« December 2007 | Main | February 2008 »

January 28, 2008

tri training in earnest

So, my whole plan for 2008 of running less is going pretty well so far! Last week I only ran 44 miles, including one day completely off from running, and I biked 3 times and swam once. Nice!! This week also included my first all-outdoor brick workout of 2008, because it was an awesome 61 degrees out yesterday. It felt so good to get on my bike outside and to practice on my aero bars. On which I am sadly kind of spastic right now! I think I will get better however. It is hard to practice balancing on the aero bars when my bike's on the trainer and I don't really need to balance. I also did a sweet 90 minute trainer workout which included some hard intervals. For a few minutes I thought I might die, but I survived.

I also had an excellent run on Saturday, I went down to the highline canal for what I thought would be 8 miles but made it 10, with my 8th mile at 7:14 pace. I met some tri geeks and we ran together for a while, which was nice. The weather was gorgeous, and I felt good. With the warmer temperatures this weekend all the snow is almost melted off the trails I run on all the time, and that is really nice. Hopefully it won't snow again too soon! After my run I did a 20 minute swim. I did not feel too bad, but I know I need to be in the water at least twice a week for the next 8 months, which is somewhat intimidating but I know it'll make me a much better swimmer.

Other than that, I have not been up to that much. I am almost finished with bridge of sighs, which in my opinion absolutely deserved the ridiculouly heavy praise it received - it was on a ton of 'best books of 2007' lists. For a while I was just reading it at night before I went to bed but this weekend I became truly obsessed. If you are looking for a good novel I would highly recommend it. Now that I have like five pages left I'm not sure what to do next!

Posted by barb at 4:32 PM | Comments (0)

January 20, 2008

trying to run less

Yeah, so how weird does that sound? I have a running blog and on my running blog I'm talking about wanting and trying to run less this year. Am I insane? Or injured? Well, to the first I probably can't commit either way, but I'm not injured, I am just trying to become a more well rounded person/athlete. And I am trying to become more awesome when it comes to triathlons, my new fun hobby. So that is what I'm struggling with right now. For example, I feel that I should really get out there and run 10 miles today, since it's Sunday and Sunday is usually my long run day. However, in the interest of becoming well-rounded, what I am considering doing is a nice easy 5-7 mile run, followed by swimming and yoga. So I am going to give it a try and stop obsessing over my running mileage. I should probably stop tracking it, which would help me stop obsessing, but I just know that won't happen as I love my little running log spreadsheet.

Anyway running and becoming well-rounded are both going well. I spent about 90 minutes hanging out at the new bike shop that is only a few miles from me, getting a very exciting addition put on my bike - aero bars!! Hooray!! I cannot wait to try them out in my tri's this year and not feel like a tool because everyone has aero bars (or a tri bike) but me. I am just so excited. And the aero bars are significantly less of a financial problem than a tri bike :) I also got some of this energy drink I am obsessed with, which I thought I had to order online and thus never ordered because I felt too cheap and you had to turn on an auto-order every month to get free shipping. And I got the manager at the store, who is awesome, to replace my bike computer battery and re-set all my settings for me. It was sweet.

And yesterday I would like to say that I did a great workout, that was not too heavy on the running. I rode my trainer for 90 minutes (while watching the Gilmore Girls, heaven knows why but I am watching the series on DVD), and then went out and ran 6 miles. My first brick of the year, how exciting! This was partly motivated by the weather as it was like 8 degrees out when I was planning on running so I mixed things up. But it was still a great workout and I will definitely do it again.

The entire week was a bit of a challenge for my workout schedule - my boss was out so I was super busy with work, and it was super cold this week so I wussed out on a few morning runs. It was not a big deal and I got all my workouts in except a yoga class, which I'll make up today. I don't know if it's the energy drink or what but I am just so excited this morning... so I am off to run as it is a balmy 21 degrees out right now, woo hoo! I hope all are having a nice weekend. And speaking of weekends, this is a three day weekend for me, so I guess that could be contributing to my delightful mood :)

Posted by barb at 8:15 AM | Comments (2)

January 9, 2008

hello, 2008!!

Here we are in 2008. How exciting! I love a new year, especially when it involves the excitement of signing up for races in the first few days of the year. I am just so excited for all my sports this year. And I have come up with a few resolutions...
1. Wash my face every night before I go to sleep (Yes I am really lazy and didn't do this very much last year)
2. Go to yoga once a week, at least through winter and spring. I may get too busy in the summer with all the tri training, but I really need to do this once a week now to maintain flexibility and build upper body strength. I actually went to a new kind of yoga this past weekend and boy was it random! The guy actually brought a gong into the studio. There were also songs involved. Um, yeah I am more of the sporty yoga type as opposed to the spiritual yoga type, I will admit, so it was kind of weird!
3. Be awesome in my tri's. This is less of a resolution and more of a goal, but whatever. I am really excited. I am doing four tri's this year - the series I did last year plus this other Olympic distance tri. I am also trying to convince a few friends to do the Olympic with Team in Training. I think they would really like it and I would love having more friends for training and races.
4. Run PDR and get a nice half marathon PR. I have been in the Philadelphia metro area before, but I've never actually been in the city of Philly, so this should be a lot of fun and the course should be great.

Anyway those are my resolutions. I would also like to read more and study the stuff I used to like in college to see if I still want to go to grad school.

Recently, I have been crazy busy and it has been cold so I've been squeezing running and other workouts in wherever I can, which is more hectic but I must admit it is nice waking up late sometimes. I have also cut 4 or 5 inches off my hair and it is so cute! I have been a very busy girl and I am generally having fun. Now I just need to write about it a bit more, and I'll be in good shape.

And I still want to do a 2007 year in review, but who knows when I'll get to it, so I will just report that I ran over 2500 miles last year, which is exciting!

Posted by barb at 7:04 PM | Comments (1)