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May 30, 2007

All Three

5:25 am - ~6.5 miles with O including 15 min wu, 4x100 pickups w/100 recovery jog, 400 easy, 1x4000 as accelerate on straights, jog easy on curves (6:44, 6:38, 3:19), 12 min cd

4:35 pm - 2500 yds swimming w/main set of 15x100, did my new drills on my warmup and cooldown

6:20 pm - 53 min total cycling including 15 min wu, 4x15 sec pickups w/10 sec rest, 2 min easy, 3x5 min w/2 min rest, 15 min cd

How did it get to be 10:30 already? Tomorrow is a new day I guess!

Posted by beth at 10:33 PM | Comments (2)

May 29, 2007

Learning to Swim

After dropping my mom off at the airport this afternoon and saying our goodbyes (sniff, sniff) I headed to the Pitt pool for my first swimming lesson. I didn't have any other training on the docket so today was a good day to work on some mechanics and technique.

I've known Eric for about a year now but had never asked him to help me with my swimming. I'm not sure why. He is a swimming monster and can pretty much swim with any pro triathlete in the world. And I'm not exaggerating. As soon as he gets a few years of running miles in his legs and can run with the best he will be unbeatable! Regardless, I think after Columbia and my realization that my swimming was worse than I thought...he was the obvious choice of swimming coach. I was delighted when he agreed to help me out.

I have to admit I was a little hesitant about the whole thing. I'm not sure why but regardless I just kept telling myself that I needed to do this to be the kind of swimmer that didn't get out of the water last all the time.

And boy am I glad I went.

I won't bore you with the mechanics of things but my biggest problem was really a lack of using my core at all which is apparently where most of a swimmer's power is generated. Kind of like a batter in baseball just using their arms to hit instead of using their core to generate power in their swing. Big problem. Of course I have a long, long way to go and it's not going to happen overnight but just his explanation of what I was doing wrong and then going through some of the drills that he taught me to work on my body rotation have already made a difference! It's like a whole new way of swimming! I really can't wait to do my workout tomorrow to start focusing on some of these drills and whatnot in my warmup and cooldown. Of course I'm really impatient and want it to be right RIGHT NOW but if I keep reminding myself to be patient it may just happen. :)

Anyway, I'll probably meet with Eric every 2 weeks or so until he moves (unfortunately he is leaving Pittsburgh this summer!) and I'm sure that will be a big help for me. Very, very good deal.

So what a great 4 days I had! I was sad to see my mom leave this afternoon but her AND my father may be coming up to Pittsburgh again in July so that is not too bad at all! And I really did enjoy the time we had together these past few days. This week is already half over too! I get back into some training tomorrow which I'm looking forward too but I am officially in taper mode for Eagleman. Taper mode as me feeling a little edgy as I had yesterday and today off and I have Thursday off too but I didn't question all those weeks of 20 hours of training this past winter so I'm not going to question the weeks that only have 10 hours of training now!

Posted by beth at 6:49 PM | Comments (0)

May 28, 2007

How to Run a Fast 5K

I told O he should write a book with the above title. He suggested that that subtitle should be "while training casually."

Chapter One - "Base Training"
Run with distance kids during indoor track season.

Chapter Two - "Peak Training"
Become a jumping coach during outdoor track season. Agility/jumping drills twice/week. Long run of 10-15 miles on Sunday with wife and dog once/week. Occasional early morning track sessions with wife once/month.

Chapter Three - "Taper Training"
Tuesday before race - 5 miles hard w/6x200 with high school 800 runner. Thursday before race - 2x1600 with wife. Saturday before race - 12 minutes slow jog with very hot pooch.

Chapter Four - "Race"
Run 18:56 on hilly course!

Chapter Five - "Recovery"
Take at least 1 full week off. Repeat cycle... :)

O's next goal - his High School Alumni Cross Country race. His PR from his high school days on that same course is 18:07. I think he should go for it. Why not PR 12 years later?! :)

Posted by beth at 10:25 PM | Comments (1)

May 27, 2007

One More Year

So today I turned 28 years old. My 27th year wasn't too bad. We'll have to see what the 28th year has in store... :)

This morning I ran ~10.5 miles (1:25) before church. O and Roxy ran with me but only for about 4 miles as O has a big race tomorrow! He will be running. My mom, uncle, aunt and cousin will all be walking. And I'll be cheering. Very much looking forward to that. :) The race is for my high school coach that passed away this past fall. It should be a huge affair as I know many, many people from the Pittsburgh running community will be there in support of Coach Gatons and his family!

Regardless, I also rode my bike for an hour tonight on the trainer. In between the run and the bike there was much eating of good food and cake as O, my mom and I went to visit my grandparents for a birthday celebration.

Summary for the week:
Monday - 500 yd recovery swim in am
Tuesday - 30 min easy spin and 15 min easy jog recovery in am, 2x25 pushups and 2x100 crunchers
Wednesday - 4500 yd swim in am, 30 min easy run in pm
Thursday - ~8 mi run workout in am including 3x1600 on track, 1:50 ride in pm
Friday - 3500 yd swim in am, core/feet exercises
Saturday - 3:15 ride/30 min run brick in am, 3500 yd swim in am
Sunday - 1:25 run in am, 60 min easy bike in pm

This was a pretty good week mileage wise despite 2 easy recovery days at the beginning of the week. But now it's time to taper again for another race (this one an "A" race)! I've said it before and I'll say it again - I sure do love to race! :)

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

May 26, 2007

Hook 'em Horns!

A birthday gift! :)

Today before picking my mom up at the airport I partook in some training. First up a 3:15 bike/30 min transition run combo. Both were good. The ride was especially nice considering I left relatively early (~6:15 am) and pretty much had the roads to myself! By the time the run rolled along it was kind of on the hot side but nothing too hard to handle. Roxy was none to pleased though. Heat is apparently her kryptonite as she was not liking the running today and indeed just plopped down in the grass several times. She does have a black fur coat on I guess... :)

After I got home from the brick I messed around for about 30 minutes before heading off to the pool.

AM swim workout:
3500 yds total @YMCA
wu: 500 easy, 4x100 mod w/20 sec rest, 6x50 fast w/15 sec rest
ms: 600 (8:20), 100 (1:18), 400 (5:30), 100 (1:18), 200 (2:45), 100 (1:19) w/15 sec rest for longer repeats, 45 sec rest for 100s, 14x50 on :55
cd: 100 easy

This was actually the best I've felt swimming in about 2 or 3 weeks despite the fact that it followed a close to 4 hour brick. Odd. I guess more than anything was I wasn't expecting a whole heck of a lot so I really just took the longer intervals relaxed and moderate and overall just felt better. Relaxtion is apparently the key for me. Now if I could just do it in 65 degree open water at the start of a race with a bunch of other people swimming around me...I'd be just fine... :)

Posted by beth at 10:04 PM | Comments (1)

May 25, 2007

Holy Hot

Man do I feel like it's July already! And before you bring it up...I KNOW...I was the one wanting to move to Austin, TX. Just now I decided that I was just kidding about that. Mostly because I'm having a hard time dealing with 85 and humid at this point and I'm sure it's about 100 and humid in Texas. It doesn't help that our house is like an oven. Really, what is up with that? I mean in the winter our house is so cold I wore 6 sweatshirts to bed and just last night it was so hot in our bedroom I thought I was slowly becoming a puddle. It should be one way or the other.

Okay, I'm done complaining.

I only had a swim this morning. Apparently I'm done with lifting until after Eagleman at which point I will be picking another "A" race (depending on what I do or do not qualify for) and "starting over" again with my training cycle...which will include restarting lifting.

AM swim workout
wu: 800 easy, 6x50 w/20 sec rest alt back/breast
ms: 4x(3x50 on :45, 1x200 w/1 min rest) - (200s were 2:43, 2:41, 2:41, 2:41), 6x125 pull w/30 sec rest (1st 2 w/paddles) 1:55, 1:55, 1:54, 1:55, 1:55, 1:55
cd: 250 easy

The exciting news of the day is that my mom will be here in Pittsburgh tomorrow! My parents live in South Carolina and so I don't see them too often. My father comes up to Pittsburgh relatively often for work but not so much for my mom. Regardless, she is coming to visit this holiday weekend which just happens to coincide with my 28th birthday this Sunday. Moms are cool like that. :) We are picking her up at the airport tomorrow around 2ish which means I will be getting up pretty early to fit in my long ride/run brick AND a swim. It's better that way anyway...seeing as how I'm not into training in hot weather and all... :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Posted by beth at 6:24 PM | Comments (2)

May 24, 2007

I Like to Run

As frustrated as I am with swimming right now, I am equally as pleased with how my running is coming along. I suspect that's pretty much how it always goes for a triathlete. Not all 3 sports could possibly be going well all at once. :) Regardless, I have to say my running is probably just about as good as it ever has been. Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but still I feel good and strong running and that feels really good after about 6 months of injury and not running and then about 9 months trying to get back into running shape...

AM track workout: 5:20 am with O
~8 mi total - 15 min wu, 4x100 pickups w/100 jog recovery, 400 easy, 3x1600 w/~2:50-2:55 min jogging rest (5:57, 5:52, 5:44), 2 min easy jogging rest, 8x100 yds on football field (17-18) w/10 sec rest, 12 min cd

I felt really strong today. I hesitate to say I felt really fresh, but definitely good enough to run well. My goal for the 3x1600 was 6 min pace. We did the first one and I felt very comfortable so I let myself go a little harder on the 2nd one and then on the last one I started to push a little. Almost 3 minutes rest felt like an eternity after doing those 400s with 40 sec rest! :) It helped that the weather was just about perfect (60 degrees and NO WIND!) and that O was there to help me along. I will say that 10 seconds rest after the 100 yd sprints was rough! :)

After work I came home and wanted desperately to take a nap. So I did. But then it was 6 pm and I still had to do a 1:50 ride. UGH. I ended up riding on the trainer because I (a) wanted to avoid the 85 degree heat and (b) wanted to avoid what I knew would be really nasty traffic. So I downloaded a whole bunch of USAT Podcasts and listened to them as I rode in our basement. The time went pretty fast. It was an easy ride so I focused on keeping the cadence high. And the timing worked out well because it took O close to 2 hours to cut the grass, trim and water the flowers I just planted. It could have been because the grass was so high that I was starting to think we should start baling hay instead of using the lawnmower. Indeed, the other day I had trouble finding Roxy in the backyard... :)

Good night all!

Posted by beth at 9:29 PM | Comments (2)

May 23, 2007

I Have a Theory

So I've been thinking some more about my swimming and have come to the following conclusions:

1) I am getting faster. I took a look back to last summer and compared my workouts to what I'm doing now. I have indeed improved. A lot. So it's not as if my work in the pool has all gone for naught. I just need to be patient (and we all know I am SOOO good at being patient). I improved A LOT at first but now the improvements are coming slower. Of course that is natural.

2) I think I've been doing my workouts a little too hard. I have HR guidelines for my swims just like my runs or cycling workouts but I'm not nearly as good at sticking with them because...well...it's really hard to do HR in the pool. Obviously you can't watch it while you are actually doing intervals and HR monitors just don't work as well in the water. It's tricky. So I really think I've been pushing too hard - especially on my long swims, when I should be doing some of the workouts at a more moderate pace.

3) I'm thinking I need some help with my mechanics and stroke technique. I've never had anyone help me with that and since I was never on a swim team or anything of the sort I'm not really sure where I learned how to swim. This can only mean one thing - I probably have some sort of inefficiency in my stroke that is slowing me down.

So after assessing the situation I've come up with a plan:

1) Quit worrying about it. Everyone has a weakness. My swimming will come.

2) Take my longer swims easier by swimming my long intervals on time intervals vs aiming for a certain time for each repeat. For example my workout today discussed below. I also have 2 moderate swims each week which I plan to make a little more moderate and then one speed session that I will hopefully be able to hit really hard since I'm taking it a little more relaxed in my other sessions.

3) I'm taking swim lessons! I am lucky to know this guy who is a pro triathlete and a swimming coach at Pitt. He is starting a coaching service. I am in need of some hands on swimming instruction. It's a match made in heaven. :) Really what I'm looking to do is improve my stroke mechanics. As my coach said - it's the single most important thing to work on with swimming. He thinks my mechanics need to catch up with my cardiovascular fitness. My first swim class is next Tuesday. :)

So that's my course of action right now. We'll see how it goes. I also finally bit the bullet and practiced changing a tube last night in the case that I flat in a race. I'm not fast or efficient but I am now pretty confident that if I do flat I will be able to change my tube and finish. It helps that my new tri bike has tires that are MUCH easier to deal with than my old road bike. Yeah! Next on my list of things to do is practice transitions. I have that scheduled some for next week and pretty much every week thereafter until I get it right. I'm just so slow with getting off and on my bike. Easier said than done but some practice has got to help right? Just trying to take care of all the little stuff...

Anyway, today's workouts:

AM swim:
4500 yds at YMCA
wu: 300 easy, 3x150 pull w/paddles w/30 sec rest, 5x50 w/20 sec rest
ms: 3x100 on 1:30, 2x200 on 3, 2x400 on 6, 1x800 on 12:30, 1x400 on 6, 2x200 on 3, 4x100 on 1:30

Instead of trying to swim my repeats in a particular time and then taking the prescribed rest I just developed time intervals to swim on. This is easier mentally because I don't feel like I have to swim my 400 in 5:20 exactly, etc... I have give and take - I can swim a little easier and get less rest, etc... I'm not explaining it well but trust me, this is must easier on me physically and mentally. Regardless, it felt good to get in the water and do something other than an easy 500 or 1000!

After work I came home for an easy 30 minute jog in 85 degree heat! It's smoking hot here now! I ran nice and relaxed and slow. And then I ate pizza. And then I was happy. :)

Good night all!

Posted by beth at 9:28 PM | Comments (3)

May 22, 2007

Still Recovering

Another recovery today - just a 30 minute easy spin and a 15 minute easy jog this morning before work. I have to say, my body feels better than I expected. Especially given the fact that my race day and recovery nutrition wasn't the best on account of me yacking. My HR is running a little high today though so I was glad to have another day to recover. My arms are much less sore. The true test will be tomorrow when I hop back in the pool for a 4500 yd workout tomorrow, track workout on Thursday, long ride Saturday, etc... Before I know it though - it will be taper time again for Eagleman! Did I ever mention that I LOVE racing! :)

Have a great day everyone!

Posted by beth at 4:27 PM | Comments (1)

May 21, 2007

P.S.

Ah...you guys say the nicest things. Thanks for your encouraging comments! :)

I just found this little write-up about the race.

Posted by beth at 4:57 PM | Comments (5)

Columbia Race Report

So I have a feeling this is going to be a long one...so if you don't have the time to read a book right now you may fast forward to the abbreviated version:

The swim was rough. The bike was fine. The run was great. I was the top female amateur. Four pros beat me. I beat 2 pros. I won some money - first time ever for that. I saw an Olympic bronze medalist in action (Susan Williams - top female pro) and during the run when the course double backs on itself she told me "good job". I was so thrilled I thought I would throw up (more on that later). I feel pretty good today although my arms are so sore I think they may fall off. Did I mention the swim was rough? Full results can be found here. :)

The long version goes something like this:

Chapter One - The Prelude

We arrived in Columbia late Friday night. We only got lost a little but don't tell O I said that because he prides himself on his map reading abilities. And truly if it weren't for him I know I would never make it to one race. I cannot read maps worth a darn.

We slept in Saturday and then spent the day checking out the course (really hilly), picking up my packet, doing a little biking (30 min) and running (15 min) and trying to swim a little before they told me I wasn't allowed to get in the water until Sunday (they did however wait to tell me that until AFTER they watched me wrestle with my wetsuit for 10 minutes first :).

This is the first big race I've ever been to so there were some things to learn. One such lesson was that in said big races you have to get your bike/helmet inspected, check it in and rack it in the transition area the night BEFORE the race and there is no taking it back out until you are racing on it the next day. This means that you have to get it all squared away and taken care of on Saturday afternoon and that it stays outside all night (they have watchmen that keep tabs on the bikes throughout the wee hours of night). As we were checking out the course O and I noticed that people were putting big bags over their bikes in the case that it rained. Hmm...I didn't think to bring a bag. To the grocery store we go! I think we bought 4 things but each thing got it's own DOUBLE bag so we walked out of there with plenty of plastic to keep Scotty (my bike) dry and clean until race morning. Good thing we're smart like that... :)

Now don't get me wrong, Columbia, MD is a very nice area. Everything is new and nice and there are biking/walking paths everywhere. The park where the race was was awesome! But the area is also very highly populated being an area where people who work in DC apparently live. There are a lot of cars and a lot of traffic and sooooooo many people. At least compared to what we are used to. Both O and I spent more than a little of Saturday stressed out. But by 5 pm we had everything checked in and checked out and I was showered, stretched, fed, organized and we both felt much better. SOOOO glad we went down Friday night so we'd have the whole day Saturday to sort things out. We rested and relaxed in our hotel the rest of Saturday and got ready for our early wake up call on Sunday. My swim wave was scheduled for 6:50 am Sunday morning and the transition area opened up at 5 am so we got up at 4:30 to get ready and over to the course.

Chapter Two - The Swim (aka Hell, aka Get me out of the water NOW, aka I think I'm going to throw up)

We arrived at the course around 5:15. I got body marked, set up my transition area, pumped my tires, etc, etc, etc... I warmed up with a 20 minute jog around the lake that I was about to swim in. I stretched. I wrestled with my wetsuit to get the dang thing on and then it was Go Time.

And I have to admit. I was incredibly nervous. This was my first big race. There were pros. I was in the "elite amateur" wave and I was about to swim with some very fast MEN and women. That's right, they put the men and women pros together and then the men and women elite amateurs. Now if I had swam in my age group I would have been swimming with a lot MORE people but they all would have been women and there would have been at least some of them as slow as me. UGH.

Anyway, the pros started off and then it was our turn. We all jumped in and the water was freezing. It took my breathe away. But after I was in for a bit I was okay. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I think at this point I was in panic mode trying desperately to calm myself down. I immediately started to mess with my goggles as I felt like they were falling off. I tightened them so tight I'm surprised my brain didn't squeeze out. When I went to put them on this morning for my swim I couldn't barely get them around my head. What. The. Heck. I seriously needed to CHILL OUT. It's times like this that I really wish I was a swimmer. I just sometimes really feel out of my element in the swim.

Anyway, they started us and let me save you a lot of reading by telling you simply that the swim was awful for me! I felt horrible pretty much the whole time. My arms were aching. I was gasping for air. And I had some serious nausea. As in - I AM GOING TO THROW UP RIGHT NOW nausea. Hmm...not too pleasant. Now I knew it was a distinct possibility that I would get out of the water last in my wave but still, when it really did happen that way, I was a bit flustered. But I was about to learn a very important lesson that I don't think I really understood until yesterday. The race is not over until it's over. And the race is especially not over after the swim. Thank God for that. :)

After some reflection I think I was just way to tense and started out WAY, WAY too fast on the swim, hence my feeling so poorly. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have gotten out of the water with the lead amateurs even if I had my best swim ever x 10, but I think I would have at least felt a little better had I not tried to stay with men and women that were so much better. By 400 meters I thought I was going to die. Not a great way to start things off you know? I still managed my fastest 1500 meter open water swim (23:07) but I was still disappointed as I had hoped to be closer to 22 minutes. Needless to say, I have a lot of work to do in the water.

Chapter Three - The Bike (aka Is it seriously raining again?, aka Catch up)

As I was getting out of the water I hear O yelling that the top female amateur is 5 minutes ahead. Oh. Dear. Lord. I definitely wanted him to tell me just that kind of info, but I have to say at that point in time that is definitely NOT what I wanted to hear. And I also have to admit that mentally I started to throw in the towel a little. The voice of doubt started to act up a little - "you feel like crap already", "those women are already 5 minutes ahead and they are good cyclists and runners", "you will never catch them!". And then I noticed that it was raining. Seriously - is this some kind of joke? :)

But off I went on my bike. I gave myself some time to calm down a little and end the pity party that I was throwing for myself. And then I went to work. The course is very hilly so it's hard to find a rhythm but I felt strong and smooth. I was just sort of out there pedaling along when up ahead a saw another woman! All of a sudden I felt my competitiveness firing up. I worked hard to catch her and then pass her. And that was a huge mental boost. Mental boost #2 came when I next saw a pack of 3 women on the horizon. Oh yeah baby. Trouble is it took me the next 10 miles to catch them. It would seem like I was getting close and then they would go around a corner or down a big hill and I would seemingly lose them. Finally around mile 24 of 25 miles I got withing striking distance. I couldn't pass them though - I could basically only get within 50 meters of them. And then the bike was over. I was fine with my bike split of 1:14:08 given that the course was ~1 mile longer than standard Oly distance and that it was so hilly (and again wet and a bit scary at times from the rain).

Of note was that my nausea continued throughout the bike and even though I tried very hard to coax myself to take some fluid and my gel I just could not do it. I did not take one sip or one calorie on the bike or throughout the whole race. I do not recommend that one bit at all. I was lucky because it was a cool, rainy day and dehydration wasn't really an issue but regardless it wasn't smart. I was just so nauseaus though - I knew it was going to come right back up if I tried to put it down. And I didn't want to put myself through that trauma!

Chapter Four - The Run (aka I love the run!)

Things were getting exciting. The top 3 amateur women got off the bike together with me about 30 seconds behind. I had a running race on my hands! They took off together and O was yelling at me that this was the race right in front of me. Within a mile or so I caught them all. We ran together until about 2 miles at which point I started to take stalk of my competition. One girl had already fallen off. One girl didn't look like a runner (indeed she proved to be the swimmer of the group that got out of the water 5 minutes ahead of me!!) and then the other girl...well...she looked very much like a runner. Hmm... Around 2.5 miles I took the lead and the girl that looked like a runner came with me. I was feeling strong and relaxed though (finally in familiar territory!) and by 3.5 miles I could no longer hear her behind me. I was running around 6:20-6:45 pace depending on how hilly each mile was. At about the same time I couldn't hear the girl behind me anymore I saw Susan Williams (top pro) running towards the finish. When she told me "good job" (as I'm sure she told EVERYONE) I got another huge mental boost. I finished the run feeling strong with a split of 40:05 which again, given the hills, I was pleased with.

Chapter Five - The Aftermath

Because I told them I felt like I was going to throw up they whisked me off to the medical tent. I'm not sure what they thought they were going to do with me in there but they eventually just let me go. O and his mom and sister (who had also come to watch) found me and we were all very excited! I had finished 5th overall and was the top amatuer and that more than exceeded my goals.

I tried to go on a little 10 minute cooldown jog but my nausea still continued. About 6 minutes into the jog I finally just threw up, right there in someone's yard in nice residential Columbia where the houses cost approximately 8x what our house costs. I just really, really hoped that the owners of said house weren't eating breakfast and reading their Sunday newspaper when they happened to look out their front window and saw some strange, nasty looking critter throwing up on their front lawn. Oh well, what can you do? I finally started to feel better after that thankfully. I enjoyed the awards and that jazz and then we finally headed off towards home.

So overall my assessment of the race was that I was pleased. I was happy to win and happy with my bike and run. I was happy to feel strong. But my swim is very subpar. It was great to finally compete in a big race where you can really see your strengths and weaknesses. And now I know that if I ever hope to be a professional that makes any kind of impact I absolutely need to swim at least 3-4 minutes faster over the 1500 meter distance. Now that's no easy task of course. And I'm not sure I can even do that. But I'm sure as heck going to try!! Step #1 - take a serious chill pill during the start. Deep breathes. It's going to be okay... :)

I woke up this morning with very sore arms. Very, very sore. But the rest of my body feels pretty good. Today I just had an easy 500 yd swim to work out the kinks. Tomorrow is another easy recovery day and then back on the horse on Wednesday!

Thanks for reading! And thanks to O who is the best driver, equipment manager, and cheerleader a gal could ever want. :)

Have a great week everyone!

Posted by beth at 1:28 PM | Comments (9)

May 17, 2007

New Obsession

5:15 am - 1500 yd easy swim (there was some kick and other drill type items in there but generally it was all easy)

6:00 am - 35 min easy run; beautiful morning; felt great; one of those morning where the sun is just rising and the sky is brilliant and it's a nice spring morning where you're simply overjoyed to be alive

8:00 pm - 1 hour moderate on the bike

Why not ride until 8 pm you may ask? (I can hear the wonder in your voice)

Well since you ask - when I got home from work I didn't feel like riding right away for a variety of reasons:
1) my commute took 90 minutes some how and I was therefore (a) tired (b) very hungry and (c) annoyed, oh and it was much later than I had hoped to get home

2) O was at a long track meet and wouldn't be home until late anyway so it didn't matter when I rode or ate

3) I was freezing cold because some how in the course of the day the temp dropped to 50 and it was raining and I knew I was going to ride inside regardless

So I ate dinner right away and took care of some odds and ends while my food was digesting. Then my friend who could talk for 10 days straight without missing a step called and we chatted triathlon for a good 40 minutes. Then I became obsessed with a new song....

Phil Wickham's Divine Romance

Love it. Listened to it about 20,000 times already tonight. Phil is a Christian singer. I like "mainstream" music but I also really like a lot of Christian singers because (a) Christian music has come a long way (you didn't want to be a Christian in the late 80s, early 90s if music was your thing :) and it really sounds much like "mainstream" music and (b) the words mean a whole heck of a lot more to me than anything mainstream could throw at me.

Here's what Phil has to say in Divine Romance:
The fullness of Your grace is here with me
The richness of Your beauty’s all I see
The brightness of Your glory has arrived
In Your presence God, I’m completely satisfied

For You I sing I dance
Rejoice in this divine romance
Lift my heart and my hands
To show my love, to show my love

A deep deep flood, an Ocean flows from You
Of deep deep love, yeah it’s filling up the room
Your innocent blood, has washed my guilty life
In Your presence God I’m completely satisfied
(You can listen to the full song on the website)

Finishing a long hard workout is satisfying. Setting a new PR is satisfying. Achieving a goal is satisfying. Winning a race is very satisfying. But in Your presence God, I'm completely satisfied...

Posted by beth at 10:13 PM | Comments (4)

May 16, 2007

Wetsuit Wrangling

Well my wetsuit still fits. I hadn't had it on since September 2006 so I wanted to make sure that it still fit, Roxy didn't chew any holes in it when I wasn't looking and/or it didn't rot anywhere that I needed to know about. It's all good. I was reminded of several things however:

1) Holy cats those things are hard to get on! I wrestled with the thing for about 5 minutes before I could even get it up over my hips. Then I needed O to help me get the arms on. Note - start getting that thing on EARLY on Sunday.

2) Um yeah - rubber is not exactly the thing to wear if you want to be nice and cool. I was sweating like crazy!

3) They are super easy to get off. Thank God for that. Otherwise my transitions would be even worse than normal!

Posted by beth at 8:50 PM | Comments (0)

May 15, 2007

Mini Workouts

Today I did some mini workouts. First a mini swim and then a mini speed bike. In the past 2 days I've trained 2 hours total. I usually train somewhere between 2-4 hour per day so as you can imagine I seem to have a lot of time on my hands. Not that I really make good use of that time...but a couple of times I thought of how I could get some different things done. Oh well...isn't it the thought that counts? Or something like that... :)

AM swim workout:
2000 yds total @YMCA
wu: 300 easy, 20x25 alt breast, back, free w/20 sec rest
ms: 3x(3x100 w/10 sec rest for first 2, 45 sec rest for last one)
1:22, 1:24, 1:22, 1:21, 1:23, 1:23, 1:21, 1:22, 1:21
cd: 300 easy

The workout was supposed to be easy/moderate so as you can see I didn't really push the 100s. Just by virtue of the fact that the main set was only 9x100 made the workout quite different than most.

I came home from work and hopped on my bike for a workout. I did it on the trainer because the workout was too short to actually get anywhere good to ride outside (ie: I have to do at least an hour or so to get far enough away from all the traffic lights/stop signs).

PM cycling workout:
41 minutes total on trainer - 15 min wu, 3x4 min hard w/2 min rest (ave 21.0, 21.0 and 21.4 MPH), 10 min cd

That workout was over before I even realized what happened.

In other news I'm starting to get a little nervous for Sunday's race. It's certainly not my "A" race of the season but it's by far the biggest and most competitive race I've ever done. There are pros in the field and I'm in the "elite amateur" group. In other words, it's go time. No more YMCA sprint tris in po-dunk PA where the majority of bikes in the transition area are of mountain variety. I'm looking forward to it more than you could know - I mean I really want to RACE! And quite a race I will have for sure. Over the past couple days I've developed quite a fear of coming out of the water last in my wave. I've come a long way in the water - I'm much stronger than I was all of last year - but it's still my weakest sport and I could realistically come out of the water MINUTES behind some of the women in my wave.

But while I was on the bike this afternoon I realized that worrying about what OTHERS are going to do is just a waste of energy. I can only control what I am doing so I just need to swim my best and then use my strength (the run) as my weapon. That's the great thing about the triathlon - more so than any running race I've ever done - because everyone comes from a different background the race is NEVER over (until the finish line of course :). An amazing swimmer might start the run 5 minutes in front but still get outgunned by a strong runner. And besides, I would rather be the chaser instead of the chasee. It's hard to "hang on" - much easier to run people down if you ask me.

See - I can convince myself of anything.... :)

Good night everyone!

Posted by beth at 7:58 PM | Comments (5)

May 14, 2007

Zoggs Delivery!

Today I came home from work to find a delivery from Zoggs! What are Zoggs you might ask? You can look here or here to find out! Thank you Zoggs for sponsoring our MarkAllenOnline Triathlon Team! :)

That was definitely the excitement for the day. Otherwise it was a standard Monday. I did however do a little running workout this morning. Because of my upcoming race and taper my days are a bit shifted. I usually have today off but have Wednesday (and Friday actually) off this week instead.

So this morning O and I headed to the track for 1.5 miles of running the straights hard and the curves easy. Short and sweet and over in about 40 minutes including warmup and cooldown! I have no workouts this afternoon. Then tomorrow only a short swim and quick bike workout. I could get used to this tapering stuff... :)

Posted by beth at 5:11 PM | Comments (1)

May 13, 2007

Happy Mom's Day!

Happy mom's day to every mom out there! (especially mine!) Just think where we would be without our moms (besides the obvious fact that without them we wouldn't be alive)! I'm not a mom yet other than if you consider Roxy. She somehow missed the mom's day memo though because I didn't get any gifts from her this morning. Other than maybe a lick in the ear when she wanted out this morning. :)

O, Roxy and I all started off the day with a long run on the trail. It was chilly! In the low 40s which felt really cool after it being in the 70s and 80s all this week. It warmed up fast though and it bloomed into a beautiful day! We ran 14 miles total - just a hair over 1:50 and we all felt pretty good. It took me a little while to get going but once I did I was happy to just keep chugging along!

After our run and church we headed to where both O and I grew up and to where O's family still lives for some mother's day festivities. These festivities involved a very good plate of rigatoni and sauce with a huge meatball. I like meatballs. A lot. :)

We got home around 4 pm and I had intentions of hopping on my bike for my hour easy spin right away but I made the mistake of looking on the computer just long enough for O to crawl into bed for a nap. Of course I had to follow. About 90 minutes later I was groggily wondering what time it was - and somehow it was 6 pm already! Where does the day go?!?! I finally climbed up on my bike around 6:30. Luckily it wasn't bad waiting for dinner until later due to the aforementioned meatball. :)

And so it goes. Another week gone! I sometimes feel like I live my life in fast forward. Or at least the weekends are in fast-forward. :) This week coming up I am in taper mode for my first big race of the season, the Columbia Tri. Very exciting indeed!

Week summary:

Monday - off
Tuesday - 2500 yd swim in am, 70 min bike w/intervals and 70 min run in pm, 2x25 pushups, 2x100 crunchers
Wednesday - 4000 yd swim in am, 30 min easy run and weights in pm
Thursday - 9 mi running w/track workout in am, 2:15 ride in pm, core/feet exercises
Friday - 3000 yd swim and weights in am
Saturday - 3000 yd swim in am, 4 hour ride in am/pm
Sunday - 1:50 (14 mile) run in am, 1 hour easy spin in pm

Posted by beth at 9:08 PM | Comments (0)

May 12, 2007

Another Day at the Office

This triathlon business could certainly pass for a full time job! I started "work" at 7 am this morning - first to the pool for a 3000 yd workout, and then a 4 hour ride that ended around 2:30 this afternoon. Throw in my shower and stretching after the ride and you have a standard shift at the hospital I work at: 7-3:30. :)

AM swim workout:
3000 yds @YMCA

wu: 700 easy, 6x50 w/20 sec rest alt breast, back, free
ms: 14x100 on 1:30, 12x50 on :50

This is my Sunday swim but I had to change it to today because we have mother's day festivities to attend to tomorrow. I'm actually going to have to change all my Sunday swims to Saturdays now though as my YMCA closes on Sundays during the summer. Anyway, I went back and forth all day yesterday as to whether I wanted to swim before or after my ride. The YMCA doesn't open until 8 am on Saturdays so by doing my swim first I wouldn't get started on my ride until nearly 10 am - but in the end that's what I decided to do anyway. Afterall, the swim is the first discipline in triathlon... :)

I got started on my ride around 9:45 am. I won't lie - these 4 hour rides sort of intimidate me. It's just a long time to be sitting on a bike. Of course not nearly as long as if I was training for a full IM and doing 6 or 7 hour rides!

Overall it was a great ride. I adheared to my coach's "rule of thirds" in doing 1/3 of the ride on flat terrain, 1/3 of the ride on rolling terrain and 1/3 of the ride on hills. When you have almost 75 miles of riding to play with you can easily get all 3 in! :) I felt pretty good throughout although the last hour I was just getting sore from sitting in the aero position - neck, arms, etc... It was much hotter today (~75-80 degrees) than any of my long rides thus far so it was a good opportunity to try out my nutrition/fluid in conditions more like what I'll be racing in this summer. Unfortunately I had a little nutrition snafu....

The roads around this place are horrible! Potholes, temporary patches of potholes, rough roads in general, big craters in the roads, etc... It's always worse after winter (the salt eats away at roads I think...) before they get the road crews out to repair things. Anyway, going over all these holes and bumps is hard on the cyclist! Today I hit a big one (actually many big ones) and one of my water bottles launched off my back water bottle rack (the rack that I have mounted underneath me seat). ARGGHH!! No big deal though - it's happened before, I'll just go collect it and be on my merry way again. Trouble is, when I got back to it the top had popped off and 20 oz of fluid and 250 kcals of nutrition were now splashed all over the road. Bummer. Besides licking it up off the road I was going to have to go to Plan B - the $5 in my pocket that I always take with me for such an occasion. About 3 hours later (my bottle launching happened very early on) I decided I needed something cold to drink and I needed it now! Already out of fluid I stopped at a convience store in search of Gatorade. I wasn't quite sure what to do with my bike though. Take it in? Leave my $3500 gem outside for someone to steal it? Yep, take it inside with me it is! I got some strange looks but really I didn't care. I was just so thirsty and set on getting the Gatorade! I took my sweaty, nasty 5 dollar bill out of my jersey and apologized to the clerk for it being wet. "Oh - that's okay - as long as it's not wet from sweat!" "Um yeah...no...that's not sweat...nope!" HA!!

That Gatorade never tasted so good.

So I rode just about 74 miles. And boy was I ready to get off that bike when I finally arrived home. Another good training day in the books. Another good dat at the office! :)

Posted by beth at 5:32 PM | Comments (2)

May 11, 2007

Even More Like It

When I got home from my...hmm...we'll call it "challenging"...swim on Wednesday I saw that O had written me a note before he left for work. It said something to the effect of "hope your swim was good - hope you swam like a fish!" I laughed because, well, I felt very un-fish-like Wednesday (maybe a dead fish?). But this morning made up for Wednesday. I was very fishy indeed!

I felt soooooooo much better which made me happy. Much smoother, much better stroke, just much better all around. Granted the workouts were very different but it was just nice to feel good!

3000 yds total @YMCA
wu: 250 easy, 6x75 w/15 sec rest as 50 easy/25 hard
ms: 8x150 w/1 min rest broken at 100 for 10 sec as 100 hard/50 easy (100s were: 1:17, 1:15, 1:14, 1:13, 1:13, 1:12, 1:12, 1:11), 600 pull (9:29), 1 min rest, 10x50 w/alt rests of 5 sec and 30 sec (:35-:38)

After the swim workout I lifted. My lifting is now out of the "power" phase and into the "chisel" phase which just means lighter weights and 2 sets of 12 reps - a.k.a. not too hard.

Getting ready for a big day tomorrow - a swim and then a long bike (4 hours). I already have my fluids prepared! Have a great weekend everyone!

Posted by beth at 4:37 PM | Comments (0)

May 10, 2007

More Like It

I woke up this morning still feeling a little stiff and sore, but very happy to be heading to the track instead of the pool!

AM running workout:
~9 miles total - 15 min wu, 4x100 pickups w/100 jog recovery, 400 easy, 4800 of accelerate on straights, recovery on curves (6:49, 6:49, 6:42), 400 jog rest, 6x400 w/~35-40 sec rest (82, 77, 79, 77, 79 77), 17 min cd

I was relieved to feel better on the track this morning than at yesterday's long swim. Don't get me wrong - I don't feel like a million bucks right now. I'm not snappy and fresh. But that's not really how I'm supposed to feel right now. I feel like I should - like I've been putting in 17-20 hour weeks for the past 4 months. However, this morning I enjoyed the workout. Yesterday morning, not so much. :)

Anyway, I liked this sort of workout - the 3 miles of accelerate on the straights, easy on the curves got my legs just tired enough to make those 6x400 challenging. I timed my miles for that first 4800, not so much because I was actually aiming for something in particular but more because I was curious as to what they were, and also to see if I'd be consistent.

After the 4800 I jogged an easy lap that was really more like 5 minutes rest since I made 2 pit stops - one for some water (it is toasty here in PA!) and one to stretch my tight hamstrings.

I wasn't sure what to expect on the 400s - maybe 80s? So I took the first one kind of conservatively. I then apparently stuck to the schedule of alternating 77s and 79s. Perhaps I'm allergic to running 78s. Either way, I was pleased with the workout and the effort and also very happy that I got it all in before the middle school gym class took over the track. There's just something not fun about running in front of a bunch of 13-14 year olds. :)

I came home after the workout for some breakfast, shower and stretching. I'm just about to head out for my 2:15 ride now (can you tell I have today off work?). I'm getting my ride in a little earlier than usual so that I can go to O's track meet today. His team is competing in the district team championships so I'm going to go watch Coach O in action! Should be fun! Regardless, my ride might be a little tough - I can definitely still feel the workout in my legs from this morning - but it will be nice and easy and at least I will avoid most traffic at this time of day! Huh - like people are still at work or something?! :)

Have a great day everyone!

Posted by beth at 10:37 AM | Comments (0)

May 9, 2007

Umphf...

So my swim this morning was...not so pretty. Yep - I think you could go as far as to say it was ugly. Butt ugly. I could just tell when I rolled out of bed that I was in for a long one, both literally and figuratively speaking.

4000 yds total @YMCA
wu: 400 swim w/long strokes, 3x100 w/20 sec rest
ms: 4x(4x200) w/first set on 45 sec rest, 2nd set on 30 sec rest, 3rd set on 15 sec rest, 4th set on 30 sec rest and 1 min break before last set (2:46, 2:44, 2:43, 2:43, 2:42, 2:42, 2:42, 2:43, 2:43, 2:44, 2:44, 2:46, 2:45, 2:46, 2:41)
cd: 100 easy

It was only 4000 yds which isn't too bad compared to the 5000 yarders I've done the past couple long swims. But the main set was still 3200 yds and the workout was further complicated by the fact that I felt like trash. Arms, legs, full body and might as well throw in my mind too.

The thinking went something like this...
1st set - oh boy, I'm in for a long one, just one set at a time, man - look at all the rest I get this set, I can do this, just get through this set

2nd set - boy do I wish I had someone other than the 85 year old lady in the lane next to me to swim with, a masters team would really help right now, I could use someone to draft off of, wait a minute - doing this alone will make me stronger, I'll get this done, oh man do my arms ache

3rd set - this sucks, I hate swimming, 15 seconds rest is like nothing, I'm taking up duathlon instead, these goggles are going to be the death of me, hold up - I better suck it up a little!!!, where do I get off thinking this is always going to be easy?, keep the repeats under 2:45, hurt a little, work a little, you will get this done, get through this set and there is a long 1 minute rest...

When I'm taking the 1 minute rest before the final set I notice on my hand written note that there was supposed to be 30 seconds rest for both the 2nd and 3rd sets and the 15 sec rest was supposed to be for the last set only. I somehow had it in my head that the 3rd and 4th sets were both only 15 seconds rest. Here I was hurting like a dog and I was gipping myself out of precious recovery time!!! Had I been feeling good or even marginally okay I probably would have just stuck with the 15 seconds rest for the last set too but no way was I doing that today. I was going to claim every last second of rest that was rightfully mine.

4th set - get tough now, come on, come on, oh man does this not feel good, push it, push it, long powerful strokes, it's going to hurt worse in a race, one more, come on, you can do it!!!

And that was that. My arms still hurt. Of course I lifted this afternoon too but wow - the triceps are yelling at me! Good thing my swimming is on the down swing this week and next also.

It wasn't until I got home and was writing down my splits that I realized I only did 3x200 instead of 4x200 on the 3rd set. Opps. I SWEAR I didn't do that on purpose. I was in such a world of hurt I didn't even know what was going on! I usually at least have an inkling that I counted wrong but today I honestly didn't suspect a miscount. I must have gone through my splits a million times to make sure I wasn't writing it down wrong. Oh well. If there was ever a day to skip an interval, today was it! :)

This afternoon after work I ran my 30 minutes easy and felt fine. It was hot! 84 degrees feels like a sauna around these parts! And then I lifted. And then I ate pizza. You can't go wrong there.

I have a track workout tomorrow morning that I'm excited for. More than anything I'm happy that it doesn't involve a pool. :)

Good night everyone!

Posted by beth at 9:49 PM | Comments (2)

May 8, 2007

T-I-R-E-D!

I'm not sure who is worse off right now...O, after a long day of standing outside in the sun at a track meet or me, after a cycling/running workout in that same sun. It might be a tie. Roxy is definitely the most energetic family member right now, although that's nothing new. ;)

AM swim workout:

2500 yds total@YMCA
wu: 300 yd easy, 10x50 on 1 min
ms: 6x200 w/30 sec rest descending (2:54, 2:47, 2:44, 2:42, 2:39, 2:36), 300 kick (4:46)
cd: 200 easy

Okay, so I took the first 200 a little too easy... :) This workout was so quick I was on my last 200 before I noticed I was even in the pool! This week my swimming takes a definite dip in yardage...

PM cycling workout:
1:13 total - 15 min wu, 4x15 sec pickups w/10 sec rest, 2 min easy, 1x15 min w/5 min rest, 1x5 min w/2 min rest, 10x30 sec accelerations w/15 sec rest, 20 min cooldown

I was feeling like some hills today so I warmed up over to a 2 mile + long hill that I somtimes encorporate into my long rides. My long rides have a heart rate cap though so I can't ride up the hill hard - I just sort of have to spin. Speed bikes days however are a free for all in the HR department so I wanted to do the majority of the workout up the hill. It was good and I was really glad I did it...but only after it was over! The hill is gradual at first but gets quite steep towards the end. For the 15 minutes hard I made it up the hill, turned right onto a road that is rolling for about a mile then made another right which is a road parallel to the uphill road but mostly downhill. I got down that hill just in time to ride my 5 minutes hard up the first uphill again. Needless to say my legs had had enough of me by the time the workout was done!

After all that I came home and did some odds and ends before heading out for my 70 minute run. It was so nice outside - a little on the warm side for running (~80 degrees) but sunny and the sun was just starting to go down towards the end of my 70 minutes. Very pretty. Glad to be done though. Sat on the couch and ate dinner and was very happy to not be moving anymore. :)

And now it's very much time for bed. Good night all!

PS Day off (from training that is, not work) yesterday and a massage after work. Ahh...so spoiled... :)

Posted by beth at 9:49 PM | Comments (1)

May 6, 2007

Good End to a Good Week

Since so many of my weeks are pretty much exactly the same in terms of training, I stopped counting mileage/hours a while ago. After a while I realized it was pretty much 17-19 hours, ~15,000 yds swimming, ~35 miles running and ~125 miles cycling. But it seemed to me that this week was adding up to more than usual so I did the math. Indeed I was right. ~19.5 hours total, 16,000 yds swimming, 39 miles running and ~140 miles riding. This appears to be my biggest week yet. We'll never mind the article I was just reading that said on average pro triathletes swim ~30,000 yds, run ~60-70 miles and ride ~300-350 miles each week. Granted it was an article about long course pros (ie: Ironman distance) but still. That makes me cringe in fear! I just think of the food bill alone... :)

Anyway, O and I woke up to a beautiful morning today! Luckily we had a 2 hour run on tap so we had plenty of opportunity to enjoy it. We ran on the trail and took Roxy with us. I couldn't remember if she had ever run a full 2 hours before or not so we ran 2 out and backs on the trail so we could stop at the car halfway for water and just in case Roxy needed a nap. HUH to that! She was rearing to go for the last hour and probably could have gone another 1 after that! Crazy dog... Regardless we ran 15 miles right on the nose. I felt good, albeit a little creaky the last 20 minutes or so. I was telling O how I can't imagine training for a marathon again. 15 miles seemed like quite a haul and during marathon training that's a nice short long run! Now granted I probably wouldn't choose to do a 4 hour brick workout the day before my long runs if I was in marathon training but still... Crazy runners... :)

After church, lunch and then a much needed nap I headed to the pool.

PM swimming workout:
4000 yds total @YMCA
wu: 200 easy, 200 kick, 200 pull, 200 easy
ms: 30x100 as 10x100 on 1:35, 10x100 on 1:30, 5x100 on 1:35, 5x100 on 1:30
cd: 200 easy

I was just going to do all 30 of the 100s on 1:35 but I was swimming nice aerobic repeats in about 1:21-1:22 and I was only supposed to have 10 seconds rest. So I did the 100s on 1:30 for a while before switching back and then switching back again. If anything it kept me thinking so I didn't lose track of which repeat I was on. I can barely handle counting to 5 or 10 let alone 30.

When I got home I jumped on my trainer for my easy Sunday 1 hour spin. And then I ate a darn good dinner that O made. Too spoiled. :)

Week summary:
Monday - off
Tuesday - 3500 yd swim in am, 70 min ride w/intervals and 75 min run in pm, 2x25 pushups, 2x100 crunchers
Wednesday - 5000 yd swim in am, 30 min run and lifting session in pm
Thursday - 8 mi run in am w/track intervals, 2 hour ride in pm, core/feet exercises
Friday - 3500 yd swim in am, lifting session in pm
Saturday - 3:30 ride/30 min run brick
Sunday - 2 hour run in am, 4000 yd swim and 1 hour easy spin in pm

I looked ahead a little in my training to see that I basically have one more week of my usual pattern before things get crazy - a nice taper leading into my first relatively big race of the season (Columbia Triathlon) which leads right into a nice long taper for my early season A race (Eagleman 1/2 IM). That my friends is superb!

Posted by beth at 8:01 PM | Comments (1)

May 5, 2007

Good Stuff

I am so delighted to report that the weather finally cooperated for one of my long rides! It's been nice for a couple weeks now but it seemed like every Saturday morning it was either raining or really windy or pretty chilly. I don't even want to think about last Saturday when the weather necessitated a mid-workout shower to warm up! But when I woke up this morning - 50 degrees and overcast with no chance of rain. I'll take it!

The first hour of my ride was a bit cold. I didn't want to wear too much because I knew by the end of the ride it would be more like 65-70 degrees and I'd be too hot. Cycling is tough. It's not like running where you can just take your long sleeve and tie it around your waist when you get hot.

Anyway, I finally got warmed up and rolling about an hour in and had a good 3.5 hour ride total. Because I do all my riding by myself now these long rides can be intimidating. Three and a half hours by youself can get lonely. But today the time seemed to fly by and before I knew it I was back home and ready for my 30 minute transition run! I rode just a bit over 65 miles.

Quick transition into my running shoes and I was off and boy did my legs feel great! Kind of strange - it usually takes them a good 5 minutes to come alive again off the bike but this morning/afternoon I was flying high. My heart rate was keeping low too so I chugged along and was excited to see that I was running ~7:25 pace. Since when can I run 7:25 pace with my HR under 153 let alone doing that after riding 65 miles?! Progress is fun!

Anyway, good workout overall. When I was finishing up the run I started to feel a little wobbly leading me to believe I didn't take adequate nutrition/fluid on the bike today. This got me to thinking about my nutrition for my first 1/2 IM coming up in early June. I would be lying if I said I wasn't more than just a little worried about the whole nutrition/fluid side of things for that longer distance. I don't want to mess it up and suffer greatly because of it. As they say - nutrition is the 4th discipline of triathlon!

For my long rides I've been taking ~800 kcals on the bike - a mix between fluid, gels and Shot Bloks. This usually leaves me feeling pretty good but with a swim before hand and then the half marathon after, I don't think it's going to be enough. I at first thought I might get away with not having to take gels on the run but I don't think that's going to happen either. My new plan is to take more like 1000 kcals on the bike and try to get at least one gel down early on in the run. That just sounds like SOOOOO much to me but the fact is I'm going to be out there for close to 5 hours so I need to be able to fuel myself well or that 5 hours will turn into 6. And we don't want that. No, we don't want that at all... :)

So yeah - that's my story for today! O is at yet another track meet (prime time track meet season right now!) so Roxy and I will be hanging out this afternoon - likely in front of the tv - likely with our eyes shut. That dog can be wild and crazy and full of energy but she's also pretty good at napping. Luckily napping happens to be one of my specialties too. :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Posted by beth at 2:31 PM | Comments (1)

May 4, 2007

Decisions, Decisions

Our beautiful weather continues. I'm starting to wonder what we did to deserve all this! Oh wait...that's right...we endured week after week of awful weather and now all the nice stuff is all piled up together! :)

This morning a swim - a short and sweet one at that.
3500 yds total @YMCA
wu: 300 easy, 200 kick, 200 easy
ms: 6x(100 easy w/1 min rest, 4x50 w/15 sec rest for first 2 and 5 sec rest for second 2), 20x25 w/10 sec rest as evens hard, odds easy
cd: 500 easy

So basically it was just some hard 25s and 50s with a bunch of rest which is like heaven when compared with hard 600s. My 50s ranged from 36-40 sec (I get faster as the workout goes as it takes me a while to get rolling) and my 25s were all around 16-18 sec. I'm no speed demon, that's for sure. :)

After work I went to the YMCA to lift. I can honestly stay I'm stronger than when I started all this. Lifting for me was always just a maintenance type thing - I don't think I ever had the goal of physically getting much stronger. But this program from my new coaches has changed that. The lifting in addition to the past year of swimming has made a big difference in my upper body - I am no longer the skinny runner type! :) (don't get me wrong - I'm no Hulk Hogan either... :)

Anyway, my blog title refers to an email I got today from my graduate school advisor. Oh yeah...graduate school. I think I had tried to forget about that. :) She wanted to know when we could meet to schedule for the fall semester. Hmm... The last class I took was last fall and going into this triathlon season I knew I wanted to take the spring and summer off. I needed a break both financially (my change in status at my job that allows for working 3-4 days/week no longer covers tuition assistance as it did before) but also mentally. Right after I quit graduate school the first time I had about 6 months of no school before I started again. I apparentely didn't learn my lesson well. :)

Anyway, those first few semesters I went pretty hard at it with school in addition to working full time and of course running, etc... And then I hit that point where I just didn't want to do it any more.

So I took a break this spring and summer with the intention of going back in the fall. I have about 1/3 of my program left to go before I'll have my masters. Not much classwork, but then the thesis. Yeah - the hard part.

And the email comes today asking about the fall and well here I was just getting used to not stressing about homework. UGH.

I thought some about the email all day and decided that I needed to talk with my advisor about taking a leave of absense from school. Basically that just means I can take a year or two and they won't kick me out but I won't be an active student. Good compromise I suppose because I WILL finish that masters - mark my words. I may be 45 years old and have to take half the credits over again but I will finish it.

But here's the thing - I'm just not good at doing two things at once. Never have been, probably never will be. I'm not well rounded, not interested in getting into a lot of things. Just don't care for having too much on my plate.

One of the single greatest talents I have as a person is my single minded focus. I'm calling it a talent but it can be bad too. It's gotten me into trouble more than once - just ask O...or maybe my parents. But once I have my mind set on something I want or want to do, well please just don't get in my way.

And so that focus is very clearly on triathlon right now. And it's not on school. I have to work because...well we need to pay our mortgage. And over the years I've learned that focusing too much on one thing to the neglect of more important things (family, friends, etc) is detrimental. But still, I see the next couple years as my chance to see what I can accomplish in a sport that challenges me in so many ways. I may never amount to nothing and I may never win another race, but I will be able to say I gave it my all. And right now school would just add a stressor that I don't want to add. School will always be there. My mom taught me that when she went back to graduate school when my sister in I were in junior high/high school so that she could change professions. Triathlon will always be there too. The countless age groupers that compete up into their 60s and 70s are proof. But competing on the highest level in triathlon won't always be there. There are no 50 and 60 year old pros standing atop the podiums.

So that was my thinking and the way I came to my decision to put off school for a little longer. We'll give 'er a go and see what happens!

Now excuse me while I go mix up some brew for my long ride tomorrow and pick out what I want to dine on while I'm cycling... should I go with orange Shot Bloks or strawberry?! :) Decisions, decisions!

Posted by beth at 7:58 PM | Comments (1)

May 3, 2007

Too True

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.” -Charles Swindoll

Quote heisted from another blog.

I'd like to add that it will make or break a workout too. And a race. And a life.

Posted by beth at 8:53 PM | Comments (0)

Simply Marvelous

As I was jogging over to the track this morning for my workout I decided today's weather had to be some sort of reward for all the awful weather we endured this past winter. It was quite simply the best weather possible - 50 and sunny with a big blue sky this morning for my track intervals and then 70 and still sunny with a light breeze for my ride this afternoon. That is the definition of awesome weather. If the weather was like this all the time everyone would be a triathlete/runner/cyclist! :)

To make matters even better I had the day off work! What a day I picked! :) Like I said I started off with my track workout this morning:

15 min warmup to track, 4x100 pickups w/100 jog recovery, 400 easy and then started the workout - 1x800 (2:59), 1x1600 (5:54), 2x800 (2:51, 2:49), 2x200 (37, 38) all with a jogging rest of 1/2 the time it took to run the previous interval, 20 min cooldown

My goal going into the workout was to run 6 min pace but as the workout progressed and I felt better I picked up the pace just a bit. I just love to do track workouts now so I really enjoyed myself this morning. I wasn't so keen on track sessions when I was a pure runner but now they are fun! Regardless, I felt pretty good but my arms/back sort of felt tight and fatigued, likely still the effects of my long swim and lift yesterday. I never noticed a tired upper body when I was a runner but I notice it all the time now - your arms do a lot more for your running than you think!

Wanna know something really funny? I just looked over the workout I typed out above and saw that I had mistyped my 200 times as 28 and 27. That is absolutely hilarious! :)

Anyway, after breakfast, a shower and stretching I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon doing chores, odds and ends, researching some info for some of my upcoming races/traveling. My plan was to get started on my ride around 1:30 or 2 at the latest because the loop I wanted to ride has a lot of traffic and I knew if I got out early enough I'd be able to avoid most of it. Um yeah - I left the house around 3:30 - putting myself in the position of hitting the worst traffic of the day. Bravo!

The ride was still good. I got really annoyed about 3 times with all the starting and stopping and waiting but the beautiful weather made it hard to be too angry. I could feel the intervals in my legs from the morning but the ride was just an easy one. I rode for 2 hours; about 37 miles. A man barked at me from his car. That's a relatively new one. I honestly thought it was a dog but I caught up to the car again at a light and no, it was just that man in the vehicle. Really people - why are you so freaking weird?!?!

In other news my mom and dad sent O and I a whole big container of stuff from Omaha Steaks. Holy cats! We got burgers, we got steaks, we got chops, we even got taters! We shall eat like kings all summer! Roxy was going insane when the UPS guy dropped it off. I think she smelled the meat inside! I went nearly insane myself when I saw what we got.

Good night everyone!

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

May 2, 2007

Sock Thief!

Roxy is such a sock thief it's not even funny. As I type O is chasing her around the living room trying desperately to recoup a sock from the laundry basket. Survey says? Wait a second... Okay, he got the sock and I'm sad to say it was one of mine. Dang - why does she always steal my socks?!

AM swim workout
5000 yds total @YMCA
wu: 200 easy, 4x50 w/30 sec rest
ms: 6x600 w/45 sec rest as 3 swim/3 pull descending each set (8:30, 8:16, 8:09, 9:52, 9:53, 9:49), 6x150 w/30 sec rest broken at 100 for 15 sec as 100 fast/50 easy (100s were: 1:21, 1:20, 1:18, 1:18, 1:17, 1:16)
cd: 100 easy

Holy. Cow. Talk about some serious arm fatigue by the time those 150s rolled around! 3x600 pull? What the heck?! :) My goal for the straight 600s was to descend as 8:30/8:20/8:10 which is essentially what I did. For the pull 600s I was aiming for 10/9:50/9:40. Too fast on the first and then some serious tricep fatigue kicked in as well as a mental lapse. I think I fell asleep on that 2nd 600 pull - both literally and figuratively! :) Regardless, on about the 3rd 150 I started to smell the finish line and all the focus that I lacked on the last few 600s came back in full force on the last few 150s! Yippeee!

This afternoon after work I enjoyed amazingly beautiful weather - 70 degrees, sunny with a nice breeze. Doesn't get better than that! I ran for an easy 30 minutes and then headed over to the YMCA for a lifting session.

Tomorrow is a track workout that I've been looking forward to all week. I have the day off work so I will be able to sleep in a little and do the workout when it's light outside! Good night all!

Posted by beth at 8:41 PM | Comments (0)

Summer-Like

80 degrees, sunny and now tonight thunder storming. I think we just went straight from winter to summer! (and I’m not complaining! :)

AM swim workout:
3500 yds total @YMCA
wu: 600 yds easy, 8x50 w/20 sec rest alt strokes
ms: 20x100 (as 5x100 on 1:50, 5x100 on 1:30, 5x100 on 1:40, 5x100 on 1:30), 10x25 w/15 sec rest, 200 kick (3:09)
cd: 50 easy

PM cycling workout:
69:15 total - 15 min wu, 4x15 sec pickups w/10 sec rest, 2 min easy, 6x1 min w/30 sec rest, 3x3 min w/90 sec rest, 1x6 min w/30 sec rest, 3x1 min w/1 min rest, 15 min easy cd

I was very excited to get this workout in outside before the storms started so I could get some hot, hilly and WINDY training in on the bike. Having done my past few cycling workouts on the trainer, I was looking forward to hitting it hard outside. And the weather could not have cooperated better. The wind was crazy – mostly crosswinds and headwind on the way out and crosswinds and tailwind on the way back. It was just what I was looking for. Nothing like some crazy winds to practice the bike handling skills! I felt pretty good on the ride. With the tailwind on the way back I was able to push the bike 27-28 MPH on the flats. I hit 36 MPH going down a hill too. That’s the best part about riding outside – you feel FAST!

After all that jazz I hung around at home some (wherein I made my amazing pretzel discovery) and then finally headed out for my run around 6:30. It was 75 minutes and while I was a little worn from the bike workout it was nice to be out pre-storm. It was getting even windier and dark and I like the way it smells and feels before thunder is on it’s way.

And now I’m tired and ready for bed. Good night all!

Posted by beth at 4:51 AM | Comments (0)

May 1, 2007

Intriguing Fact

Did you know that some Rold Gold Honey Wheat Twisted Pretzels are longer than others? And no, I'm not talking about broken ones (obviously those are shorter!). It's an amazing discovery really - uncovered by me just now as I tried to fit a whole one in my mouth long-ways and realized it was too big. But the next one I tried fit just right. Um...hello...quality control?!?! Geez!

Okay...I think I've procrastinated my run long enough... :)

Posted by beth at 5:59 PM | Comments (1)