!

In honor of which, I today began the process of extricating myself from one of my contracts. It expires in June and they were hoping I would renew but I told them today that I would not be renewing although I would of course be available to help the person they bring on to take my place get up to speed.

Which in itself has nothing to do with Earth Day, but I really needed to free myself of that contract in order to make time to - I hope - finally start the little eco-business I've been thinking about for quite awhile.*

I also today spoke briefly with the CPA who will be helping me set up the accounting side of things once I'm ready to start and she was pretty excited about my idea, which was really encouraging. So, yay!

*It involves green pet products but that's all I can say for now. :)
I'm not sick yet!

Cross fingers, knock on wood, rest, guzzle tea, swig a bunch of immune system enhancing vitamins and supplements, etc. ... But, also, Boy Genius is almost back to normal today, so even if despite my best efforts I do get it, it will likely be short. Still, better not to get it all, and so far so good. :)

Day 45 (Yesterday)

Rest

Done!

Day 46 (Today)

Run:

20 minutes

Done!

Uh-oh [G]

2008-04-20T20:24:00.002-06:00

My no-missed-sessions streak may be in danger.

I just collected Boy Genius from the airport. Apparently he picked up a virus on the flight to his conference or at the conference and now has a full-blown case of... the flu?

It looks like the flu.

Fever, nausea, aching joints, sore throat, congestion... he could barely stand up at baggage claim and was shaking and sweating all the way home.

I just made an emergency grocery store run for him. He's lying in bed eating soup and oyster crackers and sipping ginger ale.

The cats are keeping him company.

I, meanwhile, am washing my hands like a mad-woman and trying to remember not to touch my face.

Must. Not. Get. Sick.

Must not.

No.

Nooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

Day 44 Done! [G]

2008-04-20T13:23:00.002-06:00

Swim:

8 minutes kicking practice
25 minutes swim

Done!

Here's how I used my swim time:

(100 yd sprint + rest to 4:00) x 4
(100 yd sprint + super slow swim to 5:00) x 1

My best 100 yd time today was 3:06! That's nearly a 30 second improvement from yesterday's 3:35. Of course, I was totally panting by the end of that one, but that's OK. I'm glad to know I can do it at all.

I'm sure the difference is due in part to my improving kick coordination.

Also, though, as I was looking through my drill cards while waiting for a lane this morning, I realized that I've been cupping my hands whereas you're really supposed to keep your fingers relaxed and spread, like frog or duck feet or any other kind of webbed appendages, I guess. So, I tried that today and apparently it really does allow you to move more water even though the increase in surface area doesn't seem very significant.

In addition, today I tried to make sure to pull my hand all the through to my hip on each stroke as I think maybe I've been exiting the water too soon and losing some momentum as a result.

Two more days to Halfway To Danskin Day, woohoo!

Day 43 Done! [G]

2008-04-19T11:19:00.003-06:00

[Oops! Today is Day 43, not Day 46. I have amended my post title accordingly. I have Day 46 on the brain because I recently realized that that will be Halfway To Danskin Day!]

Swim:

5 minutes kicking practice
50 yds Relax The Recovery drill (Freestyle Made Easy Drill Cards)
50 yds Spear From A Steep Angle drill (Freestyle Made Easy Drill Cards)
Swim 20 minutes

Done!

OK, I didn't swim the 20 minutes continuously, but I feel good about the swim anyway, and here's why:

My typical 100 yd time is 4:10 or 4:15 or thereabouts. Today by some miracle, I completed my first 100 yds in 3:35. I was out of breath, but I knew my form was pretty good because I was concentrating on spearing, rolling and reaching and everything seemed to be flowing well.

So, I made the following deal with myself: I would do four more 100 yd repeats as fast as possible while maintaining good form and if I finished a repeat in less than 4:00, I could take the difference as rest time.

I completed all of subsequent repeats in about 3:35, too, so that seems to be my new "fast" speed.

Also, my best 25 yd stroke count for today was 16, whereas usually it's around 20 to 22.

So, a great swim day all around!

Tomorrow: swim again!

Week Six Done! [G]

2008-04-18T20:11:00.001-06:00

I scrambled my schedule pretty dramatically this week but it allowed me to get all my sessions in.

I was supposed to do:

F: Bike-45
Sa: Run-15
Su: Swim-20
M: - OFF -
Tu: Run-15
W: Bike-25
Th: - OFF -
F: Bike-25
Sa: Run-15

Instead I did:

F: Run-15
Sa: Bike-45
Su: Bike-25
M: - OFF -
Tu: Run-15 (plus bonus group ride)
W: - OFF -
Th: Bike-25
F: Run-15
Sa: Swim-20 (OK, so that's not until tomorrow, but I'll be there!)

I've said it before, but I think the cross-training is working! I'm running less often but getting a faster and stronger anyway. Weird!

Run (outside):

15 minutes continuous

Done!

Pace on Tuesday:

10:42 - Pretty good for me

Pace today:

10:16 - Exceptional for me!

In fact, if I can work up to sustaining that pace for another mile and a half plus a few hundred yards, I can get new 5K PR and be closing in, finally, on that elusive sub-30:00 5K. Woohoo! :)

Days 40 & 41 Done! [G]

2008-04-17T19:42:00.002-06:00

In reverse order, but whatever. Flexibility is a key to success or something like that.

Day 40 (Yesterday)

Rest

Done!

I was actually supposed to do a 25 minute bike session but succumbed to cumulative exhaustion and fell asleep after work instead.

Day 41 (Today)

Bike:

25 minutes

Done! And as I was refreshingly rested today for a change, it was a pretty good ride!

Also, at one point I was doing sprints on this paved road that runs alongside a ditch and this kid, maybe 11 or 12 years old, was riding a dirtbike on this dirt strip that runs between the road and the ditch. He pulled up beside me and we "raced" for about a half a mile, which is to say, I would go a little faster and he would speed up to match me, so I would go a little faster again and he would speed up to match me again. Kind of stupid but also kind of fun, ha!

As usual, though, I have no idea how fast I was going at my fastest. I really need to get a bike computer.

Days 38 & 39 Done! [G]

2008-04-15T20:51:00.004-06:00

Day 38 (Yesterday)

Rest

Done!

Day 38 (Today)

Run:

15 minutes

Done! 10:42 pace, not bad for me, especially as it was hot and humid. (Flood irrigation season started recently and the river as well as all the ditches were full today.)

PLUS

Bonus Bike:

Group ride, 75 minutes. We did some sprints and according to someone else's bike computer I got up to 20.6 mph, in my tennis shoes on platform pedals and with a headwind.

So now I want to switch to clip-in pedals posthaste so I can go faster!

Day 42 Done! [G]

2008-04-13T20:17:00.000-06:00

This coming Saturday would actually be Day 42, but I knew I wasn't going to have time to make it to the pool today, so I switched today's swim with this coming Saturday's bike session and went out on my bike while the floors were drying (housecleaning day, blech).

Also, I know I'm way behind on blog-reading and commenting and I am SO sorry, you guys! Between the kittens, taxes (still not done, argh), a work project due on Wednesday, and Boy Genius leaving for a week-long conference tomorrow morning I'm lucky to be getting my training in. After Wednesday, things will be more or less back to normal again (other than the kittens, but as of today all four of them are eating gruel, so we're getting there, yay!) and I promise I'll get caught up.

Bike:

25 minutes

Done!

Short ride so went as fast I could. Still no bike computer, so I don't know how fast that is, and would probably be disappointed were I to see the number, actually, but it was fast enough that my lungs were kind of burning at the end. :)

Week Five Done! [G]

2008-04-12T17:28:00.000-06:00

Eight weeks to go!

Bike:

45 minutes

Done!

Beautiful weather, great ride, practiced sprinting and using my first and third chainrings on the front. :)

Day 36 Done! [G]

2008-04-11T20:22:00.000-06:00

Yes, today was only Day 35. There was a 45-minute bike session on the schedule but today was basically a huge mess and I wouldn't have been able to hit the road until 7:30 PM, which means I would have run out of light. I have a light on my bike, but still. Safety first.

So anyway, I swapped tomorrow's 15 minute run for today's 45-minute bike session which means I'll bike tomorrow morning which will be more fun anyway.

Hence:

Run (outside):

15 minutes

Done!

Today I mixed some slow pace with some faster pace to see if I'm changing my form when I speed up, in case that's why my right leg still goes numb when I do a faster run but doesn't seem to anymore if I do a slower run. I noticed that I do tend to bend my knees a little less and to run a little more upright when I try to pick up the pace and in fact could feel my lower back start to tense up a bit at a couple of points. So, I think that when I'm going faster, I need to think consciously about staying low and relaxed.

Off to feed the kitties!

Day 34 Done & Day 32 Made Up [G]

2008-04-10T19:56:00.000-06:00

Day 34 (would have been today, but I did it on Tuesday instead)

Rest

Done! Well, sort of. I didn't run because that was the day I took in the kittens. I did do the group ride, but it was short and easy so probably didn't interfere much with recovery.

Day 32 (really was Tuesday but I had to make it up today)

Run:

25 minutes continuous

Done! And again... no numbness! That's two days in a row!

Granted, I was taking it kind of slow yesterday and today, but that might be helpful information, actually. My gait has felt good lately, even on faster days, but maybe my form is breaking down at faster paces subtly enough that I can't feel it but significantly enough to irritate the nerve root? Like, maybe as I speed up I'm landing with greater impact, or maybe I'm using more core rotation or overstriding a little bit?

On Saturday there's a short run on the schedule - just 15 minutes - so I'll try picking up the pace for that run and see if I can figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Days 31 And 33 Done! [G]

2008-04-09T19:53:00.002-06:00

Day 31 (Monday)

Rest

Done!

Day 33 (Today)

Run (outside):

30 minutes continuous

Done!

And...

NO numbness.

Which is weird.

I mean, it's good and all.

But still. I'm suspicious.

If it happens again, I'll celebrate then. :)

Tomorrow: make up Day 32 (25 minute run)

My first missed session! :( [G]

2008-04-08T20:21:00.002-06:00

Run (outside) (planned):

25 minutes

Not done, but I have a good reason! A local no-kill was playing musical chairs with litters of foster kittens in an attempt to accommodate a litter of newborns (1 or 2 days old, tops).

I took a litter of nearly-weaned 4-week-old bottle-feeders with eye infections so that the foster mom who was going to take them, but who is more competent at tube-feeding than I am, could take the newborns instead. So, I spent my running time setting up a big cage and doing a first feeding and first meds instead. It's four little boys: one solid beige, one orange tabby, one light gray tabby and one dark tabby. Very cute. :) Very sharp claws. :(

In related news, Little Beast officially hates me right now. She was hissing and spitting at me as I was mixing up formula in the kitchen earlier because she knows they're in the house and she can smell them on my hands. Yikes!

BONUS

Bike:

Group ride! 60 minutes. I did manage to make it to my group ride today, though. I probably should have run instead, but I couldn't do the ride last week because my back was hurting, and I didn't want to skip two weeks in a row and have them start to think I'm a flake. Luckily, it was a short ride tonight as I still need to do a grocery store run and then do their bedtime feeding.

So, whatever. I'll run on Thursday instead of taking it as a rest day, and then Saturday and Sunday are fairly easy days, I think. There seems to be a little mini-taper in the middle of the training plan I'm doing. Then it picks up again for a few weeks and finally tapers again before the event.

Does Skee-Ball count as training? [G]

2008-04-07T21:45:00.000-06:00

I just got back from my nephew's 4th birthday party.

Skee-Ball:

15 rounds

Done!

Somebody should start an arcade triathlon. No chance of drowning, plus you can trade in your tickets for toys at the end! :)

Day 30 Done! [G]

2008-04-06T12:57:00.000-06:00

Swim:

Freestyle Made Easy Drill Card drills:

Hang Your Head (25 yds right, 25 yds left)
Skate On The Track (25 yds right, 25 yds left)
Ready To Switch (25 yds right, 25 yds left)
Spear Hand To Target (25 yds right, 25 yds left)
Suspend Arm From Elbow (25 yds right, 25 yds left)

2 minutes Kick To Roll drill I made up myself

25 minutes swim

Swim thought: And-Switch

The swim thought has to do with my on-going efforts to coordinate my switch better so that I get more propulsion out of each stroke. And: here I am coasting on my side with my recovery forearm hanging loosely from my elbow and my fingertips just grazing the water at the corner of my goggles and my other hand anchored in the water. Switch: here I slice my recovery arm into the water to start a new stoke while simultaneously giving one kick, pulling with my anchored hand and rotating my core, all as one fluid motion.

Done!

PLUS

Bike:

30 minutes

Done!

It's a beautiful day, low 70s and just a little breezy today - a great day to be on the bike!

Day 29 Done! [G]

2008-04-05T15:24:00.004-06:00

I promise I'll go back to more creative post titles once Danskin is over. For now, though, counting days make me feel like I'm accomplishing stuff. :)

Swim:

Bunch of kicking drills plus 30 minutes swim

Done!

No single swim thoughts for the swim, really, just a bunch of experiments related to better connecting my kick to my core rotation in order to get a little more distance out of every stroke cycle. I finally sensed a little improvement toward the end.

The swim didn't feel quite as good as last Sunday's swim due to all the experimenting, but the breathing went well again, I didn't get out of breath at all, and I'm feeling more confident that as long as I take it reaalllllllly slow but steady, I'll be able to last however many minutes I need to in order to complete the 1/2 mile swim at Danskin.

And again, the book says that slow but steady is the best strategy for triathlon swimming anyway, because even a really good swimmer is much less efficient in the water than on land, so it's better to conserve your energy for the bike and run.

Now, if I can just remember that during the event, and not freak out when a couplathousand people pass me in the water!

Week Four Done! [G]

2008-04-04T11:31:00.003-06:00

Nine weeks to go!

Day 27 (Yesterday):

Rest

Done!

Day 28 (Today):

Run (outside):

30 minutes continuous

Done!

My leg went to sleep at 21:44, but whatever. My gait still felt fluid and I wanted to get a baseline pace measurement today, so I kept going.

Results:

2.75 miles in 30:00 for an average pace of 10:54, which for me is pretty good.

Day 26 Done! [G]

2008-04-02T19:14:00.000-06:00

Bike:

45 minutes

Done!

My back felt a lot better today and -wow! - it's so much easier to ride without the drag of my brakes rubbing against my wheel!

Yay!

Day 24 Done, Day 25 Done-ish... [G]

2008-04-01T19:03:00.004-06:00

Day 24 (Yesterday)

Rest

Done!

Also, I took my bike in to have the breaks readjusted as they were rubbing on the front wheel. Aaron, the guy who did the work, fixed a couple of other things, too, managed to get my handlebar mirror installed for me (I hadn't been able to do it as none of the shims included with the mirror matched the inner diameter of the drop bars) and even swapped out my front light for one that would mount more securely to my handlebars as the model they had sold me originally was slipping a lot.

I figured this would all count as one of the free tune-ups included with my bike purchase but when I presented my punch card, he said not to worry about it, that I should come back in another two months for a full tune-up and they would punch the card then. I told him I have my first triathlon ever on June 8 and would it be better to come in before or after the event? He said in that case, he would recommend coming in about 2 weeks before the event so that I would have time before the event to get used to the new feel of the bike after any changes they make during the tune-up.

I also asked him about clip-in pedals and he showed me a few models, explained that the tension is adjustable and how to adjust it, showed me which kinds of shoes go with which type of clip-in, told me which ones he recommends for road bikes and was just generally super helpful.

So, yay! My faith in my local bike shop, which was beginning to wane a bit, has been totally restored.

Somebody give Aaron a raise.

Day 25 (Today)

Run (outside) (planned):

25 minutes continuous

Run (outside) (actual):

13 minutes continuous
12 minutes of run/walk

So, that sucked, but I'm trying not to worry about it too much. Yesterday for some reason my back was hurting a lot. ALL day it was hurting. A LOT. Wah. I actually think I messed it up doing my back stabilization exercises. Great.

Anyway, it still hurt this morning, plus I was awake like 20 times last night because it hurt too much to sleep so I figure that pretty much accounts for this morning's lousy run.

Although, I should point out that for the minutes I was actually able to RUN, as opposed to walk, this morning, my gait felt surprisingly good and I think I was moving at a pretty good pace, at least for me. So, not a total loss.

I was all excited for this evening's group ride what with my brakes being fixed now and all, but at 2:00 PM I finally called the ride coordinator and told her I wouldn't be able to make it this evening due to my back, so not to wait for me. Better safe than sorry, I think, plus I have a 45 minutes non-optional ride on the schedule tomorrow and it's more important to do that one and do it well than to do an optional group ride tonight and not be able to train tomorrow.

Look at me, being all responsible and stuff! LOL :)

Day 23 Done! [G]

2008-03-30T21:27:00.003-06:00

Yesterday afternoon I finally watched the Freestyle Made Easy DVD I got along with my Triathlon Swimming Made Easy book. It clarified some things I hadn't really understood from the book but also, I was shocked to see how far the people modeling the drills on the DVD were gliding on just on a single kick, stroke and core rotation. I decided that today I should really work on my kicking.

Swim:

Kicking drills:

2 minutes vertical kick to sweet spot practice
2 minutes vertical kick with 90 degree rotations (while remaining vertical)
50 yards fish drill (concentrating on kick)
50 yards underswitch (concentrating on kick)
50 yards overswitch (concentrating on kick)

20 minutes swim:

Swim thought first 5 minutes: kick from the hip
Swim thought second 5 minutes: kick to roll (use a kick to assist in core rotation, that is)
Swim thought third 5 minutes: anchor your hand (before you pull, that is; it's a mental trick for moving more water with each stroke that I got from the DVD)
Swim thought last 5 minutes: reach! (in order to get more propulsion out of each core rotation)

Done!

And what's more, today was my best swim ever! Not to jinx myself, but breathing was so easy that for the first time ever, I actually went about six lengths, I think, focused totally on form rather than on when my next breath was coming. I didn't feel out of breath at all until maybe the last two or three minutes of the swim. Yay!!!

PLUS:

Bike:

30 minutes

Done, although unlike the swimming, the biking totally wore me out today for some reason! Lots of wind and pushing the tempo, I guess, but still, I was really dragging by the end. Oh, well. Tomorrow's a welcome rest day!

Day 22 Done! [G]

2008-03-29T11:37:00.001-06:00

Swim:

Lesson 4 drills:

100 yards zipperswitch
100 yards overswitch

25 minutes swim

Swim thought first 10 minutes: roll to where the air is (I still have a bad habit of lifting my head to breath sometimes)
Swim thought next 10 minutes: slice the water (referring to how my hand and arm should enter the water; right side is fine, left side gets a little sloppy if I don't think about it consciously)
Swim thought last 10 minutes: swim downhill (a reminder to keep my head below the surface of the water and to press downward with my chest)

Done!

Week Three Done! [G]

2008-03-28T20:01:00.002-06:00

I rock, if I dare say so myself. :)

10 weeks to go. Wheeeee!

Day Twenty (Yesterday)

Rest

Done!

Day Twenty-One (Today)

Bike:

45 minutes

Done! I started from the parking lot where the group rides start and did a 45 minute loop using roads I'd learned about on the group rides. I think I maintained a pretty good clip, too.

I'm trying to avoid buying a bike computer just yet and am wondering whether my Timex GPS thingy will work while I'm on the bike. I think I'll wear it on the next group ride and see if my numbers match anybody's bike computer numbers at the end.

I also think it's time to go in for a proper bike fitting, the kind they do while you're parked in a trainer. I'm sliding forward in the saddle a little bit and one of the group riders said it looked like I was having to reach for the handlebars a little, which might explain that... or maybe not. Anyway, I want to do everything I can to avoid exacerbating my back problem with the cycling and it seems like being properly fit is a sensible precaution.

Day Nineteen Done! [G]

2008-03-26T22:09:00.001-06:00

Bike (scheduled):

30 minutes

Bike (actual):

I was feeling pretty good today, so... I did another group ride. I'm addicted! 90 minutes. :)

That was probably a mistake, though, because doing that left me without time to do my physical therapy exercises and I'm really, really trying to be a good, compliant patient so as to get better ASAP. So, I'm probably going to have to be disciplined about limiting the group rides to one per week, at least for now.

Also, tomorrow or Friday I'm going to have to take my bike in briefly because now that my floor pump has arrived (yay!) and I can inflate my tires to the proper pressure, the brakes are really tight and are rubbing a little bit on the front wheel. Not helpful when you're already riding into a head wind with people who are a lot faster than you!!

Tomorrow: rest (whew!)

Days Seventeen & Eighteen Done! [G]

2008-03-25T19:48:00.000-06:00

Day Seventeen (Yesterday)

Rest

Done!

Day Eighteen (Today)

Run (outside):

25 minutes continuous

Done! My gait felt mediocre when I ran on Sunday but good again today, so that was nice. The tingling started a little early today, at 22:30 or so and my leg was totally asleep for the last minute of the run, but I was moving a little faster today, so maybe that's why.

PLUS

Bonus Bike:

Group ride! 90 minutes, intermediate pace but kind of an improvised route and nobody took it upon themselves to keep track of mileage so... 18 to 22 miles? Something like that. Not too hard, mostly it was just fun and good pace line practice and I met some more nice people. Yay!

Tomorrow: bike

Group Ride Report: Part II: The Kindness Of Strangers [G]

2008-03-24T23:58:00.003-06:00

If you missed Part I, you can read it here. :)

At 5:27 PM, I pulled into the parking lot from which the ride was scheduled to begin at 5:30. I was relieved to see that other people were also just arriving but I noticed other people already on their bikes looking impatiently at their watches, so thought I'd still better hurry. I whipped my bike and gear out of the car, reattached my front wheel, and donned my helmet and gloves all while scanning the crowd for someone who might be Wanda, the ride coordinator.

There were about 30 men (including, I learned later, most of the civil engineering faculty from the local university) and a lone woman. I approached said lone woman.

"Hi! Are you Wanda?"

She wasn't - she was Sylvia - and she wasn't sure what Wanda looked like although she had seen a couple of other women earlier and thought maybe one of them was Wanda. An older man straddling his bike nearby overheard us and introduced himself as Carlos, Wanda's husband. He said that unfortunately Wanda wouldn't be riding with the group today due to a scheduling conflict.

I was disheartened to hear that as I was kind of hoping that she'd be there to help the newbie if I ran into any kind of trouble. I decided I'd just try to hang with the slowest riders, then, however fast or slow they might be, and that if I got dropped altogether I'd just go home.

By now everyone was pretty much ready to go. I rode out behind Sylvia kind of in the middle of the group. The ride was billed as a leaderless ride with no pre-defined pace so I really had no idea what to expect. The first mile felt slow, but apparently they were just warming up. Pretty soon I was having trouble keeping up with the people ahead of me and people from behind me were starting to pass me, singly and in pairs. At about mile 2 1/2, the main group dropped me at a six-lane intersection when the light turned yellow before I even got there.

Um...

I looked behind me. I could see a couple of cyclists coming up behind me but they were pretty far back.

I considered my options. I could wait for the light to turn green and try to cross by myself. I could drop down onto a nearby bike path, take the back way back to my car, drive home and maybe ride around my neighborhood until dark or nearly dark. I could wait for the people behind me to catch up and see what their plans for the rest of the ride were.

I waited.

They caught up.

It was Wanda's husband, Carlos, and another older gentleman who introduced himself as Gordon.

I was on the shoulder, about three cars back from the intersection.

"You've got to get up front or you'll never make it across," Carlos said. I followed them up to the front of the line of cars. The light turned green. We rode across. Nobody got hit.

Whew!

We rode a little further, Gordon in front of me and Carlos behind me. The road was narrow and pretty torn up due to construction. When it finally widened and smoothed out, Carlos rode up beside me.

"How long have you been riding?"

"Uh, about four weeks, maybe?"

"Good, good! We can show you a few things. These Wednesday rides can get pretty aggressive but we'd already decided we were going to take it slow today, so you can just ride with us."

Perfect!

'Course, it then turned out that "slow" to these self-proclaimed "couple of old guys" apparently means about 17 mph. Yikes! Still, it was fun, they gave me a lot of tips and every once in awhile we would cross paths with or be overtaken by another small group of cyclists who had broken off the from the big group at some point, so I got to meet other people as the ride progressed.

And I was actually hanging in there pretty well, I thought, until about mile 15 when we turned south, I think, into a major headwind. Eek! I about fell over. Soon they had to pull over to the shoulder to let me catch my breath.

"OK, now you're going to learn to draft," Carlos said.

I was scared to ride as close to Gordon's back wheel as they wanted me to, but even riding a couple of feet from his wheel made a noticeable difference. There was one uphill bit remaining where I really wished for a tractor beam, but after that it was all flat or slightly downhill and by the time we arrived back at our cars, I was feeling pretty good again, even though we'd just done a 24 mile loop.

I thanked them profusely for letting me ride with them and for sharing so many tips, apologized for slowing them down as I know they had planned to ride expert slow, not beginner slow, said goodbye and began loading up my bike for the ride home. Carlos promptly called me back over, though. Sylvia was back and was loading up her car and he had just been telling her about my triathlon plans... and it turns out she did the Danskin triathlon herself a few years back!

"What's your fitness level?" she asked.

"Um, non-existent at the moment, really. I'm in physical therapy for a back thing and, yeah, I'm kind of scared that I'm not going to be ready. My goal is just to finish, you know, I'm not going for any kind of time."

"Oh! Well, seriously, don't worry. I mean, I think it's good to do it with just the goal of finishing, but it's a really easy race - I only practiced twice in the pool before I did it and whatever, it was fine. Plus, it's so inspiring, you'll be going along and suddenly you're getting your ass kicked on the bike by, like, an 85-year-old cancer survivor... You're gonna have a great time!"

Cool! I mean, I still don't expect it to be easy, but it was encouraging to hear from yet another person what a supportive, beginner-friendly race it is.

Then, as I was walking back to my car to finish loading my stuff, two other women walked up and introduced themselves. One was the elusive Wanda who had come from whatever meeting or appointment she had to meet her husband for a post-ride slice of pizza. The other was a co-worker of a friend of mine, Marisol, who had done her own training ride that evening but who had heard from my friend/her co-worker that I might be coming and was glad to see I made it.

They told me they were thinking about starting a regular Tuesday night intermediate ride and would I be interested in joining them if they did?

"Yes! Absolutely! Thank you!"

So, Marisol is going to email me tomorrow morning, Tuesday, to let me know if the intermediate ride is on yet or not. Tomorrow is supposed to be a bike day according to my training schedule, but if the ride is on, I'll do Wednesday's scheduled run tomorrow morning instead, do the group ride as a bonus session and do tomorrow's scheduled bike session on Wednesday.

So anyway, wow! What nice people! I'm so glad I decided to try a Wednesday ride! Hooray! :)

That Was Better: Day Sixteen Done [G]

2008-03-23T00:07:00.001-06:00

Swim:

Triathlon Swimming Made Easy Lesson 3 Drill Sequence:

25 yards zipperskate (right)
25 yards zipperswitch
25 yards zipperskate (left)
25 yards zipperswitch

20 minutes swim

Swim thought: slow and steady

Done and done.

Yesterday the water was dark and thick and wanted to close in over me and drown me but today it was back to its normal, clear, blue, bear-me-up friendly self.

Weird.

I guess I just need to decide in advance what my strategy will be if I have a panic attack in the water at the actual event. Seek out a Swim Angel, hang out on a swim noodle long enough to stop hyperventilating and then just swim/sidestroke/doggy paddle from noodle to noodle until I'm back on land, I guess.

Run (outside) (planned):

25 minutes continuous

Run (outside) (actual):

22 minutes continuous
Brief restroom break
6 minutes continuous (I tacked on 3 extra minutes as compensation for having stopped at 22)

I would have preferred not to have to stop, but whatever. Run done. Yay!

Day Fifteen Done Enough [G]

2008-03-22T12:42:00.002-06:00

Swim:

Triathlon Swimming Made Easy Lesson 3 Drill Sequence:

25 yards zipperskate (right)
25 yards zipperswitch
25 yards zipperskate (left)
25 yards zipperswitch

35 minutes swim

Not really done, but I'm checking it off anyway simply because I didn't just get out of the pool and go home.

What happened? you ask.

Well, it's spring break and the pool was mobbed. I had a lane to myself, but there were three people in the lane to my right and two people in the lane to my left and all of them were splashing ferociously and sending little waves into my lane. I got splashed in the face nearly every breath while doing the drills, which got me really off-balance, apparently, because my first length of the swim, I inhaled an entire mouthful of water all on my own.

I gagged it up, then had a panic attack which I would rate about a 6 out of 10, where 6 is shaking, hyperventilation and uncontrollable sobbing which you manage to stifle anyway because you're in lane three of a public pool and everyone can see you.

A 10, of course, would be where you call 911 because you're convinced you're having a major heart attack. I've never had 10, thank goodness, although I have, back in grad school, had an 8, which is where you escort yourself to the university health clinic because you think you're having an arrhythmia. By the way, if you ever want to be seen quickly by a doctor, walk into a health clinic looking pale and panicked and clutching your chest and say, "I'm sure it's nothing serious, but I'm experiencing some chest pain..." WHOOOSH! You're in an exam room hooked up to an EKG machine.

But I digress.

Anyway, after the panic attack I couldn't swim because I felt like I couldn't breathe no matter what breathing pattern I tried to use and also because "swimming downhill" - which is how you keep your hips and legs light so that you don't have to kick like crazy just to stay afloat - made me panic all over again. I finished my 35 minutes through a combination of panicked freestyle, side stroke, doggy paddling and resting on my back, then went to the locker room, showered, freaked out all over again in the changing room, did 15 minutes of progressive relaxation and yoga breathing just to get calm enough to drive, and drove home.

So, that's not good. I hope tomorrow goes better.

Also, I know I still owe you Part II of my Group Ride Report. Yesterday I was too tired and now I'm too shaky - later today, though, or maybe tomorrow! I haven't forgotten!

Week Two Done! [G]

2008-03-21T19:40:00.001-06:00

Day Thirteen (yesterday)

Rest

Done!

Day Fourteen (today)

Bike:

45 minutes

Done! In fact, I did 50 minutes on a pretty hilly loop, so I'm kind of proud of myself! :)

Tomorrow: swim! (swoosh!)

Group Ride Report: Part I: Things You'd Think The Bike Shop Would Have Told Me [G]

2008-03-20T21:05:00.004-06:00

This week I decided to take the plunge and join the local bike club's Wednesday night ride.

On Tuesday night, I emailed the ride coordinator, Wanda, to verify the start time since the information on the club's website was a little unclear. She emailed me back first thing Wednesday morning to let me know that this week's ride would start at 5:30 PM.

I had some errands to run at 4:00 PM and I knew I might not make it home until 5:00 or a little after, so I decided that at 3:30 I would pump up my tires - the front one was getting a little low - gather all my biking stuff and load it and the bike into my car so that after errands, I would just need to eat something super quick, change into my bike clothes and go.

3:30 rolled around and I grabbed my pump - a little Sports Authority handheld pump that I can't remember when or why I bought but which I figured would save me having to buy a frame pump for awhile, at least - and headed for the garage. I removed the little cap from the front tire valve and frowned. I was looking at something entirely foreign. What kind of valve is this?

I looked at it a little longer. Eventually I noticed a little pin type thing that looked like it could be unscrewed. I unscrewed it.

Nothing happened. Huh. I looked at the head of my pump. I looked at the valve. I looked at the head of my pump again. I tried putting the head of the pump over the valve but it wouldn't make any kind of seal. I set the pump down. I poked the little pin with my finger.

PFFT!

Yikes!

I looked at the head of my pump again. I noticed that it had threading. OK, maybe you screw it on. I put the head of the pump over the valve again, pressed down and twisted.

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!!

In, like, a millisecond, my tire deflated completely.

It was now 3:40.

I went inside and sat down at the computer. I Googled "bike tire valve."

Ah. Apparently, there are Schrader valves and Presta valves. My pump is designed for Schrader valves. My bike has Presta valves. I have to leave in 20 minutes and I have a freaking flat tire!

A brief moment of despair.

Oh, wait!

I went back the garage, opened my Bento box and removed a CO2 cartridge. I looked at the CO2 cartridge. I looked at the valve. I looked at the CO2 cartridge again. The end of the cartridge was sealed and anyway looked too big to fit tightly over the valve.

I went back inside and sat down at the computer. I Googled "CO2 cartridge bike."

A dispenser! I need a dispenser. Did they sell me a dispenser?

Back to the garage to rummage through the Bento box again. What's this? Could it be... yes!

The dispenser, thank goodness, was self-explanatory. I made sure the airway or whatever was closed, screwed in the CO2 cartridge, screwed the dispenser onto the valve, opened the airway and...

FOOOOOP!

Back in business.

I unscrewed the dispenser, wiped a little foam from the valve, screwed the pin thing back, screwed the valve cap back on, put the spent cartridge in my pocket to warm it up (having realized that now discharged, the cartridge was cold enough to burn my fingers), removed my front wheel, loaded the wheel and bike into the car and tossed the now less frosty cartridge into the recycling box.

4:05

Whew!

I ran my errands, got back to the house at about 5:10, nuked some tamale soup and frozen veggies and chugged as much of that as possible while changing into my bike clothes and at 5:22 hopped in the car to head a mile up the road (the very busy road I'm afraid to bike on still) to the shopping plaza where the ride was scheduled to start.

Tune in tomorrow for...

Part II: The Kindness Of Strangers

Day Twelve Done PLUS Group Ride! [G]

2008-03-19T19:57:00.001-06:00

Run (outside) (planned):

20 minutes continuous

Run (outside) (actual):

2:45 false start during which time I realized that (a) I was overdressed in my half-zip jacket and (b) my cell phone was banging against my hip
1:00 more or less removing layers and reorganizing my cell phone
0:05 thinking "Hey, I ran 25 minutes the other day, more or less, I'll just set my watch back to 0:00:00 and start over!" and setting my watch back to 0:00:00
10:00 run during which time I realized that this was perhaps a mistake given that my glutes and hamstrings are still trashed from physical therapy yesterday
1:00 walk
10:00 run

I feel pretty good about the run even with the walking break, though, because for the first time in for, like, ever, my gait felt good! I felt like I was gliding rather than lurching or shuffling and that most of my energy was going into propelling myself forward, as it's supposed to, rather than into wasted side to side or up and down motion. And, there was no numbness until maybe just the very last 20 seconds or so, as I was rounding the corner onto my street and even then it was just a little tingling in my foot, not the full-on no-feeling-in-my-leg thing. So, woohoo! :)

PLUS

Bonus Bike:

Group ride! 24 miles!!

I'll post the saga of my first real group ride tomorrow as right now I need to take a shower, do a few urgent emails and collapse into bed! :)

Days Ten & Eleven Done, PLUS: First PT Follow-Up [G]

2008-03-18T19:54:00.000-06:00

Day Ten (Yesterday)

Rest

Done!

Day Eleven (Today)

Bike:

35 minutes

Done! Enjoyable and uneventful. I was kind of wiped out from my physical therapy appointment this morning, but it wasn't as windy today and I remembered to pay attention to my cadence for most of the ride so it felt good anyway. Yay! :)

PLUS

PT Follow-Up:

This was my first follow-up since my initial appointment with the physical therapist a month ago. She was happy with how I'm doing so progressed all my exercises, added some new ones and pretty much wore me out! I was glad to get progressed, though. I was also pleased to note that between the PT exercises, the little bit of cardio I've been doing and cleaning up my diet once again, I've managed to lose a little over four pounds of injury weight since my initial visit. Yay! That in itself should help my back and the running.

Anyway, she was glad to hear that the running is improving and really glad to hear that I've been swimming as that will help strengthen and stretch the muscles in my back. She was less enthusiastic about the biking because she doesn't like the posture road bike people use. She said if I must do it (and of course, I must, 'cause, see, I signed up for this triathlon...), her preference would be that I bend from the hip and maintain the natural curvature in my lower back as much as possible while training even if I have do more of a slump for racing or when the wind is bad or whatever. So, that's fine. I did that this evening and actually my back felt better afterwards than it sometimes does, so I'll stick with that for now, at least.

Tomorrow: run plus (drum roll) Wednesday night group ride? We shall see.. :)

Ooooooo, lookit! [G]

2008-03-17T12:32:00.001-06:00

They're launching an Olympic distance women's triathlon in Las Vegas!

It's in April and it's paired with a sprint distance triathlon, but if the triathlon goddesses smile on me, maybe I'll be capable of an Oly by April 2009...

Yes, I've completely lost my mind, thanks for asking. :)

Day Nine Done... [G]

2008-03-16T12:27:00.000-06:00

More or less, anyway.

Swim:

Triathlon Swimming Made Easy Lesson 3 Drill Sequence:

25 yards underswitch
25 yards triple underswitch
25 yards zipperskate (left)
25 yards zipperskate (right)
25 yards triple zipperswitch

20 minutes swim

Swim thought: Keep moving!

I'm still working on swimming continuously, without resting at the wall. Today I managed to do the full 20 minutes without stopping although I did have to cheat a little by doing 25 yards of sidestroke every once in awhile in order to catch my breath.

PLUS

Run (outside) (planned):

25 minutes continuous

Run (outside) (actual):

17 minutes continuous + 2 minutes walk + 8 minutes continuous

I really tried not to walk, but by 17:00 I was on a steep hill after a long of stretch of gradual uphill, plus I was running into a vicious wind. I couldn't catch my breath no matter how tiny I made my steps and my right calf was starting to cramp. It took two minutes to walk out the cramp and get to where I wasn't gasping for air anymore. I tacked on two minutes to make up for the walk and the rest of the run went OK except for the part where my leg went to sleep at 24:00...

Argh.

Oh, well. I consoled myself my telling myself that: it's only my third attempt at a continuous run since I started running again post back problem diagnosis; the route was super hilly; usually my leg would have gone to sleep at 23:00 rather than at 24:00 so this is progress; and at least I had a better run than all the people who don't run at all.

It still makes me a little nervous for Danskin, but I'm starting to think I need to not worry about my times for that race at all, rather that I should just aim to finish. Because I do at least think I'll be able to finish as long as they don't have cutoffs for any of the stages, and I haven't seen anything about cutoffs on the website.

Day Eight Done! [G]

2008-03-15T12:38:00.000-06:00

Swim:

Triathlon Swimming Made Easy Lesson 3 Drill Sequence:

25 yards zipperskate (right)
25 yards zipperswitch
25 yards zipperskate (left)
25 yards zipperswitch

30 minutes swim (no more quotation marks, I think I'm actually doing a real, full-stroke crawl now - woohoo!)

Swim thought first 15 minutes: Reach!

(I was working on "swimming tall" as the book says; basically making my body as long in the water as I can.)
Swim thought second 15 minutes: Roll!

(Because for some reason when I concentrate on reaching, I don't rotate far enough in the water, which slows me down and threatens to injure my right shoulder, which I don't need.)

(The injury, not the shoulder. I need the shoulder.)

I guess it's a sign of progress that after today's session I've advanced from worrying about the swim because I can't swim to worrying about the swim because of my apparently poor aerobic capacity in the water, even when I'm focusing on taking long, slow, efficient strokes. I'm constantly winded and am afraid this is going to lead to panic when I'm out in the middle of a lake where I can't even see, let alone touch, the bottom. Oh, well. I guess that, like everything else, will improve with practice.

Week One Done! [G]

2008-03-14T19:32:00.000-06:00

Day Six (Yesterday)

Rest

Done!

Day Seven (Today)

Bike:

40 minutes

Done! Well, technically I finished my route in 39 minutes then stopped at our mailbox to get the mail. But close enough.

Anyway, today I figured out a route that lets me get on one of the busy roads that borders my neighborhood at a spot that seems relatively safe, exit onto another of the busy roads and reenter my neighborhood without ever having to cross a major intersection. That gives me a little added flexibility in terms of routes I can do close to home, at least. It also opens up the possibility of maybe eventually being able to ride my bike to the little Saturday morning farmers market that should be starting up for the season pretty soon here.

Also, I finally learned to drink from my water bottle without stopping (or rolling) my bike. Hooray!

All told I did 8.56 miles for an average of 13.17 mph. This was actually kind of disappointing as all the "moderate pace" group rides around here are supposedly done at an average pace of 15 to 17 mph. On the other hand, I had a 36 mph headwind for half the ride and very few opportunities to coast, plus, at some point I got distracted and forgot to pay attention to my cadence for I don't know how long and that probably hurt my time, too. So, whatever. (Look at me, not panicking! Must be the endorphins.)

Tomorrow: swim!

Day Five Done! [G]

2008-03-12T19:32:00.001-06:00

Run (outside):

20 minutes continuous at 180 spm

Not fast, not pretty, not comfortable, but done. And no numbness, either.

Woo (pant, pant) hoo! :)

Tomorrow: Rest day

Days Three & Four Done! [G]

2008-03-11T19:38:00.006-06:00

Day Three (Yesterday)

Rest

Done! Funny though, I didn't want to rest, I wanted to ride my bike some more!

Day Four (Today)

Bike:

35 minutes

Done! Although by today, I'd lost some momentum and while I was still excited to ride, I didn't feel like riding fast. I was tired, slightly jet lagged from the time change still, maybe.

So, I mostly spent today's ride learning how to use my first and third front gears. I've been camping out on the second chainring in the front and just changing the back gears because I still wasn't totally clear, when not looking at a piece of paper that explains it, which way to go in front to do what. Now, with some learning by doing done, I'm a little clearer.

Also, I'm starting to feel a little hemmed in in my neighborhood, the boundaries of which consist of three very busy roads and a river (which can only be crossed by getting on one or another of the very busy roads). So today I got very brave and crossed the narrowest of the very busy roads at what I judged to be the safest intersection in terms of stoplights and visibility. And it turns out that the next neighborhood over is similar to ours in that there aren't many cars parked on the streets (nice because you don't have to worry so much about open car doors) and also better than ours in that there are a bunch of long straightaways where I can really work on speed.

It is, however, itself a bit hemmed in by two very busy roads, the river and a large, old-looking industrial plant of some kind. A paint factory, maybe? I've been driving by it regularly for nearly a decade and have never known for sure what it is. Weird.

Anyway, I can tell that it won't be long before I get bored with this neighborhood, too. Meanwhile, I've been seeing little clutches of cyclists all over the place and, as I was wheeling my bike into the garage, I - congenital loner who would generally rather put my eye out with a fork than do any kind of group thing - actually caught myself thinking that I should see if there are other group rides available during the week, too, besides the women's ones that are supposedly going to be on Sundays. Because, you know, it would be so much more fun to join a bunch of groups than to just ride around my greater neighborhood by myself and I'm too scared to ride alone anywhere else...

Tomorrow: run

Day Two Done [G]

2008-03-09T14:22:00.003-06:00

Swim:

Triathlon Swimming Made Easy Lesson 2 Drill Sequence:

25 yards underskate (right)
25 yards underskate (left)
50 yards underswitch
50 yards double underswitch

15 minutes "swim"

Swim thought: Don't stop! (I've been resting at the wall a lot during my swim sessions and need to start learning to swim continuously.)

PLUS

Run (outside) (planned):

20 minutes continuous

Run (outside) (actual):

11 minutes run/1 minute walk/11 minutes run

The walk was due to major stomach cramps, the result, maybe, of swallowing a lot of pool water? I've noticed that my stomach always feels bloated for a few hours after I swim.

So, to make up for the walk, I decided to run to 21 minutes total instead of 20, and by the time I finished 21, I was only a couple of blocks from the pool parking lot, so I decided to just run the rest of the way to my car, bringing me to 23 minutes total.

The route was super hilly so I didn't worry about counting steps per minute or anything, just went at a comfortable trot. And I did take that little walking break. Still, given the hills, the cramps, and the fact that I had no idea starting out whether I'd be able to run continuously at all and finally, the fact that my leg did NOT go to sleep - not even any tingling in my foot - well, I feel pretty good about it! Woohoo!

Tomorrow: Rest day!

Day One Done! (First Group Ride, Too!) [G]

2008-03-08T21:03:00.006-07:00

Today was my first day of official training for Danksin!

Swim:

Triathlon Swimming Made Easy Lesson 2 drill sequence:

25 yards underskate (right side)
25 yards underskate (left side)
50 yards underswitch (alternating left and right side)

30 minutes "swim"

The book says that when working on drills or on your full stroke, you should try to concentrate on just one thing. Boy Genius is a golfer and golfers talk about a "swing thought" and I guess the idea is similar. So, I am going to have "swim thoughts."

My swim thought for the first half of the swim was "breathe on 4." I'm doing bilateral breathing, every third stroke, but I'm finding that if I try to fit three strokes and a breath into three beats, that I start feeling panicked and as a result start lifting my head out of the water as I roll - in order to get to the air faster, I guess. However, if I count 1-2-3-4, extending the third stroke for an extra beat and coasting along as I breathe, I can maintain my form better and am more relaxed, too. I don't know if I'll stick with this forever, but today, anyway, using this method allowed me to reduce my 25 yd stroke count from 30 (ack!) to 18 (yay!).

My swim thought for the second half of the swim was "roll" because I was finding that on my second of my three strokes I wasn't rolling far enough, which was not only slowing me down but was also making my right shoulder click in a way that couldn't be good.

PLUS

Even before I did my swim this morning, I did this!!!

Bike:

60 minutes group ride (my first!)

So, I'm starting to think my local bike shop might be a wee bit disorganized. I'd been waiting and waiting to hear when the women's riding clinic was going to be and finally got an email yesterday morning announcing that it would be... today at 8:30 AM. The email also said that a guy would be the group leader, which was not how I had understood it was going to be, but whatever. The organizer, a woman, was apparently going to be joining us as well.

Anyway, as one might predict, nobody showed up this morning except me, one other woman, the group leader and another bike shop guy who had planned to come along for the ride. The organizer didn't show up and the guys couldn't get her on her cell phone, so eventually they decided to scrap the clinic-y stuff and just take us on an hour-long loop, which actually turned out to be pretty fun. The loop was basically a big downhill, some flat, some moderate uphill, some moderate downhill, some flat again and then a whole bunch of BIG up and downhill at the end. I was pretty proud of myself that I made it up all the hills without having to walk! That was really my biggest accomplishment of the day.

When we got back to the shop, the owner was there. He apologized for the mixup and said they are probably going to continue doing women's rides but on Sundays and leaving from the other shop (he has two locations) for safety reasons (less traffic out the other way, apparently). So, we'll see, I guess!

In fairness to the bike shop, my own act of disorganization for the day was to fail to properly secure the nut to the skewer after removing my front wheel from my bike to load it into my car. It fell off somewhere - in my driveway? in my car? in the bike shop parking lot? - in any event, I haven't been able to find it anywhere. A bike shop guy who wasn't going along for the ride was kind enough to lend me the skewer from his own bike so that I could do the ride, and then when we got back to the shop another guy scrounged up a replacement nut for me. So, I'll have to be more careful about that in the future!

Tomorrow: swim plus run! :)

Woohoo! [G]

2008-03-06T19:13:00.004-07:00

Run (outside) (planned):

Run 2 minutes/walk 1 minute at 180 spm for 30 minutes total

Run (outside) (actual):

Run 2 minutes/walk 1 minute at 180 spm for 30 minutes total

HA!! Take that, pars defect! Take that, spondylolisthesis!

Still some numbness, but instead of my whole leg going totally to sleep at minute 23 like on my last two runs, I just got some tingling in my foot during minute 26, which I was able to walk out during minute 27 before my whole leg went to sleep during minute 29. So, that's more or less a six minute improvement even with a progression from 1 minute run/1 minute walk to 2 minutes run/1 minute walk!

Now, if I can just keep this up!