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May 31, 2006

Seriously!

What the heck?! It's like 10,000 degrees here! There are reasons why I don't live in Texas or Florida and 90+ degree days with humidity is one of them!

The good news is, I really don't have to be out in the heat too much. Today I just lifted inside in the air conditioning. Tomorrow is a swim in the am (inside in cold water!) and then a bike in the pm which isn't too bad since you get some nice breezes while riding. I really hope it cools down by Friday when I'll be doing my next run!

Good things about the heat:

1) wearing less clothing = less laundry
2) icing one's feet feels good instead of miserable
3) jumping into cold pool at 5:45 am becomes delightful
4) dead grass = less grass cutting
5) Roxy is much more subdued - more laying around sleeping, less running around like a mad-dog

In other news, I finished my 2nd book for the year! I am easily on pace to achieve my 4 book goal, especially considering I received two more books in the mail today that I had ordered as part of a birthday gift. I cannot become lax though. I should try and get both of these books read this summer because once school starts again I'll be in trouble. :)

Posted by beth at 5:18 PM | Comments (0)

May 30, 2006

Leading Lots of Laps

I had been curious as to what the Pitt masters swim team did on Tuesdays (since I only usually go on Mondays and Thursdays) but today I found out! Turns out they swim a lot. Hmm...I couldn't have guessed it. :)

I don't know if it was a usual Tuesday since there wasn't practice yesterday morning, but the pool was set up for 50 meters and we did a mix of longer and shorter intervals. Makes sense.

I was so hot last night and even on my drive into the city that I could not wait to jump into that cold pool! Usually I dread the jump-in but this morning I was running for it. :) It felt awesome too. Anyway, the workout consisted of:

300 meters (moderate pace)
2x150 meters (getting faster on the 2nd one)
3x100 meters (again, each one faster) - did these on 2 minutes
6x50 meters (odd numbers were easy and the evens were hard) - did these on 1:05

We did this little routine twice. My group let me lead today which I would usually protest against (I don't want to mess things up!) but agreed to this morning because certain intervals could be done using different strokes, something they were all doing, but I wasn't. Problem is, I don't really know any other strokes, so sticking with freestyle is just fine with me! Obviously I would be going faster though, hence the suggestion that I lead. I was fine with it too because there really weren't set interval times for each repeat and so there was little for me to get confused on. :)

I was a little on the tired side today. On some of those hard 50s I was sure the pool was never going to end! But I got through fine and actually feel better now afterwards. Regardless, I swam 800 meters warmup and 300 cooldown for a total of 3500 meters, which just happens to be 3827.6465441819773 yds if you are interested. :)

Now - back to work and soon time for home!

Posted by beth at 4:06 PM | Comments (2)

May 29, 2006

Hot Hot Hot!

Happy Memorial Day to everyone - especially to the veterans who have lost their lives for our freedom!

So yeah - it's really hot here! I know it's hotter than usual in many places though so everyone is enduring extra heat and humidity. It's actually a good thing for me. My first triathlon is in Charleston, SC in mid-June and I'm guessing it's going to be nice and sauna-like down there. Today was good acclimation training!

I set off on my bike this morning and rode a nice 21 miler. At first my legs were pretty fatigued. I usually swim today, but the pool was closed at the YMCA and the Pitt team was only practicing in the afternoon, so instead I did what I would normally do tomorrow. All that means is that there was a little less rest than usual between my rides/runs. I usually like to have a swim in there to freshen up! Either way, after about 5 miles I felt a little better and was rolling along pretty nicely. It was a beautiful morning. My average pace was exactly 18.01 MPH - finally - I broke the 18 MPH barrier!

I got back home, hopped off my bike, starting changing shoes and then the heat and humidity hit me. One huge benefit of riding vs running is the nice little breeze you get when you are on the bike! I figured I was going to be in for a tough run but it honestly wasn't that bad. I ran over to the track where O was doing 400 and 800 repeats and it was perfect timing in that he was just finishing up and we ran home together. I was definitely hot and thirsty and probably not moving that fast, but my legs didn't feel like lead either. I ran for 30 minutes total.

And now it's time for a shower as large salt deposits have formed on me and they are really grossing me out! I hope everyone has a great day!

Posted by beth at 10:43 AM | Comments (2)

May 27, 2006

Week Summary

Forgot the summary... (gasp!)

Sunday - off
Monday - 3500 meter swim w/8x300 meters, core/feet exercises
Tuesday - 21 mile ride, 33 minute run, core/feet exercises
Wednesday - weights
Thursday - 3200 yd swim w/8x25, 8x50, 8x75, 8x100, 15 mile ride, 2x25 pushups and 2x100 crunchers
Friday - 45 min run w/5-4-3-2-1 hard, core/feet exercises
Saturday - 40 mile ride, body weight circuitx2
Sunday - I can tell you already - OFF! :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Posted by beth at 1:00 PM | Comments (0)

40 Mile Birthday Ride

Great ride this morning! The last time I was at the bike store, the bike guy suggested I try riding the Red Belt. Pittsburgh has a "belt system" but trust me folks, it's no beltway like Washington DC! Basically our belt system involves a hodgepodge collection of country roads that someone linked together on a map. They determined it would be a good way to relieve congestion on the main highways. Um yeah. Nobody is really going to use back roads with speed limits of 25 MPH when they can drive on big highways and go 80 MPH.

Anyway, the Red Belt starts near our house and once the bike guy suggested it I thought it was a great idea. They are back roads with not too much traffic and I could easily follow the Red Belt signs for a nice long ride without worrying about getting lost.

This time I took Gatorade Endurance and Clif Shot Bloks for my nutrition and fluids and I think it made a big difference. I felt much better today than last Saturday. Of note, there was much less wind this time and it was warmer, but this ride was much hillier than last weekend's. I rode out 20 miles and then just turned around and came back for 40 miles on the nose. And it really was a great ride. One of the things I really like about running is getting to explore new places and see different areas that you otherwise wouldn't have seen if you didn't run there. Well multiply that by 10 for biking. You just get so much farther! I rode through some very beautiful farm country and thought how beautiful God's creation really is!

There were some significant hills on today's ride. Because I didn't really know what I was in for I started getting a little scared in the middle when I was riding up and down some monsters and wondering if it was ever going to flatten out again. But it did. And on my way back I actually saw the bike guy from the bike store riding! :)

Anyway, the ride took about 2:20 and I averaged just over 17 MPH. I'll take it!

Now O and I are going to start some serious yard work. We have a jungle growing in the back yard - the weeds are starting to gain strength and look poised for a coup! :)

Posted by beth at 12:36 PM | Comments (1)

May 26, 2006

Back in Action

After some technical difficulties I think my blog is back in action! Thanks Alison and PJM for fixing up the site! (because Lord knows I wouldn't know a thing about blog technicalities!) Either way, I'm not sure this entry will work, but I'll give it a try...

Catching up...

Wednesday: All I did was lift. Nothing notable. Nothing exciting.

Thursday:

1) Before work I headed to Pitt for a swim workout. Thursdays are the days were the pool is set up as 25 yards and we do shorter, really, really, really hard stuff. Yesterday was no exception! The workout was as follows:

8x25 yds on :30
8x50 yds on 1:00
8x75 yds on 1:30
8x100 yds on 2:00

For each set the first 4 were (1) kick, (2) count your strokes (with the goal of getting as few as possible), (3) count your strokes but speed up, and (4) easy. The last 4 in each set were HARD. The rest intervals were nice and long but it was still quite challenging, I think because the distances were getting bigger instead of smaller! Either way, at the end I swam the fastest four 100s of my life - all were in 1:16 or 1:17! I was hurting though! :) With warmup and cooldown I swam 3200 yds total.

2) After I got home from work I took my bike out for a 15 mile spin. I was in a groove, there wasn't too much wind, I was flying and feeling good!

And that brings us to today. I had a running workout planned but just as O and I were getting ready to go it started storming. We waited some until it died down to just a rain and then we were off. We drove to the trail and did the following workout:

12 minute warmup
5/4/3/2/1 hard with 1/2 of the previous interval's time for rest (ie: 2:30, 2, 1:30, 1 min rests)
11 minute cooldown

I felt okay today. It was humid and sticky and I was thirsty so I felt a little sluggish but I've definitely felt worse on runs so I'm not complaining! :)

And so now we're all caught up. I know - you are all very relieved. :) In other news, our new roof is now in place (they finished today), and that makes me very happy! No more roof worries! Also - my birthday is tomorrow! How about that one?! I'll be 27 on May 27th. My co-workers told me at work yesterday that tomorrow is my golden birthday since my age matches up with the date. I asked if I got something special on my golden birthday but nobody seemed to know the answer to that. Humpf! :)

I hope everyone has a great start to their holiday weekends! :)

Posted by beth at 6:13 PM | Comments (2)

May 23, 2006

Powered by Meatballs

It's no secret that I love meatballs. I like them on spaghetti, in a sandwich or just plain by themselves. They are just delightful little balls of goodness! And so when I saw that one of the other dietitians I work with made them for our party today (baby shower for another co-worker) I was overjoyed! Yeah meatballs!

When our lunch party finally started (not until 12:30 - I think my stomach was eating itself! :), I went crazy on the meatballs - had 6 total - much to the delight of my co-workers. They can never believe how much I can eat. Sometimes I can't believe it myself... :)

Anyway after my meatball feast I came home and had an awesome brick workout this afternoon and I thought - I should have meatballs before all my races! I don't know how well they would go down at say 5 or 6 in the morning, but hey, it's worth a try right?! (of note, I would never really do this, but these are the types of thoughts I entertain myself with on my bike rides :)

The brick - truthfully it didn't really get off to a good start, but things got better and ended up just fine. When I called O on my way home from work he reluctantly told me he had accidentally put a hole in my tube on my back tire while he was trying to pump my tires (he pumps my tires for me - isn't he the best?) and that he was currently struggling mightily trying to change the flat. By the time I got home and changed to help, he had gotten the tire off, changed the tube and gotten the tire back on! I was soooo impressed! That tire hasn't been off yet (I had a flat in the front before) so I know it was probably a bugger. And then he snapped my wheel right back into place and I was ready to go! What a champ. Not to say it wasn't difficult and he wasn't covered in grease, but still - I know I wouldn't have been able to do it myself!

So I get ready for my ride and start off and things aren't going so well. First off, I was distracted because I couldn't get my right foot clipped in and then I was trying to reset my bike computer and all this while pedaling slowly uphill and then I had to stop for a car and...well...you can guess what ALMOST happened - that's right, I almost fell flat on my face! Luckily I ripped my left foot out of my pedal right at the last minute so I didn't topple over, but it was quite a close call. I finally get going a little and get on the road I want to be on and I go to get down on my aerobars and I SWEAR I almost fell off my bike again! My bars are so much lower now and although it didn't feel like a huge difference in the bike store yesterday when I went to get down today I was wondering if someone stole my handlebars and I didn't notice!

Like anything though, I got used to the different feeling within a few miles and from there my ride was awesome - 21 miles exacly at 17.75 MPH average, my fastest ride thus far. I was just kind of spinning along too. It didn't hurt that it was the absolute most beautiful day outside, in the 60s and sunny and not windy and I choose a flat route too. Either way, I was loving life.

So I get home and change into my running shoes and take off and my legs feel great. Okay, great might not be the right word, but they felt very good coming off the bike, better than usual. I decided I wanted to head over to the track to just get an idea of my pace. Unlike the last time I did this when I thought I was running 8:30 pace and was surprised to find out it was more like 7:30 pace, I knew I was running at a pretty good clip (for me that is). I was still surprised to see that I was running just a hair over 7 minute pace (7:05) though. Of course I assume I wasn't running the whole run that fast because I know I speed up when I time laps on the track (even though I really try not to), but I was still pretty pleased, and really excited to get racing!

And so there you have it! Now I must take a shower and stretch and find Roxy because I have a feeling she is up to no good! Good night all!

Posted by beth at 7:26 PM | Comments (0)

May 22, 2006

Too Much Good in One Day...

So my good day continues...

1) My trip to the bike store was successful. The bike guy fixed me all up and now my back is going to hurt even more with my handlebars/aerobars even lower. (wait...is that a good thing? :)

2) While at the bike store I bought O some energy gels of different varieties and flavors. He will soon start his training plan for the Towpath Marathon in October! I am very excited for him. We both ran the Raleigh Marathon together as our first marathon in 2002 but I was about 99.9% sure he wasn't going to do another one. Goes to show I don't know too much! He surprised me when he said he wanted to give it another go, especially because he knows he's going to have to do the bulk of the training by himself (my bum feet won't allow those super long runs!). Either way, I think he's going to do really well and won't have a problem getting under his goal of 3:30. Anyway, I also got a package of Clif SHOT BLOKS to try while I'm cycling.

3) Next good news was the mail. First of all, I got the edition of Support Line with my article it in! I wrote the article what seems like forever ago (and complained about it quite a bit on my blog, so you all might remember) and it has finally come out. Pretty exciting to see your name on the byline for the first time (or probably every time). I've been fortunate enough to be invited to write another article, this one due in September. Ask me if I've even thought about starting it yet? Um...no. :)

4) Also in the mail, my new bathing suit arrived! :) My current suit is starting to get the sag - you know how they get all stretched out and big and whatnot. It's not totally unusable but it's getting there fast so I ordered a new suit from Swim Outlet's grab bag. Basically what happens with the grab bag is, you tell them your size and what type of suit you want (brand and basic style) and then they send whatever they have - you don't pick the exact style and you don't get to pick the color. They mention that the suits are "last year's styles". Yeah - I've never really cared what year's styles I'm wearing and I don't care what color my suit is either. And instead of costing $65/suit, the grab bag suits only cost $30. What a steal! And so I got my suit and it's perfectly fine (black, blue and silver) and now I won't have to wear my saggy suit anymore! Life is too good!

5) Finally (and probably best of all), Roxy did not get sick on the dead mouse that she ate this morning! Oh yes - that dog is like some sort of scavenger! At 4:45 am this morning when I let her outside she found a little dead mouse and brought it into the kitchen! I let out a yelp and before my shocked body could move into action, she swallowed it up and ate it whole! What the heck? It's not the first time she's ate a dead thing, but I was worried she was going to get sick on it. Luckily O put her in the basement all day (much easier to clean up down there!) and she ended up being fine anyway. Dogs. Can't live with them, can't live without them!

Posted by beth at 5:59 PM | Comments (4)

More Laps

I really can't think of a better way to spend an early Monday morning than swimming lap after lap in a very nice pool with lots of other motivated, encouraging people. Seriously - it has a way of starting the week off right. :)

The pool was set up for 50 meters this morning - I'm starting to notice the trend of longer intervals and long course setup on Monday and shorter intervals and short course setup on Thursday. Who knows what happens on Tuesdays as I haven't gone on a Tuesday yet! (and the group doesn't meet Wednesday or Friday mornings)

Either way, the workout this morning was 8x300 meters as so: (for my group)

2x300 on 6
2x300 on 5:30
2x300 on 5:45
2x300 on 5:15

I warmed up for 800 meters and cooled down for 300 meters to total 3500 meters. Good stuff. I felt great. Actually, I'm quite perplexed about my group and swimming longer vs shorter intervals. On Thursday the same group of guys was kicking my butt soooooooo hard on our fast (with very short rest I might add!) 100s and today, I felt like I wasn't even swimming hard and they were struggling! It doesn't make sense to me. They were just sooooo much better at the faster stuff. I guess if the difference were smaller I could understand but it's quite a gap. As O had already pointed out, I am no sprinter on the track and I guess that applies to the pool too. No bother, it works out well because on Mondays I can relax and a little and prepare for the whipping I'm going to receive on Thursday. :) Either way, my group let me lead the last interval which I was very concerned about (seeing as how I generally don't know what I'm doing I didn't want to mess anyone up) but it turned out okay. Otherwise, I am very content to just follow the kicking feet in front of me!

Regardless, I'm just about to leave work now and head to the bike store where the bike guy wants to lower my aerobars some. He thinks they are too high but didn't want to put my seat up, move me forward and lower my aerobars all at the same time so I guess we are doing things in increments. :) Hopefully after today's session I will be all in the right position.

I hope everyone had as great a start to their week as I did!

Posted by beth at 3:41 PM | Comments (0)

May 20, 2006

Invasion of the Roof-Snatchers, 40 Mile Ride, Poor Nutrition and More...

Where to begin? :)

I should probably start with this morning. O and I both woke up around 7 am at which point we quickly formed a plan - he was going to go let Roxy outside, feed her and then all three of us were going to snuggle back in bed for a bit longer. Very nice. Except for the fact that just as they were getting back into bed, we heard trucks pulling into our driveway. And then Roxy barking. And then we knew...the roof guys were here to start installing our new roof!

This is good news because all the rain we've had recently has pushed back our new roof date and I was getting anxious for them to get started. But at the same time, I didn't really expect them to come so early on a Saturday morning! Oh well - I know they are behind in their work because of the rain so they are probably working around the clock to get everything done. I'm not complaining!

It was comical though for the next hour or so. Roxy was beside herself, racing around the house, barking and staring out the window. In her defense it is a little odd to hear people climbing all over your roof and then sound like they are ripping your house apart. It's also odd to see it raining shingles out your windows when they were pulling off all the old shingles and just chucking them down onto their tarp they had laying below!

Either way, she finally calmed down enough that O and I decided we'd get moving on the day around 9 am. He and Roxy were going for a run and I was going to go for a bike ride. I was tickled pink that there were actually sunny skys and no rain and I was finally going to get to ride outside!

It was a little on the chilly side (around 50 degrees when I left which is perfect for running but nippy while riding), but it wasn't raining and that's all that mattered. O and I had charted out a new course for me that involved riding on my 2 favorite roads. It's an out and back course that should have been around 35 miles total.

I started off feeling pretty good but it wasn't soon before I noted the wind and knew it was going to be a battle the whole way out. It was pretty bad in places. I was actually pedaling DOWN (a rather large hill I might add) and only going 15 MPH. That's crazy! I felt like I was standing still in places and was starting to think the turnaround would never come. I was talking to the wind, singing to the wind and then trying to not think about it at all (easier said than done!). When I finally turned around I was wayyyyy happy. It was a much easier time going back - I didn't necessarily feel the wind pushing me but it wasn't blowing me all over the place in my face so I didn't really care. I felt like I was flying! And indeed I was - moving faster UP some of the hills than I had just come down!

Around 30 miles I started to feel a little shaky. I had stopped for some Gatorade at my turnaround point but stopped again on the side of the road for more at this point. It's hard to explain how I felt - not really that tired, just weird and like I was running out of fuel. I was mad at myself for not brining something with me to eat. Dumb mistake, but nothing I could do about it at that point. Luckily I only had 2 more hills to go up and the rest of the ride would be all flat. I made it back up to where we live and then started feeling better (it was much warmer up in our area!) and added on another small loop to try to make it 40 miles total. I got back to the house in 39.5 miles and decided that was good enough! My total time was around 2:22 and my average speed was around 16.5 MPH. I checked my ave speed just as I was coming back into our town and it was almost 17 (16.94 to be exact), but my added loop through town slowed things down, especially considering I got every single stop light red!

Either way, it was a good ride, my longest yet and I definitely learned some things. For one - just because I'm a dietitian doesn't mean I know everything about nutrition! I hate to say it but I usually skip the "nutrition" chapters in the books I read about running or triathlons because I feel like I'm not going to learn anything new. Um yeah. If that was the case I would have brought some food with me on a 40 mile ride! So I just now looked through the nutrition chapter of the 2 triathlon books I have and they both have a little table wherein you can figure out how many calories you've burned on a ride as based on total time riding, ave MPH and body weight. With my ride today I burned around 1000 calories, 30-50% of which I should have replaced while riding according to the book. I definitely did not take in 300-500 calories as all I had was about 10 oz of Gatorade and water. I think this means that I'm going to either have to start using gels on my long rides OR use a higher calorie sports drink. I have to do something though because that shaky, weak feeling is no good!

Anyway, that's my story for today! Hope everyone is having a great Saturday!

Week summary:

Sunday - off
Monday - 3500 meter swim (500,2x250,5x100,2x250,500), core/feet exercises
Tuesday - 1 hour spin (trainer), 30 minute run, core/feet exercises
Wednesday - weights
Thursday - 3200 yd swim (20x100), 1:30 spin (trainer), 2x25 pushups, 2x100 crunchups
Friday - 1 hour run, core/feet exercises
Saturday - 39.5 mile ride, weights (modified routine at home)

Posted by beth at 2:13 PM | Comments (3)

May 19, 2006

Forgetful

Do you ever think of all these good things to write in your blog when you are running but then by the time you sit down to write them you either (a) forget them or (b) don't feel like writing about them anyway? That's happening to me right now so this entry might be on the boring side. :)

Anyway, this morning I slept in and it felt great, although right now I feel like I could fall asleep again! I definitely let myself get too sleep deprived over the last couple weeks but now it's requiring more sleep than I thought to make up the difference. Oh well, what are you gonna do? :)

When I did get up this morning I noticed right away that it wasn't raining. Praise the Lord! I can't even remember the last time I woke up and it wasn't raining. So I stretched some, got dressed and then headed down to the trail to run. I usually do a "workout" of sorts on Fridays but instead I opted for a "long run" of 1 hour. I had a very nice run. It was cloudy and overcast but NOT raining and that's all that mattered! My legs felt good but I just took it easy. Very enjoyable. I even remembered to bring my iPod so I had some nice entertainment. I'm going to do my core exercises today as well. Tomorrow a long bike ride is on tap. It's supposed to be warm(er) and sunny in the afternoon so I'm going to try and hold off so I can actually ride outside!

I can't believe my first race is in exactly 1 month! Very exciting. Not only because I'm finally going to get to try this triathlon stuff out, but also because we will be on vacation the week after that first tri, visiting my family in South Carolina! It seems like I've been training for years for this, although I counted and it's only been 7 months AND I've only been running for 5 of those months. Time flys doesn't it? I'll be lining up for my first triathlon before I know it...

I hope everyone has a great start to their weekends!

Posted by beth at 1:36 PM | Comments (0)

May 18, 2006

Say What?

I have today off work which is most excellent because I'm very tired and I will now have the perfect opportunity to take a nap this afternoon. Life does not get much better than this. :) My day off today is also good for several other reasons:

1) I have Friday, Saturday and Sunday off. As O likes to say, the only thing better than a day off work is several days off work! :)

2) I'm not actually using vacation time. Today is techniquely a "conference day", which are days (obviously) alloted for time to be away at a conference. Notice I'm not currently at a conference but rather in my house typing on my computer. The sneaky thing is, I am going to a lecture tonight that my is put on by an organization that I happen to be on the Board of Directors for. My boss (being the awesome boss that she is) decides that I need to have today off for organizational time to get ready for tonight's lecture. Truth of the matter is, all the work for putting this lecture on is complete - was done weeks ago, so now I'm just hanging out. I love it! And tomorrow is not vacation time either, it's just my day off for working last Sunday.

Anyway, I still drove down to Pitt this morning for the master's swim workout. I was tempted to go back to sleep and just swim at the YMCA when my alarm went off at 4:45 am, but I really do like swimming with this group and swimming in that pool and I knew I would get a better workout than if I did it by myself.

And then, about halfway through the workout, I was really wishing I was home in my bed, nice and warm and snug! :)

Seriously, today's workout was R-O-U-G-H! Here's what it was supposed to be: (the pool was set up short course today)

20x100 as so -

2x100 on 1:50
4x100 on 1:40
4x100 on 1:35
4x100 on 1:30
2x100 on 1:25
2x100 EASY
2x100 on 1:22 (or 1:25 if you didn't make the first 2x100 on 1:25)

(800 yd warmup/400 yd cooldown - 3200 yds total)

Um yeah. I was probably swimming in a group a little over my head but the problem was that the next group down would have been too slow and the coach put me in the faster group. That's definitely what I wanted, but let it be known - on the 3rd 100 of the 1:30s, things started to get ugly! For some reason there were only 3 other woman today, one not doing a workout at all, one slower than me and one much faster than me (as in she was so much faster I couldn't even see her lane from where I was ;). Anyway, I was in with 3 other guys that I hung with fine on Monday but whom apparentely like shorter, faster stuff much more and therefore dusted me today. :) Like I said, I was doing fine up until the 1:30s when I was literally getting about 4 seconds rest and tiring quickly. Then the 1:25s came and the wheels came off. I didn't make those intervals - as in I probably did more like 1:35s or 1:40s on those. Then thankfully the easy 100s came and I caught up with my group again and got my breathe back. I was bound and determined to do the last 2x100 in 1:25. So we go and I swim the first one in 1:19 - OH BOY - 6 seconds rest! And then I started again and my arms protested like they've never protested before and I swam a 1:26. :) Oh well. It was definitely the hardest workout I've done and I gave it my best effort.

The coach told me afterward that swimming hard on very little rest is the hardest part of swimming and that it comes with time. I think it's equivalent to the fact that any high school kid can run an :80 for a 400, but can they do 10x400 @ :80 with only 1 minute rest? Quite a difference - as I learned today... :)

Anyway, I was really happy about the fact that instead of going to work, I just changed and headed to my car to go home! When I got home it was raining (surprise, surprise!) and so I set my bike up on the trainer in the living room. Had I any hope that it might not be raining at some point today I would have waited so I could ride outside, but there is a HUGE green blob over Pittsburgh on the radar and I knew waiting wasn't going to do me any good. I keep telling myself - some day it will be sunny again!

I rode my bike for 1:30, all while watching Golden Girls repeats. I love that show. :) I rode hard at times, but mostly easy, which is fine by me considering I was still trying to recover from the swim! One thing I did do on the bike was try to stay down in my aerobars for long periods - like 35 minutes without getting up - so as to teach my body how it feels. It's hard to do that out on the roads because you are always stopping for cars, turning, etc...

And now it's seriously time for a nap. I am so sleepy! I don't have to leave for my lecture until around 4 so I have plenty of time...

Posted by beth at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)

May 17, 2006

Moving Time!

Alison moved us! (which she is definitely allowed to do considering (1) she did all the moving, (2) she is nice enough to keep us all so she can do what she wants with us, including delete us all if she so desires! :)

Regardless, you can now find me (or any other former eliterunning.com blogger) at www.running-blogs.com/beth (or fill in the name). Funny how I'm not much of a runner any more, but blog on a site called running-blogs.com. Of course before I blogged on a site called eliterunning.com, so that wasn't much better of a description. :)

Onto the training - today all I did was lift. And I actually snuck out of work around lunch time to do it so when I got home from work I just relaxed some. My father was in town too so he came over for dinner and we had a nice night! The rain continues here. It did stop this afternoon and the sun was even out for a bit, but it seems to only be a tease. Back to rain tonight and more tomorrow. I'm starting to wonder when I'm going to see the animals coming through two by two. :)

Early morning swim tomorrow and then some biking! (maybe on the trainer again...) Good night!

Posted by beth at 9:55 PM | Comments (0)

May 16, 2006

My New Toy

Grumpy beyond belief that it's STILL raining and I STILL can't ride my bike, so O thought it was time to buy a trainer. I had hoped to hold off until the fall when it was getting too cold to ride outside, but with rain forcasted until the end of time (seriously, like next Tuesday - a week from today!) we made the decision to get it now. It's awesome! I can watch reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond while getting my cycling in! I can actually drink my fluids! I don't have to wear a helmet! I don't have to worry about cars! It was pouring outside and I was still completing my workout! All very good things. Of course riding out on the roads is really where I need to be but this is a very nice alternative when the weather won't cooperate. I keep promising myself that I will ride when it's wet outside because if it's raining in a race I need to know how to deal. And I went home with every intention of riding outside. I had my mind set. I was going to ride rain or shine! But then it was seriously pouring - like I had my windshield wipers on FAST when I was driving home, and I knew I would kill myself. Thus the trainer. :)

Anyway, I rode for an hour. There is a DVD that came along with the trainer that you can ride along with but I just wanted to try it out for the first time by myself. It's a fluid trainer meaning that when I shift my gears it gets harder and easier just as if I was riding (vs a magnetic trainer which has a different mechanism of action). I didn't do any workout in particular, I just spent some time in each gear, granny ring and big daddy ring (I just made those names up - what I'm referring to are my two front rings of course... :)

And then I got off the bike and O and Roxy joined me on my 30 minute run. This is by far the best I ever felt off the bike. I felt like were were cruising. And I only took about 2 minutes to transition. I have a couple theories as to why I felt better - (1) I didn't work as hard on the trainer as I would have it I was actually riding, thus my legs were fresher (2) I'm getting used to the bike to run feeling and my body is responding to the training stress or (3) the adjustments that the bike guy made to my position on the bike helped keep my legs fresher. It's probably a combo of all three, but I told O if my legs feel that good in a race I will be one happy camper. By the way, it had stopped raining by the time we went running and it was a delightful 53 degrees.

And now somehow it's almost 9:30! We definitely got a late start seeing as how we had to go down to the bike store, pick which trainer we wanted, learn how to use it, set it up at home, etc... Good thing I only have 1 more day of work before my big 4 day weekend! :)

(and yes you will notice that indeed, that is a phone book under my front tire! - the bike guy actually suggested it, both because they were out of the thingies that you can buy to put under your tire and also because the phone book is free! :)

Posted by beth at 8:58 PM | Comments (4)

May 15, 2006

METERS Not Yards

Turns out PJM was right about the pool. When it's set up as the long course, it's 50 meters! Now how about that? After a little research I discovered that Trees Pool is either 20 lanes of 25 yds or 8 lanes of 50 meters. Now that seems funny to me. That's like having all indoor tracks be 200 yds and all outdoor tracks be 400 meters.

In my research I also learned that the guy I met at the bike store yesterday happens to be a swimming coach at PItt and also qualified for the World Amateur Triathlon Championships last year. Now how about that?

And finally I ran across the best times from Pitt's swim team last season. Um yeah - can you get lapped in a pool? :)

Posted by beth at 8:10 PM | Comments (0)

Swimming Long Course Style

So I showed up to the pool this morning, very excited for my 2nd session with the masters team. Upon entrance to the pool I noticed that the lane lines were set up the other way - as in the 50 yd way. Hmmm. I guess I was going to get my chance to see if it was harder or easier or faster or slower!

I didn't exactly know where I belonged though. There are obviously a lot less lanes when the pool is set up for 50 yds so more people were in lanes and then I wasn't sure where the slow and fast lanes were. And my tri buddies I had befriended last Thursday weren't there. I stood around for a while trying to figure things out until the coach thankfully came by and pointed me in the right direction. I jumped in and started to warm up and the first time down I felt like I was swimming over an abyss once I got to the deep end! My conclusion? After getting used to it, I much prefer the 50 yd setup over the 25 yd setup. If anything, it's much easier to keep track of how far you've swam! :)

The workout today sounded tough:

500 yd
2x250 yd
5x100 yd
2x250 yd
500 yd

The coach was giving times out to each group but because I have no idea of pace or effort while swimming (or running for that matter), I just decided to follow the people in front of me. The general gist of things was, start out average, end up fast at the end. The coach moved me up a group today. Now I'm not in the slowest group, but rather the 2nd slowest group. :) Actually, I think we found just where I need to be. Right in the middle of the 2nd slowest group has me swimming just right - not too hard, not too easy. Anyway, I heard her giving the times to the fastest group and my jaw almost fell off my face when she told them to do their 100s on the 1:20. Assuming they get SOME rest, they would be swimming them around 1:10 AND the 100s weren't even supposed to be all out! Yikes! Thankfully, our times were much slower. I really didn't pay attention to our rests much because I wasn't leading my group and I didn't have to! I just left 5 seconds after the person in front of me. How about that for laziness?! :) Sooner or later I'll start paying attention to that stuff again - but for right now it's enough for me to just do the workout and remember which interval I'm on, etc...

I felt pretty good today. I swear that pool is faster and the water is easier to swim in. :) I kind of felt like I might not have been swimming hard enough for the earlier intervals but on the last 500 I was hurting so I probably did the workout just right. Through no fault of my own - again, just merely followed the swimmers in front of me. :)

Anyway, with my warmup (700 yds) and cooldown (300 yds) I got in 3500 yds total. I liked swimming before, but now I really like it. I wished I would have joined this group earlier! :)

And now it's time to head home from work. I am super sleepy today (maybe because this is about the 1000th day in a row that it's rained?)! But I only have 2 more days of work and then a nice long 4 day weekend! Yippeee!

Posted by beth at 4:06 PM | Comments (1)

May 14, 2006

I REALLY Want to Ride My Bike

I got my bike back from the store today and the bike guy (who was actually very nice today and didn't make me feel stupid and didn't even smirk once!) had me get re-fitted for it. He put my seat up some since I was having some knee pain and he also moved me forward some. He wants me to come back in a week to lower my aerobars so that I'm sitting even higher. Apparentely that makes you go faster. Oh great - just what I need. :) Anyway, after talking training with him and this other triathlete guy there that races for the bike store's professional team, I was really pumped.

THEN I come home from work and find this. (you gotta watch the movie that it links to - it's sooooo awesome) I have to say I'm a bit obsessed with the idea of an Ironman. I am so inspired by it, by the absolute absurdity of swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 and then running a marathon. I felt a huge sense of accomplishment when I finished my first marathon, and again when I ran a big PR in my 2nd. But the truth is, I always knew, since the time I started running, that I would eventually run a marathon and that I could do it. I'm not trying to minimize that marathon at all. But the Ironman. I'm just in awe of it.

So anyway, I'm all pumped up, I can't run (too soon since my last run) and I can't swim (all pools closed), but bike - I could bike! Except for a few minor details:

1) it's pouring rain
2) I restructured how my training week looks and I really want to start taking 1 day totally off from training as my races approach and Sunday just happens to be the day for that.

Bugger. But tomorrow is a new day and another chance to swim, run or bike!

Posted by beth at 7:55 PM | Comments (2)

A Tribute to My Mom

Of course everyone thinks their mom is the greatest mom in the world. I'm no different, except for the fact that my mom really is the greatest mom in the world, so I'm right and everyone else is wrong. So there. :)

Anyway, my mom really is pretty cool. Both my parents are. They've supported my sister and I in everything we've ever done. They loved us. They provided for us. They cared when nobody else cared. Of course I could go on and on.

But since it's mom's day, I'll talk about my mom. Although not an athlete herself, she's helped me a lot as an athlete by teaching me a thing or two that probably made all the difference for me...

1) My mom taught me that quitting something without finishing is just plain no good. Unacceptable. You finish what you start. And of course, that goes a long way in sports. I remember when we first moved to the Philadelphia area when I was 10 or 11 years old and I BEGGED my mom to let me join the swim team at the local pool. She obliged and on the swim team I was! Of course after a bit I decided I didn't like it. And I wanted to quit. Bad. But she wouldn't let me. I could quit at the END of the season if I really didn't like it, but you finished what you started and since I had started, I had to finish. I did quit after the season was over, but can you imagine how much worse a swimmer I would be now if I didn't at least last one year? :)

2) My mom taught me a lot about toughness. Like I said, she wasn't an athlete in her younger days (she took up tennis later in life) but she may have taught me more about toughness than anyone else. She was the only girl in her family with four brothers. Need I say more? :) One time when my family all went cross country skiing together my mom fell and did something awful to her arm. She was in some serious pain and knew she needed to get to a hospital. So we treked back to the car and then...get this...my mom insisted that we stop for dinner on the way to the hospital because we were all hungry and she knew the ER wait would be long. What the heck? We actually did stop for dinner and she didn't even eat anything because she was so sick with pain and thinking back about it now I can't believe that even happened! Turns out she elbow was basically shattered and she had to have reconstructive surgery and pins in her bone. Sheesh...and we stopped for dinner...while she just sat there and beared the pain!

3) My mom taught me a lot about the importance of education. Granted, she was a teacher, but still. I remember the whole process of picking which college I wanted to go to the fall of my senior year in high school. My mom stressed to me that money was no object - that any education I recieved was well worth it and that school loans (which I'm still paying off) would get paid for, but a missed education was something you couldn't replace. I didn't think much of it then, but boy do I appreciate that now. My mom went back to get her masters (as a full time student) in her 40s when she had one daughter in high school (my sister), one daughter in middle school (me) and worked part time too! And she continues to educate herself, all the time, also encouraging my sister and I to do the same. My sister already has a PhD, I'm working on my masters and my dad? Boy - he's the slacker of the group with only a B.S. in civil engineering. :)

And I could keep going, but I won't. I do hope that everyone is lucky enough to have a mom as great as mine. Thanks mom. I love you!

Posted by beth at 4:48 PM | Comments (9)

May 13, 2006

Ho-Hum

I can feel a very ho-hum entry coming on. :) I had a good day, but don't have much of anything exciting to write about. I went to work, saw a bunch of patients, went to the Pitt gym afterward and rode the stationary bike for 45 minutes, did the elliptical for 15 minutes and then did my core exercises. It was supposed to rain all day so I wasn't going to mind riding inside (my bike is still at the store - I pick it up tomorrow), but it turned out to be a very nice day. Bugger!

O and I did have Brownie Batter Blizzards (aka: Triple B) while we were at the mall waiting for his cell phone to get fixed tonight. Tripple B is the Blizzard of the Month you know. I highly recommend them, that is if you like LOTS of chocolate. :)

Summary for the week:

Sunday - 26.5 mile bike, core/feet exercises
Monday - 14 mile bike and weights
Tuesday - 16 mile bike, 30 minute run, core/feet exercises
Wednesday - weights
Thursday - 3000 yd swim w/4x200,4x150,4x100,4x50 and 2x25 pushups, 2x100 crunchers
Friday - 45 minute run w/15 minute tempo
Saturday - 45 min bike (inside), 15 min elliptical, core/feet exercises

Posted by beth at 8:01 PM | Comments (0)

May 12, 2006

Tempo Run

I have the day off today because I work this weekend - and I will say - it's been delightful so far! The day got off to a good start by me sleeping in until 7:30. It was great. Because we've been pretty busy on the weekends lately, I've not been able to sleep in much so today was my day!

After tooling around the house some I stretched and got ready to run. On the docket today was a 15 minute tempo run. Now I must admit, tempo runs aren't my favorite. I've probably done hundreds of them through the years, and I still don't like them. But I know they offer huge benefit so I keep them in the program.

It was a beautiful day for a run - kind of cloudy and overcast but around 50 degrees - to me, the ideal running temperature. I felt pretty good on my warmup which I did over to the high school track. After 15 minutes of easy running I started into the 15 minutes hard. I did one lap on the track at two different points in the tempo, one right at the beginning and one about 11 minutes in, but otherwise was out on the roads. Both of my 400s on the track were 1:40 exactly, which if I calculated correctly, is 6:40 pace. I'll take it! A far cry from actually being fit, but still a move in the right direction. The last time I did a tempo (for 10 minutes) I was more around 6:50 pace. It was definitely a challenging pace for me to maintain, but I felt pretty smooth and in control. I jogged another 15 minutes home for a total of 45 minutes. Good deal.

As I was jogging home I was thinking about tempo runs in general and remembered how in college during indoor track season and the beginning of outdoors we used to do these 20 minute tempo runs where we'd end up at the track and then have to do hard 400s or 800s. Very hard workouts, but I guess the idea was to have to run fast on tired legs. Anyway, I was curious as to the exact paces and lengths of these workouts so when I got home, I looked them up in my old training logs. We did them all the time - it looked like once a week for about a month span, and then less frequently as the season wore on. It was funny reading back through my comments. For one entry I wrote "20 minutes tempo around campus, holding back some, probably about 6:20 pace" and then to the track for 4x800 and 2x400 in 2:50 and :80 respectively. For the track portion I wrote "felt good, legs tired on last one, getting excited for 10K!" Oh dear. Holding back at 6:20 pace? Getting excited for 10K? I can't even believe that was me! :)

And now I think it's time for some lunch. And maybe some reading/napping on the couch. Ah...a very good day indeed...

Posted by beth at 11:11 AM | Comments (1)

May 11, 2006

Fast Water

So I did it! I went to the Pitt masters swim practice this morning! I know, doesn't sound like the victory that I'm making it out to be, but it was a big step for me.

I can't believe how nervous I was for this. I was nervous last night and again this morning while I was driving down...what the heck? I felt like I was driving to the Olympic Games or something?! I'm really not sure why I get so worried about stuff like this, but nonetheless.

So anyway, I get there (in record time no less - not much traffic at 5 AM!) and I walk down to the building and I go to open the door and...yeah...you guessed it...it was locked! Humph. I didn't really know what to do next. I stood there for several minutes and mulled over my options, one of which included just walking down to the hospital and starting work and skipping the swim altogether! But just as I was thinking such bad thoughts, another swimmer walked up and told me we just have to wait for them to unlock the doors from inside. Darn. :)

Fast forward to the locker room where I met some very nice triathletes that calmed my fears. They also don't do flip turns and they don't swim any other strokes. Good deal. They told me the general procedure of things in the morning and pointed out the coach. I introduced myself and she gave me the general run down. She said she would just watch me today and help me with my stroke and I could work into doing the workouts if I continued to come. Okay - fine with me.

So everyone is in the pool (which was thankfully set up for the 25 yd distance) warming up and I join in. My new triathlete buddies point me in the direction of the slow lanes. I start swimming and I have no idea how far I swam or even what I was doing. My mind was racing. Then, at some unknown (to me that is) point, everyone is back on the wall. The coach is calling out the workout, then adjusting people into different lanes. She looks at me and says I'm ready for the workout, no need to work on my stroke first. Uh...okay. So I'm splitting a lane with a middle-aged guy who I later learn is also a triathlete. I was so glad too. We basically did the workout together and it was awesome! I was sooooo thankful for him. He was a little slower but that just meant I got more rest, which I needed.

The workout (which I guess is called the "main set") was...

4x200
4x150
4x100
4x50

...where the first 3 intervals of each set were swam at "average" pace and the last one was all out. Ouch. Like I said though, it was a good workout. I don't know what our rest intervals were - we just kind of made them up along the way. My lane buddy would finish and say - okay, ready to go again on the half or on the top or something else that I didn't know what he meant but I figured it out. I do know that our rests were shorter than what I would normally take at home, especially on the longer intervals. I didn't catch most of my times but my last 200 was 2:51 and my last 100 was 1:24 - faster than usual for me.

The coach told me after that I did fine and that my stroke is "actually, pretty sound". I'll take it! I'm definitely going back, at least once a week but maybe even twice. It was really nice to swim with a group and I'm sure I'll get some really good workouts in that way. What may have been even better though was being around a group of triathletes. It's a good group. Very supportive. Everyone was talking swim/bike/run. I learned that the awful pain I get in my neck after riding my bike for a while is normal and will eventually go away. I learned that you can get a $150 ticket for trying to swim in the Allegheny River (only a triathlete would know that). I learned that the temperature of the lake I wanted to go swim in to try out my wetsuit is currently 61 degrees. Brrr... And I spotted one woman who had an Ironman bag and an Ironman swimming cap on. Now I'm sure anyone can buy that stuff, but really - would you buy it if you didn't actually do it? I didn't talk with her today, but I would like to befriend her. I love the fact that the group was all talking about whether they were going to either run or bike after work today. (me - I just came home and sat on my butt :).

I feel like I could go on forever. I'm usually a fan of training on my own, but this swimming group I like. By the way, I did a 500 yd cooldown and I did at least 600 yds of warmup so I'm rounding down and calling it a 3000 yd day. Oh yeah - my arms are really tired right now. Good thing I'm not a real swimmer and I won't be swimming again for several days. :)

Hope everyone's day was as good as mine...

Posted by beth at 6:35 PM | Comments (5)

May 10, 2006

Humble Pie

There is something about the guy at the bike store that always makes me feel stupid. While I don't think he's trying to make me feel dumb, I usually do by the time I leave the store. Now granted he is Mr. Ironman himself - 3 time Ironman finisher, and he owns and operates a triathlon store - while I am Miss-Roam-Around-The-Store-And-Wonder-What-Things-Even-Are, but still. He's very nice and always willing to answer questions - but perhaps it's how he answers them, with a smirk sort of - like thinking "you have no idea what you are doing and I know it" type of deal? Who knows. I just need to accept the fact that I have a lot to learn about triathlons, triathlon gear, triathlon training, etc...and it's going to take a while. It truly is humbling to take up a new sport. I've really only ever done one sport so learning new things isn't my forte. I tend to stick to things I know and try to get better and better and better at them. So I think this triathlon business is good for me!

Speaking of humbling experiences, I have decided that I am going to swim tomorrow morning with the PItt Masters Swim Team. There - I've said it - now I have to go! I've been mulling it over since the weekend and I figured I might as well give it a try. It can't hurt. If I totally embarass myself and I'm way out of my league - I just won't go back and will probably never see those people again! :) I actually went to check out the pool today, just so I would know how to get to it tomorrow morning and it's pretty awesome. But I got a little scared when I saw that it's 25 yds one way and 50 yds the other way. It was set up for 25 yds today but I got to wondering - what if it's 50 yds tomorrow? I don't even know enough to know if that would be harder or easier?! Maybe faster because less turns but lots harder with much fewer breaks. Oh dear - sometimes what I wouldn't give to just be a runner again! :)

Anyway, today after I stopped at the bike store (to drop my bike off for it's 30 day maintenance), I drove to the YMCA to lift. And I called it a day after that. Gotta rest up for the big swim tomorrow morning! :)

Posted by beth at 5:52 PM | Comments (7)

May 9, 2006

Brick by Brick...

...is how you build a triathlete! (okay, that was really corny - I'll try not to do that again... :)

Anyway, today I did a brick. It was 75 degrees and sunny. Could you ask for better?

I started off with my bike. I was thinking while I was riding that I need to name my bike. It seems to be a trend among triathletes, or perhaps just weird people in general. :) I don't have anything in mind yet, but I'm pretty sure my bike is a girl. I'll have to give it some more thought - I'll let you know when I come up with something. Nonetheless, I digress. I rode my new found loop (that I made up yesterday) with a slight variation that made it just a tad longer (15.67 miles). I changed the loop some so I could ride longer on this one stretch of road that is biking heaven. The road has just been paved and my bike rolls on it smoother and nicer than I could have ever imagined. I can ride uphills at 18 MPH. There are lots of roads around here where I can't even ride downhill that fast. Anyway, nothing too interesting regarding my ride other than my little conversation with a motorcycle rider (biker?). I was waiting at a stoplight when he pulled up next to me. He smiled and I couldn't help myself - I asked if he'd like to switch bikes. He laughed. I laughed. And then the light changed and I was still getting in my pedals when he was already out of sight... :)

When I pulled into our driveway, Roxy and O were waiting to go for my run with me. What a treat! I actually didn't feel too bad off the bike today, although it still took a while before I felt like I was running faster than 10 minute pace. We ran 30 minutes total on a route a little more hilly than I have been taking for my bike/run brick. It was good though. That is until we were running along, almost home and a huge german shepard came racing out of it's yard to try to eat Roxy. O was running with Roxy (while I was on the other side of the road) so he tried to get in the middle of it. All I could envision was either Roxy chewed up in two or O missing a huge chunk out of his leg. I started running back towards them when the mean dog's owner came racing out of the house to get mean dog. It was scary. Poor little Roxy didn't know what hit her. She didn't even bark. I think she was scared out of her wits too. O told me after the fact that what really scared him was the fact that when the lady came out of the house screaming at the dog - SHE seemed really scared - like she knew her dog was capable of eating us all. Bugger - people need to buy fences! (or nicer dogs)

And that's that. O is off playing softball now and I am about to do my core exercises. Then, perhaps some reading. I am about 1/3 of the way through my 2nd (yes that's right - second!) book of the year. I didn't read my 2nd book last year until about the 2nd week in December. I am on a roll and bound and determined to meet my 4 books goal this year! :)

Posted by beth at 8:58 PM | Comments (1)

May 8, 2006

Indecisive

I've been pretty tired lately - I think I mentioned it before - not leg weary but just not-enough-sleep tired. I'm not sure why this is so. I'm not getting less sleep per se, just feeling awfully sleepy all the time.

When I got home from work today I couldn't bear the thought of leaving for my bike ride right away - I couldn't even keep my eyes open! So I laid down around 4 pm and decided that if I woke up at 5:30 (or after), I would just call it a day and skip my workout altogether. If I woke up earlier than that and felt okay, I would try to get out for a bike ride. Well I woke up at 4:40 and felt pretty refreshed so out I went!

It's in the low 60s today but it doesn't feel very warm and intially, I was quite chilly on my bike. There was a pretty strong wind that felt cold. No fun. But just like running, I eventually warmed up. I actually had quite a nice ride. I made up a new course that was sort of a figure 8 but that didn't involve any huge hills and was mostly on one of my favorite, relatively flat and straight roads. The new course worked out wonderfully except one section that involved lots of traffic lights. And wouldn't you know it, I got just about every traffic light red. Bugger! I also had a little incident where a lady tried to turn in front of me and I almost crashed into her. Apparentely she didn't realize that I was flying down a hill at 30 MPH. Luckily my running sense kicked in early when I spotted her - after years of running you just know what drivers are not smart and are going to pull out right in front of you, run you over, etc... - and so I got up out of my aerobars with my hands firmly on the brakes. I swerved, she stopped, I threw my hand up in the air at her and then we both went on our merry little ways. If I was down in my aerobars I probably would have been toast. I like not to think about that stuff though, or write about it considering my mom will likely read this blog. :)

Anyway, I only rode about 14 miles (14.67 to be exact) and then headed home so I could drive over to the YMCA to lift. My lifting was uneventful other than the fact that I kept inadvertenly stealing other people's machines. In my defense, I will say that most of the guys that lift at the YMCA do one set of an exercise and then walk around for about 20 minutes and then do the next set. How was I to know that they were still using that particular bar? Either way, I smoothed things out by joking about it and then quickly finished my stuff and got out of there. :) Interestingly enough, 3 people asked me if I was just riding my bike. I was surprised. I guess I assume nobody will know who I am while riding considering I have my helmet and sunglasses on.

And that's that. Monday is already almost over! Hope everyone had a great day!

Posted by beth at 8:17 PM | Comments (1)

May 7, 2006

Happy Birthday!

Pictures from today's birthday party.

As you can very well see, Roxy looks much more pleased to be eating her Frosty Paw than to be wearing her party hat. I think she had fun at the party though. She was the smallest dog by far and seemed a little intimidated by the big labs and german shepards. She mostly ran around by herself and hung out by us, and then later tried to steal the extra Frosty Paws! :) Sounds like what I usually do at a party... :)

Anyway, after we got home from our fun and games this afternoon, I took my bike out for a 26.5 mile spin. It was a nice ride. I took a different route than usual which netted me a nice long 6 mile stretch on a flat, well-paved road. And because it's Sunday there wasn't much traffic. I wish all roads/rides were like that!

And now, somehow, it's Sunday night already! This weekend went by quickly. I guess that's what happens when you are having fun.

Posted by beth at 6:58 PM | Comments (1)

May 6, 2006

Fix This!

So O and I attending a bike maintenance workshop today. It was pretty good. It was right at the level I needed it to be at - meaning very basic. I learned a lot. I don't have a mind of a mechanic at all, so it was nice to have somebody explain how some of the stuff on a bike works. But truthfully I'm really not sure if this class made me more or less willing to try to fix something on my bike or tinker with it when something is wrong. If there is one thing I learned, it's that my bike is stubborn - stubborn tires, stubborn getting the back wheel back on, stubborn this and stubborn that and it might almost be better for me NOT to play around. But at the same time, if I never play around, I'll never learn. I get frustrated with myself with things like this. I want to know how to do everything and I want to know how to do it NOW, but I think I just need to be patient and understand that with time, I'll be able to do more and more with it. Either way, both O and I agreed that we were glad we went. I'm still praying I NEVER get a flat tire again, but I think I'll always pray for that. :)

Before the bike class I slipped in a quick swim at the YMCA this morning. I didn't have time for much but this is what I ended up with:

400 yd easy, 200 yd kick easy, 200 yd easy

8 sets of
50 on 1
100 on 1:50
50 on 1

100 yd kick easy

That was 2500 yds and good enough for me! I usually do my 100s on 2 minutes but I tried the 100s on 1:50 today and boy did that 10 seconds make a big difference! I've had a big swim week - because my schedule was a little off and I swam Sunday as well as my usual Thursday and Saturday, I got in 9500 yds total. On the other hand, it's been a dismal cycling week as I only rode outside on Monday and took a spinning class inside on Tuesday. I was going to go for a ride when we got back from the bike class but I was tired, cold, and felt like I didn't have enough time considering all the other things I wanted to accomplish today. No biggie though - it's supposed to be nice tomorrow so I'm hoping for a nice 25 or so mile loop after church.

While we were at the bike clinic I started talking to a guy that was also just getting into triathlons. He was telling me about a masters swim team at Pitt that he attends. It never occured to me that Pitt would have something - I had just thought about my local YMCA, which does have a masters program, but a pretty small scale one. When we got home I checked the Pitt program out online and it seems pretty serious - they have 8 different sessions a week, they have sample workouts that look killer, they compete, etc... I don't know if I want to get into all that and I don't even know if they would let a slow-I-can-only-swim-freestyle swimmer like myself in. But I emailed the team coach (who was a collegiate swimmer for Pitt) and asked what she thought. Logistically it could work out very well - where I park for work is literally right next to their pool and their early morning sessions are at 5:45 am which would be perfect in terms of getting to work around 8 am or so. I'll be interested to see what the coach thinks about me taking a stab at it. Part of me really wants to try it, but part of me also wants her to reply and tell me that I'm too slow so I can just do my usual thing at the YMCA with the 70 years and older crowd. :)

Summary for the week:

Sunday - 3500 yd swim w/5x100 yd, 5x(4x50), 5x100 yd, core/feet exercises
Monday - 24 mile bike, weights
Tuesday - 1 hour spinning, 35 minute run (14 min before, 21 min after spininng), core/feet exercises
Wednesday - weights
Thursday - 3500 yd swim w/3x(300,200,100), 6x50 yd and 2x25 pushups, 2x100 crunchups
Friday - 42 min run w/5x3 min hard, core/feet exercises
Saturday - 2500 yd swim w/8x(50,100,50)

Posted by beth at 3:15 PM | Comments (2)

May 5, 2006

Much Better

Today I did another running workout and thankfully, I felt much better than last week when I had an alien body invasion.

When I got home from work Roxy and O were still out doing their little jog and since O wanted to do the workout with me, I figured I'd wait for him by laying down on the bed. And then that was that - I was out for 45 minutes even though Roxy attacked me when her and O got home! It felt good to take a quick nap though - these 5 day work weeks tire me out! :)

We finally got going around 4:45 and were running by 5 down at the trail. The workout today was 10 minutes warmup, 5x3 minutes hard with 2 minutes jogging rest and then 9 minutes cooldown for a total of 42 minutes.

I felt much smoother and stronger today than last Saturday. It was still a very hard workout but this time I at least felt like my legs were going in the correct direction! The last one was especially tough but I just tried to maintain form and push as long as I could. I would be interested in knowing what kind of pace I was running on the harder parts. Then again, since it's probably not very fast at all, it might be best left unknown. :)

It's been an absolute beautiful day here in Pittsburgh! It's in the 70s and sunny and the sky is big and blue. I hope the great weather continues through the weekend because tomorrow O and I are attending a bike maintenance class (boy do I need it!) outside which is followed by an actual bike ride. Then on Sunday, Roxy has been invited to a birthday party at an outside dog park. Yes - you read it right - our dog has been invited to a birthday party! I told Roxy (who just got a bath, by the way, for the special occasion) that there would be birthday hats and Frosty Paws and she was all for it. She sure is one spoiled pooch! :)

Posted by beth at 7:21 PM | Comments (1)

May 4, 2006

Sleepy Swim

This morning when I got up I was a little disoriented. The disorientation continued as I started my swim. My first repeat went something like this...

*I was supposed to swim a 300 yd hard
*I swam what I thought was 300 yds hard, all the while feeling like I was drowning
*I finished and looked at my watch and quickly determined I had really only swam 250 yds because my time was too fast for feeling so tired and slow
*I quickly took off again for the last 50 yds
*As I was swimming said 50 yds, I redid the math in my head and determined that indeed I had swam 300 yds already
*I finished what was now a 350 yd interval and wonder if my goggles are too tight and somehow squeezing my brain :)

Luckily the rest of the workout went much better. I was sort of all over the place with my times. I keep telling myself I'm going to shorten my rests - since I'm able to swim a little faster now, 300 yds on 6 is too long a rest interval - but today I just stuck with what I had written. Doing additional math to change around my workout would have been too challenging. :)

400 yds easy, 200 yds kick easy, 200 yds easy

3 sets of
300 on 6
200 on 4
100 on 2

6x50 yds on 1

300 yds kick easy, 300 yd easy

The workout was 3500 yds total. Right now I'm going to do some pushups and crunchers and then fold some laundry and then sleep like a brick, for a long time... :)

Posted by beth at 8:08 PM | Comments (0)

May 3, 2006

Who Stinks?

Today when I was lifting at the YMCA, I smelled something bad. I was looking around, wondering which of the high school muscle head types it was. I believe it was at this point that I realized that it was me! Ooops. Mental note - must bring deoderant with me everywhere in the summer!

All I did today was lift and I'll have to say, that was A-OK with my body. I've been pretty tired lately - not such much leg weary as I-need-more-sleep-tired. I'll probably be able to get some extra Zzzz's tonight too since I got home around 5:30 and have all night to accomplish my after work tasks. See...I've already done one. Cross "blog" off the list. :)

Have a great night everyone!

Posted by beth at 6:07 PM | Comments (0)

May 2, 2006

Duathlon

I think duathlon is a funny word. I actually don't like it much. I'm not sure why. There's just something weird about it...

Regardless, I did one today. A duathlon that is. It was threatening to rain all day and finally as I was driving home, the skies opened up. I was bummed because for the past two Tuesdays (when I do my bike-run brick) it's rained and I've had to go to a spinning class instead of riding my bike outside. (I know - it's just so tragic, I don't know how I go on!). Anyway, it actually wasn't raining when I got home to Natrona Heights, but it looked like it was going to start any minute. I checked the radar, I thought about it some, I procrastinated, I looked at the radar again, I looked outside - I just couldn't decide if I should try an outside ride or not. I just don't feel comfortable enough on my bike yet to be riding when it's pouring rain and although I wouldn't mind sprinkles, I didn't want to get caught really far away from home in a monsoon.

In the end I took the safe route and opted for a spinning class. Oh well, there's always next week. :)

I did change things up a little though by actually running to the YMCA for the spinning class. The YMCA is less than 2 miles away from our house and I already had the car in the garage (thinking I would be riding outside), so I just ran up (14:20), did my spinning class (1 hour) and then ran back home via a slightly longer route (20:40). My running totalled 35 minutes which I was pleased with. I actually felt pretty good too on my run home, although the fact that it's pretty much all down hill on the way home could have something to do with that.

I've determined that once one gets used to clipless pedals, going back to anything but clipless pedals is no good. The spinning bike was really bothering me today with the cages. I didn't feel like I could get a good "hold" on the pedal. I never thought those little clipless numbers with the shoes would make such a big difference but they apparently do. I've already become a pedal snob.

And somehow again it's already 9 pm! Where in the world does the day go?

Posted by beth at 8:43 PM | Comments (1)

May 1, 2006

Merry Berry Month of May

O is celebrating this ever so important month by consuming the largest slice of strawberry pie I've ever seen. I just looked over at him and it's getting pretty sloppy. Roxy is eyeing up the situation as well. Things could get ugly soon! I am celebrating by eating a bowl of chocolate ice cream. I know, that's not very berry of me, but I like chocolate more than strawberries.

Today was crazy beautiful weather wise. In the high 70s! And it was sunny and a little breezy and not humid. I went for a bike ride when I got home from work. I hadn't decided how far I wanted to go but as I started out, I knew I had to go for my longer 24 mile loop (instead of the 14 miler) because weather like this doesn't come around all the time! The only unfortunate part was the fact that I forgot to reset my bike computer, so it was adding on to my last ride. Getting an average MPH or total time wasn't in the cards. That's okay though. My legs were a little on the tired side. This 24 mile loop apparentely (by no fault of mine) encorporates every single hill in Natrona Heights and it's surrounding areas. Ugh.

After my ride I went over to the YMCA and lifted. I was dragging a little on the lifting but I got through it. I think of strange things when I'm left to my own devices. While I was lifting today I was wondering what the result would be if all the mirrors in weight rooms were removed. I'm guessing anarchy. What do you think? :) I just find it really amusing how guys like to stand in front of the mirrors and check themselves (and their muscles) out. :)

And now, somehow, it's already almost 9 pm. My bed will soon be calling!

Posted by beth at 8:37 PM | Comments (2)